Born in 1956 and raised at the village of Old Oraibi, AZ. Hopi Indian Reservation. I am of the Rabbit and Tobacco Clan, maternal. Prior marriage my mothers maiden name was Eleanor Masayumptewa. My father, Peter Nutumya (deceased) was from the village of Hotevilla and of the Greasewood and Roadrunner clan.

I come from a family of eight (8) children with seven sisters and I being the only male in the family. In my formative years I assisted my father and grandpa Harry Masayumptewa work the family gardens and livestock ranching. My father worked for the U.S. Forest Service and was gone through most of the summer months. This left me with great responsibility in taking care of the needed chores. We were being raised in a small house and I would often dream about making renovations to our home. My father did start an addition and we helped in finishing the task, this was in my childhood days.

All of us attended the local Hopi Day School located in Kykotsmovi, we use to walk three miles to school and back home after the day even though there was a school bus. This was common in those days. After graduating from the eighth grade I chose to go to school at Sherman Indian High School in Riverside, CA.  At the time there were no high schools located on the Hopi reservation. Upon graduating from Sherman in 1975, I went on to Haskell Indian Junior College in Lawrence, Kansas, where I majored in electronics and was offered a job from Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico. There I relocated in the summer of 1977.

I started employment with the Semi-conductor Research and Development Center.   This was not very appealing so I got on with the tech pool and worked in several areas.  Most remarkable experience was at the Geothermal Electric Generating Station located in the Jemez Mountains. Water was pumped into the ground and the output steam was used to run the turbines to the electric generators.

Other employment was with the Data Communications, working from the world’s largest computing centers, the main frames were in use and we installed networks using teleco equipment.  Maintaining all networks remote from the main servers was my first exposure to computer networks and related hardware.  Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is spread over several miles of mountains, canyons, and plateaus.  The Federal Government contracted through Livermore University of Southern California funds LANL. This was where the first atomic bombs were made.

In 1982 I returned to my home village and picked up where I had left off.  I started work on our family home, which I had long dreamed of doing.  I quarried native rock to use as building blocks, which was hard work but it later paid off.   When I was not working on the house I would carve katsina dolls and the majority was sold to the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona.

In 1983, I started employment with the Hopi Tribe's Home Improvement Program and worked primarily with an electrician, whom provided me an opportunity to learn the trade. In the mean time I was still working on our home, which later turned out to be 2,134 sq. ft.

In that same year, I met my wife, Melcina Lomahaptewa, while working at the Home Improvement Program and later in June 1986 we got married.  The following year in September 1987, we had our traditional Hopi wedding.  This became a memorable event for me because all our family members, aunts, cousins, uncles, godfather and many others were there to assist and be a part of our wedding. This is what most all traditional Hopi parents want for their children and since I being the only male my parents made sure I married into our own tribe. This became a personal goal.

In 1984, I started employment with Arizona Public Service Company, at Cholla Power Plant in Joseph City, Arizona.  This employment lasted through April of 1988, as APS was going through a reduction in force.  In the early part of 1984 my father was diagnosed with Leukemia so life became very hard for my family and he lasted till December 28, 1984.  This was very traumatic for my immediate family, but somehow we managed to go on.

In 1989, we moved back onto the Hopi reservation and there we settled on my spouses' clan land below the village of Mishongnovi. She is of the Butterfly clan. Soon after we started working for the Hopi Tribe, she started out at the Hopi Guidance Center in the Social Services Department and I worked for Facilities Management as a Building Operator. After about 6 months I transferred into the Management Informations System, since I had experience working with teleco and datacommunications equipment.

Since moving unto Mishongnovi residential area we became part of the community and therefore now participate in their cultural activities. This is customary to Hopi beliefs and is expected from all members of the village. I also participate in similar activities at my home village and at Hotevilla, since my paternal family is from Hotevilla and they sometimes choose me at social dances. In my younger days I was very active at Hotevilla in participating in the Katsina ceremonies.

