Hopi

Thank you for your editorial on the plight of the Hopi tribe (April 16). To think that the Peabody Western Coal Co. continues using ground water to transport its coal when it may destroy a culture that has existed for almost a thousand years. And conservatives wonder why people still consider Big Business to be immoral! ROBERT SCHMIDT Culver City

CAMERON, ARIZ.--This is the land where Larry Gordy was destined to live, until it was made unlivable. The Navajo believe that a person will always be tied to the place where his or her umbilical cord is buried. When Gordy was born in 1968, his father put his in this rust-colored dirt. It was here on the family's ranch on the edge of the Painted Desert that his father dreamed of one day building homes for his children, and of tilling a field where watermelon and corn could grow.

A third-generation Hopi kachina artist from Polacca, Ariz., E.J. Satala has been carving the figures--symbolizing the culture of his people--since the age of 12. But now he performs his craft in his apartment in Long Beach, carefully working the cottonwood root that he brought with him from his native land, using a pocket knife, Exacto blades and wood files to bring out the detail. "What are you going to be?" Satala often asks, softly, as he begins to carve.

Emory Sekaquaptewa, 78, an anthropologist, judge and artist who was called the "Noah Webster of the Hopi Nation," died Dec. 14, the University of Arizona announced. Tribal officials confirmed his death, but the location and cause were not disclosed. Although his birth date was never recorded, he was believed to have been born in 1928 and celebrated his birthdays on Dec. 28, the university said. Born at Hotevilla, Ariz., on the Hopi Nation's Third Mesa, Sekaquaptewa attended the U.S.

Hopi tribal officials believe they are close to solving the 13-year-old theft of their altar pieces from the Arizona village of Mishongnovi (View, June 8). Angeline Williams is the ailing 79-year-old matriarch of the family responsible for keeping ceremonial items safe. (It is believed the items were sold on the burgeoning black market for Indian artifacts.) After her story appeared in The Times, tribal officials received more than 50 calls and a dozen letters. One call resulted in the tribe and the Williams family joining forces to hire a Los Angeles private eye to work the case.

Southern California Edison's explanation that Navajo elders are attempting to use the water issue to gain leverage in a decades-old land dispute with the Hopi (May 2) is pure Hollywood, another way of saying "those pesky savages are on the warpath with each other again and we white folks are innocent bystanders." For decades, Navajo and Hopi lived well enough together on what marginal land was allotted to them. Then Peabody Coal Co. needed legal authorization to mine on the reservation.

Re "The Shame Continues at Big Mountain," by Alexander Cockburn, Commentary, April 27: The Big Mountain controversy is not a 100-year-old disagreement between the Hopi and Navajo. It is the culmination of a millennium of Southwest Indian history. Until the arrival of the Spanish, most Southwest tribes were on an even footing. Most were nomadic and had few permanent homes. The Navajo and Apache tribes were the most successful at using the 16th century technology (read: horses) that the Spanish brought.

With all of the misery this record-breaking rainy season has brought, it's a shame that it is only the second-wettest on record. That is like kissing your sister. It seems that to compensate for all of the woe that the rains have brought, we should at least get to No. 1. Perhaps we should ask for a Hopi rain dance team to come help ensure that we get some glory from all of the catastrophe. James R. Helms Jr. Arcadia

This is the land where Larry Gordy was destined to live, until it was made unlivable. The Navajo believe that a person will always be tied to the place where his or her umbilical cord is buried. When Gordy was born in 1968, his father put his in this rust-colored dirt. It was here on the family's ranch on the edge of the Painted Desert that his father dreamed of one day building homes for his children, and of tilling a field where watermelon and corn could grow. But the Gordys were forced to put their dreams on hold.

A sixteen-year-old girl brings a heart-shaped box to her Arizona high school English class. The box contains the cremated remains of the girl's mother, who died two years before. While showing the ashes to a girlfriend, the teenager inadvertently spills some of the ashes on the floor. The next day, 100 students are absent from the school. What went wrong?

Former Hopi Chairman Ferrell Secakuku, 69, who helped resolve a longtime land dispute between his tribe and the Navajo Nation, died Wednesday at a friend's home in Flagstaff, Ariz., said his daughter, Kim. He had suffered from cancer. Born in the Village of Sipaulovi, Secakuku was chairman of the Hopi Tribe from 1994 to 1997.

"I see you are drawing a picture of Maahu, my son," Sun Flower said. "You have done well to show his narrow shoulders and humped back, but where is his leena [flute]?" Friends crowded around to view the figure as Butterfly Boy scratched two lines in the dirt to make a flute. They recognized the curved back and insect-like head of Maahu. The boys gathered by the fire. They were eager to hear Sun Flower's tale.

A rifle hangs under Pauline Whitesinger's mud-packed timber ceiling. It's placed within easy reach so she can scare off the coyotes that threaten her sheep. But there have been times when she's imagined other uses. "Maybe we should have set up firearms at our doorways so we could defend our homes," she said in her native Navajo language, as translated by her nephew Danny Blackgoat. Whitesinger lives like her ancestors did, in an eight-sided juniper hogan in the reaches of Big Mountain, Ariz.

Members of two Arizona Indian tribes asked regulators Wednesday to order Southern California Edison Co. to pay them as much as $40 million a year to make up for job losses and other economic fallout from the shutdown of the massive Mohave power plant on Dec. 31.

With all of the misery this record-breaking rainy season has brought, it's a shame that it is only the second-wettest on record. That is like kissing your sister. It seems that to compensate for all of the woe that the rains have brought, we should at least get to No. 1. Perhaps we should ask for a Hopi rain dance team to come help ensure that we get some glory from all of the catastrophe. James R. Helms Jr. Arcadia

Sean Patrick Reily's article "Gathering Clouds" (June 6) is an excellent account of the Hopi and Navajo's grass-roots struggle to save the Navajo aquifer. The importance of the aquifer to our cultural and spiritual life cannot be overstated. I wish to add a few points: First, the struggle to protect our water from corporate exploitation is not over. Also, the possible closure of Southern California Edison's Mohave Generating Station and the subsequent closure of Black Mesa mine do not necessarily mean an economic meltdown.

So Will likes consumerism; nothing surprising there. Among the appalling aspects of the column was Will's assertion that Puritan and Quaker critiques of consumerism were "homespun." I assume by that he means of American origin. Just for the historical record, the Quakers and Puritans left Europe with their anti-materialist ideals well-defined. A genuinely indigenous American critique of consumerism that Will didn't mention was the Hopi belief that people who take more from the Earth than they actually need doom themselves and everything that shares the Earth with them.

THE PUEBLO artists of the American Southwest have created ceramics that, in form and design, compare favorably with pottery made in more sophisticated parts of the world. These artists functioned--and still function--without the aid of a potter's wheel. The Indians who have occupied pueblos in Arizona and New Mexico for nearly 2,000 years were the first North Americans to create true pottery. Best-known of the pueblos are those of the Hopi in Arizona and, in New Mexico, those of the Zuni, Acoma, Laguna, Santa Clara and San Ildefonso Indians.

"Somewhere far away from us, people have no understanding that their demand for cheap electricity, air conditioning and lights 24 hours a day have contributed to the imbalance of this very delicate place." -- Nicole Horseherder, Navajo, Black Mesa * For years upon years beneath star-heavy skies, the Navajo awakened before the sun rose over northeastern Arizona's Black Mesa to guide their sheep to the natural waters of desert washes and springs to beat the overwhelming heat of day.