Fire Worship of the Hopi Indians

589-610 pp. Academic offprint. Includes 13 plates. The Hopi Indians of Arizona, perhaps the most direct descendants of the Mesa Verde Cliff Dwellers, have until recent years, looked upon fire as a form of vitality, a living thing, gift of the gods, a gift to be kept holy and sacred. Fire is associated with the sun, both having the common attribute of heat and warmth, the element necessary to the germination and growth of all life. To control fire is, in a way, to control the sun. To control the sun is to have power over life itself — crops may be made to mature and yield; nations made strong by rapid reproduction; the sick healed by the application of heat; wounds cured with the ashes of fire. With this conception of fire the Hopi Indians developed a rather elaborate and complex ceremony, dealing with the mysterious as well as the germinative and curative powers of the forces of heat and light. According to the late J. Walter Fewkes, Fire Worship among the Indians was practiced until about 1923 and it formed a very important part of the Hopi ritual. - NPS History