| FROM THE ORIGINAL UPLOADER: Here are some videos I came across one day. They were taken in 1986 at an elementary school. I found it very weird to watch it 23 years later and see how much the world had changed. I'll bet the man is still alive. He can definitely understand it now better than in 1986. The following was taken from a description from the 5th video in the list: The Hopi maintain a complex religious and mythological tradition stretching back over centuries. However, it is difficult to definitively state what all Hopis as a group believe. Like the oral traditions of many other societies, Hopi mythology is not always told consistently and each Hopi mesa, or even each village, may have its own version of a particular story. But, "in essence the variants of the Hopi myth bear marked similarity to one another." It is also not clear that those stories which are told to non-Hopis, such as anthropologists and ethnographers, represent genuine Hopi beliefs or are merely stories told to the curious while keeping safe the Hopi's more sacred doctrines. As folklorist Harold Courlander states, "there is a Hopi reticence about discussing matters that could be considered ritual secrets or religion-oriented traditions." David Roberts continues that "the secrecy that lies at the heart of Puebloan [including Hopi] life...long predates European contact, forming an intrinsic feature of the culture." In addition, the Hopis have always been willing to assimilate foreign religious ideas ... |
