Moenkopi, Arizona

Moenkopi, in northeastern Arizona, is a Hopi cultural stronghold embedded within the Navajo Reservation. Moenkopi has been an agricultural center for the Hopi people since the thirteenth century, a "suburb" pueblo to the village of Oraibi on Third Mesa on the Hopi Reservation, one of the oldest continuously inhabited pueblos on the continent. Because of Moenkopi's relative isolation from the rest of Hopi lands, it has been subjected to intensive outside influence, and, as a result, has split into two factions: Lower Moenkopi, the more traditional community interested in mainting traditional social and cultural practices, and Upper Moenkopi, the "younger" community interested in pursuing modern pursuits.