Chapter 7

There were many specimens of basketry found on the surface of the rubbish of the floors which, from the position of their occurrence and from their resemblance to the wickerwork still used by the Apache, seem without doubt to have been left there by temporary occupants of the rooms. There were likewise many wisps of yucca fiber tied in knots which must probably be regarded as of identical origin. The _Yucca baccata_ affords the favorite fiber used by the natives at the present time, and it appears to have been popular for that purpose among the ancients.

Several specimens of sandals, some of which are very much worn on the soles, were found buried at the floor level. These are all of the same kind, and are made of yucca leaves plaited in narrow strips. The mode of attachment to the foot was evidently by a loop passing over the toes. Hide and cloth sandals have as yet not been reported from the Red-rock ruins of Verde valley. These sandals belonged to the original occupants of the cliff houses.

Fabrics made of cotton are common in the ruins of the Red-rocks, and at times this fiber was combined with yucca. Some of the specimens of cotton cloth were finely woven and are still quite strong, although stained dark or almost black. Specimens of netting are also common, and an open-mesh legging, similar to the kind manufactured in ancient times by the Hopi and still worn by certain personators in their sacred dances, were taken from the western room of Honanki. There were also many fragments of rope, string, cord, and loosely twisted bands, resembling head bands for carrying burdens.

A reed (figure 252) in which was inserted a fragment of cotton fiber was unlike anything yet reported from cliff houses, and as the end of the cotton which projected beyond the cavity of the reed was charred, it possibly was used as a slow-match or tinder-box.

Several shell and turquois beads were found, but my limited studies of the cliff-houses revealed only a few other ornaments, among them being beads of turkey-bone and a single wristlet fashioned from a _Pectunculus_. One or two fragments of prayer-sticks were discovered in a rock inclosure in a cleft to the west of the ruin.

CONCLUSIONS REGARDING THE VERDE VALLEY RUINS

The ruins of the Verde region closely resemble those of Tusayan, and seem to support the claim of the Hopi that some of their ancestors formerly lived in that region. This is true more especially of the villages of the plains and mesa tops, for neither cave-houses nor cavate dwellings are found in the immediate vicinity of the inhabited Tusayan pueblos. The objects taken from the ruins are similar to those found universally over the pueblo area, and from them alone we can not say more than that they probably indicate the same substratum of culture as that from which modern pueblo life with its many modifications has sprung.

The symbolism of the decorations on the fragments of pottery found in the Verde ruins is the same as that of the ancient pueblos of the Colorado Chiquito, and it remains to be shown whether the ancestors of these were Hopi or Zuñi. I believe it will be found that they were both, or that when the villages along the Colorado Chiquito[29] were abandoned part of the inhabitants went to the mesas of Tusayan and others migrated farther up the river to the Zuñi villages.

Two centers of distribution of cliff houses occur in our Southwest: those of the upper tributaries of the Colorado in the north and the cliff houses of the affluents of the Salt and the Gila in the south. The watershed of the Rio Grande is, so far as is known, destitute of this kind of aboriginal dwellings. Between the two centers of distribution lie the pueblos of the Little Colorado and its tributaries, the home of the ancestors of the Hopi and the Zuñi. The many resemblances between the cliff houses of the north and those of the south indicate that the stage of culture of both was uniform, and probably the same conditions of environment led both peoples to build similar dwellings. All those likenesses which can be found between the modern Zuñi and the Hopi to the former cliff peoples of the San Juan region in the north, apply equally to those of the upper Salado and the Gila and their tributaries to the south; and so far as arguments of a northern origin of either, built on architectural or technological resemblances, are concerned, they are not conclusive, since they are also applicable to the cliff peoples of the south. The one important difference between the northern and the southern tier of cliff houses is the occurrence of the circular kiva, which has never been reported south of the divide between the Little Colorado and the Gila-Salado drainage. If a kiva was a feature in southern cliff houses, which I doubt, it appears to have been a rectangular chamber similar to a dwelling room. The circular kiva exists in neither the modern Hopi nor the Zuñi pueblos, and it has not been found in adjacent Tusayan ruins; therefore, if these habitations were profoundly influenced by settlers from the north, it is strange that such a radical change in the form of this room resulted. The arguments advanced that one of the two component stocks of the Zuñi, and that the aboriginal, came from the cliff peoples of the San Juan, are not conclusive, although I have no doubt that the Zuñi may have received increment from that direction.

