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Show EVERYDAY LIFE IN PUEBLO BONITO 233 Photograph by Charles Mai tin THE HOPI VILLAGE OE WALPI, ARIZONA Walpi (the Place of the Notch) is one of the oldest of the still inhabited Hopi villages. It was one of the group of towns visited by the Spaniards in the middle of the 16th century, when they first came to know of this tribe. It is probable, however, that the old pueblo of Walpi was abandoned about 1680 and the present one established on the near-by mesa. northward out of Mexico in 1540, and these very same canals are now used, in part at least, by white settlers of the region. But in Chaco Canyon different methods obtained, since without living streams canals were scarcely feasible. Flood waters that roared down from the mesas following torrential midsummer showers were caught by low ridges of earth surrounding even the smallest inclosures, sometimes only a few yards square, wherever corn and beans would grow. By this system of inundation moisture was concentrated in the cultivated areas. Because water is such a fugitive blessing, the present Indian population of the northern desert country has likewise learned the wisdom of using flood irrigation. The Hopi, Zuiii, and Navajo all profit to-day through the hard-won experience of their forefathers (see p. 260). In prehistoric Bonito there existed a curious division of domestic responsibility. "Woman's Rights" were already recognized and in vogue. The head of the Bonitian household was the wife and mother, not the husband. Times have changed since then, but history tends always to repeat itself! Bonitian fathers |