Photograph: Ginny Grimm for Native Peoples Magazine
Solar Hogans, Houses of the Future?
By Hassell G. Bradley
(This story originally appeared in Native Peoples, Volume
3, Number 3, Spring 1990, published by Media Concepts Group, Inc.
in affiliation to: The Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ; The Iroquois
Indian Museum, Schoharie, New York; The National Museum of the
American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, New York, New York;
and the Southwest Museum, Los Angeles, California.)
Legend says that the first hogan, the traditional circular Navajo
dwelling, was built for Changing Woman, a deity. Her hogan was
connected to heaven by a rainbow that filled the sky with arcs
of color.
Charlie Cambridge, Navajo archaeologist and a doctoral candidate
in anthropology at the University of Colorado in Boulder, admits
that no one will ever discover where in the Southwest the first
hogan was built. This resolute, solidly-built man in his mid-forties
is, however, certain of two things: the circular hogan possesses
spiritual power, and it is particularly adaptable to solar technology
and modern living.
For much of his life, Cambridge has dreamed of developing a solar
hogan to make life easier for Navajos who want to live in their
old age on the reservation, which requires coping with harsh weather
and often no electricity or running water.
He persisted in his pursuit of this vision until three demonstration
hogans using different types of solar technology were completed
on the University of Colorado campus last year. Constructed between
patches of bull nettle and cattalils and a grove of scraggly cottonwood
trees, the hogans have been blessed by a medicine man. Cambridge
arranged for George Bluehorse, a Shiprock, New Mexico medicine
man, to conduct a Blessingway last October.
"A Blessingway," Cambridge explained, "is a Navajo
chant that created harmony between a hogan and the people who
live in it."
Cambridge, who wears his hair long and straight, rubbed his hand
across his broad face and looked thoughtful. "Many of the
old Navajos want to live out the rest of their lives on the reservation.
But they are often relocated out of their hogans into the rectangular
box houses that HUD officials like." He shook his head in
dismay. "Very often these box houses block a neighbor's sacred
northern view."
Regardless of their age, Navajos who are moved into rectangular
houses often experience a sense of profound loss, he said.
Why is the hogan so essential for Navajo contentment? Does Changing
Woman's rainbow still exist in the Navajo psyche? Could living
in hogan-like homes bring benefits to non-Indians?
"The circular hogan with its east-facing door and its earthen
floor is constructed to encourage harmony, just as the spiritual
beings first instructed," Cambridge explained. "The
round hogan is female, and there are certain places you must sit
if you are male or female, if you are a visitor or a medicine
man. Navajo society is reflected in a hogan's design."
Born in Farmington, New Mexico, Cambridge was the first member
of his family to attend public school. In the late 1950's, after
he entered Durango High School, he was elected president of the
school's science club.
"When I was a senior," Cambridge said, "A Bureau
of Indian Affairs official came by the school and asked to see
some Indian kids. He talked to me and suggested I study baking
at Haskell Institute."
While digging through his briefcase looking for an application
for Haskell, the BIA official came across a math and science camp
form. The camp was later canceled, but Haskell officials assumed
Cambridge was interested in post-secondary education. They gave
his name to the Navajo tribal scholarship office, which sent along
an IQ test.
Cambridge's high score resulted in a scholarship and he enrolled
at the University of Colorado.
"One night", he recalled, "I was walking through
a university building, and I heard Indian drumming. It was bizarre.
I was the only Indian student at the University of Colorado. I
followed the sound around the corner and discovered a meeting
of the anthropology club. My interest in anthropology began that
night." As far as Cambridge knows, he is the only Navajo
with credentials in both anthropology and archaeology.
How does Cambridge reconcile his scientific training with his
traditional belief that dead spirits are dangerous and can bring
sickness, trouble and even death to the living?
"When I dig," he said, "I say to the dead ones,
'You have the power to make me ill or to cause my death. But there
are reasons to make me ill or to cause my death. But there are
reasons I must did here.' In all the years I have been digging
on the reservation, I have never had any trouble."
