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Keams Canyon to Tuba City / Moenkopi
Arizona 264
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The Hopi
The name “Hopi” is modern. Originally the people called themselves the Moqui, pronounced “Mo-kwi.” Because others tended to pronounce that in a Spanish way as “Moki”, which means “dies” or “is dead” in the Hopi language, the tribe adopted the newer name. “Hopi” means something like “civilized” or “peaceful.” The latter adjective describes a cultural goal, but Hopi history is replete with examples of fractious behavior.
The Spaniards called Hopi “Tusayan”, a term they seem to have adapted from the Navajo, in whose language it means “place of isolated buttes.” The first Spanish expedition to pass by Hopi was led by Don Pedro de Tovar, a side trip of the Coronado Expedition, in 1542. At that time the Hopi villages were located below the mesas, rather than on top, except for Oraibi, which has had the same location since perhaps 1270 CE.
People have lived around the Hopi Buttes and on Black Mesa for at least 10,000 years. Whether the Hopi of today are direct descendants of the earlier populations is uncertain, although not in Hopi minds. Archaeologists have learned that beginning in the 1200s, during a great drought, people from the Kayenta, Little Colorado, and Flagstaff regions migrated here to join the earlier inhabitants. The attraction was due in large part to Hopi agriculture, which featured plants adapted to the arid environment and practices that efficiently utilized the scanty water. In addition, the Hopi used coal for heating homes and firing pottery. This energy source is a boon in an area with so few trees for firewood. For reasons unknown, use of coal was discontinued for a time after the Spanish priests came to Hopi.
During the first period of colonization in New Mexico, missions were built and priests proselytized at Hopi. Fr. Francisco de Porras, stationed at Awatovi, had great success in converting his flock to Christianity. After the Pueblo Revolt in 1680, in which the five priests were killed and all the churches were destroyed, the Hopi were more recalcitrant and offered sanctuary to dissidents fleeing the Spaniards from the Rio Grande pueblos. The only Hopi village that welcomed the return of the priests was Awatovi, so it was destroyed by men from the other pueblos. Several fruitless attempts were made to control and Christianize the Hopi, but their isolation served them well. By the end of the 1700s, the Spaniards had given up on Tusayan.
Hopi lands are now surrounded on all sides by the Navajo Reservation. The Navajos claim to have coexisted with the Anasazi, ancestors of the Hopi, and some Navajo clans trace their origins to specific Anasazi sites. Such claims have given the Navajo rights under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act [NAGPRA]. That angers the Hopi, who say that the Navajo did not appear in the Southwest until long after the Anasazi period.
Although Navajos and Hopis may get along on an individual basis – intermarriage is common – tribally they are constantly at odds. The most recent example involves a land dispute that goes back to 1882 when President Chester A. Arthur set aside 2.5 million acres of land for the Hopis and “other Indians.” The Navajos began settling on the land, but in the 1940s some of it was designated for exclusive Hopi use and Navajo families were forced to relocate. In 1962 the remainder, about 1.8 million acres, was declared by a court as a “joint use area.” Legislation was passed in 1974 to partition the land and relocate those living in the “wrong” areas. The process was dragged out by appeals until 1996 when the tribes came to a compromise: Navajos on the Hopi land could remain if they signed a lease with the Hopis. Most signed, but many refused, making themselves subject to eviction. Even so, some of the resisters remain as a thorn in the side of the Hopi Tribe. The Hopis complain that they are getting a reputation as bullies when they try to enforce their rights against the Navajos.
The land dispute might have favored the Navajos if it hadn’t been for a falling out between Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater and the charismatic leader of the Navajo Nation, Peter McDonald. Once allies in the Republican Party, Goldwater had arranged for McDonald to nominate Richard Nixon at the Republican Party Convention in 1972. Later, because of pending legislation about the land dispute, McDonald was quoted as saying that if the Republicans didn’t help the Navajos he might support McGovern over Nixon in the race for President. This angered Goldwater. He had previously been neutral in the land dispute, but after that he threw his influence on the side of the Hopis. The result was the 1974 bill giving much of the disputed territory to the Hopi and requiring relocation of Navajos on that land.
