Eighth Annual Report Part 4

With too great zeal they prohibited the sacred dances, the votive offerings to the nature-deities, and similar public observances, and strove to suppress the secret rites and abolish the religious orders and societies. But these were too closely incorporated with the system of gentes and other family kins.h.i.+ps to admit of their extinction.

Traditionally, it is said that, following the discontinuance of the prescribed ceremonies, the favor of the G.o.ds was withdrawn, the clouds brought no rain, and the fields yielded no corn. Such a coincidence in this arid region is by no means improbable, and according to the legends, a succession of dry seasons resulting in famine has been of not infrequent occurrence. The superst.i.tious fears of the people were thus aroused, and they cherished a mortal hatred of the monks.

In such mood were they in the summer of 1680, when the village Indians rose in revolt, drove out the Spaniards, and compelled them to retreat to Mexico. There are some dim traditions of that event still existing among the Tusayan, and they tell of one of their own race coming from the river region by the way of Zui to obtain their cooperation in the proposed revolt. To this they consented.

Only a few Spaniards being present at that time, the Tusayan found courage to vent their enmity in ma.s.sacre, and every one of the hated invaders perished on the appointed day. The traditions of the ma.s.sacre center on the doom of the monks, for they were regarded as the embodiment of all that was evil in Spanish rule, and their pursuit, as they tried to escape among the sand dunes, and the mode of their slaughter, is told with grim precision; they were all overtaken and hacked to pieces with stone tomahawks.

It is told that while the monks were still in authority some of the Snake women urged a withdrawal from Walpi, and, to incite the men to action, carried their mealing-stones and cooking vessels to the summit of the mesa, where they desired the men to build new houses, less accessible to the domineering priests. The men followed them, and two or three small house groups were built near the southwest end of the present village, one of them being still occupied by a Snake family, but the others have been demolished or remodeled. A little farther north, also on the west edge, the small house cl.u.s.ters there were next built by the families of two women called Tji-vw-wati and Si-kya-tc-wati.

Shortly after the ma.s.sacre the lower village was entirely abandoned, and the building material carried above to the point which the Snakes had chosen, and on which the modern Walpi was constructed. Several beams of the old mission houses are now pointed out in the roofs of the kivas.

There was a general apprehension that the Spaniards would send a force to punish them, and the Shumopavi also reconstructed their village in a stronger position, on a high mesa overlooking its former site. The other villages were already in secure positions, and all the smaller agricultural settlements were abandoned at this period, and excepting at one or two places on the Moen-kopi, the Tusayan have ever since confined themselves to the close vicinity of their main villages.

The house ma.s.ses do not appear to bear any relation to division by phratries. It is surprising that even the social division of the phratries is preserved. The Hopituh certainly marry within phratries, and occasionally with the same gens. There is no doubt, however, that in the earlier villages each gens, and where practicable, the whole of the phratry, built their houses together. To a certain extent the house of the priestess of a gens is still regarded as the home of the gens. She has to be consulted concerning proposed marriages, and has much to say in other social arrangements.

While the village of the Walpi was still upon the west side of the mesa point, some of them moved around and built houses beside a spring close to the east side of the mesa. Soon after this a dispute over planting ground arose between them and the Sikytki, whose village was also on that side of the mesa and but a short distance above them. From this time forward bad blood lay between the Sikytki and the Walpi, who took up the quarrel of their suburb. It also happened about that time, so tradition says, more of the Coyote people came from the north, and the Pikys nyu-mu, the young cornstalk, who were the latest of the Water people, came in from the south. The Sikytki, having acquired their friends.h.i.+p, induced them to build on two mounds, on the summit of the mesa overlooking their village. They had been greatly harra.s.sed by the young slingers and archers of Walpi, who would come across to the edge of the high cliff and a.s.sail them with impunity, but the occupation of these two mounds by friends afforded effectual protection to their village. These knolls are about 40 yards apart, and about 40 feet above the level of the mesa which is something over 400 feet above Sikytki.

