First new hotel in 50 years is built in Hopi homeland

Two words, "Kivavaq' Ki," hang on the wall at the front desk of the Moenkopi Legacy Inn and Suites. In the Hopi language, they mean "guest house" or "a home for travelers to rest." After traveling across northern Arizona for most of the day, I am more than ready to rest, especially at this lovely new hotel. It opened in late April and is the first new hotel on Hopi lands in 50 years. With the Hopi input in design and decoration comes a sense of peace and rest that smooths off the rough edges of travel.

The three-story Legacy Inn has 100 rooms and more than 3,000 square feet of meeting space with three break away conference rooms. Outside, wooden beams protrude from the tan, gold and red building that blends with the natural colors of the area. The focal point of the lobby is a three-story stone fireplace that stair-steps upward in a style similar to the Hopi pueblos. In wall niches, Hopi pottery and katsinas -- often called kachinas -- are showcased. A colorful ceramic piece by the fireplace depicts two Hopi katsinas holding up the world. Traditional designs are woven into the one-of-a-kind carpet, and the swimming pool has a turtle design on the bottom. This design is appropriate because the Hopi turtle symbol is associated with water. Hopi music plays softly. A small gift shop sells Hopi work.

Above the lobby desk is the hotel's logo, a large stained glass piece designed by Antone Honahni. Stained glass artist Howard Pavinupama executed this complicated design of a kiva chief praying at dawn. Both men are Hopi. There are four ears of colored corn in the design. Four is an important number to the Hopi, and these ears of corn represent not only the corn used by Hopis in their ceremonies and everyday life, but also the four cardinal directions. Yellow corn equals north; white corn, east; red corn, south; and blue corn, west.

I'm charmed by the pictures hanging on the walls. They are large black-and-white photographs from around 1900 showing traditional Hopi life. Tribal members brought in their old photos to be enlarged and used. Each of the 12 Hopi villages has its own government, and this hotel and the TUUVI Travel Center across the street are the projects of the Upper Village of Moenkopi. The Moenkopi Elders had a vision that their village "should be a place of welcome and gathering for visitors to our land," and the hotel is representative of Hopi traditions.

There is also a Lower Village of Moenkopi nearby, below the mesa along Moenkopi Wash, but the area is usually referred to simply as Moenkopi. The 2,439 square miles of the Hopi Reservation is situated in the middle of the Navajo Indian Nation. This presents an unusual problem for the hotel. It is located on the south side of U.S. 160 on Hopi lands, and the town of Tuba City is on the north side of the highway on Navajo lands. Not only are the conjoined towns of Moenkopi/Tuba City governed by separate entities; part of the year they are in different time zones. During daylight savings, the Navajo Nation is one hour later than Hopi and Arizona. In non-daylight savings months, Hopi, Arizona and the Navajo Nation are on the same time.

The hotel's front desk is a good place to find out what is going on in the area. Brian Monongye cheerfully answered what must have seemed an endless barrage of questions from me and my photographer friend, Bernadette Heath, and explained Hopi traditions and what is and is not allowed on Hopi land. They also have a calendar for the ceremonial dances at various villages and whether they are open to the public or not. If you are lucky enough to attend a ceremonial dance, remember, this is a sacred ceremony and you should consider it like attending church. Dress modestly. Do not clap or talk loudly; do not get close to the kiva or the dancers.

There are several restaurants and fast-food places, but the most convenient is the TUUVI Travel Center across the street. Tuuvi was a chief and the name for "Tuba" City is an Anglo mispronunciation of Tuuvi. The specialty of the house is the Tuuvi Taco -- fry bread, topped with beans, lettuce, tomatoes and cheese and served with a cooked green chile.

You can drive through the Hopi Reservation on State Route 264, but the best way to see and understand the area is to go with a certified Hopi guide. You cannot hike independently on the reservation. A list of guides is at the front desk or on the website. We choose Bertram Tsavadawa, who has been a guide for 15 years and owns Ancient Pathways Tours, to take us on a full-day tour. While some guides have vans, Tsavadawa is a "step-on-guide" and will meet us at Tsakurshovi store on Second Mesa, about 63 miles southeast.

This small store fascinated me. Although some Hopi art and jewelry is for sale to visitors, the store carries traditional items needed by the Hopi in their ceremonies. You will see painted gourds, rattles, animal skins, bandoliers and moccasins. I loved the ceremonial textiles. Woven by Hopi men on looms down inside the kiva, they are worn by dancers during the ceremonies. The katsinas dolls for sale here are dressed in the costumes of the ceremonial katsina dancers, and you can see how the textiles would be used.

