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Read Ebook: The Hopi Indians by Hough Walter
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Ebook has 871 lines and 67565 words, and 18 pages
When the crops are harvested and Indian summer is gone and the cold winds buffet the mesas, the Hopi find comfort in their substantial houses around their hearth-stones. The change of the season enforces a pleasant reunion and the people who were occupied with the care as well as the delights of outdoor summer life, begin to get acquainted again.
The men have plenty of idle time on their hands,--the masks need repairing and refurbishing with new colors; there are always moccasins to be made; the carvers of dolls construct these odd painted figures from cottonwood procured during the summer, and the weaver works at his loom. Now the basket maker draws on her stock of split yucca leaves, twigs and grass, but the potter's craft is in abeyance till the warm months.
One would think that the winter work falls pretty severely on the women, but their duties are largely the same in all seasons. There is corn to be ground, food to be prepared, and water to be carried up the steep trails. The winter store must be guarded against mice and vermin and occasionally sunned on the roof. There are, no doubt, many cares and much labor, but the women take their time and everyone, from the little child to the experienced old grandmother, lends a helping hand. A Hopi woman would perhaps not understand our kind commiseration for the lot that her sex has experienced and thriven under from time immemorial.
Winter in Tusayan is more enjoyable than otherwise, as the sun is bright and the sky a clear blue. The snows of winter are nearly as rare as the rain-storms of summer, much to the regret of the Hopi. Often the cold at night is intense, but the day may have the crisp though mild air of a rare day in spring at the East.
Not much change comes over the landscape of Tusayan by the advent of winter. There are few trees to lose their leaves after a gorgeous pageant of farewell. The desert plants scarcely ever alter the appearance of the earth by their leaf tints of spring, summer, or autumn; with their diminutive leaves and sober color they sink into the vast surface and are lost among the vivid aerial tints and the bright hues of the rocks and plains. There are no rivers to be covered by a sheen of ice, and rarely does a mantle of snow reach across the deserts from the snow-clad mountains. The winds rave and whirlwinds swirl the sand along the plain in giant columns, while the sun hangs lower and lower in the southwest until the Hopi fear that he will finally depart and leave them in the grasp of winter. But the priests have potent charms to draw him back, and after the Soyaluna ceremony at the winter solstice anyone can see that the sun no longer wanders.
Those Hopi who have not laid in a supply of fuel must go wood-gathering right speedily when cold weather approaches, for the trees are distant and the day is hardly long enough to get a burro load piled on the house wall. Every morning also the flocks of sheep and goats must be driven out from the corrals on the ledges under the mesas, to browse on the leafless brush.
--Bene!--grid? il maggiore, stringendo il giovinetto nelle sue braccia.--Tu sei davvero sangue del mio sangue.
--Ah! questo bel legionario ? vostro figlio? Me ne rallegro con voi, maggiore Salvani.--
Queste parole erano proferite da un nuovo personaggio, entrato allora allora nella camera. Portava egli pure la tunica rossa e il cappello di feltro nero colla penna dei tre colori, e sebbene non contasse ancora i ventidue anni, aveva gi? aspetto d'uomo maturo. Il pensiero ? quella certa lama, cos? spesso adoperata a raffronti poetici, che a lungo andare logora la guaina. Il viso pallido, lo sguardo e l'atteggiamento malinconico, la fronte prominente e spaziosa sotto l'onda dei lunghi capelli biondi, mostravano a prima giunta il pensatore; e il pensatore a quell'et? non poteva essere se non un poeta.
--Sei tu, amico?--disse il maggiore, muovendo incontro al nuovo venuto.--Eccoti mio figlio, per l'appunto, Lorenzo Salvani: un tuo concittadino, il quale, scommetto, sa tutti i tuoi canti a memoria.
--Bello, e animoso, in verit?!--soggiunse quell'altro.--Ed ? probabilmente lui, che ha tradotta la Marsigliese.
--L'hai dunque udito?
--Ah s?, dite benissimo;--replic? il giovinetto;--e questi sono i versi che stanno meglio sulle labbra d'un ragazzo par mio. Infatti, ho tradotto anche questi:
Noi verremo secondi a riscossa, Che i maggior non saranno gi? pi?; Ma l? sparse sarannovi l'ossa, Ad esempio d'antica virt?. A quelli eroi--sopravvivendo, O con essi caduti sul pian, --<Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page