Surviving Columbus: The Story of the Pueblo People; Interview with Emory Sekaquaptewa, Tape 3

How do you see the future, how do you see the next five hundred years? How do you see the future, how do you see the next five hundred years for the whole people? Well, I like to think that I have faith. Hold on one second, I think we have two. What about the next 500 years? I like to think that I have that hope-y belief in faith, to feel that hope-y will realize destiny. I guess you have to really experience it personally in order to feel that way about a future of your world, of your way of life.

And in my head, I carry around a lot of songs which tell and teach me that while we're not perfect today, we are moving to that time when we become a perfect people. And this is demonstrated to us every day and the whole hope-y world thinks in terms of clowning. We are but clowns. We're sort of mocking life as though we were already perfect beings. But we have that ability to also stop and look at our own selves and chuckle because we have fallen short.

And this is what hope-y clowning is all about. It's an reenactment of mankind and his behavior through this destiny, always constantly trying, but not making it maybe today, but to keep trying until he makes it. I think that probably most hope-y's look at life and particularly the future of hope-y life in that manner. They equate it with this whole notion that we are progressing through a period of time constantly pursuing this perfection at some point, if we don't abandon our belief and our faith in it. And, of course, they also believe that other people are doing going through the same thing, because in fact, the term hope-y comes from the term hope-y-vit-squany, which means hope-y path of life.

But hope-y does not have anything to do with being a name of a race or a people. It has to do with one that follows a particular way of life, because that life is seen to be good and wise, and if he follows it faithfully, he will realize its benefits. And we're always told that other people who have chosen a different way of life also, in their own life ways, there's an element of hope. If they follow them, their own choice of life, in a hope-y way, that is to say, in a faithful and way, in a sense, they are hope-y still. I like that. I think it's a wrap.

Okay. Is there anything that we have announced that you'd like to mention? I feel that it's important to say. I've forgotten now what I've said. Well, I think that, I think that in the period from, say, about early 1900s to the present, the hopeies have felt a greater pride in the way they live and what they do and how much they incorporate of the other world that they find useful in their own private lives without giving up what they already have. And they seem to be comfortably living in both worlds. And for that reason, you don't see hope-y people in general.

Following movements in the country that are sort of geared toward identity crisis, that is, a lot of Indians, particularly those who've grown up in urban environments, are out trying to find their identity. And you find hardly any hope-y. If any at all, who have joined these kinds of movements, where you have power-hours and things like that, I mean, personally, while I think that power-hours serve a purpose for some people, I can't relate to power-hours. It means nothing to me at all. It doesn't have a place in my conception from oral tradition and ceremonial significances. But I'm sure that it serves other people well as far as what they want from it. And I think that in that way, the hobbies are different from other people. You just don't find them active participants in things like that.

And our system cameraman is David Rubies, who's hope-y or half hope-y and great guy, but he sums it up and says, you know, like that song you heard, don't worry, be hope-y. It's corny, but I like that. Yeah.