When Tsavadawa arrives, he climbs in our vehicle and starts a brief lesson on Hopi history, which will continue as we drive. The Hopi villages are on First, Second and Third Mesas, promontories jutting out over the Colorado Plateau at about 5,700-6,000 feet elevation. Hopis believe they emerged into this, the Fourth World, through a sipapu (small hole) in the Grand Canyon and were directed to go on a "migration." Tradition says they traveled through Mexico and South America, as far north as the Arctic Circle, and from coast to coast in the United States to see how the people and seeds would adapt to the different areas. Each clan returned to the "center of the earth" at Old Oraibi on Third Mesa. The people were to live in this harsh, dry land where they had to follow the laws of the Supreme Being in order to survive. They consider themselves to be stewards of the land and are to protect and use it during their lifetime.

Tsavadawa customizes his tours, so when we admire Ramson Lomatewama's blown glass at Tsakushovie, Tsavadawa offers to take us to meet the artist. Lomatewama's "Spirit Figures" attract my attention. About eight inches long, they are wraithlike colored glass figures covered by clear glass. Lomatewama says he invented this art form, but that the figures were suggested by the ghostly carvings of the Barrier Canyon style of rock art. Lomatewama teaches two-day to two-week art classes in the summer.

We head down a dirt road to Dawa (sometimes spelled Daawa) Park, a petroglyph location you can only visit with a certified guide. Bernadette and I are thrilled. Together we have written and photographed a book, "Rock Art Along the Way," a guide to publicly accessible rock art sites in the Southwest, so we're excited to see the thousands of glyphs. Dawa Park is a U-shaped cove with 200-foot cliffs of red and tan variegated Dakota sandstone. Tsavadawa thinks the Dawa Park area contains one of the largest concentrations of rock art in the United States with an estimated 12,000-15,000 glyphs.

Although it is hard to date petroglyphs, experts believe these at Dawa Park range from 3000 BC to around 1300 AD. Most were pecked into the sandstone rock by the Ancestral Puebloan culture, sometimes called the Anasazis. Many of the rocks are coated with a natural dark covering called desert varnish, and the artist, using another stone, would chisel through the patina exposing the lighter rock underneath.

There are many spiral designs, and Tsavadawa says these have to do with the migrations the different clans made before settling down. Also, some of the spirals are solstice markers. At certain times of the year, mainly the winter and summer solstices, a dagger-shaped beam of sunlight will shine through a rock crack illuminating the center of the spiral. I could have spent the rest of the day exploring the rock art, but it was lunch time, so we headed to the Cultural Center on Second Mesa.

The café at the Cultural Center offers many Hopi dishes, including items made from blue cornmeal. I order a hamburger sandwiched between blue corn fry bread. There is a small museum here and a gift shop. Sometimes artisans are outside under the trees selling their work.

After lunch, we head to Tsavadawa's home village of Old Oraibi on Third Mesa, where his family home is one of the 16 original stone houses. The village, which has no running water or electricity, is considered one of the longest continuously inhabited sites in North America. As we walk around, we can see how the structures are made from rock and mud. Nothing is wasted. Old grinding stones are used in the rock walls. Various artisans invite us into their homes or let us watch them work. One woman has some piiki bread for sale for $2, and I sample this ancient food. It is the distinctive color of blue corn flour and is made by adding boiling water to blue corn flour with a small amount of juniper ash. The trick is in the cooking. The batter is spread on a hot, seasoned piiki stone with a quick swish of the hand then almost immediately peeled off and stacked. When enough thin sheets of piiki bread are cooked, they are rolled together into a tasty crumbly snack.

A sign warns that no one is to go past the village to where only the walls remain from an old Mennonite church. After the structure was hit with lightning several times, the village elders asked the Mennonites to build another church off the mesa. It is considered bad karma to visit the old church.

Our last stop is Sipaulovi on Second Mesa. A winding road leads up to the rock village sitting like a fortress atop a small butte. Sipaulovi means "the high point where the mosquitoes fly," an odd name for such a dry place. Tsavadawa explains the original villagers moved here from Homolovi , a now-deserted ruin near Winslow along the Little Colorado River where they had plenty of mosquitoes, and they named Sipaulovi so they would remember where they once lived.

We let Tsavadawa off at Tsakurshovi store. It has been a educational and interesting day, and he is a very knowledgeable and pleasant guide, but I'm ready to head back to the Moenkopi Legacy Inn & Suites, where I will once again appreciate the words Kiyavaq' Ki -- the place for travelers to rest.