6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 60 



Nordenskiold refers to the use of cotton by the Hopis as follows : 



Among the productions of the Moki industry we first remark the textile 

 fabrics. Both of wool and cotton they weave mantles, blankets and rugs of 

 artistic designs. Cotton they formerly cultivated at home, but now find it 

 more convenient to buy the cloth ready made at the store. 1 



MODERN CULTIVATION BY THE HOPIS 



At the small village of Moenkopi, which is now included in the 

 Western Navajo Reservation, there are abundant springs and water 

 available for the irrigation of the Indians' fields. A long arm of the 

 Upper Sonoran life zone here projects up from the south and makes 

 cotton raising possible. 



According to Mr. C. R. Jefferis, Superintendent of the Western 

 Navajo School at Tuba, Arizona, a considerable amount of cotton 

 was formerly grown at this point and it was spun and woven into gar- 

 ments by the Indians living here and in other villages of the reserva- 

 tion, but at present very little is grown. 



Near the village of Oraibi, on the Moqui Reservation 2 about fifty 

 miles to the eastward, the cultivation of cotton on a small scale is 

 carried on by the Indians as a regular crop in their pueblo gardens 

 near the village, without any irrigation whatever. This is corrob- 

 orated by Mr. Frank A. Thackeray, Supervisor of Schools, and by the 

 Rev. H. R. Voth, for several years a missionary at Oraibi. 



The cotton raised at Oraibi is worthy of careful study as that is 

 probably the only Tusayan pueblo, at present inhabited, which occu- 

 pies practically the same site that it did in 1540, when it was dis- 

 covered by Pedro de Tobar of Coronado's expedition. 



Mr. Lorenzo Hubbel, who conducts the trading post at Ream's 

 Canyon, Arizona, writes that the Hopi Indians have given up the 

 cultivation of cotton. According to Mr. Hubbel, they have for some 

 time past been buying cotton batting from the traders and spinning it 

 instead of that of their own raising, and that at present they are 

 giving up the custom of buying the raw cotton in favor of cotton yarn 

 spun at the mills. 



EXPERIMENTS WITH HOPI COTTON 



The Hopi cotton has been grown for study and for breeding experi- 

 ments by the I T . S. Department of Agriculture for the past seven 



1 Nordenskiold, G. : Cliff-Dwellers of the Mesa Verde, 1893, p. 141. 



2 The official designation of the Office of Indian Affairs in the Interior De- 

 partment. The Indians and the ethnologists much prefer the name " Hopi " 

 (the good people), instead of "Moqui" (dead man), which is used as a term 

 > if repr< iach. 



