We stopped at a trading post near Moenkopi, Arizona, at the west end of the Hopi Villages.  I can't remember why were there, nor can I remember how on earth we came to be approaching the villages from the west...home was far to the east, and we always came to Hopi from the east.  And it's not as though you just happen upon Hopi; it's quite out of the way; in the middle of nowhere...unless you happen to be one of The People, and then it is literally the center of the Universe.  Entering from the west allowed us a good view of some of the corn plantations: reddish, sandy dirt under the high rock cliffs that guarded the crucial corn plants.  Hopi life revolved around them: maize, from food to pollen for ceremonial use; the rituals expressly for the health of the soil, and to bring the rain they needed.

Maybe we'd been to Grand Canyon; maybe it doesn't matter; here I am getting my knickers in a knot about what I can't remember, when you're only interested in what I do remember. And in the end, it may be that the forgetfulness is really part of the story; you can decide.

  Ordinarily we avoid trading posts; we almost never have any extra money to spend on art, so maybe one of us needed to have a pee and we stopped.  Here we were, to the west of Old Oraibi village, the oldest continually inhabited village in the country.

  The Hopi lands and rows of Mesas are stark and sere, with broad vistas of foreverness and timelessness to the south; and unless you know just where to look, a lot of the Hopi dwellings are invisible.  They've been built against the mesa cliffs, or on top them, constructed of rock and clay, and it's easy to believe that they simply grew out of the landscape as The People needed them.  (Hopi translates as The Peaceful People.)  Their creation stories have it that they emerged from sacred holes in the earth (sipapu) at discrete locations in different ages, or worlds, or layers of time, and most of the sipapu are on the Little Colorado River at the far eastern end of Grand Canyon.  They believe that they are the guardians of the present Fourth World, a responsibility they don't take lightly; most Hopi dedicate their lives to the rituals of protection and prosperity for themselves and the rest of us.  In their matrilineal society, both the sipapu and the cylindrical ceremonial caverns (kivas) they construct deep in the ground pay homage to the feminine: the Mother, the womb, maybe the source: Spider Woman created by A'wonawil'on, the misty source of All.

  You may have heard people go on about the Hopi in glowing terms you may have dismissed as New-Age garbage; it's not hard to dismiss that sort of talk from professional dilettante Indian-lovers, as author Tony Hillerman so hilariously labeled them.

  And yet, if I were pressed to name the people and place that may have created the most wonder and spiritual awe in me, it would be The People in these Mesas.  Their rituals and beliefs call for them to be generous, and at their social (non-religious) dances, visitors are laden with gifts of food and goodwill, and in the right season of the year, stories; for most of their history is passed on orally, and through art.  Stories are forbidden at times that rattlesnakes might be able to overhear them, though I never heard what mischief the snakes could create with the stories.

  They strike me as just flat-out wonderful people, helpful and open and welcoming, although they won't be pressed on secrets of their ritual lives.  I have read that they still have no tolerance for Mexicans, a vestige left from the days of cruel treatment by the Spanish Conquistadors, though that may not be so.

  We went to the last Snake Dance Anglos were permitted to attend.  It seems that after that one, the clan elders decided that non-Hopi people were getting in the way of their directed energy, and it's no huge surprise that it may be so.  (Hey; we behaved well, if that's what you're wondering...)

  At its most basic level, it's a full on effort to call forth the rain gods to provide enough moisture to fill out the ears of the corn; they grow it in the desert with no irrigation.  Each seed kernel is planted in a hole made with a pointed digging stick; it's poked downward until it reaches a small bit of moist earth, and the seed corn is dropped in and covered to await any rain that comes its way.  The eventual plants might be thinned two or three feet apart from each other to conserve moisture. 

  The plants are guarded by people and rituals until rain is required to mature them; then the Snake Dance is held.  Other tribes in the Southwest call the Hopi The Cloud Callers, and they offer them great respect for this ability.

If you are tempted to scoff that the Creator doesn't make it rain, I will challenge your belief; I've seen it, and I'm glad I have.

  I'll tell that story one day soon, but this one is about Zuni (Ashiwi), another village, who are the descendants of the Anasazi, the Ancient Ones, who once populated the Four Corners area of the Southwest in the hundreds of thousands.  Their elaborate cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park were vacated suddenly about 1270 A.D., and archaeologists make a big deal about the mystery of where they went; the Hopi and the Zuni find their all confusion pretty amusing; they know who they are.

  We were alone at the trading post except for the young Hopi woman who worked there.  She was gorgeous, with straight black hair and almost black eyes, fresh and curious with the traditional moon-shaped face, wide generous mouth and upright posture so prevalent among the Pueblo people.

