The Hopi Nakwách – The Symbol of Brotherhood

Hugh Nibley had a fascination with the Hopi Indian tribes of northeastern Arizona. He believed that the Hopi captured something about life that the rest of the world had missed. Their culture, traditions, and ceremonies were stable and permanent. They did not look to the conveniences of the day, and yet had still survived unhampered for thousands of years. Their rituals were particularly of interest to Dr. Nibley, as he saw in them something very familiar in parallels to ancient patterns throughout the world:

By the latest count, the Hopi are the only people in the world who still preserve a full annual cycle of full-dress protological, eschatological and cosmological ceremonies. ((Boyd Jay Petersen. Hugh Nibley: A Consecrated Life. 280))

What most impressed Nibley were the similarities between the Hopi rituals and those of the Church. Nibley’s son-in-law, Boyd Petersen, recounts:

Parallels appear between the language of the Mormon temple ceremony and the Hopi myths of origin in Frank Water’s Book of the Hopi. Responding to someone who asked about similarities between the Mormon temple endowment and the Masonic ceremony, Nibley wrote that the parallels between the Mormon endowment and the rites of the Hopi “come closest of all as far as I have been able to discover—and where did they get theirs?” ((ibid., 282))

The Book of the Hopi has an account of the first interaction between the Hopi people and the Spanish Conquistadors. This occasion is marked by the Hopi belief that they were witnessing the return of a god that had visited them long ago:

The coming of the Hopis’ lost white brother, Pahána, like the return of the Mayas’ bearded white god, Kukulcan, the Toltecan and Aztecan Quetzalcoatl, was a myth so common throughout all pre-Columbian America that we can regard it as arising from a concept rooted in the unconscious. Whatever its symbolic meaning, the even was long hailed by prophecy. . . . The Hopis in these villages had long anticipated the coming of their lost white brother, Pahána. ((Frank Waters. Book of the Hopi. 1963, 307))

When the Spanish arrived, they saw these white people as fulfillment of the prophecy of Pahána’s return. The first meeting between Spaniard Pedro de Tovar and the clan chiefs of the Hopi is told thus:

Hopi tradition supplements this account by relating that Tovar and his men were conducted to Oraibi. They were met by all the clan chiefs at Tawtoma, as prescribed by prophecy, where four lines of sacred meal were drawn. The Bear Clan leader stepped up to the barrier and extended his hand, palm up, to the leader of the white men. If he was indeed the true Pahána, the Hopis knew he would extend his own hand, palm down, and clasp the Bear Clan leader’s hand to form the nakwách, the ancient symbol of brotherhood. Tovar instead curtly commanded one of his men to drop a gift into the Bear chief’s hand, believing that the Indian wanted a present of some kind. Instantly all the Hopi chiefs knew that Pahána had forgotten the ancient agreement made between their peoples at the time of their separation. Nevertheless, the Spaniards were escorted up to Oraibi, fed and quartered, and the agreement explained to them. It was understood that when the two were finally reconciled, each would correct the other’s laws and faults; they would live side by side and share in common all the riches of the land and join their faiths in one religion that would establish the truth of life in a spirit of universal brotherhood. The Spaniards did not understand, and having found no gold, they soon departed. ((ibid., 308-309))

Hugh Nibley interpreted this story in his own way:

In 1540 when Pedro de Tovar came up to Bear Chief, who was standing to greet him on the rise at Old Oraibi, the chief reached out his hand to establish the visitor’s identity by offering him the sacred handclasp, the nachwach-was he really the promised White Brother? Naturally, the Spaniard, who had come looking for gold and nothing else, thought he was asking for money and placed a gold coin in his hand. Have you any signs or tokens? asked the chief. Yes, I have money, replied the visitor. From that moment the Hopis knew it was not the one they were looking for, and to this day they have never been converted to Christianity. ((Hugh Nibley. Brother Brigham Challenges the Saints. 98-99))

Another commenter notes the universality of such a handclasp:

In fact, variants of it are found in a number of other cultures too – I’ve seen it in tribes in both North and South America, as well as in Europe and the far east. The Hopi call it the Nakwach, which means brotherhood. It’s meant to symbolize the joined hands of two tribal elders, who made a pact of lifelong friendship with each other, thereby bringing peace to their people. ((http://fluterbev.livejournal.com/445951.html))

Clearly, to the Hopis, the nakwách handclasp was a type of symbol of identification or token of recognition by which the Hopi people could recognize their true God, and as a symbol of their brotherhood. ((Todd Compton, “The Handclasp and Embrace as Tokens of Recognition”, By Study and Also By Faith: Essays in Honor of Hugh W. Nibley)) Not only was this handclasp used as a method of identification, but today, the Hopis still practice the nakwách also as part of their ceremonial dances,

when the priests clasp hands in the same manner during the public dance of Wúwuchim today. [. . .] All hold hands to form the nakwách, [the] symbol of brotherhood. ((Frank Waters. Book of the Hopi. 1963, 52, 151. See my blog post series The Genesis of the Round Dance for more cultures and traditions which join hands in a sacred round dance.))