Cambridge's scientific and spiritual views go hand in hand with
his work on the solar hogans. However, his dream of developing
an energy self-sufficient hogan became reality when he met Dennis
Holloway, a tall, slim, Harvard-trained architect and faculty
member at the University of Colorado's College of Environmental
Design. The two were introduced by a mutual friend six years ago
at the Trident Cafe in Boulder.
He and Holloway started talking, Cambridge recalled. "Before
long, I was sketching out my idea for a solar hogan on a Trident
napkin."
From Cambridge's sketches, Holloway proceeded with a thorough
analysis. The result was plans for three hogans, ranging from
simple to complex. The men had as their goal solar structures
to benefit reservation Navajos as well as urban residents who
want to build energy self-sufficient homes.
It took time for Holloway and Cambridge to persuade university
officials that their idea was sound. Permission was finally obtained
to build three solar hogans on the campus. Twice, building supplies
were stolen, and bureaucratic delays slowed things.
But in the end, the Colorado Solar Hogan Project succeeded, thanks
to a combination of Cambridge's determination, Holloway's expertise,
and insight on the part of the Colorado Office of Energy Conservation
and the University of Colorado. Funding came from the state of
Colorado and from the university. The university also provided
supplies; labor came from students and community volunteers. (Holloway
dubbed these volunteers the "hogans' heros.") Work on
the solar hogans stretched over a two-year period.
As is often the case with new ideas, they surface in more than
one place at the same time. In late October, 1989, the month the
hogans were completed and a Blessingway was held for them, the
Wheelwright Museum in Santa Fe coincidentally held a three-day
symposium, "Cosmos, Man, and Nature: Native American Perspectives
on Architecture."
Susan McGreevy, Vice President of the Wheelwright Museum's Board
of Directors, said, "Native American structures symbolize
how human beings fit into the universe. For example, a Navajo
hogan includes many symbolic aspects, such as the four cardinal
directions and the east-facing door. Most significantly, the instructions
on how to build a hogan were given to the Navajos by spiritual
beings, according to tribal origin myths."
Today, three culturally-relevant and energy-self-sufficient circular
hogans have been erected at the base of Boulder's foothills near
the intersection of Highway 36 and Baseline Road. One is a simple,
traditional-style hogan; another--called transitional--incorporates
some modern energy-conservation ideas; the third is a dramatic
contemporary hogan with many amenities. Often, Cambridge has seen
motorists glance at the hogans, then swerve their vehicles and
come to a stop for a closer look.
The Colorado Solar Hogan Project has produced a prototype for
a dwelling that is a traditional hogan attached to compatible,
modern circular dwelling that demonstrates how Navajo culture
can influence new forms of housing. The simple, traditional round
hogan is 16 feet in diameter with a domed, cribbed ceiling of
peeled logs which form a pattern of lines stretching to infinity
at the smokehole. In summer, weeds flourish on the roof, reaching
for the sun.
Holloway's design for the "transitional" hogan utilizes
an encircling flagstone wall with casement windows built on the
east and south and west sides. The added wall creates a protected
space where, Holloway and Cambridge like to imagine, a Navajo
grandmother might sit and weave or tell stories to her grandchildren.
Framing on three south-facing exterior walls (of the "traditional"
hogan) holds a fiberglass glazing material developed with the
help of Arnold Valdez of Ghost Ranch, New Mexico. The glazed walls
are heated by the sun and become the primary heat sources, reducing
dependency upon woodburning.
Southwest of the transitional hogan stands a red-sided structure
built into the hillside. The strange looking hogan has a lower
living level that fans out into 1600 square feet of living space,
including a kitchen and a bathroom.
Insulated glass windows angle at 50 degrees on the southern walls
to receive the sun's rays in winter and to bounce them off in
the summer.