  We began to talk, and then started to have a conversation, and she began to pour out her brand new life-defining story: she told me about her duty and desire to become part of her mother's ceremonial clan, and the instruction she'd received during the past year.  I forget by now which clan or even which village was her home; but at almost the last minute she had refused the final step for initiation: it involved a whipping ceremony. Men dressed as Whipper Kachinas would climb down the ladders into the kiva where the young women had been fasting and praying for this last step, and they would scourge the young women with yucca whips.  For some reason she was terrified of it.  Born to such a culture, she would surely have been comforted by others who'd been through the initiation; but here she was, working here instead of being in the kiva with her clan sisters.

  "I just can't go through it; my mother says it doesn't hurt much.  But I just can't do it; I'm so scared."

  "Do you mean they're in the kiva right now?"  She nodded.  "What will happen to you?"

  "They'll turn away from me; my family, will, too.  So I'm here today, instead."  She tried a brave smile; it went nowhere, especially not to her eyes.

  I was so out of my depth; all I could do was stand...and wait.  She didn't move as though wanting an embrace.  We just looked at each other; a couple came through the door, she turned...and the bubble we'd been in popped.  Back to brave stoicism for her.

  "Hello; may I help you?" she asked the tourists.  Sigh. 

  I wonder how it ever wound out for her.  Could she have been folded back into her life somehow; would her family and clan come to some accommodation with her?  Or would she have moved away from her home village, and found another sort of life in a nearby city, joining an enclave of tribal expatriates, as so often happened?

  It would be bad for the tribe to lose another young person, too; the lure of the material world was plucking the occasional young Hopi away from The Way. The federal government was also playing a part in weakening them: building subsidized housing far from the villages; another form of divide and conquer was how some of them saw it.  A man we had met at the Butterfly Dance on Second Mesa last year had complained bitterly, "Together we have power; if the government can split us up, we no longer speak as one; we no longer are one."

  That was during the beginning of the Navajo-Hopi land disputes, centered around the land near Black Mesa and the enormous Peabody coal mine.  That battle still rages with no end in sight, as far as I know. 

  After the intense conversation, we had looked at some of the artwork.  One painting drew me back several times.  It was of Kachinas coming up a pole ladder out of a kiva; the sky beyond them was the blue you often see in the Southwest: some hue between turquoise and Delft blue.  The painter was a Zuni artist named Duane Dishta; it was hard to say why it was so compelling, but...there it was.  It fairly glowed with life, and maybe my new friend's story gave it more meaning.  The price tag said $500, a ridiculous sum for people like us.

We said our goodbyes and drove down the highway, and we talked about the painting; it seemed its image had stayed with Steve, too.  It was far beyond affordable to us, and on a whim we decided to drive to Zuni; we'd never been there, and shoot, we might find the artist, or find a less expensive painting...or something.  Crazy idea, but we got out the New Mexico map, and headed there.  What the hell; we were on the road!

  The road winds through hills and ponderosa pines heading south of Gallup on highway 602.  It's an anticipatory sort of road, like the road into the North Rim of Grand Canyon; there's a feeling that you're about to come upon something wonderful any second.  At one point, you do: the twin buttes of Dowa Yalanne, or Corn Mountain, behind which the main village sits, rises to meet your eyes. 

  The highway rolled gently up and down the rises, and it created the illusion that the wide, flat mountain floated up and down in the distance.  My eyes watered a little when I saw it; somehow it felt like coming home; like it matched some old memory deep inside me.  Damn; I was really glad we'd come here.

When we got to the little village, we just drove about like moon-struck geeks, hoping we'd just sort of magically find the Dishtas.  It actually did take asking the first person we ran into, but soon we were knocking at their door.  We, of course, felt like idiots, but directed idiots, at least.  Duane's wife, Margie, invited us in; we explained why we were there.  Things bubbled so quickly: she introduced us to Duane and their three children; we chatted for a bit, when all of us sudden, Duane stood up and practically shouted, "We should take you to Corn Mountain!  You'll love it."

  So we all loaded into cars and drove there.  We followed them up trails to ruins and views of grand vistas, and other of their favorite spots along the way. 

  We stopped at a small grotto with a small pool of water fed by a small spring that seeped out of the rock.  It was dense with prayer sticks, pahos, the Hopi called them.

  "The priests come here to pray, and The People, too.  See?  These small cottonwood sticks are carved with symbols, then we tie feathers here at the top; the feathers blow in the breezes, and carry the prayers to the Gods." 

