Page 104 - TheHopiIndians

96 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND
from the infant to the superannuated, lending willing
hands for the "raising." The primitive architect is
there, builders too, of skill and experience and a full
corps of those who furnish builders' supplies, includ
ing the tot who carries a little sand in her dress and
those who ransack the country round for brush, clay,
beams, stones, and water.
Before going farther it must be understood that
house-building is women's work among the Hopi, and
these likewise are the house-owners. It seems rather
startling, then, that all the walls of the uninhabited
houses and the fallen walls of the ruins that prevail in
the Southwest should be mainly the work of women 's
hands, whose touch we might expect to find on the
decorated pottery, but not on the structures that cause
the Pueblo people to be known as house-builders.
From this one begins to understand the importance of
woman in these little nations of the desert.
Let us suppose that an addition is to be made to a
Hopi village of a house containing a single room,
built without regard to the future additions which
may later form a house cluster. The plan of such a
house would be familiar to any Hopi child, since it is
merely a rectangular box. When the location has
been determined, word is passed around among the
kinsfolk and the collection of stones, beams, etc., is be
gun. Cottonwood trees for many miles around are
laid under contribution. Some beams may be sup
plied from trees growing near-by along the washes and