With its cribbed ceiling and east-facing door, Holloway's creation
is undeniably hogan-like. Heat and electricity are produced by
combining active and passive technologies. Outside, photo voltaic
cells track the sun, and closed-system solar collectors heat water
in a 120-gallon tank. Inside, vegetables can be grown in flower
beds.
Since this modern hogan was designed for conditions that currently
exist on the reservation, water from a reservoir is pressurized
with a solar-powered pump for bathroom and kitchen use. A waterless
toilet has been installed, and back-up heaters, a stove and a
refrigerator operate on propane.
"We have projected several variations that come within HUD
design-and-cost guidelines ($70,000 or under)," Holloway
said. "The result will be more satisfying to Navajos and
a better use of tax dollars."
Immediately above the lower living level stands a traditional
hogan to be used for the Blessingway ceremony. Its door can only
be entered from the outside, terraced walk.
"The cribbed ceiling gives the harmonious sensation of the
sacred circle," Holloway pointed out.
The week before the Blessingway was to be held, Holloway, Cambridge
and their student and volunteer work crews raced to finish the
hogans in time for the ceremony.
"I went down to Stapleton International Airport in Denver
to pick up the medicine man," Cambridge recalled. "His
plane was three hours late, and I didn't know if we could get
back to Boulder in time. A lot of dignitaries were going to be
on hand to make speeches."
Finally, George Bluehorse's plane landed; within minutes, he and
Cambridge were in a taxi racing to Boulder and the Blessingway.
Bluehorse is a humble man with a wiry build and a quick smile.
"While we were in the taxi," Cambridge said, "the
medicine man told me a story that his father told him. He said,
'The twin gods of war went to the sun to accuse him of being their
father. The sun lived in a solar house. The sun told the twins
that in the future, all the Navajo people would live in solar
houses and that the young people would make this happen.'"
At last, the taxi arrived on the campus. The crowd gathered around
Bluehorse and Cambridge. The Blessingway would soon happen.
Bluehorse, Cambridge, Holloway, local dignitaries and a few Navajo
students went immediately to the little, traditional hogan. Singing
hogan-blessing chants, Bluehorse led the group inside and shut
the door.
Outside, a crowd gathered around. Before long, pungent smoke spiraled
out of the smokehole. "Look!" a man cried, pointing
up to the sky. A thin cirrus cloud had passed across the sun.
There, circling the cloud's leading edge, were three rainbows.
The power of the circle was in the sky for everyone to see.
Finally, the hogan door opened, and the medicine man and the celebrants
came outside and sat down on the green carpet spread out on the
ground.
"This ceremony is usually conducted only for family members,"
George Bluehorse told the crowd. "But we are all one huge
family today. We will bless the other two hogans here so everyone
can watch. The purpose of the ceremony is to thank Mother Earth,
who provides the water. We use corn pollen and cornmeal to bless
these hogans. The hogans are female."
Charlie Cambridge knelt, sage in hand, beside his sister, Debbie
Raymond, who fashioned a base of white sand on the green carpet
and then layed on it a fire stick of white wood.
Bluehorse turned back to the crown. His turquoise necklace hung
to his waist, and his silver belt glinted in the sun. "I
feel I'm very honored to conduct this ceremony for the hogan.
The old people prophesied that someday they could see a hogan
like this solar hogan."
Chanting, the medicine man adjusted the eagle feathers in the
basket and sprinkled corn pollen. Responding to his chant, a spectator
in a gray shirt rocked back and forth in rhythm.
After the ceremony, Cambridge confided that he had been in a state
of controlled panic much of the day. "But now," he said,
"I have a sense that a great burden has been lifted from
my shoulders. There has been massive public approval for what
we have done here.
"This hogan is causing a tremendous stir among architects.
But more important, this will change the Navajo Nation.
"The people who live on the reservation see the energy companies
taking away Navajo natural resources. Someday, our people will
have to pay a lot of money, maybe $250 a month, for electricity.
But with solar hogans, they can be self-sufficient."
