Hopi

No turning back

• "Why haven't you bought white man's beds to sleep on? And a table?"
• Polingiasi nie wróci do głodu i braku piasania: ""I won't! I won't go back to the life of a pagan. Never, never again. I've worked for this education you ridicule. At Riverside, I scrubbed miles of dirty floors while I was learning a little about reading and writing and arithmetic. After I learned to sew, I made dresses for others, bending over the sewing machine while the other girls slept, to earn money for my own dresses."I've worked hard for everything I have. It has not been easy for me to learn this new way of living. Do you think I'll go back to sleeping on the floor and eating out of a single pot? Do you think I want to have a household of children who are always hungry and in rags, as I was in my childhood?"
• Brytyjczycy obcinają włosy Hopi: "When the white men came, they insisted that the Hopi men have their long hair cut. When they refused, the white men cut their hair by force, disgracing them in the eyes of their people."
• Tęsknota za dawnym: "when she finished talking about the ways of home, she was lonely, with the strange loneliness of one who feels he has lost something but isn't quite sure what it is that is missing"
• Rasizm: "We don't serve colored."
• "Even when he called the manager and told him Polingaysi was a true American native, an American Indian, the waitress glared at Polingaysi."
• "the German women had plenty of water, with windmills furnishing the pumping power, their bright blades turning as the prairie wind blew. The Hopi women still carried water, from the spring at Old Oraibi and from the village spring at New Oraib"
• Hopi nie znali datę i nie wiedzieli ile mają lat: "They thought it a joke at first, then were shocked to discover that she did not know her birthdate, except that it was sometime in the spring of the year.What were dates to the old-time Hopi? What did days and months mean to them"
• "What could she do, she asked herself, to prove that she wanted to help them, and that the white man's way was the one right way?"
• "white men had cut their hair. Worst of all, she had seen women stripped and marched through a dipping vat like so many cattle, becauseso the white man claimedan epidemic threatened the reservation residents. This was a thing no Hopi woman could forgive."
• "It was a surprise to them to see women of all ages busily working on baby clothes, quilts, aprons, dresses, and other articles for distribution to needy Indian homes"
• "Polingaysi and her friend Minnie were excited to be riding in a Pullman, but a trifle ill at ease when white people turned upon them questioning and disapproving glances. Now and then someone asked them point-blank about their racial strain. They were glad to reach the Mennonite communities, where dark skin raised no questions and brought no indignant stares"
• "She thought she had never seen anything more beautiful than Mount Vernon, or more fascinating than the work of glass blowers at the glass factory in Altoona, Pennsylvania."
• Epidemia: "The note informed the Kayenta principal that a wave of influenza had struck Tuba City. All but three of the children and most of the employees were sick in bed."
• Dlaczego nawajo pozostał z białymi: "She knew well why he remained in school so placidly, eating three good meals a day, living in a warm, clean dormitory, and receiving good clothing. It was better than the hard, cold work of herding sheep in winter out on the reservation."
• Warunki życia służących w USA w XIX wieku: "She and the housekeeper had to share a room. The chauffeur slept over the garage."
• Ale zadowolona z wynagrodzenia: "Her salary was excellent."
• Ma nawet oszczędności: "She had a thousand dollars in the bank"
• Nawet dom chce budować: "She was a woman now, in her late twenties and beginning to crave the security of her own four walls, but she had no conception of building costs"
• "Reach them, then teach them"
• "A true Hopi is a part of the universe and must keep himself in balance," she had been told. "All things, animate and inanimate, have life and being. A true Hopi tries to be aware of the deep spiritual essence that is at the heart of all things. All things have inner meaning and form and power. The Hopi must reach into nature and help it to move forward in its cycles, harmoniously and beautifully."
• "How could she, insignificant as she was in the scheme of things, bring her people a realization of the good in their old culture, now that she had finally realized it herself ? Could she, perhaps, help to blend the best of the Hopi culture with the best of the white culture, retaining the essence of good from both?"
• Filozofia Hopi: "Through her mind flitted the Hopi tenet of nonresistance. Don't fight. Don't think spiteful things about others. Don't try to get even when they hurt you. To seek revenge is to hurt yourself more than you hurt them."
• Podobieństwo filozofii Hopi i chrześcijaństwa: "She thought that over as she walked slowly homeward. That was in essence the teaching of the missionaries. Turn the other cheek. Love those who despitefully use you. Yet, strangely enough, the missionaries had been unable to see any good in the Hopi culture pattern whose teachings were so similar."
• We must have clean faces.

We must not have sores on our bodies.  
We must not have bugs on us. 
We must wear clean clothes. 
We must polish our shoes. 
We must have our hair cut. 
We must not be ashamed to speak English. 
We must not be afraid of white people

• Zmiana pojęcia czasu: "For centuries time had been of no importance to the Indian. The sun rose, the sun set. The Indian worked or hunted, danced or played, while there was light; when darkness came, he slept. No clocks had ticked in the rock homes of Polingaysi's ancient people. They lacked the white man's conception of time. There were changes of the moon, changes of the seasons; but no one counted the hours. Now the Hopi must learn to respect the busy clock and be controlled by the circuiting hands. Not to conform was to be thrown off balance. The old days were gone forever. One must face the new."
• "Evaluate the best there is in your own culture and hang onto it, for it will always be foremost in your life; but do not fail to take also the best from other cultures to blend with what you already have."

Bibliografia

• Elizabeth Q. White, Polingaysi Qoyawayma, No Turning Back. A Hopi Indian Woman's Struggle to Live in Two Worlds