One Hopi practice that angers many people is the sacrificing of golden eagles. It’s not the entire tribe; only a part of them are involved and at least one clan actively opposes the ritual killing of the birds. Eaglets are taken from nests in the spring and kept on roof tops until July, when they are smothered or strangled so that their spirits will take messages to the Kachinas. This practice, which strikes many as barbaric, may have replaced that of child sacrifice, so in one sense it is an improvement, but when the Hopi applied for permits to harvest eaglets in Wupatki National Monument, it stirred up controversy that may cost the Hopi a lot of sympathy in other areas.
The population of golden eagles is dwindling due in part to overgrazing on the reservations, which reduces habitat for the eagles’ prey, and because of the killing of adults for feathers by members of many tribes. One wildlife biologist believes that the birds are being harvested more rapidly than they are reproducing. They may not be a renewable resource.
The Hopi Kachinas [or Katsinas] are religious figures. They are so appealing, however, that they are used even internationally on clothing, dishes and other commodities. Hopis become angry when Kachina images are used for commercial purposes. For example, they forced a recall of Kachina whiskey bottles in the 1970s, and a Marvel Comics book featuring “evil Kachinas” in 1992. During the whiskey bottle incident, one Hopi suggested that the offense was equal to putting liquor in a bottle resembling Jesus Christ.
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Road Log
From Keams Canyon proceed west on Arizona 264. There are several small abandoned coal mines in the canyon. You can see coal outcrops here and there in the cliffs. The coal is in the middle member of the Toreva Sandstone.
As you come out of the canyon, the San Francisco Peaks appear at 11:30. The Hopi believe that the Peaks are the home of the Kachinas, probably because prevailing southwesterly winds bring Pacific moisture to the region, and storms build over the Peaks before moving toward the Hopi Mesas.
South of Keam‘s Canyon lie the ruins of Awatovi, founded about 1100. This was the first Hopi pueblo visited by the Spaniards and it became the most Christianized. When the Spaniards returned after the Pueblo Revolt, it was the only Hopi village to welcome a new priest. Because of that, Hopi from Walpi and Mishongnovi destroyed the village during the winter of 1701, killing the men and taking the women and children away.
Milepost 399. At 11:00 is Badger Butte composed of Mancos Shale with a Toreva caprock.
Milepost 398. Notice the extensive slumping on the mesa to the west. Huge blocks of Toreva Sandstone litter the slopes.
Milepost 397. Hopi High School is on a hillside to the south.
Milepost 396. Toreva sandstone overlies Mancos Shale in Hopi First Mesa ahead to the west. Polacca is at the base of the Mesa. On top are the villages of Hano, Sichomovi, and Walpi, which sits at the western tip of the mesa. By choice, Walpi still has no electricity.
Milepost 393. Cross Polacca Wash.
Milepost 392. The road to the top of First Mesa goes toward the west. From here you have a good view of the Hopi Villages atop the mesa.
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First Mesa:
Polacca at the base of the mesa is a recent development, having grown up around the day school established here in the 1890s. The town has no political standing within the tribe; instead the citizens belong to clans in the villages on top the mesa.
Two miles north are the ruins of Sikyatki which cover at least ten acres and date to the Fourteenth Century. Because of inter-village friction, Sikyatki was destroyed by those living in Walpi sometime between 1540 and 1583. Ironically, the Sikyatki style of pottery decoration caught the eye of a young woman named Nampeyo when the ruins were excavated in 1895. She began the tradition anew. The great interest in her wares when they began selling at Thomas Keam’s trading post created an art pottery movement among all the pueblos.