Cushing has, I believe, furnished good evidence that some of the ancestors of the Zuñi population came from the south and southwest; and that some of these came from pueblos now in ruins on the Little Colorado is indicated by the great similarity in the antiquities of ancient Zuñi and the Colorado Chiquito ruins. Part of the Patki people of the Hopi went to Zuñi and part to Tusayan, from the same abandoned pueblo, and the descendants of this family in Walpi still recognize this ancient kinship; but I do not know, and so far as can be seen there is no way of determining, the relative antiquity of the pueblos in Zuñi valley and those on the lower Colorado.

The approximate date of the immigration of the Patki people to Tusayan is as yet a matter of conjecture. It may have been in prehistoric times, or more likely at a comparatively late period in the history of the people. It seems well substantiated, however, that when this Water-house people joined the other Hopi, the latter inhabited pueblos and were to all intents a pueblo people. If this hypothesis be a correct one, the Snake, Horn, and Bear peoples, whom the southern colonists found in Tusayan, had a culture of their own similar to that of the people from the south. Whence that culture came must be determined by studies of the component clans of the Hopi before the arrival of the Patki people.[30]

The origin of the round shape of the estufa, according to Nordenskiöld (p. 168), is most easily explained on the hypothesis that it is a reminiscence of the cliff-dwellers' nomadic period. "There must be some very cogent reason for the employment of this shape," he says, "for the construction of a cylindrical chamber within a block of rectangular rooms involves no small amount of labor. We know how obstinately primitive nations cling to everything connected with their religious ideas. Then what is more natural than the retention, for the room where religious ceremonies were performed, of the round shape characteristic of the original dwelling place, the nomadic hut? This assumption is further corroborated by the situation of the hearth and the structure of the roof of the estufa, when we find points of analogy to the method employed by certain nomadic Indians in the erection of their huts." This theory of the origin of the round form of dwelling and its retention in the architecture of the kiva, advanced by Nordenskiöld in 1893, has much in its favor, but the rectangular form, which, so far as known, is the only shape of these sacred rooms in the Tusayan region, is still unexplained. From Castañeda's narrative of the Coronado expedition it appears that in the middle of the sixteenth century the eastern pueblos had both square and round estufas or kivas, and that these kivas belonged to the men while the rooms of the pueblo were in the possession of the women. The apparent reason why we find no round rooms or kivas in the southern cliff houses and in Tusayan may be due to several causes. Local conditions, including the character of the building sites on the Hopi mesa, made square rooms more practical, or the nomadic stage was so far removed that the form of the inclosure in which the ancients held their rites had not been preserved. Moreover, some of the most ancient and secret observances at Walpi, as the Flute ceremony, are not performed in special kivas, but take place in ordinary living rooms.

As in all the other ruins of Verde valley, circular kivas are absent in the Red-rock country, and this fact, which has attracted the attention of several observers, is, I believe, very significant. Although as yet our knowledge of the cliff houses of the upper Gila and Salado and their numerous tributaries is very fragmentary, and generalization on that account unsafe, it may be stated provisionally that no circular kivas have yet been found in any ruins of the Gila-Salado watershed. This form of kiva, however, is an essential feature of the cliff dwellings of Rio Colorado, especially of those along its affluents in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. Roughly speaking, then, the circular kiva is characteristic of the ruins of this region and of certain others in the valley of the Rio Grande, where they still survive in inhabited pueblos.