Their roughly leveled summits measure 20 by 10 feet and are covered with traces of house walls; and it is evident that groups of small-roomed houses were cl.u.s.tered also around the sloping sides. About a hundred yards south from their dwellings the people of the mounds built for their own protection a strong wall entirely across the mesa, which at that point is contracted to about 200 feet in width, with deep vertical cliffs on either side. The base of the wall is still quite distinct, and is about 3 feet thick.

But no reconciliation was ever effected between the Walpi and the Sikytki and their allies, and in spite of their defensive wall frequent a.s.saults were made upon the latter until they were forced to retreat.

The greater number of them retired to Oraibi and the remainder to Sikytki, and the feud was still maintained between them and the Walpi.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate VII. Horn House ruin, plan.]

Some of the incidents as well as the disastrous termination of this feud are still narrated. A party of the Sikytki went prowling through Walpi one day while the men were afield, and among other outrages, one of them shot an arrow through a window and killed a chiefs daughter while she was grinding corn. The chiefs son resolved to avenge the death of his sister, and some time after this went to Sikytki, professedly to take part in a religious dance, in which he joined until just before the close of the ceremony. Having previously observed where the handsomest girl was seated among the spectators on the house terraces, he ran up the ladder as if to offer her a prayer emblem, but instead he drew out a sharp flint knife from his girdle and cut her throat. He threw the body down where all could see it, and ran along the adjoining terraces till he cleared the village. A little way up the mesa was a large flat rock, upon which he sprang and took off his dancers mask so that all might recognize him; then turning again to the mesa he sped swiftly up the trail and escaped.

And so foray and slaughter continued to alternate between them until the planting season of some indefinite year came around. All the Sikytki men were to begin the season by planting the fields of their chief on a certain day, which was announced from the housetop by the Second Chief as he made his customary evening proclamations, and the Walpi, becoming aware of this, planned a fatal onslaught. Every man and woman able to draw a bow or wield a weapon were got in readiness and at night they crossed the mesa and concealed themselves along its edge, overlooking the doomed village. When the day came they waited until the men had gone to the field and then rushed down upon the houses. The chief, who was too old to go afield, was the first one killed, and then followed the indiscriminate slaughter of women and children, and the destruction of the houses. The wild tumult in the village alarmed the Sikytki and they came rus.h.i.+ng back, but too late to defend their homes. Their struggles were hopeless, for they had only their planting sticks to use as weapons, which availed but little against the Walpi with their bows and arrows, spears, slings, and war clubs. Nearly all of the Sikytki men were killed, but some of them escaped to Oraibi and some to Awatubi. A number of the girls and younger women were spared, and distributed among the different villages, where they became wives of their despoilers.

It is said to have been shortly after the destruction of Sikytki that the first serious inroad of a hostile tribe occurred within this region, and all the stories aver that these early hostiles were from the north, the Ute being the first who are mentioned, and after them the Apache, who made an occasional foray.

While these families of Hopituh stock had been building their straggling dwellings along the canyon brinks, and grouping in villages around the base of the East Mesa, other migratory bands of Hopituh had begun to arrive on the Middle Mesa. As already said, it is admitted that the Snake were the first occupants of this region, but beyond that fact the traditions are contradictory and confused. It is probable, however, that not long after the arrival of the Horn, the Squash people came from the south and built a village on the Middle Mesa, the ruin of which is called Chukubi. It is on the edge of the cliff on the east side of the neck of that mesa, and a short distance south of the direct trail leading from Walpi to Oraibi. The Squash people say that they came from Palt Kwabi, the Red Land in the far South, and this vague term expresses nearly all their knowledge of that traditional land. They say they lived for a long time in the valley of the Colorado Chiquito, on the south side of that stream and not far from the point where the railway crosses it. They still distinguish the ruin of their early village there, which was built as usual on the brink of a canyon, and call it Etpskya, after a shrub that grows there profusely. They crossed the river opposite that place, but built no permanent houses until they reached the vicinity of Chukubi, near which two smaller cl.u.s.ters of ruins, on knolls, mark the sites of dwellings which they claim to have been theirs. Three groups (nyumu) traveling together were the next to follow them; these were the Bear, the Bear-skin-rope, and the Blue Jay. They are said to have been very numerous, and to have come from the vicinity of San Francisco Mountain. They did not move up to Chukubi, but built a large village on the summit, at the south end of the mesa, close to the site of the present Mashongnavi. Soon afterward came the Burrowing Owl, and the Coyote, from the vicinity of Navajo Mountains in the north, but they were not very numerous. They also built upon the Mashongnavi summit.

