Hopi: People Are Corn

One of three titles in the “Southwest Series” of films about Native American culture made by Pat Ferrero for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Hopi: People Are Corn (excerpted from Ferrero's longer award-winning film Hopi: Songs of the Fourth World--available from New Day Films) briefly explores the significance of corn in the Hopi way of life (the title is a Hopi saying), examines how the various steps in corn planting and harvesting symbolize the stages of human life, and looks at the religious role corn plays in the lives of the Hopi people. The other titles in the series (series price: $199 for high schools and public libraries, and $249 for academic libraries) are Conversations with Roxanne Swentzell (13 min.), which features an interview with the renowned sculptor discussing Pueblo themes in her work, and Coyote and the Great Spirit Run (12 min.), which looks at political activist Preston Arrow-weed's efforts to help Native American young adults connect with their roots by taking them on a spirit run as part of a pacifist protest against the dumping of nuclear waste near ancestral sites. Worthwhile for extensive anthropology collections, this is recommended overall, but general collections would do better to purchase Ferrero's longer work Hopi: Songs of the Fourth World for an extra $10. Aud: C, P. (L. Stevens)