Circular ruins likewise are limited in their distribution in the Southwest, and it is an interesting fact that the geographic distribution of ancient pueblos of this form is in a general way the same as that of circular kivas. There are, of course, many exceptions, but so far as I know these can readily be explained. No ruins of circular dwellings occur in the Gila-Salado drainage area, where likewise no circular kivas have been observed. Moreover, the circular form of dwelling and kiva is distinctively characteristic of prehistoric peoples east of Tusayan, and the few instances of their occurrence on its eastern border can readily be explained as extra-Hopi.

The explanation of these circular kivas advanced by Nordenskiöld and the Mindeleffs, that they are survivals of round habitations of nomads, has much to commend it; but whether sufficient or not, the geographic limitation of these structures tells in favor of the absence of any considerable migration of the prehistoric peoples of the upper Colorado and Rio Grande watersheds southward into the drainage area of the Gila-Salado. Had the migration been in that direction it may readily be believed that the round kiva and the circular form of dwelling would have been brought with it.

The round kiva has been regarded as a survival of the form of the original homes of the nomad, when he became a sedentary agriculturist by conquest and marriage.

The presence of rectangular kivas in the same areas in which round kivas occur does not necessarily militate against this theory, nor does it oblige us to offer an explanation of a necessarily radical change in architecture if we would derive it from a circular form. It would indeed be very unusual to find such a change in a structure devoted to religious purposes where conservatism is so strong. The rectangular kiva is the ancient form, or rather the original form; the round kiva is not a development from it, but an introduction from an alien people. It never penetrated southward of the Colorado and upper Rio Grande drainage areas because the element which introduced it in the north was never strong enough to influence the house builders of the Gila-Salado and tributary valleys.

RUINS IN TUSAYAN

GENERAL FEATURES

No region of our Southwest presents more instructive antiquities than the ancient province of Tusayan, more widely known as the Moki reservation. In the more limited use of the term, Tusayan is applied to the immediate surroundings of the Hopi pueblos, to which "province" it was given in the middle of the sixteenth century. In a broader sense the name would include an as yet unbounded country claimed by the component clans of this people as the homes of their ancestors.

The general character and distribution of Tusayan ruins (plate XVI) has been ably presented by Mr Victor Mindeleff in a previous report.[31] While this memoir is not regarded as exhaustive, it considers most of the large ruins in immediate proximity to the three mesas on which the pueblos inhabited by the Hopi are situated. It is not my purpose here to consider all Tusayan ruins, even if I were able to do so, but to supplement with additional data the observations already published on two of the most noteworthy pueblo settlements. Broadly speaking, I have attempted archeological excavations in order to obtain more light on the nature of prehistoric life in Tusayan. It may be advantageous, however, to refer briefly to some of the ruins thus far discovered in the Tusayan region as preliminary to more systematic descriptions of the two which I have chosen for special description.

The legends of the surviving Hopi contain constant references to former habitations of different clans in the country round about their present villages. These clans, which by consolidation make up the present population of the Hopi pueblos, are said to have originally entered Tusayan from regions as far eastward as the Rio Grande, and from the southern country included within the drainage of the Gila, the Salt, and their affluents. Other increments are reputed to have come from the northward and the westward, so that the people we now find in Tusayan are descendants from an aggregation of stocks from several directions, some of them having migrated from considerable distances. Natives of other regions have settled among the ancient Hopi, built pueblos, and later returned to their former homes; and the Hopi in turn have sent colonists into the eastern pueblo country.

These legends of former movements of the tribal clans of Tusayan are supplemented and supported by historical documents, and we know from this evidence that there has been a continual interchange between the people of Tusayan and almost every large pueblo of New Mexico and Arizona. Some of the ruins of this region were abandoned in historic times; others are prehistoric; many were simply temporary halting places in Hopi migrations, and were abandoned as the clans drifted together in friendship or destroyed as a result of internecine conflicts.