After this the Squash people found that the water from their springs was decreasing, and began moving toward the end of the mesa, where the other people were. But as there was then no suitable place left on the summit, they built a village on the sandy terrace close below it, on the west side; and as the springs at Chukubi ultimately ceased entirely, the rest of the Squash people came to the terrace and were again united in one village. Straggling bands of several other groups, both wingwu and nyumu, are mentioned as coming from various directions. Some built on the terrace and some found house room in Mashongnavi. This name is derived as follows: On the south side of the terrace on which the Squash village was built is a high column of sandstone which is vertically split in two, and formerly there was a third pillar in line, which has long since fallen. These three columns were called Ttuwalha, the guardians, and both the Squash village and the one on the summit were so named. On the north side of the terrace, close to the present village, is another irregular ma.s.sy pillar of sandstone called Mashniniptu, meaning the other which remains erect, having reference to the one on the south side, which had fallen. When the Squash withdrew to the summit the village was then called Mashniniptuovi, at the place of the other which remains erect; now that term is never used, but always its syncopated form, Mashongnavi.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate VIII. Bat House.]

The Squash village, on the south end of the Middle Mesa, was attacked by a fierce band that came from the north, some say the Ute, others say the Apache; but whoever the invaders were, they completely overpowered the people, and carried off great stores of food and other plunder. The village was then evacuated, the houses dismantled, and the material removed to the high summit, where they reconstructed their dwellings around the village which thenceforth bore its present name of Mashongnavi. Some of the Squash people moved over to Oraibi, and portions of the Katchina and Paroquet people came from there to Mashongnavi about the same time, and a few of these two groups occupied some vacant houses also in Shupaulovi; for this village even at that early date had greatly diminished in population, having sustained a disastrous loss of men in the canyon affrays east of Walpi.

Shumopavi seems to have been built by portions of the same groups who went to the adjacent Mashongnavi, but the traditions of the two villages are conflicting. The old traditionists at Shumopavi hold that the first to come there were the Paroquet, the Bear, the Bear-skin-rope, and the Blue Jay. They came from the west--probably from San Francisco Mountain.

They claim that ruins on a mesa bluff about 10 miles south from the present village are the remains of a village built by these groups before reaching Shumopavi, and the Paroquets arrived first, it is said, because they were perched on the heads of the Bears, and, when nearing the water, they flew in ahead of the others. These groups built a village on a broken terrace, on the east side of the cliff, and just below the present village. There is a spring close by called after the Shunhu, a tall red gra.s.s, which grew abundantly there, and from which the town took its name. This spring was formerly very large, but two years ago a landslide completely buried it; lately, however, a small outflow is again apparent.

The ruins of the early village cover a hillocky area of about 800 by 250 feet, but it is impossible to trace much of the ground plan with accuracy. The corner of an old house still stands, some 6 or 8 feet high, extending about 15 feet on one face and about 10 feet on the other. The wall is over 3 feet in thickness, but of very clumsy masonry, no care having been exercised in dressing the stones, which are of varying sizes and laid in mud plaster. Interest attaches to this fragment, as it is one of the few tangible evidences left of the Spanish priests who engaged in the fatal mission to the Hopituh in the sixteenth century. This bit of wall, which now forms part of a sheep-fold, is pointed out as the remains of one of the mission buildings.

Other groups followed--the Mole, the Spider, and the Wksrun. These latter took their name from a curious ornament worn by the men. A piece of the leg-bone of a bear, from which the marrow had been extracted and a stopper fixed in one end, was attached to the fillet binding the hair, and hung down in front of the forehead. This gens and the Mole are now extinct.

