“Ladder Dancer”

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

The present Hopi pueblo of Shung-opovi has occupied its present site since about 1700. Previous to that time, the pueblo straggled over the foothills at the mesa base. About a hundred yards west of this pueblo, over a sharp ridge, lay the old walled-in spring called Shungopa, the spring that gave the name to the pueblo, and which went dry in the 1870’s at the time of a landslide which caused a local earthquake.

About a hundred yards south of this spring stands a large boulder. On the top of this boulder can be observed three holes in a row, each hole being about a foot in diameter and between a foot and two feet deep. Hopi tradition associates these holes with a Hopi ceremony now extinct called the Ladder Dance.