Hopi Clans Seek to Pass Along Preservation Methods through NCPTT Training Grant
For centuries, architecture found in places like Hovenweep National Monument and Hopi villages has served as a vital part of the Hopi indian culture. Much of the historic architecture and ancient structures of the Hopi people are showing increasing signs of deterioration from weather and daily usage. As a result, ancestral sites of the Hopi people in units of the National Park Service and traditional architecture in the villages are deteriorating at a rate that exceeds the ability to maintain them.
In 2002, the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training awarded the Hopi Foundation a PTT Grant to fund a training program that leads to a professional career development path for preservation specialists. This training will help preserve the integrity, information and special meanings that these places hold for generations to come.
The training program includes a series of workshops and in-progress projects that are taking place over the course of 2003. Sponsored by the Hopi Foundation, Hopi Cultural Preservation Office, and the National Park Service, Southeast Utah Group, the workshops train Hopi youth in traditional architectural conservation. The goal of the workshops is to train Hopi young people in preservation philosophy, and stone masonry repair through hands-on experience.
“Hopi architecture is not isolated but part of a greater whole,” states the architectural preservation technical guide Kiiyamuy that serves as part of the training curriculum. “It is no wonder that the term pueblo refers to our villages, the monuments of our ancestors, and our people. Such interconnectedness and interdependence define the physical, social and spiritual aspect of Hopi life.”
Field work is being carried out at units in Hovenweep and several villages. Trainees will be instructed in masonry preservation techniques at Hovenweep by National Park Service professionals and in villages by the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office and Hopi Foundation professionals and craftsmen.
Through the NCPTT grant, the Hopi Foundation is initiating innovative approaches and projects to enhance and preserve traditional ways of life while at the same time meeting the challenges of a modern and highly technological era. The workshops address a diversified, systematic, multi-disciplinary approach to meet current and future preservation needs at Hovenweep National Monument and in Hopi villages. With each training session, trainees are developing the ability to understand and to work with the entire spectrum of the National Park Service site and preservation activities.
Barbara Poley, executive director of the Hopi Foundation, believes the training will be valuable in helping Hopi youth to discover and take part in their culture. “Through this National Center for Preservation Technology and Training grant, the Hopi Foundation and the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office has been able to train many of our youth in 2003,” she said. “Asquali [Hopi female form of “thank you”] to NCPTT for its assistance in this effort.”
Through an existing cooperative agreement, topics covered in the Hovenweep training include: non-destructive documentation including photography, mapping and map making; drawing scale elevations and cross sections; basic descriptive data-gathering processes to assess threats and evaluate architectural conditions; and preservation compliance and materials training.