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| "Jacob Hamblin meets Chief Tuba at Lees Ferry" John Jarvis |
“Chief Tuba of the Saints” (Improvement Era, November 1963) is republished with permission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Intellectual Property Office.
Tuba,1 son of Nunnu Rinwah and Quwonghoningway2, held up his hand, and the little party of whites and Indians halted at the edge of the valley. They were almost late, but the Hopi chief felt compelled to stop a minute and look.
The temple was finished! Standing pure-white and cool against the gray and vermilion background of the St. George hills, it seemed to beckon one to worship.
“It is good we came,” he said in his native dialect. His friend, Andrew Smith Gibbons, nodded in agreement.
Descending into the town, Tuba saw so many people it reminded him of a stirred-up ant hill. The dusty streets were crowded with visitors. Camps had been set up on every side. Mormons had come from everywhere for this great conference, just as Hopis gathered for a snake dance.
Tuba smoothed the sleeve of his "Mormon suit," given him by the Great Chief Brigham Young on his first trip into Utah seven springs ago. It was fitting that Tuba should wear it again today, for he was now "Brother Tuba" to his fellow Mormons.
Reverently they entered the holy temple, Tuba and his wife Coehenumon, gazing in wonder at the handiwork of their white brothers. It was a place more sacred even than the underground ceremonial kiva of his fathers. Quietly they sat upon the white man's chairs with Gibbons and his family. Together they had crossed the great Colorado River. Together now they waited in the temple.
This was April 6, 1877—the day that the St. George Temple was officially dedicated.3 The forty-seventh general conference of the Church was assembled here in the first temple in the West.4 The Saints rejoiced, for at last they could perform endowment work for their dead.
The Great Chief Brigham Young was in charge, but he looked ill and had to be helped about.5 Also present were "members of the First Presidency, eleven of the Twelve Apostles, the Patriarch, Presiding Bishop, and a great number of visiting bishops, stake presidents and other church officials."6
Andrew Smith Gibbons told of the conference in his journal: "Accompanied by my two sons, W. H. and Richard, also Bro. Tuba and Sister Coehenumon, reached St. George in the morning of April 6th, just in time for the opening of the General Conference in the St. George Temple, which was attended by many brethren [sic] and sisters coming from the North. Received much valuable instruction from the First Presidency & Twelve."7
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How did it happen that Tuba, Chief of the Water and Corn Clan of the ancient Hopi village of Oraibi, was here in the Mormon temple, across the forbidden Colorado River, away from his people?
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Tuba had been born in the days when the "Righteous People," or "Saints"8 (Hopis) did not keep track of the dates of birth. His fathers "were the first to put their footprints upon the soil"9 of the high mesas where they built their cliff dwellings. For hundreds of years they had planted their gardens where "soil and climatic conditions are extremely unfavorable to agriculture. The desert soil is scant, sandy, and shallow. The Hopi's skill as an agriculturalist was amazing. His efforts met with success where his white brother would have starved."10
From his early years, Tuba was taught the "life plan" revealed to his fathers by the Great Spirit, Massua:
Your name shall be Hopi, meaning “Righteous,” “Peaceful,” “Co-operative.” You must lead your people in the good life which I have given you. Take care of your children. Take care of duts-quah, this land, and live so that all people will be well, that there shall be plenty of food for all. You must never harm anyone. You must never make wars against any people. You must be strong. You must be up at dawn each day, run to the fields or the springs. You must work hard.11
In time, young Tuba was led into the kiva, an underground ceremonial chamber where was kept the sacred stone tablet said to have been given his grandfathers by the Great Spirit.
It was made of a type of stone not found near the Hopi country, marble, "greyish white, smooth-grained . . . about 16 inches long, 8 inches wide and 1 1/2 inches thick."12 It contained ancient hieroglyphic markings, "engraved with some rude instrument, but executed with a degree of skill, like an ancient art faded into dim remembrance."13
Tuba reverently handled the sacred relic. He learned the ancient rules for preserving it, and for living according to the Hopi way of life.
"There is an ancient prophecy," the priests of the kiva told young Tuba, "that someday our white brother who was with us in the beginning will return. He will come from the west to bring us blessings. We must remain on our land on these high mesas and wait for him."14
Tuba grew strong. He learned the complicated rites of the various Hopi clans. He was taught to beware of the white men who might come from the opposite direction—from the east.15 Many years previous the Spaniards had come from the east, bringing Franciscan friars to convert the Indians.
The Hopis had proved to be particularly resistant to those earliest Christian missionaries. The Franciscans established missions in most of the Indian pueblos, but had scant success with Tuba’s fathers. In 1680 the Hopis repulsed the newcomers, killing or driving all Europeans from their mesas. In the Hopi towns, four Franciscan friars lost their lives.16 Some say that the Indians threw the hapless missionaries off the thousand-foot cliffs.
For a hundred years the Spaniards labored to convert the stubborn Hopis, but with no success. Their failures caused the Jesuit priests to argue that they, instead of the Franciscans, should tackle the assignment.
At last, in 1780—just 78 years before the first Mormon missionaries arrived—the Spaniards received the ultimate rejection from the Hopis. Bancroft tells the story:
(Hopi) affairs were indeed in a sad condition. Escalante in 1776 had found 7,494 souls; now there were but 798. No rain had fallen in three years, and in that time deaths had numbered 6,698. . . . Pestilence had aided famine in the deadly work; raids from the Yutas (Utes) and Navajos had never ceased.
(Perhaps now, with their backs to the wall, the Hopis would welcome the Spaniards. Governor Anza of the Santa Fe visited their main village.)
"The Chief at Oraibe [sic] was offered a load of provisions to relieve immediate wants, but he proudly declined the gift, as he had nothing to offer in return. He refused to listen to the friars and, in reply to Anza's exhortations, declared that as his nation was apparently doomed to annihilation, the few who remained were resolved to die in their homes and in their own faith.17 (Italics added.)
Against this background, Tuba, now Chief at Oraibi—successor to the proud chief of 1780—met the first Mormon missionaries in the fall of 1858.
"White men are coming!" the village crier warned. "White men coming from the west!"
From the west! In all their history, the Hopis had only seen white men come from the west when Father Escalante's party in 1776 returned from their tour northward.
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| "Tuba and his band on the Moenkopi" (Nineteenth century stereoscope slide) |
Hopis never crossed the Colorado; it was forbidden by their ancient religion.
Tuba knew all these things. Now in great excitement he waited in the plaza for the strangers to be brought into the village of Oraibi.
They climbed the tortuous path to the top of the mesa: eleven white men and a Paiute Indian, Nahraguts. Only the Paiute could speak the tongue of the Hopis. (He had once lived near their villages, and could translate the white men's words for Chief Tuba.)
"I am Jacob Hamblin," said the white-skinned leader. "We are Mormons. We have come to your land in peace, as brothers, to tell you of your forefathers and to bring you blessings."
Then, one by one, he introduced the Mormon missionaries to the Hopi chief: Andrew Gibbons, Samuel Knight, Ira Hatch, Thomas Leavitt, Benjamin Knell, Dudley Leavitt, Frederick Hamblin, William Hamblin, Ammon Tenney, a boy of fifteen, and James (or Durias) Davis.18There was a friendly openness about these men. Truly they did seem like brothers!
"I am Tuba," the Hopi said with pride, "Chief of the Corn and Water Clan.” There was talk. Then the clan chiefs and the village leaders withdrew, descending into the kiva to discuss the visitors.
“They are our brothers,” said Tuba. “They have come at last.”
Many Hopis agreed with the chief and the hungry, tired Mormons were welcomed with “elaborate hospitality.”
That was the way it started. Tuba had much to learn, but he continued to believe. Did not these Mormons teach the same lessons he had always followed, that it is good to live in peace, as brothers; that it is important to pray, to work hard, to live in righteousness?
As time went on, some of his Hopi brothers disagreed with him, but Tuba looked upon the Mormon missionaries as true messengers from the Great Spirit, the Father of them all.
His biggest test came when he decided, for the first time, to cross the forbidden Colorado River and visit his Mormon friends in Utah. It was in the late fall of 1870.
“In Jacob Hamblin’s journal is a charming little account of how Tuba crossed the prohibited river. Tuba told Hamblin:
“I have worshipped the Father of us all in the way you believe to be right. Now I wish you would to as the Hopis think is right before we cross.”
So the two knelt, Hamblin accepting in his right hand some of the contents of Tuba’s medicine bag, and Tuba prayed “for pity upon his Mormon friends, that none might drown, and for the preservation of food and clothing, that hunger nor cold might be known on the trail.”
They arose and scattered the ingredients from the medicine bag into the air, upon the men and into the waters of the river.
Hamblin wrote, “To me the whole ceremony seemed humble and reverential. I feel the Father has regard for such petitions.”
There was added prayer by Tuba when the expedition safely landed on the opposite shore at the mouth of the Paria.”19
In Utah the wonders of the white men’s ways were unfolded before the fascinated eyes of Tuba and his wife of that time, Pulaskanimki, who accompanied him. In the infant town of St. George they met Brigham Young, the Great Chief. They visited the new spinning mill at Washington. Tuba, an expert spinner, watched the 360 spindles turning all together and commented that “he had no heart to spin with his fingers any more.”
Tuba and his squaw remained in Kanab for the winter, living in a little cabin Jacob Hamblin had built for them.
