First Mesa

Walpi, por Ansel Adams

Paho at Walpi
Janet Loxley Lewis

The prayer feather fluttered
In the wind that swept the prow
Of the First Mesa at Walpi, fluttered,
Caught in dried earth,
The trodden clay,
Under the great sky,

A bit of down, a thread of handspun cotton,
A twinned pine needle, small quilled feather,
Before a house with a padlocked door
In quiet of an early morning when
Most of the doors of the village
Were closed against
                          the chill sweep of the wind;

A paho, carrying what supplication,
Or what gratitude,
Shaken in the wind which it entreated;
Perhaps.

The sunlight pours unshaken through the wind.
Carry my entreaty, also, fluttering feathers.

The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi, no Gutenberg.

"Without books and without writing the Hopi have an extensive literature. That a surprising degree of accuracy is observed in its oral transmission from generation to generation is revealed by certain comparisons with the records made by the Spanish explorers in the sixteenth century."

Quahongva, Story-teller of Shungopovi, and Listeners.

We had no more than started our first story when the youngsters began to appear. They squatted about on the floor and covered the door step, and were good listeners. Their squeals of glee brought other children scampering, as the story-teller imitated the song and dance steps of the Eagle, in one of his stories. But the one we have chosen to record here is a Bear story. Figure 15 shows Quahongva surrounded by those of the children who had not been called home to supper when the stories ended. One small girl in the foreground is carrying her doll on her back by means of her little shawl, exactly as her mother carries her baby brother.

Quahongva was a good story-teller. Some of his tales were long enough to occupy an evening. His best story took two and a half days for the telling and recording, so can not be included here.

(deste livro, também no scribd)

interessante artigo sobre este povo fugidio e ancestral, os Hopi, descendentes das mais antigas civilizações no continente norte-americano, os cliff dwellers Anasazi. (entre o ano 500 e o ano 1300 depois de Cristo).