“The Kind Hawk” is a folktale in the Hopi oral and written tradition, which tells of a young boy who is kidnapped by Navajos and later rescued by a kind bird who takes pity on him. In pure kindness, the hawk feeds the boy, restores his fine clothes to him, scares away the kidnapping tribe, and flies away without thanks. Extant within Hopi oral tradition for hundreds of years, “The Kind Hawk” was published in English in the Red Indian Fairy Book for the Children’s Own Reading and for Story-tellers (1917), as collected by Frances Jenkins Olcott.
The Hopi (Hopituh Shi-nu-mu—“The Peaceful People” or “Peaceful Little Ones”) are a Native American tribe historically located in the desert Southwest, particularly the mountainous regions of northern Arizona and New Mexico and southern Colorado. As the meaning of their name suggests, the Hopi were largely pacifist, organized into matriarchal clans, and devoted to spirituality and agriculture. The Hopi are traditional enemies of the neighboring Navajo people, a larger and warlike tribe.
The tale of the kind hawk is set in the distant past, in a happy Hopi village, where there lived a little boy and the mother who loved him. Dressed by his mother in a beautiful shirt and moccasins, the boy wanders off onto the plain, where he is captured by the Navajos and forced to work as their slave. Soon he becomes weak and thin on account of the hard labor; his shirt and moccasins are stripped from him and awarded to the young son of the Navajo chief.
Fortunately, a kind-hearted hawk, who often flies over the Navajo camp, takes pity on the boy and flies down to speak with him. At this time all the Navajos are assembled at the chief’s lodge for a meeting. The boy is afraid at first and cries, “Do not kill me!” and cowers beneath the hovering bird. But the hawk replies that he means no harm and is instead there to save the boy. “Jump on my back and hold on to my wings,” he says, “and I’ll carry you away” (Olcott 1917, 27).
With that they take flight, soaring over the gathered Navajos, who are filled with rage and wonder when they see the boy on the hawk’s back. The hawk drops the boy a safe distance away on a bluff and then returns to the Navajo camp to steal an embroidered shirt from the chief’s son and a pair of handsome moccasins from another boy. The Hopi boy dons his fine clothes and is returned to his grateful mother. After witnessing the amazing event, the Navajos “were terribly frightened, and packing up their goods, left the place” (Olcott 1917, 27). The hawk, without waiting to be thanked, flies away.
This tale utilizes Native American folklore conventions, featuring an intrepid trickster animal who intervenes in human affairs. It stands as an appeal to the benevolence of nature and, in securing aid from above, may constitute an allegory of the Hopi relationship with the deity Maasaw, Creator or Caretaker of Earth. “The Kind Hawk” can be identified with the life of the Hopi tribe specifically, as it expresses the fear of abduction by the fierce Navajo tribe. That the boy is returned with fine clothing speaks to the goodness and perseverance of the Hopi people; that the Navajo are forced to leave their lands is a measure of cosmic justice and retribution for their crimes.
Adam Nicholas Nemmers
See also Cetan; Great Spirit; Rain Bird; Thunderbird; Tricksters, Native American
Further Reading
Courlander, Harold. 1971. The Fourth World of the Hopis. New York: Crown.
Dwyer, Helen, and Mary Stout. 2011. Hopi History and Culture. New York: Gareth Stevens.
Malotki, Ekkehart, ed. 2001. Hopi Animal Stories. Lincoln, NE: Bison Books.
Olcott, Frances Jenkins, ed. 1917. “The Kind Hawk.” In Red Indian Fairy Book for the Children’s Own Reading and for Story-tellers, 26–27. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
Voth, H. R., comp. 2008. The Traditions of the Hopi. Charleston, SC: BiblioLife.