Shumopavi received no further accession of population, but lost to some extent by a portion of the Bear people moving across to Walpi. No important event seems to have occurred among them for a long period after the destruction of Sikytki, in which they bore some part, and only cursory mention is made of the ingress of enemies from the north; but their village, apparently, was not a.s.sailed.

The Oraibi traditions tend to confirm those of Shumopavi, and tell that the first houses there were built by Bears, who came from the latter place. The following is from a curious legend of the early settlement:

The Bear people had two chiefs, who were brothers; the elder was called Vwen-ti-s-mo, and the younger Ma-tc-to. They had a desperate quarrel at Shumopavi, and their people divided into two factions, according as they inclined to one or other of the contestants. After a long period of contention Ma-tc-to and his followers withdrew to the mesa where Oraibi now stands, about 8 miles northwest from Shumopavi, and built houses a little to the southwest of the limits of the present town. These houses were afterwards destroyed by enemies from the north, and the older portion of the existing town, the southwest ends of the house rows, were built with stones from the demolished houses. Fragments of these early walls are still occasionally unearthed.

After Ma-tc-to and his people were established there, whenever any of the Shumopavi people became dissatisfied with that place they built at Oraibi, Ma-tc-to placed a little stone monument about halfway between these two villages to mark the boundary of the land. Vwenti-so-mo objected to this, but it was ultimately accepted with the proviso that the village growing the fastest should have the privilege of moving it toward the other village. The monument still stands, and is on the direct Oraibi trail from Shumopavi, 3 miles from the latter. It is a well dressed, rectangular block of sandstone, projecting two feet above the ground, and measures 8 by 7 inches. On the end is carved the rude semblance of a human head, or mask, the eyes and mouth being merely round shallow holes, with a black line painted around them. The stone is pecked on the side, but the head and front are rubbed quite smooth, and the block, tapering slightly to the base, suggests the ancient Roman Termini.

There are Eagle people living at Oraibi, Mashongnavi, and Walpi, and it would seem as if they had journeyed for some time with the later Snake people and others from the northwest. Vague traditions attach them to several of the ruins north of the Moen-kopi, although most of these are regarded as the remains of Snake dwellings.

The legend of the Eagle people introduces them from the west, coming in by way of the Moen-kopi water course. They found many people living in Tusayan, at Oraibi, the Middle Mesa, and near the East Mesa, but the Snake village was yet in the valley. Some of the Eagles remained at Oraibi, but the main body moved to a large mound just east of Mashongnavi, on the summit of which they built a village and called it s.h.i.+-ti-mu. Numerous traces of small-roomed houses can be seen on this mound and on some of the lower surroundings. The uneven summit is about 300 by 200 feet, and the village seems to have been built in the form of an irregular ellipse, but the ground plan is very obscure.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate IX. Mis.h.i.+ptonga (Jeditoh).]

While the Eagles were living at s.h.i.+-ti-mu, they sent Yellow Foot to the mountain in the east (at the headwaters of the Rio Grande) to obtain a dog. After many perilous adventures in caverns guarded by bear, mountain lion, and rattlesnake, he got two dogs and returned. They were wanted to keep the coyotes out of the corn and the gardens. The dogs grew numerous, and would go to Mashongnavi in search of food, and also to some of the people of that village, which led to serious quarrels between them and the Eagle people. Ultimately the s.h.i.+-ti-mu chief proclaimed a feast, and told the people to prepare to leave the village forever. On the feast day the women arranged the food basins on the ground in a long line leading out of the village. The people pa.s.sed along this line, tasting a mouthful here or there, but without stopping, and when they reached the last basin they were beyond the limits of the village. Without turning around they continued on down into the valley until they were halted by the Snake people. An arrangement was effected with the latter, and the Eagles built their houses in the Snake village.

A few of the Eagle families who had become attached to Mashongnavi chose to go to that village, where their descendants still reside, and are yet held as close relatives by the Eagles of Walpi. The land around the East Mesa was then portioned out, the Snakes, Horns, Bears, and Eagles each receiving separate lands, and these old allotments are still approximately maintained.

