Deliberate Acts

Drawing on oral accounts from Hopi consultants and contemporary documents, Peter M. Whiteley argues that the Oraibi split of 1906 was the result of a conspiracy among Hopi politico-religious leaders, a revolution to overturn the allegedly corrupt Oraibi religious order. Through an analysis of Bacavi social structure, Whiteley demonstrates how one fragment of a well-established society went about creating a new social order after the old one drastically fragmented.

This project also includes a new essay by Thomas E. Sheridan titled “Deliberate Acts: Peter M. Whiteley’s Hopi Hermeneutics and the 'Collaborative Road.'” Sheridan contextualizes Whiteley’s continued relevance to ethnology and the importance of collaborative work with Indigenous communities.