Peterson Zah, former chairman of the Navajo Nation said, "I
was in Boulder the fall of 1089 to look at the solar hogans. I
was very impressed. They (Cambridge and Holloway) have retained
the layout of the traditional structure, and they are also allowing
the solar rays to heat the hogans. This is very practical for
individual Navajos who want to build these hogans for themselves."
Leonard Watchman, executive administrator of the Navajo Housing
Authority, said, "We saw the solar hogan a year ago. I personally
think it is a worthwhile project, especially for remote areas.
The Navajo Housing Authority is interested in supporting a similar
project, but our problem is dealing with HUD guidelines."
"People on the reservation are beginning to get the idea,
because they have heard about these hogans," Bluehorse said.
"They are getting solar energy into their hogans any way
they can."
Bluehorse said when Cambridge asked him to do the Blessingway,
he went to his father and asked if he should agree to conduct
it. "He told me I should go ahead, and told me the story
of the sun houses. I went to the sweat lodge with two friends,
and we prayed about it. The important thing was to reach the young
people. We did that."
Since the Blessingway was performed on October 6, 1989, Holloway
and Cambridge have been involved in negotiations independent of
HUD in the Ramah and Chinle areas on the reservation to build
solar hogans. A large mining company has invited them to submit
a proposal for a demonstration solar hogan. The two men are hopeful
that their efforts really will benefit Navajo lives.
George Bluehorse summed up the general feeling about the hogans:
"The Great Creator granted these special hogans. During the
last song I did inside the hogan, I felt something special, spiritually.
The sun went along a trail of a special prayer. Beautiful things
were happening."
Holloway and Cambridge did not know about the rainbow in the sky
over the hogans until later. Now they cannot forget what happened.
After all, Cambridge pointed out, the first hogan was built for
Changing Woman. And everyone knows that a rainbow connected her
hogan to heaven.
Dr. Charles Cambridge says this about
the Meaning of the Navaho Hogan:
"Hogan" is a Navaho word translating roughly into
"home place" that has meanings of shelter, house and
a place for family activities. The hogan is the traditional housing
of the Navaho people, who are a tribe of American Indians located
in the United States' Southwest region. The hogan is a circular
and dome house. In Navaho mythology, the first hogan was built
by the Gods and Spirits for a newly born Navaho goddess, Changing
Women. Because of this sacred beginning, the Navaho hogan is viewed
as sacred, andtherefore must be constructed in a certain manner.
When the hogan construction is completed and before occupation,
a Blessing Way ceremony must be conducted to ensure good fortune
for the hogan and the family who will occupy the new hogan.
Normally, the hogans are one-room dwellings and the single room
is never subdivided. Hogans are ordinarily circular and may have
a polygonal shape. Octagons are the usual floor plans. The traditional
hogan is never rectangular in its shape. The hogan is usually
16 feet in diameter with a domed, cribbed ceiling of peeled logs
with a smoke hole at the top. The perimeter walls are usually
5 1/2 to 6 feet high. On an average, the interior height of the
dome will reach 10 feet. The floor level of old style hogans was
about 24 inches below ground leve. This allowed a natural bench
to be created inside the hogan. The hogan walls are constructed
of overlapping and mud- covered logs or sandstone. The dome roof
is a cribbed ceiling that is made of overlapping mud-covered logs.
The dome form is reflective of the sacred sky. This hogan form
represents the female. Male hogans are short cone shape structures.
The female form is the typical structure.
The circular hogan has an east-facing door and earthen floor.
On the first day of construction, the hogan's single doorway is
centrally oriented toward the raising morning sun. The central
point of the doorway is marked where the first rays of the morning's
of dawn. This blesses the hogan with the sun's first rays. The
traditional doorway was covered with animal hides or later by
woven rug like covering. Contemporary hogans use wooden materials
with hinges for the doors. Traditional, hogans are windowless.