According to the Eagle traditions the early occupants of Tusayan came in the following succession: Snake, Horn, Bear, Middle Mesa, Oraibi, and Eagle, and finally from the south came the Water families. This sequence is also recognized in the general tenor of the legends of the other groups.

Shupaulovi, a small village quite close to Mashongnavi, would seem to have been established just before the coming of the Water people. Nor does there seem to have been any very long interval between the arrival of the earliest occupants of the Middle Mesa and this latest colony.

These were the Sun people, and like the Squash folk, claim to have come from Paltkwabi, the Red Land, in the south. On their northward migration, when they came to the valley of the Colorado Chiquito, they found the Water people there, with whom they lived for some time. This combined village was built upon Homlobi, a round terraced mound near Sunset Crossing, where fragmentary ruins covering a wide area can yet be traced.

Incoming people from the east had built the large village of Awatubi, high rock, upon a steep mesa about nine miles southeast from Walpi. When the Sun people came into Tusayan they halted at that village and a few of them remained there permanently, but the others continued west to the Middle Mesa. At that time also they say Chukubi, s.h.i.+taimu, Mashongnavi, and the Squash village on the terrace were all occupied, and they built on the terrace close to the Squash village also. The Sun people were then very numerous and soon spread their dwellings over the summit where the ruin now stands, and many indistinct lines of house walls around this dilapidated village attest its former size. Like the neighboring village, it takes its name from a rock near by, which is used as a place for the deposit of votive offerings, but the etymology of the term can not be traced.

Some of the Bear people also took up their abode at Shupaulovi, and later a nyumu of the Water family called Batni, moisture, built with them; and the diminished families of the existing village are still composed entirely of these three nyumu.

The next arrivals seem to have been the Asanyumu, who in early days lived in the region of the Chama, in New Mexico, at a village called Kakibi, near the place now known as Abiquiu. When they left that region they moved slowly westward to a place called Twii (Santo Domingo), where some of them are said to still reside. The next halt was at Kaiwika (Laguna) where it is said some families still remain, and they staid also a short time at Aikoka (Acoma); but none of them remained at that place. From the latter place they went to Siki (Zui), where they remained a long time and left a number of their people there, who are now called Aiyhokwi by the Zui. They finally reached Tusayan by way of Awatubi. They had been preceded from the same part of New Mexico by the Honan nyumu (the Badger people), whom they found living at the last-named village. The Magpie, the Pute Khu (Boomerang-shaped hunting stick), and the Field-mouse families of the Asa remained and built beside the Badger, but the rest of its groups continued across to the Walpi Mesa. They were not at first permitted to come up to Walpi, which then occupied its present site, but were allotted a place to build at Coyote Water, a small spring on the east side of the mesa, just under the gap. They had not lived there very long, however, when for some valuable services in defeating at one time a raid of the Ute (who used to be called the Tcingawptuh) and of the Navajo at another, they were given for planting grounds all the s.p.a.ce on the mesa summit from the gap to where Sichumovi now stands, and the same width, extending across the valley to the east. On the mesa summit they built the early portion of the house ma.s.s on the north side of the village, now known as Hano. But soon after this came a succession of dry seasons, which caused a great scarcity of food almost amounting to a famine, and many moved away to distant streams. The Asa people went to Tpkabi (Deep Canyon, the de Ch.e.l.ly), about 70 miles northeast from Walpi, where the Navajo received them kindly and supplied them with food. The Asa had preserved some seeds of the peach, which they planted in the canyon nooks, and numerous little orchards still flourish there. They also brought the Navajo new varieties of food plants, and their relations grew very cordial. They built houses along the base of the canyon walls, and dwelt there for two or three generations, during which time many of the Asa women were given to the Navajo, and the descendants of these now const.i.tute a numerous clan among the Navajo, known as the Kiini, the High-house people.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate X. A small ruin near Moen-kopi.]

