“First Born”

The most celebrated riteon Earth is the gift of life. It is the Creator’s will and new life benefits all. Nothing has more effect on the essence of Man than when a new born child pushes forth it’s way from spirit to take it’s rightful place among men. From the greatest depths of nature and from the far reaches of the universe, it appears and is manifest, as a song, as a prayer and then as a Child.

It is understood by all that the function of the new life is to renew the group life force. Even though the first ceremonial event in the Hopi life cycle lacks complexity, it is nonetheless a marked ritual and every detail of this gift of life is celebrated. On the twentieth day at first light, the baby is wrapped in its finest blanket and presented to Dawa, the Sun Father, and so the rite of life begins, the rite of hope, a new Hopi Soul. Children are the survival force of Hopi and on that day a feast in which both sides of the family participate concluding the first cycle of Hopi life, from birth to death.

She has no face, which symbolizes the egalitarian society of the Hopi people. She represents a people, not an individual. The Hopi thought is: One Mind, one Body and one Spirit.