In September 1906, half of the 892 residents of the Hopi Pueblo village of Oraibi moved away as the result of a long-simmering factional dispute (Figure 2.1). Two months later, federal troops forced a large number of the former residents to return, but eventually new villages of Bacavi and Kykotsmovi were established by disenfranchised Oraibi inhabitants. Anthropologists and Hopi alike agree that the “Oraibi split” was one of the more significant events on the Hopi reservation during the twentieth century, and for this reason the Oraibi split has been the subject of anthropological inquiry for many decades. While the facts surrounding the event are fairly well understood, few scholars agree as to the most important causes that culminated in the disintegration of Oraibi. What is clear, however, is that while climate change roughly corresponds with the events of 1906, poor environmental conditions only provided a context for factionalism to reach disruptive levels – the environment did not so much cause the events as it did provide opportunities for them to occur, a perspective that guides interpretations throughout this book.

Oraibi is one of several Hopi villages located on Black Mesa in north-western Arizona (Figure 2.2). Because of the ostensibly desolate and dry environment, historical and cultural change during both pre-Contact and modern periods often have been considered as the result of changing weather patterns.