  They gave us potshards (they probably shouldn't have), and feathers...and stories of the Gods.  While we talked, their children and ours played seamlessly together in a beautiful cacophony of racial hues, sparkling black heads of hair and bright summer clothing colors. 

  The breaths of spirits of beings long gone were almost palpable in the air; they blended with the tremors of radiant sunlight off the Mother Rock and the cool water sheltering beneath her dark-rocked grotto... pale green artemesias, sage and rabbit brush, scented the air.  The combination cast a trance spell of Zuni familiarity that was at once comfortable and familiar; my mind was full of images of the white, red and green and black of their traditional dress.  

   Do you remember Hands Across America?  Some wonderful and wild people organized this event for peace:  they wanted to create a human chain clear across the country, holding hands...it was crazy; I kinda like crazy.  I organized a bunch of us to go from our valley, signed us up, and were eventually told by phone to go to Gallup New Mexico, to a particular mile marker by the River Puerco and join the others there.  Good Lord; twenty or twenty-five of us went; (quit shaking you heads, now; God loves goofballs and fools.) and the group we joined with on the west end were from Zuni.  They were all dressed in traditional dress with leggings and moccasins; God, they looked beautiful!  I held hands with one of the young men, and we listened to coverage of the event on radios; what a thing to be part of: just plain crazy-wonderful!

  Meanwhile, back at the spring, the kids laughed as they watched the water-boatmen bugs swimming in the dab of water pooled there.  You know them; they look like preppies rowing crew in shells (stroke...stroke...) along the Charles River in Boston?  They go by lots of different names around the country, but that's how I know them.   

  We talked about the Zuni part in the Spanish Conquistadors' bloody takeover of the Rio Grande Pueblos. 

  Europeans first "discovered" Zuni territory in 1539 when Friar Marcos De Niza and a former black Moorish slave named Estevanico led a party from Mexico in search of the fabled Seven Cities of Gold, and that he'd mistakenly believed (ya think?)  Zuni was one of them because Dowa Yallane often glowed gold at sunset.  Crazy people see what they want to see, I guess.  And what a crying shame that's what he saw.

  History has it that when his reports got back to Coronado in Mexico, he launched an army and in 1540 attacked the ancient villagers of Hawwikku; their resistance proved futile against well-armed Conquistadores on horses.  Spanish influence over the Zuni was comparatively minimal, since they were so far from the Rio Grande, but when the great Pueblo Revolt was planned in 1680, they took an active part in it.  The People moved onto the top of Corn Mountain; it was a natural fortress.  During the Revolt, many corrupt Spanish priests were tossed off high buttes, lots of Conquistadors were killed; reading about this chapter of history pretty much finds you rooting for their timely dispatch.  The People lived atop Dalla Yallane for twelve more years after the Revolt, then descended and built new houses and lives in the village now known as Zuni.

   We spoke of other southwest tribes, their ancient and present rivalries, and of sweat lodge.  Knowing how important volcanic rock was for sweat lodge, they volunteered to take us to an outcropping of old volcanic rock; we should take some home with us, they said.  We spent the late afternoon among the sweet grasses and old-smelling pitted rocks, and filled all of our vacant car space with Zuni rocks.

  Back at their house later, they gave us a big bag of rock salt they harvested once a year at a lake over there (they pointed north and west).  They let us know that it was a special gift, and then followed with a bigger one: they invited us to come to the Night Dances the following month.  The Kachina spirits would be coming back from the South, and the village men had been preparing their representative costumes for months; they would each embody a Kachina for the duration of the dance.  Zuni masks are the most elaborate of all the pueblos, fashioned from wood and stretched hide, painted meticulously in designs handed down through their history, augmented here and there with new patterns

  "I'm helping some of the men with their masks."  He was proud to be considered a master of the craft.  "We work on them at night."

  We would all pray with them for health and harvest and the well-being of The People; and especially for rain.

  Margie explained that we could help.  "We'll spend a couple days preparing the feast. You can help grind the corn, and make the stew; we'll have a huge feast for the whole village.  The Catholic Priest even comes."  She smiled.  There was a Catholic Church in town...

  Then we would watch the Kachinas dance all night.  We accepted, gladly, and it led to them fantasizing about us moving there.  What a queer thought; but think about it we did...Could this be home; is this where we belong?  How could it be that we might belong here?

  We drove home in the dark, immersed in Zuni-spell, with glowing visions of Corn Mountain in our heads...

   We returned a month later and brought contributions for the feast and daily meals.  (You never know when you might need some granola and rice chex and milk, yes?)

  Full of anticipation, we approached the final rise before Dowa Yalanne would be visible...and there she was.  Hmmm.  Is that the right shape?  The familiar colors?  My brain started shuffling memory cards; I must have changed things somehow (Oh, you fanciful cow; you know how you are, always embroidering things...)

