Five decades ago, a young Hopi underwent a grueling journey as part of a traditional initiation ceremony near the winter solstice. He recently recalled the experience to author Scott Thybony, and talked about how the test of his endurance and commitment to the Hopi way taught him humility. Thybony reflects on the story in his most recent Canyon Commentary.
Utterly exhausted, the young Hopi faced a climb up the dark mass of First Mesa. His ceremonial journey had begun a few days before winter solstice during the long hours of darkness. Carrying forty pounds of ritual items on his back, he had been pushing hard for eighteen hours. To bring his ordeal to an end required reaching a kiva in the pueblo of Walpi hundreds of feet above. “That was one of the toughest things in my life I had to do,” Delfred Leslie recalled. “I just barely made it.”
The retired tribal judge and I met in Flagstaff where he related his experiences during the initiation. “This is something I want to share with you,” he said. “What I tell you is nothing esoteric. It can be talked about. These are the things I want to preserve.”
In 1972 the First Mesa leaders combined two ceremonies to revive the initiation rite after a lapse of forty years. Delfred was one of six candidates chosen to undergo an ordeal meant to test his commitment to the Hopi way. The twenty-two year old prepared himself by running up the mesa as much as possible, lifting weights, and exposing himself to extremes of weather.
“It was a nine-day ceremony,” he said. “All of those nine days are spent in the kiva away from your family. Nine days of fasting with no salt, no sugar, no red meat. You eat in the kiva, you sleep in the kiva, everything is kiva.”
The journey began on the fourth day, December 18. At 3:00 in the morning the initiates were led down to the foot of the mesa as flakes of snow swirled in the darkness. “The temperature was in the teens,” he recalled. “The six of us went down, and we got to a place where all the leaders were waiting for us. They blessed us and told us, ‘Go from here until you are told to come back.’” An older man, surprisingly fit, kept them moving at a fast pace, almost a run. “’Move it, move it,’ he told us. ‘You got to do it. Don’t give up.’”
After reaching the turnaround point they headed back to First Mesa. Only two initiates remained. When Delfred started up the trail to the mesatop his pants and shoes were frozen, his hands numb with cold. The sweat in his hair had turned to ice. Reaching the stone steps, he collapsed from sheer exhaustion and intense physical pain. “I was sweating profusely despite the freezing winter evening,” he said. “I told myself in Hopi, ‘Don’t give up . . . please.’” In the cold and dark, he crawled twenty yards up the steps to the ceremonial plaza. “I was about to give up,” he continued. “I struggled to get to the steps of the kiva. I crawled up there. When I finally made it to the roof of the kiva they called my name. I was home.”
He was so stiff the men inside had to help him climb down the ladder into the warmth of the ceremonial chamber. “They put me in a place to sit. I sat down and within ten minutes I found myself sleeping. The old man came. He said, ‘Wake up. You can’t sleep now.”
By completing the initiation he became a full-fledged Hopi entrusted with learning the deeper aspects of their tradition. The ordeal also taught him humility.
“I thought I was tough,” he said. “I thought I could do it, but it was hard on me, very hard. It made me humble in that way.” Through his suffering he realized something essential. “The difficult in life,” the Hopi said, “just makes you stronger, makes you durable, makes you everlasting.”
Scott Thybony is a Flagstaff-based writer. His Canyon Commentaries are produced by KNAU Arizona Public Radio.