There is documentary evidence that in the years following the great rebellion of the Pueblo tribes in 1680, which were characterized by catastrophes of all kinds among the Rio Grande villagers, many Tanoan people fled to Tusayan to escape from their troubles. According to Niel, 4,000 Tanoan refugees, under Frasquillo, loaded with booty which they had looted from the churches, went to Oraibi by way of Zuñi, and there established a "kingdom," with their chief as ruler. How much reliance may be placed on this account is not clear to me, but there is no doubt that many Tanoan people joined the Hopi about this time, and among them were the Asa people, the ancestors of the present inhabitants of Hano pueblo, and probably the accolents of Payüpki. The ease with which two Franciscan fathers, in 1742, persuaded 441 of these to return to the Rio Grande, implies that they were not very hostile to Christianity, and it is possible that one reason they sought Tusayan in the years after the Spaniards were expelled may have been their friendship for the church party.

With the exception of Oraibi, not one of the present inhabited pueblos of Tusayan occupies the site on which it stood in the sixteenth century, and the majority of them do not antedate the beginning of the eighteenth century. The villages have shifted their positions but retained their names.

At the time of the advent of Tobar, in 1540, there was but one of the present three villages of East Mesa. This was Walpi, and at the period referred to it was situated on the terrace below the site of the present town, near the northwestern base of the mesa proper. Two well-defined ruins, called Kisakobi and Küchaptüvela, are now pointed out as the sites of Old Walpi. Of these Küchaptüvela is regarded as the older.

Judging by their ruins these towns were of considerable size. From their exposed situation they were open to the inroads of predatory tribes, and from these hostile raids their abandonment became necessary. From Küchaptüvela the ancient Walpians moved to a point higher on the mesa, nearer its western limit, and built Kisakobi, where the pueblo stood in the seventeenth century. There is evidence that a Spanish mission was erected at this point, and the place is sometimes called Nüshaki, a corruption of "Missa-ki," Mass-house. From this place the original nucleus of Walpians moved to the present site about the close of the seventeenth century. Later the original population was joined by other phratries, some of which, as the Asa, had lived in the cliff-houses of Tségi, or Canyon de Chelly, as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century. This, however, is not the place to trace the composition of the different modern villages.

Sichomovi was a colony from Walpi, founded about 1750, and Hano was built not earlier than 1700. The former was settled by the Badger people, later joined by a group of Tanoan clans called the Asa, from the Rio Grande, who were invited to Tusayan to aid the Hopi in resisting the invasions of northern nomads.

By the middle of the eighteenth century the population of the province of Tusayan was for the first time distributed in the seven pueblos now inhabited. No village has been deserted since that time, nor has any new site been occupied.

In order that the reader may have an idea of the Tusayan pueblos at the time mentioned, an account of them from a little-known description by Morfi in 1782 is introduced:[32]

_Morfi's account of the Tusayan pueblos_

Quarenta y seis leguas al Poniente de Zuñi, con alguna inclinacion al N. O. están los tres primeros pueblos de la provincia de Moqui, que en el dia en el corto distrito de 4-1/2 leguas (112 recto) tiene siete pueblos en tres mesas ó peñoles que corren linea recta de Oriente á Poniente.

_Tanos_[33]

En la punta occidental de la primera, y en la mas estrecho de su eminencia están situados tres de los quales el primero es el de Tanos (alli dicen Tegüas), cuyas moradores tienen idioma particular y distinto del Moquino. Es pueblo regular con un plaza en el centro, y un formacion de calles. Tendrá 110 familias.

El segundo[34] pueblo dista del precedente como un tiro de piedra, es de fundacion moderna, y se compondrá de mas 15 familias que se retiraron aqui de:

_Gualpi_

Gualpi que dista del anterior un tiro de fusil, es mas grande y populoso que los dos anteriores, puede tener hasta 200 familias. Estas tres pueblos tienen poco caballada, y algunas vacas; pero mucho ganado lanar.