The Navajo and the Asa eventually quarreled and the latter returned to Walpi, but this was after the arrival of the Hano, by whom they found their old houses occupied. The Asa were taken into the village of Walpi, being given a vacant strip on the east edge of the mesa, just where the main trail comes up to the village. The Navajo, Ute, and Apache had frequently gained entrance to the village by this trail, and to guard it the Asa built a house group along the edge of the cliff at that point, immediately overlooking the trail, where some of the people still live; and the kiva there, now used by the Snake order, belongs to them. There was a crevice in the rock, with a smooth bottom extending to the edge of the cliff and deep enough for a kikoli. A wall was built to close the outer edge and it was at first intended to build a dwelling house there, but it was afterward excavated to its present size and made into a kiva, still called the wikwlhobi, the kiva of the Watchers of the High Place.

The Walpi site becoming crowded, some of the Bear and Lizard people moved out and built houses on the site of the present Sichumovi; several Asa families followed them, and after them came some of the Badger people. The village grew to an extent considerably beyond its present size, when it was abandoned on account of a malignant plague. After the plague, and within the present generation, the village was rebuilt--the old houses being torn down to make the new ones.

After the Asa came the nest group to arrive was the Water family. Their chief begins the story of their migration in this way:

In the long ago the Snake, Horn, and Eagle people lived here (in Tusayan), but their corn grew only a span high, and when they sang for rain the cloud G.o.d sent only a thin mist. My people then lived in the distant Pa-lt Kw-bi in the South. There was a very bad old man there, who, when he met any one, would spit in his face, blow his nose upon him, and rub ordure upon him. He ravished the girls and did all manner of evil. Baholikonga got angry at this and turned the world upside down, and water spouted up through the kivas and through the fireplaces in the houses. The earth was rent in great chasms, and water covered everything except one narrow ridge of mud; and across this the serpent deity told all the people to travel. As they journeyed across, the feet of the bad slipped and they fell into the dark water, but the good, after many days, reached dry land. While the water was rising around the village the old people got on the tops of the houses, for they thought they could not struggle across with the younger people; but Baholikonga clothed them with the skins of turkeys, and they spread their wings out and floated in the air just above the surface of the water, and in this way they got across. There were saved of our people Water, Corn, Lizard, Horned Toad, Sand, two families of Rabbit, and Tobacco. The turkey tail dragged in the water--hence the white on the turkey tail now. Wearing these turkey-skins is the reason why old people have dewlaps under the chin like a turkey; it is also the reason why old people use turkey-feathers at the religious ceremonies.

In the story of the wandering of the Water people, many vague references are made to various villages in the South, which they constructed or dwelt in, and to rocks where they carved their totems at temporary halting places. They dwelt for a long time at Homlobi, where the Sun people joined them; and probably not long after the latter left the Water people followed on after them. The largest number of this family seem to have made their dwellings first at Mashongnavi and Shupaulovi; but like the Sun people they soon spread to all the villages.

The narrative of part of this journey is thus given by the chief before quoted:

It occupied 4 years to cross the disrupted country. The kwakwanti (a warrior order) went ahead of the people and carried seed of corn, beans, melons, squashes, and cotton. They would plant corn in the mud at early morning and by noon it was ripe and thus the people were fed. When they reached solid ground they rested, and then they built houses. The kwakwanti were always out exploring--sometimes they were gone as long as four years. Again we would follow them on long journeys, and halt and build houses and plant. While we were traveling if a woman became heavy with child we would build her a house and put plenty of food in it and leave her there, and from these women sprang the Pima, Maricopa, and other Indians in the South.

Away in the South, before we crossed the mountains (south of the Apache country) we built large houses and lived there a long while.

Near these houses is a large rock on which was painted the rain-clouds of the Water phratry, also a man carrying corn in his arms; and the other phratries also painted the Lizard and the Rabbit upon it. While they were living there the kwakwanti made an expedition far to the north and came in conflict with a hostile people. They fought day after day, for days and days--they fought by day only and when night came they separated, each party retiring to its own ground to rest. One night the cranes came and each crane took a kwakwanti on his back and brought them back to their people in the South.