Hano is a Tewa village established in the aftermath of De Vargas’s reconquest of New Mexico. Some Tewans moved from the Galisteo Basin to join the Hopi. The residents still speak Tewa as well as Hopi.
Sichomovi was a colony of Walpi built in the middle 1700s.
The Walpi of modern times was established after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 when, fearing retaliation from the Spaniards, the inhabitants moved their settlement to a more defensive position. The earlier village dated to 1300 CE.
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Milepost 389. Cross Wepo Wash. Hopi Health Center is on the south.
Milepost 388. Second Mesa is from 12:30 to 2:00. Villages of Mishongnovi [6230 feet] and Shipaulovi are atop the mesa. To the south you have a good view of the western Hopi Buttes. The westernmost is named Montezuma’s Chair, at the base of which is the ruin of a fourteenth century Hopi pueblo. The San Francisco Peaks are at 11:00.
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Second Mesa
Second Mesa splits near the southern end so that it looks like two mesas from the highway.
Shungopovi by tradition is the oldest Hopi village, although in the early 1400s the inhabitants moved their homes to a location closer to a spring, so it has not been continuously occupied.
The original village of Mishongnovi is believed to have been founded by emigrants from the San Francisco Mountains in the 1200s. It was probably abandoned before the Pueblo Revolt, after which the newer village of the same name was built on top the mesa.
Shipaulovi may have been built about 1750 by people from Homol’ovi on the Little Colorado River.
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Milepost 385. A good view of the villages on top of Second Mesa is available here.
Milepost 384. Arizona 87 goes south to Winslow.
As the road climbs up on the western part of Second Mesa, you pass by a walled-in spring which is sacred to the Hopi Flute Clan.
Milepost 381. Shongopovi Village.
Milepost 379. The road descends into Oraibi Wash. Third Mesa is on the western Horizon.
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Third Mesa
Ultra conservative Hopis began Hotevilla after being forced out of Oraibi about 1906. Some of the more moderate ones attempted to return to their original village, but were not welcome, so they began a new town, Bacavi in 1907. Hotevilla is still considered the most conservative of the Hopi villages.
The residents of Kykotsmovi were progressive. They left Oraibi in 1906 to create an independent town around a mission, school, and trading post. This town is now the center of tribal government, an idea forced on the Hopi by Washington, and still not fully accepted by several of the conservative villages.
Oraibi was once the most populous of the Hopi villages with a population in the thousands during the 1600s, but droughts and smallpox epidemics reduced the number to less than 100 by the middle of the twentieth century.
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Milepost 377. Old Oraibi sits atop the mesa at 12:00, while Oraibi Village is just ahead. The Village is progressive, while Old Oraibi is conservative. It may be the oldest inhabited town in the US; like Acoma Pueblo it has been occupied continuously for as much as 1000 years. Old Oraibi has no electricity or running water by choice.
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Do the Hopi speak Welsh?
In 1858 Brigham Young sent Jacob Hamlin, “the Mormon Leatherstocking”, to visit the Hopi pueblos. Exploration was only part of the reason for the expedition. A Welsh convert named Durian Davis was sent along to find out whether the Hopi spoke Celtic. This was related to the story of Prince Madoc of Wales, who supposedly sailed west in 1170 with companions, then after founding a settlement on a new continent, returned to Wales, recruited more colonists, and took them back. Rumors of bearded, light skinned, Indians persisted from the time of the first European incursions into the Americas. As settlement moved westward, so did the legend of hirsute Indians. Domínguez and Escalante expected to meet some when they explored the Utah region, and indeed they did, but they concluded that the bearded ones were Indians rather then Europeans. Davis tested the Hopi and concluded that they didn’t speak any Celtic language, but the legend didn’t die among the Mormons. Twenty years later a Mormon missionary to the Zuni decided that he had found Welsh words in the language of the Zuni, Navajo and Hopi.
