Hopi Culture and a Matter of Representation

The Hopi Indians of Northeastern Arizona have become one of the most studied tribes in North America. The rise of both academic and popular representations of Hopis was a direct result of ethnology and anthropology employed since the late nineteenth century. The synergy of scientific and popular texts, both imaginatively constructed, perpetuated an already existing "cultural archive" and implanted embryonic Hopi representations onto the minds of aspiring scientists, armchair travelers, and the public at large. The work of Jesse Walter Fewkes, John G. Bourke, and Earl Forrest, along with others, are examined to illustrate how this "cultural archive," as explained by Edward Said, has been maintained and continues to perpetuate a form of intellectual colonialism over Hopis