Again all the people traveled north until they came to the Little Colorado, near San Francisco Mountains, and there they built houses up and down the river. They also made long ditches to carry the water from the river to their gardens. After living there a long while they began to be plagued with swarms of a kind of gnat called the sand-fly, which bit the children, causing them to swell up and die. The place becoming unendurable, they were forced again to resume their travels. Before starting, one of the Rain-women, who was big with child, was made comfortable in one of the houses on the mountain. She told her people to leave her, because she knew this was the place where she was to remain forever. She also told them, that hereafter whenever they should return to the mountain to hunt she would provide them with plenty of game. Under her house is a spring and any sterile woman who drinks of its water will bear children. The people then began a long journey to reach the summit of the table land on the north. They camped for rest on one of the terraces, where there was no water, and they were very tired and thirsty. Here the women celebrated the rain-feast--they danced for three days, and on the fourth day the clouds brought heavy rain and refreshed the people. This event is still commemorated by a circle of stones at that place. They reached a spring southeast from Kibitho (k.u.ms Spring) and there they built a house and lived for some time. Our people had plenty of rain and cultivated much corn and some of the Walpi people came to visit us. They told ns that their rain only came here and there in fine misty sprays, and a basketful of corn was regarded as a large crop. So they asked us to come to their land and live with them and finally we consented. When we got there we found some Eagle people living near the Second Mesa; our people divided, and part went with the Eagle and have ever since remained there; but we camped near the First Mesa. It was planting time and the Walpi celebrated their rain-feast but they brought only a mere misty drizzle. Then we celebrated our rain-feast and planted.

Great rains and thunder and lightning immediately followed and on the first day after planting our corn was half an arms length high; on the fourth day it was its full height, and in one moon it was ripe. When we were going up to the village (Walpi was then north of the gap, probably), we were met by a Bear man who said that our thunder frightened the women and we must not go near the village.

Then the kwakwanti said, Let us leave these people and seek a land somewhere else, but our women said they were tired of travel and insisted upon our remaining. Then Fire-picker came down from the village and told us to come up there and stay, but after we had got into the village the Walpi women screamed out against us--they feared our thunder--and so the Walpi turned us away. Then our people, except those who went to the Second Mesa, traveled to the northeast as far as the Tsegi (Canyon de Ch.e.l.ly), but I can not tell whether our people built the louses there. Then they came hack to this region again and built houses and had much trouble with the Walpi, but we have lived here ever since.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate XI. Masonry on the outer wall of the Fire-House, detail.]

Groups of the Water people, as already stated, were distributed among all the villages, although the bulk of them remained at the Middle Mesa; but it seems that most of the remaining groups subsequently chose to build their permanent houses at Oraibi. There is no special tradition of this movement; it is only indicated by this circ.u.mstance, that in addition to the Water families common to every village, there are still in Oraibi several families of that people which have no representatives in any of the other villages. At a quite early day Oraibi became a place of importance, and they tell of being sufficiently populous to establish many outlying settlements. They still identify these with ruins on the detached mesas in the valley to the south and along the Moen-kopi (place of flowing water) and other intermittent streams in the west.

These sites were occupied for the purpose of utilizing cultivable tracts of land in their vicinity, and the remotest settlement, about 45 miles west, was especially devoted to the cultivation of cotton, the place being still called by the Navajo and other neighboring tribes, the cotton planting ground. It is also said that several of the larger ruins along the course of the Moen-kopi were occupied by groups of the Snake, the Coyote, and the Eagle who dwelt in that region for a long period before they joined the people in Tusayan. The incursions of foreign bands from the north may have hastened that movement, and the Oraibi say they were compelled to withdraw all their outlying colonies.

An episode is related of an attack upon the main village when a number of young girls were carried off, and 2 or 3 years afterward the same marauders returned and treated with the Oraibi, who paid a ransom in corn and received all their girls back again. After a quiet interval the pillaging bands renewed their attacks and the settlements on the Moen-kopi were vacated. They were again occupied after another peace was established, and this condition of alternate occupancy and abandonment seems to have existed until within quite recent time.

While the Asa were still sojourning in Canyon de Ch.e.l.ly, and before the arrival of the Hano, another b.l.o.o.d.y scene had been enacted in Tusayan.