Page 31 - TheHopiIndians

MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND 23
looked on with pride and complacency. In the gran
ary, which is generally a back room, the ears of corn
are often sorted by color and laid up in neat walls and
one year's crop is always kept in reserve for a bad
season. Red corn, yellow corn, white corn, blue corn,
black corn, and mottled corn make a Hopi grain room
a study in color. Three oblong hollowed stones or
metates of graded fineness are sunk in the floor of
every Hopi house, and on these, with another stone
held in the hands, the corn is ground to fine meal, the
grinders singing shrill songs at their back-breaking
work.
In the corner of the baking-room is a fireplace cov
ered with a smoke hood and containing slabs of stone
for the baking of piki, or paper bread, while scattered
about are many baskets, jars, bowls, cups, and other
utensils of pottery well fitted for the purposes of the
Hopi culinary art. Outside the house is a sunken pit
in which corn-pudding is baked.
These and many other things about the Hopi vil
lages will interest the visitor, who will not have serious
difficulty in overlooking the innovations or in obtain
ing a clear idea of Pueblo life as it was in the times
long past.
If one crosses the plain to the three villages of the
Middle Mesa, he will find still less of the effect of con
tact with modern things. Mushongnovi, the second
town of Tusayan in point of size, presented as late as
1906 a perfect picture of an unmodified pueblo on its