_Mosasnabi_[35]

Al poniente de esta mesa, y á legua y media de distancia está la segunda, cuyo intermedio es un (112 v.) arenal, que ertrando un poco en ella la divide en dos brazas. En el septentrional, que es el mas inmediata á Gualpi hay dos anillos distantes entre si un tiro de piedra. En la cima del primero está situado el pueblo de Mosasnabi compuesto de 50 familias poco mas ó menos.

_Xipaolabi_[36]

En la cumbre del secundo cerrito se fundó el quinto pueblo llamado Xipaolabi, que tendrá solo 14 familias: está casi arruinado, porque sus vecinos se han trasladado al brazo austral de la mesa y formaron el sexto pueblo llamado:

_Xongopabi_[37]

Xongopabi goza mejor situacion que todos los demas, tienen tres quarteles mui bien dispuestos y en ellas unas 60 familias. Estos tres pueblos tienen mas caballada que los primeros y mucho ganado menor.

_Oraybe_

Dos y media leguas al Poniente de esta mesa, está la tercera, y en sucima el septimo pueblo que llaman Oraybe. Es como la capital de la provincia, el mayor y mas bien formado de toda ella, y acaso de todas las provincias internas. Tiene once quarteles ó manzanas bien largas y dispuestos con calles á cordel yá (113 r.) todos vientos, y puede llegar su poblacion á 800 familias. Tienen buena caballada, mucho ganado menor y algun vacuno. Aunque no gozan sino una pequeña fuente de buena agua, distante del pueblo mas de una milla al Norte, han construido para suplir esta escasez, en la misma mesa, y mui inmediato à las casas seis cisternas grandes donde recoger la agua de las lluvias y nieves.

The distribution of the population of Tusayan in the seven pueblos mentioned above remained practically the same during the century between 1782 and 1882. Summer settlements for farming purposes were inhabited by the Oraibi for brief periods. Between the years 1880 and 1890 a beginning of a new distribution of Hopi families began, when one or two of the less timid erected houses near Coyote spring, at the East Mesa. The Tewa, represented by Polaka and Jakwaina, took the lead in this movement. From 1890 to the present time a large number of Walpi, Sichomovi, and Hano families have built houses in the foothills of the East Mesa and in the plain beyond the "wash." A large schoolhouse has been erected at Sun spring and a considerable number of East Mesa villagers have abandoned their mesa dwellings. In this shifting of the population the isolated house is always adopted and the aboriginal method of roof building is abandoned. The indications are that in a few years the population of the East Mesa will be settled in unconnected farmhouses with little resemblance to the ancient communal pueblo.

This movement is shared to a less extent by the Middle Mesa and Oraibi people. On my first visit to the pueblos of these mesas, in 1890, there was not a single permanent dwelling save in the ancient pueblos; but now numerous small farmhouses have been erected at or near the springs in the foothills. I mention these facts as a matter of record of progress in the life of these people in adapting themselves to the new conditions or influences by which they are surrounded. I believe that if this exodus of Hopi families from the old pueblo to the plain continues during the next two decades as it has in the last ten years, there are children now living in Walpi who will some day see it uninhabited.

This disintegration of the Hopi phratries, by which families are separated from one another, is, I believe, a return to the prehistoric distribution of the clans, and as Walpi grew into a pueblo by a union of kindred people, so now it is again being divided and distributed, still preserving family ties in new clusters or groupings. It is thus not impossible that the sites of certain old ruins, as Sikyatki, deserted for many years, will again be built upon if better suited for new modes of life. The settlement near Coyote spring, for instance, is not far from the old site of a former home of the Tanoan families, who went to Tusayan in the beginning of the eighteenth century, and the people who inhabit these new houses are all Tanoan descendants of the original contingent.