Nearly all the explorers of the western US expected to find Madoc’s tribe. Charlatans claimed to have met them. It was said that they still had a bible that Madoc had brought with him, but as Bernard De Voto pointed out, this bible would have dated to three centuries before Gutenberg and four centuries before the bible was translated into Welsh.
This myth still has not been put to rest. Even today some people claim that petroglyphs of certain types, commonly called “rakes” or “combs”, are a Celtic writing system called “Ogham.” Most of the putative Ogham petroglyphs are in Southeastern Colorado, where no material culture of a Celtic style has ever been found. However, similar petroglyphs are found all across the Four Corners, usually dated to the Paleo- or Archaic Periods.
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Milepost 376. Road goes south to Leupp. Cross Oraibi Wash.
Milepost 373. Road ascends Third Mesa. Look for orchards and fields on both sides.
Milepost 372. Old Oraibi is seen at 9:00. The bell tower of the Spanish mission church still juts up at the northeast side of the village. The church was destroyed in 1680 during the Pueblo Revolt. The Hopi Buttes are soon in view on the south.
Milepost 370. As the road curves around the side of the mesa you have a magnificent view, including the San Francisco Peaks.
Milepost 367. Bacavi Village is at 1:00. Hotevilla is at 11:00. Navajo leader Narbona moved his family here during the drought of 1820 and farmed beside the Hopi for nine years. Three of his children married Hopis.
For the next few miles notice the agricultural fields in blow sand. The Hopi utilize sand dunes for much of their farming.
Descend into the valley of Dinnebito Wash. This wash flows almost 100 miles from Black Mesa to the Little Colorado River. In the upper part of the wash, the Navajos used to build circular hogans by digging logs into the soil vertically, much like a stockade, which gave rise to the Navajo name, “Many Legged Hogan Wash.” The name “Dinnebito” refers to a spring along the wash, and translates as “People’s Water.”
Milepost 362. Cross Dinnebito Wash. Howell Mesa is at 9:00.
The road crosses much Mancos Shale before beginning the ascent of Howell Mesa.
Milepost 348. There is a panoramic view here at the edge of the mesa, but it’s difficult to pick things out while moving. There is a pointy volcanic plug named Wildcat Peak on the northwest, just to the south of the lump of Navajo Mountain farther in the distance. Toward the west the Echo Cliffs are barely visible and may not be seen if it is hazy. The San Francisco Peaks are at 9:00. Beside the road is a dark brown, ledgy sandstone stratum of the Toreva Formation containing ilmenite, an iron-titanium mineral. It caps white underlying layers.
Milepost 341. Watch on the north side of the road for views of a very colorful canyon system along Moenkopi Wash. The rocks are Dakota and Cow Springs [Zuni] over Entrada, cream colored, and Carmel, red. The Cow Springs here is very white. The nearest part of the drainage is Coal Mine Canyon. Mormon settlers first mined coal from the Dakota Sandstone here shortly after they founded Tuba City. A modern mine opened in 1908 to fuel the steam plant at the BIA School in Tuba City. The coal seam is 8 feet thick, but the coal is low quality and is no longer used.
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To visit Coal Mine Canyon, you go past milepost 338, almost to 337, and turn north on a track toward a windmill. There is a private rodeo ground here. Any of several dirt tracks will take you to the canyon. It’s not far, less than a mile. A picnic area is just northeast of the windmill. Although there is a Navajo house nearby, it is so lonesome here that the last time I visited a rabbit scurried into its den between the picnic tables. Be sure you have film in your camera. This is a very colorful place – a Bryce Canyon in miniature.
Coal Mine Canyon has a ghost. A woman named Quayonwuuti [Eagle Woman], who was mentally ill, wandered away from Oraibi and jumped off a cliff to her death. Her luminous spirit appears at times of the full moon. So the story goes.
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Milepost 335. On the western horizon Kaibab Limestone appears on the Kaibab Plateau on the north rim of Grand Canyon.