In 1992, we started a new house for my new family on the butterfly clan lands, which took one and half (1.5) yrs to complete. We have one son, Lorin James Nutumya, who is presently residing in the Phoenix area. To build a house for your family is also customary to our Hopi beliefs.

In 1993, after our Bean Dance ceremony I asked my fellow kiva members if they would assist in renovating our kiva, which was at the time very small for our members.   This took most of the summer and into winter to complete, help did not turn out as expected and at times it was very frustrating.  However, we accomplished our task prior to start off the Bean dance ceremonies. I was thankful to all whom assisted and gave us the support that we sought during the process. This took a lot of persistence and hard work to get it done, without any outside financial support other then our own fund raising.

Since 1989, I have been working with the Hopi Tribe in the Management Information Systems, first as a Network Technician and later as Telecommunications Specialist. There, I maintained the Mitel PBX and Repartee voice mail system, along with the cat-5 data network. In 1994 we hired a private consulting company to do a feasibility study on a Hopi Tribal owned Telephone Company, which proved feasible, but our decision-makers did not think it was viable. They did not seemed very interested in investing in our tribal economic sustainability, which was a big disappointment to our efforts.

Being born and raised in Old Oraibi, I tried to convince our village members in accepting tribal grants to rehabilitate our existing village and stimulate community based services, but to my disappointment it was against the beliefs of our elders. To date, it is the only village on the Hopi reservation that has not utilized funds from the Hopi Tribe or any other funding agency.  I hate to say, there is a group of resistors who think they are the only group of "people" who can say "yay or nay" to all village matters. With no interest for improvements from these elders, I dropped this subject and pursued to my personal business.

By invitation we were introduced to Internet Marketing, which interested me very much.   In April of 1997 we bought into Galaxy Mall to launch an Internet web site, which took seven months to be exposed on the net.  During this time I started another web site, now called hopimarket.com.  The web site constructed and now managed by us is hosted through InfoMagic Internet Service of Flagstaff, Arizona.

Since the promotion of the two web sites on the Internet we have opened our own Hopi Market Arts and Craft shop.  This new business has created new opportunities for many self employed artists and also now employ two persons. We have also ventured into another Internet web based business called Interactive Network Marketing helping others to become business owners.

Since April 2, 1999, the Internet web based business has enabled me to leave my full time position as Telecommunications Specialist at the Hopi Tribe.  I presently consult with the Hopi Tribe on their Telecommunications and Network needs, which is done on my own time

In April 2000, my wife Melcina (prefers to be called Cina), also left her full time position as an Administrative Assistant for the village of Sipaulovi to work our home based business.  We have been to various arts and craft shows throughout the Southwest, including the Bay area. We are new at the business but we are fortunate to be helping other people utilizing the cutting edge and working for ourselves.

I am also a rancher on the new Hopi Partitioned Lands (HPL) and a member of the local Hopi Progressive Ranchers (HPR). We have been working on improving our stock in terms of genetics and marketing. We have done artificial inseminations (AI) and have sold pre-conditioned steers at our annual Hopi livestock sales.

I am fortunate to be around positive motivated people who are helping me in developing new personal skills to become a better person in our community. With this thought I have a poster that spells success.

Success Is Yours! Start With A….

Avoid working just for power and money.

Be honest, reliable, faithful, and aggressive.

Choose your friends carefully.

Don’t be afraid to take risks.

Establish goals and work systematically toward achieving them.

Free rides do not exist.

Get it done.

Have confidence that you will make a difference.

Invite constructive criticism.

Just doing enough to get by will not get it done.

Keep from making excuses.

Listen, learn, and always work to improve your mind.

Mean what you say, and say what you mean.

Never, ever give up on your dreams.

Only one person can control you, and that’s you.

Pray.

Quality, not quantity.

Respect others.

Sometimes, slow down and smell the roses.

Treat others with respect, and they’ll respect you.

Use your assets wisely.

Voice your opinions.

Work as hard as possible, without forgetting your loved ones.

Expect obstacles, but accept challenges.

You are in charge of you own actions.