Light enters through the doorway and smoke hole. Contemporary
hogans may allow a single
window that may be located on the south and west walls. The north
wall may never have a window because the dead reside in the north.
The traditional hogan's fire hearth is on the dirt floor with
the smoke hole that is 1-1/12 feet east of the center of the dome
roof. The hearth is on the flat surface of the floor with a large
flat stone set at one of the cardinal directions of the fire.
Contemporary hogans have replaced the hearth with small wood burning
stoves.
Within the hogan, spaces are culturally or religiously defined.
Males sit on the North side while females must sit on the South.
Visitors or medicine people are required to sit on the West and
from this position they face the East. So, a hogan has representation
of the four cardinal directions with an east-facing door. The
hogan is a blend of the harmony of the Navaho and their Spiritual
Universe. Importantly, the hogan represents the Navaho cosmos
and is the center of their religious being. The hogan's form and
technique of construction have remained relatively unchanged for
centuries.
An experiment in blending traditional architectural design of
the Navaho hogan with solar and appropriate technology was undertaken
at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado. The experiment
includes the construction of three demonstration hogans using
solar passive design and technology on the University's campus.
Published Reviews of Colorado Solar
Hogan Project :
1. "The Solar Hogan Project", by Richard Simonelli
in Winds of Change (A Magazine of American Indians), published
by AISES, Boulder, Colorado, Spring 1989, pp. 32-38.
2. "Passive and Low Energy Architecture - Architecture and
Technology: Environment-conscious Design in the 1990's - a World
Survey" Process Architecture , Tokyo, Japan (English and
Japanese), No. 98, pp. 138-139. (Solar Hogans are reviewed in
this special issue.)
3. "Home Again, Ancient Navajo hogan goes high tech to preserve
energy and a way of life", by Peter Caughey in Summit Magazine
(CU Boulder), Fall 1989, pp. 2-5. Review of Mr. Holloway's design
(in collaboration with Charles Cambridge, Anthropologist) for
the Colorado Solar Hogan Demonstration.
4. "Solar Hogans, Houses of the Future?", By Hassell
Bradley, in Native Peoples Magazine, Spring 1990, pp. 44-50. Review
of Mr. Holloway's design (in collaboration with Charles Cambridge,
Anthropologist) for the Colorado Solar Hogan Demonstration.
5. "Holloway Blends High-Tech with Tradition", in Portico
Magazine (College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University
of Michigan), Volume 7 Number 2, Winter 1991, pp. 10-11. Review
of Mr. Holloway's design (in collaboration with Charles Cambridge,
Anthropologist) for the Colorado Solar Hogan Demonstration.
6. " 'Culturally relavant' campus housing adds a technological
twist to a Navajo tradition". Los Angeles Times. February
26, 1990. page A 14.
7. "Colorado Solar Hogan Project", in California Indian
Energy News (California Energy Extension Service, An Energy Management
Action Program of the Office of Governor Pete Wilson), Vol. 2
No. 2, Spring, 1992, pp. 4-5. Review of Mr. Holloways work on
the solarization of the traditional Navaho Hogan.
9. Contemporary
Native American Architecture, Cultural Regeneration
and Creativity,by
Carol Herselle Krinsky, Oxford University Press, London &
New York, 1996. Contains reviews of the context and design process
for the Colorado Solar Hogan Demonstrantion , and
Poeh Culture Center and Museum, designed for Pojoaque
Pueblo by Mr. Holloway.
F i l m s , V i d e o , & O t h
e r M e d i a :
1. The Colorado Solar Hogan Demonstration, (Prepared
by The University of Colorado / Boulder, Office of Public Relations),
1989.
2. "The Colorado Solar Hogan Demonstration",
a ten-minute segment on the independent Australian television
science series, Beyond 2000. Satellite telecast in sixty countries.
3. "Solar Hogan Feature". National Public Radio. Nationally
aired program, May 14, 1989.
Your comments and feedback are welcome. Please contact
Dennis Holloway, Architect, via e-mail:
