Justin B. Richland
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780226608594
- eISBN:
- 9780226608624
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226608624.003.0003
- Subject:
- Anthropology, American and Canadian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter explores Hopi theories of social and political order that insist on a kind of dispersed authority, mutuality, and coordination among the different Hopi families and clans. This theory is ...
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This chapter explores Hopi theories of social and political order that insist on a kind of dispersed authority, mutuality, and coordination among the different Hopi families and clans. This theory is premised on the idea that no one segment of Hopi society can claim legitimate knowledge and authority over all the others. It then shows how the sociopolitical theory of “cooperation without submission” is founded on Hopi theological traditions and rhetorical forms that emphasize the unique force and inherent limits imposed on each Hopi clan's authority by virtue of each clan’s particular traditional knowledge, which remains a closely guarded secret that cannot be shared with nonmembers. As such, it reveals the productivity of these limits, showing that because of the unique but limited role that each clan’s knowledge and authority plays in the idealized cycle of Hopi village life. At least ideally, each clan has an ongoing and irreplaceable role to play in the ongoing story of Hopi culture and society. “Cooperation without submission” stands as a an enduring model not just for traditional Hopi clan and village order, but for contemporary Hopi Tribal governance as well, both in its internal operations and in engagements with the United States.Less
This chapter explores Hopi theories of social and political order that insist on a kind of dispersed authority, mutuality, and coordination among the different Hopi families and clans. This theory is premised on the idea that no one segment of Hopi society can claim legitimate knowledge and authority over all the others. It then shows how the sociopolitical theory of “cooperation without submission” is founded on Hopi theological traditions and rhetorical forms that emphasize the unique force and inherent limits imposed on each Hopi clan's authority by virtue of each clan’s particular traditional knowledge, which remains a closely guarded secret that cannot be shared with nonmembers. As such, it reveals the productivity of these limits, showing that because of the unique but limited role that each clan’s knowledge and authority plays in the idealized cycle of Hopi village life. At least ideally, each clan has an ongoing and irreplaceable role to play in the ongoing story of Hopi culture and society. “Cooperation without submission” stands as a an enduring model not just for traditional Hopi clan and village order, but for contemporary Hopi Tribal governance as well, both in its internal operations and in engagements with the United States.
