Wednesday, June 15, 2022 — 4

According to Havasupai legend, 

there are two gods. Tochopa is 
the grandfather of humanity, the 
bringer of good and harbinger of life. 
Hokomata is the bringer of discord 
and war, and Tochopa’s twin brother. 
Tochopa is their creator god, and 
Hokomata is their devil. In a time long 
past, the brothers clashed in a fight 
that would tattoo the Earth forever. 
With venom in his voice and fire in his 
eyes, Hokomata resolved to flood the 
entire Earth in his rage. And so he did. 
He drew oceans inward in a torrent of 
rivulets, brooks, streams, tributaries, 
rivers. It was unleashed upon the land. 
The water rose, drowning mountains. 
Before the flood came, Tochopa, 
through his sorrow, began hollowing 
out the trunk of a pinyon tree. For 
Tochopa had a daughter. His greatest 
hope was that Pukeheh would be the 
start of the great human lineage for 
which the Earth was created. All of 
humanity would begin with Pukeheh, 
but only if she could survive the 
inevitable flood borne of Hokomata’s 
wrath. 

“You know, I met Hokomata once.”
Around the crackling campfire, 

my five little cousins’ eyes went wide 
— except for Brady, who was burning 
two marshmallows. Our fire was 
near a river on our grandparents’ 

property in the Michigan woods. 
Attention has never been my favorite 
place to center myself, but something 
about the atmosphere of an evening 
campfire pulls songs and stories out 
of me. It’s compulsory, it’s instinctual. 
The fulfilling of a generations-
old tradition. Before reading by 
lightbulbs there was listening to 
bards and orators by firelight. The 
auburn glow of fire’s lackadaisical 
wavelengths siphon fear from the 
chest and supplant it with warmth 
and ease. Maybe that’s why it’s such 
a hotspot for ghost stories. Fire 
can hold your hand through the 
fantastical stress.

The fire appears as a flickering 

orange shadow across the collection 
of faces around its source. 

“OK guys, get ready for a story of 

beauty, 
excitement, 
petrification, 

dangerous journeying and triumph. 
It’s a little less dramatic than it 
sounds, but what is a storyteller 
without their ample use of —” I 
whip a flashlight under my chin and 
wiggle the fingers of my free hand, 
“embellishments! Ooh, spooky!” 

“Hey, what’s a em-belly-shment?”
I tousle my cousin’s blond hair. 

“Don’t worry kiddo, it’s not important 
to the story.”

“The year is 2019, just before 

everyone stayed inside for a while. 
Your cousin, aunt and I are about to 
embark on the most eventful trip of 
our lives …”

***

Looking down into the Grand 

Canyon is all well and good, but seeing 
the tourist view for 10 minutes is 
about all I need for the rest of my life. 
The bottom of the canyon, however, is 
a bonafide paradise. My mom found 
Havasu Falls through one of the 
many “van life” Instagram accounts 
she follows. Once my mom gets her 
mind set on something, it would take 
an act of god to get her to back down. 
She passed this quality down to me, 
but it’s not always a phenotype of 
mine. I pick and choose my time for 
stubbornness, but self-determination 
is my mother’s default form. When 
she decided to submit our family in 
the lottery for permits to grant us 
travel to the Havasupai tribe’s canyon 
bottom oasis, it wasn’t a matter of if, 
but when. And my senior year of high 
school, our “when” landed smack dab 
on the fourth Thursday of November. 
So we bought some dehydrated 
turkey. 

The hiking trails and campsite of 

Havasu Falls are located on the land 
of the Havasupai Native American 
tribe. 

Falling snow and campfire glow: 
backpacking in Havasu Falls
Falling snow and campfire glow: 
backpacking in Havasu Falls

By Dani Canan, Statement Columnist

Disney Adults: 

Magic Your Way

Disney Adults: 

Magic Your Way

How many places in the world 

can you watch a horde of adults 
wearing 
limited-edition 
Mickey 

Mouse ears push through a crowd 
of children to get a better view of the 
same Festival of Fantasy parade they 
saw last month? 

After spending two days at Disney 

World with a friend, I witnessed this 
notorious phenomenon in real time: 
there are a lot (and I mean a lot) of 
adults who really love Disney. 

Urban 
Dictionary, 
the 
best 

alternative 
to 
a 
legitimate 

dictionary, defines a “Disney adult” 
as “a millennial adult, with or 
without kids, that can’t stop talking 
about Disney, including the movies 
and the parks … One of the most 
terrifyingly intense people you’ll 
ever encounter.” 

“Disney adults” are a well-known 

target 
of 
internet 
commentary 

that often teeters the line between 
satirical comedy and straight-up 
cyberbullying. Special attention is 
often given to the most extreme-
of-the-extreme 
Disney 
fanatics. 

Spreading a loved one’s ashes at 
the 
Haunted 
Mansion 
(which 

are immediately cleaned up) and 
attempting to give birth at Disney 
World 
in 
hopes 
of 
obtaining 

a lifetime free pass (that they 

never give out) are two of the most 
outrageous behaviors that continue 
to infatuate the internet. 

These 
ridiculous, 
almost 

legendary stories have created a 
culture in which “Disney adults” 
are simultaneously hypervisible and 
mythologized. They receive almost 
constant attention from the digital 
world, and yet we hear very little 
about how these behaviors come to 
be.

Realistically, the vast majority of 

adult Disney-goers are not spending 
their days sneakily spilling out ashes 
or going into labor while riding “It’s 
A Small World.” With over 58 million 
visitors annually at Walt Disney 
World alone, most “Disney adults” 
are more along the lines of what I 
witnessed: bedazzled Mickey ears, 
cheesy graphic tees, magic in their 
hearts and FastPasses in their Apple 
wallets. 

The 
sheer 
presence 
of 
this 

demographic at Disney parks points 
to the breadth of this puzzling 
phenomenon. From a marketing 
standpoint, Disney has spent decades 
finding ways to quietly yet firmly 
encourage adult engagement to the 
point of obsession. 

By Emily Blumberg, Statement Correspondent

Read more at michigandaily.com
Read more at michigandaily.com

Design by Tamara Turner