NAVIGATION

Better than any other North American tribe the Hopis have managed to preserve their culture and adapt to the challenge of the ‘white man’. Hopi art is one of the oldest surviving artistic traditions in North America and has a unique importance in contemporary American art. Vital, colourful and rooted in deep and abiding religious meaning, in ancient myths and symbols that achieve a synthesis of past and present, Hopi art continues to have a special cultural relevance and power. Some of their petroglyphs and Kachina figures, although over 2000 years old, are immediately recognisable to the modern eye.
Hopi Indian pueblo dances are the dramatised expression of a prayer to the spirits and are formal, elaborate and disciplined. They usually take place outdoors and consist of processions of masked dancers inspired by the ‘Kachinas’ who symbolise the spirits and power of nature. In the Hopi world it is impossible to separate the activities of daily life, religious observances and artistic creation.