Returning to his homeland, the Hopi chief saw Mormon missionaries come year after year to Oraibi. He gave aid and approval as they built two new villages near the Hopi mesas—Moencopi and Tuba City. They invited the Hopis to come live near them, and together they labored in the fields, built their houses, and made a dam to store water. There was peace in the land—even with the Hopis’ traditional foes, the Navajos. The Mormons were trusted brothers indeed.
Even as the Mormons unfolded for Tuba the sacred scriptures of their fathers, he showed some of them the sacred stone tablet hidden in the kiva. Gibbons and his sons and John W. Young were trusted with this privilege.
“Few white men have had access to this sacred record, and but few Indians have enjoyed the privilege.”20
Tuba studied the gospel for a long time. He was a man of faith, but white men’s ways were strange, and he had much to learn. At last, on March 25, 1876, he was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Then he began to prepare for his journey to the temple.
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| St. George Temple in final stages of construction |
Andrew Gibbons recorded the event in his journal: “Tuesday, April 10th, 1877. Bro. Tuba and Wife recd. their endowments. Myself and wife went through with them as interpreters. They seemed to receive their endowments quite understandingly.”21
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What of Tuba’s people today?
They live in a confused and troubled world. Some of the Hopis have not yet made sense out of the peculiar ways of the white man. However, the happy blessings of the gospel are now being enjoyed by Hopi Latter-day Saints in at least two branches: Moencopi and Polacca, with an estimated combined membership of about 460.22 Some of the Hopi tribal leaders are Mormons.
President Buchanan recounted how the ancient Navajo-Hopi rivalry withers among members of the Church. Sister Buchanan reports the enthusiasm and faithfulness of Hopi Relief Society sisters, who want their local organizations to be just as good as any of their white sisters.
Chief Tuba was a pioneer among his people in his acceptance of the gospel. The Hopis who have followed him into the Church are fine Latter-day Saints.
Notes
1 “Chief Tuba of the Saints” was originally published in The Improvement Era, November 1963, page 930
2 Temple Index Bureau records.
3 Note: the St. George Temple had been used for a short time prior to this dedication.
4 Joseph Fielding Smith, Essentials in Church History(Salt Lake City: 1942), p. 563.
5 President Young was within five months of his death on August 29, 1877.
6 Andrew Karl Larson, I Was Called to Dixie, (Salt Lake City: 1961), pg. 591.
7 Andrew Smith Gibbons, “Journal,” (original, unpublished MS).
8 Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Survey, “Hopi Hearings,” mimeograph copy of transcript, (1955), p. 24.
9 “Hopi Hearings,” p. 12.
10 M.R. Tillotson and Frank J. Taylor, Grand Canyon Country, (Stanford: 1929), p. 43.
11 “Hopi Hearings,” pp. 3, 8, 18 and 24.
12 Mischa Titiev, “Old Oraibi: A study of the Hopi Indians of Third Mesa,” Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology Report, (Harvard University: 1944), pp. 60-61.
13 1. G. K. Gilbert, “Pictographs,” Fourth Annual Report of the United States Bureau of Ethnology, (US Government Printing Office: 1882-1883), p. 58. NOTE: Golden R. Buchanan, in an interview with the author on November 18, 1962, stated that he has seen the “sacred stone.” President Buchan was formerly head of the Southwest Indian Mission, also was LDS Church coordinator for the Indians. His descriptions of the markings on the stone differ in some respects from those of the scientists cited above. “It is a stone,” President Buchanan said, “but it looks like a book inscribed on the outside with many hieroglyphic-type characters. Around it on three sides the top and bottom are wider and overhand like the cover on a book. It reminds you of one of those old hide-bound, big, thick Bibles. Of course, it is a stone, and does not open.” President Buchanan said the Hopis told him that at one time they had two sacred stones, one of which is now lost. He said he understands that they still have this precious relic.
This old legend mentioned by Elder Wilford Teerlink, former LDS missionary among the Hopis; also, it is referred to in above-cited “Hopi Hearings.”
14 This old legend mentioned by Elder Wilford Teerlink, former LDS missionary among the Hopis; also, it is referred to in above-cited “Hopi Hearings.”
15 Idem.
16 Hubert Hugh Bancroft, History of Arizona and New Mexico, (San Francisco: 1889).
17 Bancroft, History of Arizona, pp. 265-266.
18 James A. Little, Jacob Hamblin, (Salt Lake City: 1881).
19 James H. McClintock, Mormon Settlements in Arizona, (Phoenix: 1921), pp. 64-65.
20 G.K. Gilbert, Ethnology, p. 58.
21 A.S. Gibbons, “Journal.”
22 Figures supplied by President J. Edwin Baird, currently head of the Southwest Indian Mission.
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