51
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
E. Boutsikas et al. (eds.), Advancing Cultural Astronomy, Historical & Cultural
Astronomy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64606-6_4
The Hopi Calendar and Some
Archaeological Correlates of Horizon
Markers
Stephen C. McCluskey
1 Introduction
Since I began studying Hopi astronomy, I have been trying to unravel the details of
the horizon calendars of the major Hopi villages. Documentary sources, academic
publications, and fieldwork at Hopi provided many clues to the calendars, which led
to a general understanding of the framework of the First Mesa horizon calendar
(McCluskey, 1990). However, as late as 1996, when Clive Ruggles and I visited
Walpi Pueblo to see its scarcely perceptible horizon calendar, I still did not fully
understand the details of the planting calendar at First Mesa.
Each Hopi village regulates the times of planting and of some ceremonies using
observations of the Sun at natural markers on its own local horizon (Ellis, 1975).
This discussion primarily considers the horizon calendar used at the First Mesa
S. C. McCluskey (*)
Department of History, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, USA
e-mail: stephen.mccluskey@mail.wvu.edu
We follow [the days] on calendar, but they follow on rocks, by
markers.
Elsie Clews Parsons (1920)
Hopi cosmology is utterly entrenched in the proximate
landscape; it is not a cosmology, like that of a world religion
such as Christianity or of a nomadic society such as the Navajo,
which is easily transportable from one geographic locale to
another.
Peter Whiteley (1989: 84)
Then the sun rises at the “announcement point” [tingappi].
And when it has risen at that marker [tuvoyla] there, the person
who announces Wuwtsim alone knows it, and therefore people
learn of it after he has announced it.
Anonymous Hopi (Malotki, 1983: 453–454)
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
E. Boutsikas et al. (eds.), Advancing Cultural Astronomy, Historical & Cultural
Astronomy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64606-6_4
The Hopi Calendar and Some
Archaeological Correlates of Horizon
Markers
Stephen C. McCluskey
1 Introduction
Since I began studying Hopi astronomy, I have been trying to unravel the details of
the horizon calendars of the major Hopi villages. Documentary sources, academic
publications, and fieldwork at Hopi provided many clues to the calendars, which led
to a general understanding of the framework of the First Mesa horizon calendar
(McCluskey, 1990). However, as late as 1996, when Clive Ruggles and I visited
Walpi Pueblo to see its scarcely perceptible horizon calendar, I still did not fully
understand the details of the planting calendar at First Mesa.
Each Hopi village regulates the times of planting and of some ceremonies using
observations of the Sun at natural markers on its own local horizon (Ellis, 1975).
This discussion primarily considers the horizon calendar used at the First Mesa
S. C. McCluskey (*)
Department of History, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, USA
e-mail: stephen.mccluskey@mail.wvu.edu
We follow [the days] on calendar, but they follow on rocks, by
markers.
Elsie Clews Parsons (1920)
Hopi cosmology is utterly entrenched in the proximate
landscape; it is not a cosmology, like that of a world religion
such as Christianity or of a nomadic society such as the Navajo,
which is easily transportable from one geographic locale to
another.
Peter Whiteley (1989: 84)
Then the sun rises at the “announcement point” [tingappi].
And when it has risen at that marker [tuvoyla] there, the person
who announces Wuwtsim alone knows it, and therefore people
learn of it after he has announced it.
Anonymous Hopi (Malotki, 1983: 453–454)