Books in Brief: Big Falling Snow

Big Falling Snow, by Albert Yava, edited by Harold Courlander (Crown, 178 pp., $10). Big Falling Snow is English for Nuvayoyava, the author’s Hopi name before Arizona reservation schoolmarms cut it to Yava. It was as far as he let them assimilate him. Though he mastered their language and eventually made a living interpreting for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, he stuck true to the ways of his people. The ways were strong, and because he respected them they guided him through his ninety years. In this book he tells about it—a believer’s life—with assurance and a great deal of art. For Yava, the legends of the Hopi answer questions that confound the rest of us. He need not wonder where people came from and where they’re bound: they climbed up a bamboo through the sky of the underworld with the approval of Masauwu, Spirit of Death, inhabitant of canyon bottoms, to whom they return at the end of their lives. They came to escape evil people, but one snuck up to the new world when the good weren’t looking: “You couldn’t get along without an evil one,” he said. “I have a part to play in this world.” He certainly did: he helped them place the sun, moon, and stars. The Pokang warrior brothers built mountains and mesas with marsh mud and drove off the monsters. Masauwu allocated territory to each tribe. Before they set out, Tawa the Sun Spirit—or, as other Hopis have it, Spider Grandmother the Earth Spirit—gave them rules to live by. The rules were simple: “If a man falls down help him to get up.” “Share what you have.” “If you see something edible, take a part of it, only what you need.” Yava followed them throughout the arduous life he describes and was content. The firelight stories in whitewashed kivas were his wealth and his wisdom.

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Paul T. Hornak

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Big Falling Snow, by Albert Yava, edited by Harold Courlander (Crown, 178 pp., $10). Big Falling Snow is English for Nuvayoyava, the author’s Hopi name before Arizona reservation schoolmarms cut it to Yava. It was as far as he let them assimilate him. Though he mastered their language and eventually made a living interpreting for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, he stuck true to the ways of his people. The ways were strong, and because he respected them they guided him through his ninety years. In this book he tells about it—a believer’s life—with assurance and a great deal of art. For Yava, the legends of the Hopi answer questions that confound the rest of us. He need not wonder where people came from and where they’re bound: they climbed up a bamboo through the sky of the underworld with the approval of Masauwu, Spirit of Death, inhabitant of canyon bottoms, to whom they return at the end of their lives. They came to escape evil people, but one snuck up to the new world when the good weren’t looking: “You couldn’t get along without an evil one,” he said. “I have a part to play in this world.” He certainly did: he helped them place the sun, moon, and stars. The Pokang warrior brothers built mountains and mesas with marsh mud and drove off the monsters. Masauwu allocated territory to each tribe. Before they set out, Tawa the Sun Spirit—or, as other Hopis have it, Spider Grandmother the Earth Spirit—gave them rules to live by. The rules were simple: “If a man falls down help him to get up.” “Share what you have.” “If you see something edible, take a part of it, only what you need.” Yava followed them throughout the arduous life he describes and was content. The firelight stories in whitewashed kivas were his wealth and his wisdom.