Milepost 333. Enter a blowout area where winds have swept out sand and soil. The Navajo name for this area translates as “Hollow Place.” At milepost 331 you can see the western rim of the blowout and notice that there is no wash draining it. Surface water here percolates to the water table below.
Milepost 329. Roadcuts are in the Navajo Sandstone as the road descends into Moenkopi Wash.
Milepost 326. Preston Mesa at 12:00 is Navajo Sandstone.
Milepost 325. Moenkopi Village is on the far side of the wash. The Navajo Sandstone and Kayenta Formation interfinger, alternating up the far wall of Moenkopi Wash with crossbedded Navajo appearing at the top.
Milepost 324. Cross Moenkopi Wash Bridge. Note the springs in the Navajo Sandstone that feed some greenery.
As you climb out of the Wash on a dangerous curve, a fenced area on the south of the road encloses dinosaur footprints in the Kayenta. Don’t cross the other lane to stop here. If you want to stop, go farther and turn back. The footprints are probably covered with sand anyway and there are more west of town. Just past the fence, watch for glimpses of the fields in the wash below the village.
Junction with US 160. Turn west to intersect US 89 to Flagstaff or Page. Go east to Kayenta.
There are Anasazi ruins near Tuba City dating to the 1300s, but Moenkopi was begun in the fifteenth century by some from Old Oraibi who came here where they could irrigate their fields. Navajo and Paiute raiding discouraged a permanent settlement or even absentee agriculture at such an indefensible site, although the Hopi seem to have coexisted with a Yavapai settlement for a time in the 1600-1700s. The only crop that did not interest the nomadic people was cotton, so the Hopi grew that both here and at Moenave. Today there are two Moenkopis: the upper village is modern, while Lower Moenkopi is more traditional. When Jacob Hamblin met the Hopi here in 1858, this was a seasonal farming village. In 1879 Hamblin, with permission of Tuvi, a clan leader of the Hopi, established a Mormon colony at Moenave, after Tuvi and his wife has spent a year in Utah learning about Mormon culture. In 1875 the Mormons built a permanent settlement here and Tuba City was begun in 1877. John Young, Brigham’s son, built a woolen mill at Moenkopi in 1879, but the Hopi were not interested in learning mechanical weaving, and the Navajo did not bring their wool for sale. By 1900 Tuba City had a population of about 150, but no clear title to the land. The government bought out the settlers in 1903 in order to establish a school.
Tuba City and Moenkopi will engage you in a time warp if you arrive between April and October, because Arizona does not observe Daylight Savings Time, and neither does the Hopi Reservation. Moenkopi is Hopi, but Tuba City is Navajo and the Navajos do use DST. So, just crossing the street between Tuba City and Moenkopi can throw you into a different time zone. Residents do their business between 9:00 and 4:00 to avoid hassles, and don’t worry much about clocks.
Moenkopi wash is one of five major drainages coming off Black Mesa. On the Domínguez and Escalante map of 1776, this Wash is labeled Cosonias, the Hopi name for the Havasupai tribe who lived here until forced out by the expansion of the Navajo Reservation in 1903.
According to the 2000 census, Tuba City is the largest community on the Navajo Reservation, beating out Shiprock for that honor.
Major References
American Guide Series. Arizona. Hastings House, 1940.
Chronic, Halka. Roadside Geology of Arizona. Mountain Press, 1983.
De Voto, Bernard. The course of empire. Sentry edition. Houghton Mifflin Co., 1962.
Fillmore, Robert. The geology of the parks, monuments, and wildlands of Southern Utah. Univ. of Utah Press, 2000.
Four Corners Geological Society. Permianland. 1979
New Mexico Geological Society.
Ortiz, Alfonso, ed. Handbook of North American Indians; vol. 9: Southwest. Smithsonian Institution, 1979.
Trimble, Marshall. Roadside history of Arizona. Mountain Press, 1986.
Williams, Ted. “Golden eagles for the gods.” Audobon, 103 (2), p. 30-39, March-April, 2001.
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