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.Although the Hopis had resolved the immediate crisis albeitat a high price the problem of not having control over their liveswould continue to plague them for the remainder of the century.Immediately after the Hostiles left Oraibi in September 1906and moved to Hotevilla, U.S.authorities began to exert controlover the new Hopi community.Leaders of the Hostiles, includingYokeoma and other clan chiefs, were arrested and imprisoned atFort Wingate.One of the main irritants between the Hopis and the U.S.government continued to be the issue of education.The governmentchose to focus its energies on education because it believed that if5960 THE HOPIHopi children were taught in schools, they would eventuallyabandon their own cultural traditions and follow instead theAnglo-American way of life.To accomplish this goal, schools for Hopi children were setup in Keams Canyon rather than in Native villages.This forcedthe children to live where the schools were and separated themfrom their families.Every effort was made to strip them of theirown culture and to impose Anglo-American culture in itsplace.Their Hopi clothing was taken away, and they wereforced to wear Anglo-style clothing.They were forced to attendChristian religious classes and participate in church services.Finally, they were even forbidden to speak the Hopi language.Children caught speaking Hopi, whether in classrooms, play-grounds, or dormitories, were slapped or whipped.So intent was the government on carrying out its policy ofsupplanting Hopi culture that force was used.Soldiers arrivedin Hotevilla, rounded up all of the children, and took them tothe Keams Canyon school under military escort.In the auto-biography of Helen Sekaquaptewa, a Hopi woman who waseight years old at the time, the author relates how the childrenreacted to their predicament:  Evenings we would gather in acorner and cry softly so that the matron would not hear andscold or spank us.I can still hear the plaintive little voicessaying  I want to go home.I want my mother. Although schoolchildren from most Hopi villages wereallowed to return home for summer vacations, boys and girlsfrom Hotevilla were kept in school year-round.The forcedseparation of Hotevilla parents and children was both a punish-ment for the parents objections to government policies and anattempt to wean the children from their own traditions.Instead of spending their summers at home, speaking theirNative language, and participating in Hopi religious life,children from Hotevilla worked in the homes of Keams Canyon sAnglo residents.Government officials, ministers, and traderscontracted with the schools for the children s services.GirlsAdjusting to Change 61carried out domestic tasks such as cleaning and cooking, whileboys ran errands and did manual work around the house.Hopi men who continued to object to the government sactions were arrested and jailed in Keams Canyon.In all,seventy men were sentenced for up to one year of hard labor.Helen Sekaquaptewa noted that she frequently saw her fatherand the other prisoners walk past the schoolyard on theirway to the labor camp.She commented:  They were fastenedtogether in twos with ball and chain.They were not ashamed oftheir condition because they knew in their hearts they haddone nothing wrong; they had only protested having their livesinterfered with.Over the next few years, the government expanded itseducational program by opening day schools in Shongopaviand other villages.As before, many parents did not want tosend their children to school; and, again, soldiers arrived toescort the children.Once again, the Hopi men who objectedwere arrested and imprisoned.Since the schools in Keams Canyon and the Hopi villagesonly provided education through the sixth grade, older childrenwere sent out of the region to other schools.Most teenagersattended either the Phoenix Indian School in Phoenix,Arizona; the Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kansas; or theSherman Indian School in Riverside, California.In additionto offering academic and vocational classes, these schoolsorganized work programs for students in the summertime.Teenagers were hired by agricultural businesses to work aslaborers on farms in Colorado and California.(For additionalinformation on these schools, enter  American Indian Board-ing Schools into any search engine and browse the manysites listed.)Then, in 1939, the first Hopi high school was opened inthe village of Oraibi.After that time, teenagers could completetheir education locally rather than having to attend distantboarding schools.62 THE HOPIBeginning in the late 1800s, the U.S.government adopted a policy of assimilationwhere it attempted to strip the Hopis of their culture by sending children to schoolssuch as the Phoenix Indian School (shown here).Once they arrived, they were forcedto wear Anglo-style clothing, attend Christian religious classes and participate inchurch services, and were even forbidden to speak the Hopi language.During the early years of the twentieth century, the federalgovernment introduced a variety of other programs on theHopi Reservation.In 1913, a hospital was opened in KeamsCanyon for treatment of Hopi and Navajo Indians.Clinicsstaffed by nurses and doctors on a rotating basis were startedin some of the villages.Other government projects addressedeconomic conditions on the Hopi Reservation.In an attemptto improve agricultural production, the government providedfunds for drilling wells and for building irrigation ditches andflood-control dikes.Finally, in response to an outbreak of skindisease among the sheep owned by Hopi herders, a programof sheep-dipping was started in the late 1920s.Once a year,owners of livestock took their sheep to sheep-dips where theAdjusting to Change 63animals were washed with a medicinal solution to protect themfrom infection.Federal policy toward Native Americans took an impor-tant new direction in the 1930s [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]