  Steve asked, "Does Corn Mountain look the same to you?  I thought--" Uh-oh.  Him, too.  What in the world?  Maybe it was just a trick of the light, but I swear. Even the shape looked different.  Was Coyote the Trickster messing with us; had we been dreaming before?

  The kids were getting antsy in the backseat, so we just mentally shrugged, and put the thought away, and got them sorted out.

  As soon as we got to Duane and Margie's, they put us to work.  The kids all played outside in the sand.  Everything was sand; it made its way into the house, and never left.  It had been dry for a long spell, so it was dustier than ever: gritty dust, in the beds, on the dishes, on the furniture...

  The Hopi 'ladies' came, mostly relatives, to direct our labors.  The men were off working on their masks, so Steve did lots of fetch-and-carrying: wood, water, vats of this and that.  The Ladies chattered and gossiped like women anywhere, and they seemed tickled to have some bahana to help; it must have seemed just right to them, because the ladies kept giggling when they'd look at me.

  We ground blue corn with a Crap Grinder; we kneaded endless amounts of flour and water and yeast into dough; we shaped rolls and loaves (it just killed them that my rolls were sorta pointy on the ends.); we made blue corn tamales.

  A tamale is labor intensive; I learned from a Mexican woman years earlier.  You spread acorn-lard-broth paste onto steamed corn husks, put a dab of meat and chile sauce on it, folded the husks several ways, then tied them up with a string of cornhusk, and steamed them.  We must have made a gross of them.  Goat tamales,;yow!

  We cooked the bread in the beehive-looking clay ovens (Mexicans call them ornos) out in the square; those ladies knew how to bank those fires...they slid the huge pans of bread in and out with big paddles.

  We cut up goat and mutton for stew with dried corn and red chiles; let me tell you, they used every part of the animals; every squidgey bit that you and I would discard went into that mess of stew.  Not my favorite chore, there.  I probably winced a hundred times; they just laughed at me.

  The second night someone prepared the sheep's head.  It was some tradition that the men gained some strength or other from it (Strong Stink, if you ask me); they made a mixture of blue cornmeal and dried red chile, and stuffed the head; I couldn't even watch.  That head simmered in a big pot all night; rotting corpses smell worse, but this must have been a close second.

  When we assembled for breakfast, and Oh My God!  Duane brought out that disgusting head for brekkie!  Our kids just stared; I swear to God, I left the table...my stomach rebelled.  Yeah, well; cultural sensitivity and all that, but jeez...it only stretched so far, and I just hit my personal wall.  Steve tried some, and kept his face even as he could.  I was watching from the pantry by then.

  The Dishta kids revolted; "No way!  We're not eating that stuff!"  "That stinks!  Ewww!"

  Ah, good; go kids!  I schlepped a carton of food we'd brought out to the table:  Aha!

  "Margie; do you think the kids (hint, hint) might like some of this cereal and fruit?"

 The kids cheered, God bless 'em.  She got milk and bowls and spoons, and we ate, although the Hell-smell lingered...plus, you didn't want to glance its way.

   The Dance that night was held in a big hall, and we all sat on chairs as we watched.  There was drama upon entrances of various Kachina figures, some hideous creatures, some clowns with vivid antics, mud-head people...we didn't know what most were.  Lots of drums and rattles and singing, and some interacted with folks in the audience.  It wound on and on, and finally the kids were fast asleep in our laps by the time it was all over. It was nice to have witnessed, but it did pale in comparison to outdoor events, really.  Not to be disrespectful, or anything.

  We walked home dreamily, and fell into the sandy bunk-beds; that night the scritchy sand hardly bothered us.

  It wasn't until the ride home that we discussed the two Zunis; the utterly different impressions between the first and second visits. 

  I've tried on lots of theories of the two versions of *perception* and *reality*, and can't find anything that rings true.  It would be easier to dismiss entirely except for this:

   A couple we aren't particularly good friends with experienced the same phenomenon.  She works at Crow Canyon Archeological Center, he is a builder.  We knew each other as activist county Dems.  At some point when we got together, we talked about Zuni; they also had been zapped by their first visit, and were considering moving there; same thing: they went back for a second visit, and were deflated by their second visit; they had even checked into jobs.  I mean, this is not a Land of Opportunity sort of place; 44% of the Zuni live below the poverty line; you'd have to flat-out hustle to make a living at all. 

  When we compared notes on the jarring discordance we'd experienced, all we could do was look down, shake our heads in wonder...and wonder some more.