Project update, August 8, 2006:

        The project team is writing a grant proposal that, if successful, will fund the planning phase for an exhibit that will open in the Museum of Northern Arizona’s own galleries by 2009, then travel to other museums. Under the Rockefeller Foundation consultation grant we just completed on July 31, we conducted 37 consultant interviews, finished an issue of Plateau magazine called “Pueblo Paintings and Place” (with additional help from the National Endowment for the Arts), and the text for a second Plateau issue, to be called “Murals and Metaphors.” A “technical” or “scholarly” volume of essays is in the works for MNA’s Bulletin series. And of course, we are bringing this web page to the public, at last.

Interviews
            We conducted 37 formal interviews with Hopi artists and other cultural specialists. Interviewees were about evenly distributed among the three mesa communities that comprise the Hopi Reservation. This distribution is important because dialects of the Hopi language differ among mesas. Each mesa has some distinct ritual and artistic traditions. For example, although most Hopi women know how to make most traditional crafts, and many are proficient in more than one craft tradition, when it comes to specializing in a marketable craft, different communities have different emphases. Women of First Mesa are known for pottery production, Second Mesa women specialize in coiled basketry, and Third Mesa women specialize in wicker baskets. Distribution of clans and ritual societies also varies among villages. The First Mesa community includes an enclave of Tewa-speakers whose ancestors came from what is now New Mexico in about 1700. We have included several Hopi-Tewa consultants. Most Hopi people agreed that their Tewa neighbors have become Hopi, by virtue of subscribing to the same set of values and cultural practices.
            Most interviews included discussion of family and community histories, values, daily activities (including gender roles, farming, and food preparation), clans, language, and cultural identity, as well as “arts and crafts.” Consultants stressed the interconnectedness of all these topics.    Artists included ten potters, three basketweavers, one textile weaver, two carvers, four painters/printmakers, and two jewelers. In addition to art, we talked with consultants about farming, teaching, social services, parenting and grandparenting, language revitalization, clan migrations, baby naming, weddings, and men’s and women’s traditional work roles.
            We interviewed both men and women. A few of the men we consulted have taken on the traditionally feminine role of pottery making, so we were able to discuss changing gender roles, among other topics. Most of our consultants are over the age of 50, but we included several who are in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. Our human subjects research approval from NAU stipulated that all interviewees must be over the age of 18, so we were not able to include children and teens.
            We were not able to interview a representative from each of the forty-plus Hopi clans, but we talked with members of a wide variety of clans including Bear, Bear Strap, Butterfly-Badger, Corn, Coyote, Deer-Flute, Eagle, Greasewood, Snow, Snake, Sun, and Tobacco-Rabbit, and Sun.
            Most interviewing was done on audiotape and transferred to a digital audio format, but during the MNA Hopi Show June 29-July 2, 2006, we videotaped eight artists demonstrating and discussing their craft, and in some cases, examining prehistoric and historic pieces in the museum’s collections. Video interviews included four potters, two basketweavers, two painters, and a jeweler. These will be useful not only for the information they contain, but as media for the project web page and exhibit.
            All interviews were done with an informed consent process approved by Northern Arizona University’s human subjects research review board and by the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office. Interviewers drew questions from a list of 26 questions formulated by the co-curators and HCPO coordinators. Interviews began with an explanation of the project and its goals, and the informed consent process. Few consultants addressed all the questions. Usually, the interviewer focused on a few sections that related to the interviewee’s known areas of interest and expertise. Questions are open-ended, and allowed consultants a great deal of flexibility. Because we used a wide variety of questions and deliberately spoke with variety of Hopi people, we were somewhat surprised at the consistent results of interviewing. Hopi people articulated to us very consistent and coherent values, concerns, worldview, and aesthetic preferences.
            All archived interviews are being saved in the files of the HCPO’s Hopi Oral History Project. The purpose of this project is to save personal, family, and clan histories for future generations of Hopis. Many participants commented that they were happy their grandchildren and great-grandchildren would be able to hear their voices. Some added –tearfully-- that they wanted their descendents to know what the Hopi language sounded like, because if language loss continues at the present rate, it will be gone in one or two more generations.

Developing exhibit themes and storyline
            The planning team and Hopi consultants devoted a lot of time to discussing the appropriate audience for the exhibit and potential themes and content. We are planning an exhibit that will appeal to the general public, particularly those who visit state, regional, and tribal museums. The exhibit will bridge humanities and natural sciences by organizing material normally associated with the fields of fine arts, humanities, anthropology, and ecology around the overall theme of the Hopi World, and specific concerns with farming, ecology, history, cosmology, and the relationship of traditional arts and crafts to Hopi identity and individual bodies and lives. The intent of the exhibit is to explain key aspects of Hopi art, culture, and ecology to Euroamerican and Native American visitors, especially Hopi youth. We agreed that to reach such a broad audience, we would need to have a diverse array of publications and public presentations, and activities specially geared toward elementary school age children. We have decided to focus on elementary school children in Hopi and Flagstaff schools.
           The planning team met six times during the grant period to discuss exhibit themes and storyline as well as to address other components of the planning process. Results of these discussions are presented in the accompanying draft planning grant proposal to NEH. Storyline and summary can be found in the proposal and other addenda to this report.
           The consultation team developed a title for the proposed exhibit that includes the Hopi word Sìitala, which means “for the landscape to be bright with flowers”. This word metaphorically expresses the reciprocity between humans and the natural world that is necessary for all elements of life to thrive. Remarkably, this concept flourishes in a desert environment, but only when the rains come and the ecosystem is healthy. It is Hopis’ responsibility to “court the rain” and encourage health for humans and all other living things. The exhibit explores this central idea of Hopi worldview as it is expressed in art, language, and everyday activities. Sìitala: Life in Balance, World in Bloom will show the larger public that this indigenous way of life can also nourish and enrich everyone’s lives.