10 days of family, food, mud fights
2 years of planning comes down to this
“Askwali!” one woman shouts.
Her words trigger a chain reaction inside the house as an assembly line of women shouts the same phrase while moving wedding gifts into a back room.
“Askwali” is how Hopi women say thank you in their native language. For men, it’s “kwakwhay.”
These words fill the air every day for 10 days as dozens of family members of Kara Honanie and Lester Honanveama work together to host a traditional Hopi wedding.
“This is one of the ceremonies that we do,” says Watson Honanie, father of the bride. “This is all Hopi history.”
The bride, Kara, is from Hotevilla and the groom, Lester, is from Moenkopi. Both villages are on Hopi Nation land in the northeastern part of Arizona.
The couple have been together for 15 years, and Kara says she always knew she’d have a traditional Hopi wedding.
“It’s a lifetime commitment, memorable and it
was nice to have family gathering from the beginning to the end,” she adds.
The Honanie family invited the Arizona Republic to witness the 10-day event and share their traditions in text and photo.
The Hopi Tribe is a sovereign nation of more than 13,000 whose reservation occupies part of Coconino and Navajo counties, and it is made up of 12 villages on three mesas, according to the tribe’s website.
Having a traditional Hopi wedding is not easy. It takes a lot of work from both sides of the family and their relatives.
“It’s something that you should be proud of for the rest of your life,” says Sarah Honanie, mother of the bride. “This is a real true Hopi way of life, this marriage.”
It took the Honanie family two years to plan because they need to give themselves enough time to prepare all the corn, gifts and food needed for the wedding.
Preparation started when the Honanie family planted blue, white and sweet corn. They harvested hundreds of corn leaves, corn husks and ears of corn to be stored for the wedding.
“You have to have corn to get married in Hopi,” Sarah says. “If you don’t have corn, I don’t know how you’ll do it.”
The corn leaves and corn husks are used to make the traditional Hopi sweet blue corn bread called somiviki. The bread is made using blue corn, juniper ashes, sugar and boiling water. The dough is then rolled in the leaves or husk and steamed.
From August to early December 2018, the Honanie family prepped the corn for the wedding, shelling, cleaning, crushing it all by hand. Afterward, they take the cooked corn to be ground at a mill.
“Everything is from the fields and with your hands. It’s hard work to prepare all this stuff,” Sarah says.
After the corn, the piki bread is made. Piki bread is a paper-thin blue corn bread cooked over a fire using a stone cooktop. Every day, from December to mid-February, they make piki bread. They fill more than 85 medium-sized cardboard boxes.
By the beginning of March, they are ready.
The traditional teachings used by the Honanie family at the wedding have been passed down for generations. When Sarah got married, her mother told her to keep notes, so she’d be ready for both of her daughters’ weddings.
“This is all from my mom’s history,” she says. “It’s been handed down generation to generation.”
On March 19, Kara gets ready to travel the 46 miles from her home to her inlaws in Moenkopi.
Everything the bride wears during her wedding is borrowed. Kara dons her sister’s wedding manta, a black oneshoulder textile dress, as well as three capes, provided by her mom and aunts.
Her hair is combed by her aunts and fixed into the Hopi butterfly whorl hairstyle, two large buns twisted up on each side, using her mother’s hair ties made out of black sheep wool. After she’s ready, her uncles give her a pep talk and offer cornmeal for encouragement.
Kara travels to her in-law’s house in Moenkopi, where she stays for nine days.
On the fourth day, people gather at
“This is all from my mom’s history . ... It’s been handed down generation to generation.” Sarah Honanie Mother of the bride
the groom’s family home.
By the end of the day, the house will have mud splattered across the front door and muddy handprints will be smeared across the windows. No one is bothered by the mess because many had a hand in it.
This is how it starts.
Walking behind a Hopi police car, dozens of the groom’s female relatives march up the dirt road with determination.
Over the wailing of the police siren, the women can be heard whooping or yelling. A few even shout “Run, Kara!” as they walk. Some carry buckets full of mud, and others hold up cardboard signs.
Piled together in front of the house, other women from the groom’s family taunt the approaching women. Then, the first heap of mud is thrown, and the women scream as they are attacked with more mud. The air quickly fills with shrieks, laughter and mud.
It’s a teasing and playful part of a traditional Hopi wedding that shows the mother-in-law and the rest of the family that they care for Lester, Sarah says. It’s usually a fight between the women from the groom’s family and other relatives.
The fight is all in good fun, but that doesn’t stop the women from aggressively covering people with mud.
When the excitement dies down, the crowd separates and a howling erupts from the women in the groom’s family who stand in front of the house. The group of women walking back down the road responds with a growl, bringing the mud fight to an end.
Mud cakes the women’s hair and splatters across their jeans. A slew of cardboard signs lean against the house and litter the ground with words all aimed at the bride.
“Nothin’ messes up your Friday like finding out Kara’s going to be your mewii,” one sign reads. Mewii is the Hopi word for a female in-law. More teasing from the aunties in the groom’s family.
The family may not wash the mud off the house after the fight. They have to rely on the rain to do it for them.
Later, after everyone cleans off the mud, they gather in front of the house and watch a line of vehicles slowly drive up the mesa.
