In this month’s Canyon Commentary, author Scott Thybony ponders the ancient story of a Hopi boy who embarks on an epic adventure on the Colorado River in order save his people from drought. In researching the tale, Thybony, a former river guide, unlocked a profound connection to the past.
Days on the river brought me a few miles below Lava Falls. With no rapids ahead, my thoughts drifted to a story from the Hopi mesas. In it a young man had floated down the Colorado River through Grand Canyon many centuries ago. And knowing the river, I had some idea of the dangers he must have faced.
The Hopi call him Tiyo, their word for boy. At the time certain clans lived near a mountain known as Tokonavi during an extreme drought. From the edge of a cliff Tiyo often watched the Colorado River running deep in the gorge below. It flowed without letup and kept flowing, leading him to wonder where it went. In a desperate attempt to help his people, he decided to find out and learn the secret of bringing rain.
To read more about Tiyo’s epic journey I headed to the library when I got off the river. Versions of the story, I learned, had begun appearing in print during the 1880s. A couple of them went into detail about how the boat was made from a hollow cottonwood log and the various prayer feathers needed for whatever situations he might encounter. The stories described how the young Hopi had floated into the unknown and his dramatic encounters with otherworldly beings. But they said very little about the river at its wildest, the canyon at its most overwhelming. It became clear that what I found interesting as a river guide held little significance for the Hopi themselves.
Then an account told by the head priest of the Antelope Clan at First Mesa caught my eye. Tiyo, he said, “floated over smooth waters and swift-rushing torrents, plunged down cataracts, and for many days spun through wild whirlpools, where black rocks protruded their heads like angry bears.” His description matched the river I knew.
Tiyo kept drifting until arriving at the open sea where he left his boat and continued on foot. Alone in a world far different than his homeland, he was tested to his limits. His survival ultimately depended on Old Spider Woman, a Hopi deity who became his guardian spirit. Eventually he reached a great kiva filled with a writhing mass of rattlesnakes. After shedding their skins, they took on human forms. The Snake chief decided to initiate Tiyo into a ceremonial society where he learned the ritual of bringing rain. The young Hopi turned toward home with the Snake Girl as his wife. They traveled overland to reach his people at Tokonavi, now known as Navajo Mountain. Tiyo taught them the Snake Dance ceremony and soon the rains returned.
Hearing about a mural at Desert View depicting the river journey of Tiyo, I headed to Grand Canyon to take a look. The Watchtower rises seventy feet above a river-cut gorge nearly a mile deep. Inside I climbed up the first set of stairs and entered a room filled with dramatic images mostly copied from ancient rock art. But a circular mural, an original work, dominated the gallery. In it, Hopi artist Fred Kabotie had painted four scenes taken from the story of Tiyo told to him by his grandmother.
The mural depicts the epic river journey beginning in the upper left quadrant with Tiyo holding the prayer feathers given to him by his father. The upper right shows his boat floating through Grand Canyon among the broken waves with cliff walls stepping upward on each side. The bottom right quadrant has the chief of the Rattlesnake Clan teaching Tiyo the ceremony to bring rain. And on the bottom left Tiyo returns home with the Snake Girl.
The Hopi account connected me as a river guide to a much older tradition. By pushing into the current, I became part of the same flowing river Tiyo had taken to the sea long ago.
Scott Thybony is a Flagstaff-based writer. His Canyon Commentaries are produced by KNAU Arizona Public Radio and air on the last Friday of each month.
