Religions

Hopi Religion

Polytheistic (Animist)

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "Hopi Religion." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://divinity.interactivelion.com/religions/hopi-religion.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). Hopi Religion. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://divinity.interactivelion.com/religions/hopi-religion

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-hopi-religion,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {Hopi Religion},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://divinity.interactivelion.com/religions/hopi-religion},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

The religion of the Hopi people of the mesas of northern Arizona, carried by a system of clans and of religious societies whose ceremonies follow the agricultural and solar year. Initiated members of those societies hold the ceremonial knowledge, and a great deal of it is closed to outsiders and to uninitiated Hopi alike. The Hopi have objected at length to the publication of restricted ceremonial material by researchers and by visitors. The atlas records that the tradition is living and that its ceremonial knowledge is closed, and does not set out what the societies hold.

Facts

About This Record

Coverage Note

This page is shorter than many others in the atlas, and that is a record artifact, not a judgment of how much Hopi Religion matters. Much of what Hopi Religion holds is kept in restricted custody, passed on through oral transmission among initiated or authorised practitioners, or both, in the way its restricted tradition note above already sets out, so there is less that outside, publishable sources can responsibly say. A short entry here does not mean Hopi Religion matters less than a tradition with a long one; it means the atlas can currently say only what it has been permitted to say. If you can point toward documented material the community has authorised for outside use, sign in and open a dispute on this page naming the source; it will be reviewed. 1

Status

Status Today

Living tradition, practised today 1

Practice

Practice Status

Closed ceremonial knowledge, described but not reproduced 2

Hopi religious ceremonies, including those of its kachina societies, are closed to outsiders. Hopi Tribal Council Resolution H-72-94 declares field notes, recordings, photographs and other material describing esoteric ritual and ceremonial knowledge to be the cultural property of the Hopi people and restricts them from public access. Some general ethnographic description exists from outside researchers, but the Hopi community has not authorized public reproduction of the ceremonies' actual content.

Origins

Place of Origin

The mesas of northern Arizona, United States. 1

The Hopi are indigenous to the mesas of northern Arizona, where their religion has been carried for generations by a system of clans and religious societies.

Cultural Restriction

Restricted Tradition

Hopi ceremonial knowledge is held within initiated religious societies and is closed to outsiders and to uninitiated Hopi alike, and the Hopi have objected to its publication by researchers. The atlas names the societies and the ceremonial year as existing without reproducing what is transmitted within them. 1

Learn More

What the Hopi Have Asked Researchers Not to Publish

Hopi religious life is carried by clans and by religious societies whose ceremonies follow the agricultural and solar year across the mesas of northern Arizona, and initiated members of those societies hold knowledge that is closed to outsiders and to uninitiated Hopi alike. This article does not set out what the societies teach. Its public history is, in part, a history of that closure being tested. Across the twentieth century a number of outside researchers and visitors published or photographed ceremonial material the Hopi consider restricted, and the anthropologist Peter Whiteley, writing on the ethics of Hopi ethnography, has documented the Hopi's sustained and public objection to that publication, an objection that has since shaped how scholars work with Hopi communities.

What remains public, and is not in dispute, is that Hopi religion is a living tradition organized around named societies and a structured ceremonial year, practiced today on First, Second and Third Mesa much as it has been for generations. The Hopi Tribe's own insistence on control over its ceremonial knowledge is itself part of the modern history of Indigenous religious rights in the United States, a case cited well beyond Hopi country in debates about who has the right to publish another people's religion.

Cross-Tradition Connections