It’s a tradition for the bride’s family to travel from their village to the groom’s home with food and gifts. The Honanie family drove 46 miles with trucks full of cornmeal, Blue Bird flour, pastries and piki bread.
The amount given is determined by Gloria Phillips, the groom’s mother, and it will be handed out to people who helped during the wedding. The groom’s family keeps a detailed list of everyone who donated and helped. Everyone on that list receives some of the food and gifts.
The vehicles stop down the road from the groom’s family home. This is where Sarah, wrapped in a dark blue shawl, will quietly lead a chain of women up the dirt road, each one holding a cardboard box full of piki bread.
As she approaches the house, Sarah and the women are met with resounding calls of “askwali” and “kwakwhay.”
Sarah is greeted by Gloria at the door and led into the house. More women inside shout “askwali” as each box goes inside. Sixty-eight cardboard boxes of piki bread are given to the family.
The Honanie family’s contribution brings the day’s wedding activities to an end. The family heads inside and shares a meal with all who helped.
Hours before the sun rises on the fifth day, both mothers get to work in the kitchen. They start ripping up yucca root into two wash bins on the floor in the kitchen. The house is quiet as the family works.
The yucca is used to wash the couple’s hair. When yucca root is mixed with water it turns into a natural shampoo.
The bucket is filled a quarter of the way with water and the yucca root is rubbed together to make it soapy.
“This is supposed to be the very important thing, starting your life as a couple,” Watson says. “Washing of the hair is like getting them married.”
Kara sits quietly on the chair to the side watching as her mother moves her hands through the water. Her hair is still up in the butterfly whorls. Her motherin-law starts to take her hair down. This will be the last time Kara wears her hair in the style because it is worn only by unmarried Hopi women.
When the soapy water is ready, the family allows other relatives to add water to the bins. Family members line up with little containers of water they got from the local spring. One by one, they add their own water to the bin as a way of blessing the marriage.
The couple’s hair is washed for about 20 minutes in silence. Lester’s mother washes Kara’s hair and Kara’s mother washes Lester’s hair, as is the custom. Then, the couple’s hair is intertwined and washed together, bonding them in marriage and signifying their union as husband and wife.
“This is where you get bonded, you become the best friend of each other,” Watson says. “You wash your hair together, so you’ll be together for the rest of your life.”
For the Hopi people, there is no divorce, he adds. Even in death, they’ll still be married.
After the wedding ceremony, everyone splits up to work. Inside the house, the women cook, clean, feed guests, and accept and track donations.
Outside, the women set up shop to make somiviki. Under a large canopy, tables and benches are lined up on the side as dozens of women work together to make hundreds of pieces of sweet cornbread.
Farther behind the house is the butchering area, with a wooden shed and poles set up to hang the meat. Men gather as one sheep at a time is brought in. Nine sheep are butchered, and a group of women takes charge of cleaning the guts so they can be cooked.
In the kitchen, one of several tables is covered in food, including Hopi delicacies like sheep head and intestines, and pikami, a sweet pudding.
Kara works with her mother-in-law and makes the mixture needed for piki bread. Once the mixing is complete, she goes to her mother-in-law’s piki house, a small, one-room building behind the main house, dedicated to cooking piki bread. In the corner, there is a stone cook top set up using bricks and mud.
Kara cooks three layers of the piki bread and stacks them before folding it into a square for a complete piece of piki bread. She takes four pieces to the main house then sits down to eat breakfast with her mother-in-law.
Afterward, her mother-in-law fixes her hair. It’s fashioned into the Hopi style for married women: hair separated down the middle, tied to the side using yarn. Her sideburns are then cut straight across.
On March 28, the final day of the wedding, family and relatives gather at the Honanie home in Hotevilla to prepare for Kara’s return. Kara’s dad, Watson, and her uncles sit in the living room, chatting as they drink black coffee. Her mother and aunts are preparing the food and dining area, ready to serve everyone after her return.
“She’s coming!” a little girl shouts. Everyone rushes outside, gathering in front of the house to watch as Kara walks across the village.
Kara walks up the dirt road holding the traditional bridal suitcase of woven reeds.
Behind her, Lester carries a freshly butchered sheep on his shoulder and is followed by his family carrying gifts and a pot of stew for the Honanie family.
“That’s what the in-laws do, they bring meat to your house on every occasion,” Sarah says.
Kara’s wedding suitcase stays at her mother’s house after the wedding, and it’s displayed next to her mother’s and sister’s cases. “I looked at it and it made me so happy,” Sarah says. “We have all the customs that a Hopi woman would have.”
Watson takes the suitcase to the corner of the living room and starts to unpack it. He places all its contents on a mound of sand. Watson, Kara’s uncles and her husband sit around the stuff and pull out their pipes to smoke mountain tobacco. The men smoke to bless the clothes and corn that were brought in with the suitcase because they are all brand-new.
After the gifts are brought in, everyone gathers at the tables set up in the dining and living room to have a feast.
After everyone is done eating, the women start to make the final batch of somiviki for the groom’s family.
By that evening, Kara and her family put the pot full of freshly made somiviki into the back of the truck. They take the same path back to her mother-in-law’s home in Moenkopi. Kara intends on living in Hotevilla with her husband, so this trip erases her earlier path and signifies the end of the wedding.