Tuba (Chief) - Tuba's Visit To Utah

Tuba's Visit To Utah

The first Mormon missionaries to visit the Hopi came in 1858 under the leadership of Jacob Hamblin. It is unclear if Tuba still lived in Oraibi at this point, or if he had already moved to Moencopi. However, Jacob Hamblin writes that upon their arrival a "very aged man" (presumably not Tuba) reported a prophecy that men would come to the Hopi from the west who would bring them back blessings which they had lost and that he believed that Hamblin and the Mormons were those spoken of. Hamblin soon left, but a few Mormons stayed behind to teach the Hopi. However, these left in the middle of winter to preserve the peace after a strong contention had begun in Oraibi as to whether they were in fact those spoken of by the prophecy. It might be speculated that this contention over the Mormons is the unnamed dissension that caused Tuba to leave Oraibi and settle at Moencopi. In any event, in early 1860, Tuba became acquainted with Mormon missionaries Thales Haskel and Marion Shelton in Oraibi, and invited them to settle in Moencopi and build a wool mill. However, they returned to southern Utah. Ten years later, in November 1870, Tuba left his home with his wife, Pulaskaninki, in company with Jacob Hamblin to spend time in southern Utah in order to learn the ways of the Mormons. This was apparently in contraversion of a Hopi taboo forbidding Hopis from crossing the Colorado River until three prophets which had led the Hopi to their current home returned. Upon reaching the Colorado, Hamblin recorded:

...looked rather sorrowful, and told me that his people once lived on the other side of this river, and their fathers had told them they never would go west of the river again to live. Said he, 'I am now going on a visit to see my friends. I have worshiped the Father of us all in the way you believe to be right; now I wish you would do as the Hopees think is right before we cross.' I assented. He then took his medicine bag from under his shirt, and offered me a little of its contents. I offered my left hand to take it; he requested me to take it in my right. He then knelt with his face to the east, and asked the Great Father of all to preserve us in crossing the river. He said that he and his wife had left many friends at home, and if they never lived to return, their friends would weep much. He prayed for pity upon his friends, the "Mormons," that none of them might drown in crossing; and that all the animals we had with us might be spared, for we needed them all, and to preserve unto us all our food and clothing, that we need not suffer hunger nor cold on our journey. He then arose to his feet. We scattered the ingredients from the medicine bag into the air, on to the land and into the water of the river...After this ceremony we drove our animals into the river, and they all swam safely to the opposite shore. In a short time ourselves and effects were safely over. Tuba then thanked the Great Father that He had heard and answered our prayer.

Tuba spent nearly a year in the company of the Mormons. He was even able to meet the Mormon leader, Brigham Young, then in St. George. Tuba was particularly impressed by a factory where yarn was being mechanically spun. In Hopi culture, it is the men who spin the yarn for blankets, and it is spun by hand. According to Jacob Hamblin, after seeing this factory, Tuba "could never think of spinning yarn again with his fingers, to make blankets." His wife was most impressed by the Mormon grist mills, a major improvement over grinding} corn by stone.