Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 Part 11

SMALLER AWATOBI

About an eighth of a mile west of the great mounds of Awatobi there is a small rectangular ruin, the ground plan of which is well marked, and in which individual houses are easy to trace. Like its larger neighbor, it stands on the very edge of the mesa. None of its walls rise above the surface of the mounds, which, however, are considerably elevated and readily distinguished for some distance. The pueblo was built in the form of a rectangle of single-story houses surrounding a plaza. There was an opening or entrance on the southern side, near which is a mound, possibly the remains of a kiva. A trail now pa.s.ses directly through the ruin and down the mesa side to Jeditoh valley, probably the pathway by which the ancient inhabitants ascended the cliff. The Hopi Indians employed by me in excavating Awatobi had no name for this ruin and were not familiar with its existence before I pointed it out to them. For want of a better interpretation I have regarded it as a colony of old Awatobi, possibly of later construction.

Excavations in its mounds revealed no objects of interest, although fragments of beautiful pottery, related to that found at Awatobi and Sikyatki, show that it must have been made by people of the older or best epoch[78] of Tusayan ceramics.

MORTUARY REMAINS

Although it is well known that the ancient inhabitants of the great houses of the Gila-Salado drainage buried some of their dead within their dwellings, or in other rooms, and that the same mortuary practice was observed in ancient Zuni-Cibola, up to the time of my excavations this form of burial had never been found in Tusayan. I am now able to record that the same custom was practiced at Awatobi.

Excavation made in the southeastern declivity of the western mounds led to a burial chamber in which we found the well-preserved skeleton of an old man, apparently a priest. The body was laid on the floor, at full length, and at his head, which pointed southward, had been placed, not mortuary offerings of food in bowls, but insignia of his priestly office. Eight small objects of pottery were found on his left side (plate CXII, _a_, _b_, _d_, _e_). Among these was a symmetrical vase of beautiful red ware (plate CXI, _a_) richly decorated with geometric patterns, and four globular paint pots, each full of pigment of characteristic color. These paint pots were of black-and-white ware, and contained, respectively, yellow ocher, sesquioxide of iron, green copper carbonate, and micaceous hemat.i.te (plate CXIII, _a_, _d_, _e_) such as is now called _yayala_ and used by the Snake priests in the decoration of their faces. There were also many arrowpoints in an earthen colander, and a ladle was luted over the mouth of the red vase. My native excavators p.r.o.nounced this the grave of a warrior priest. The pa.s.sageways into this chamber of death had all been closed, and there were no other mortuary objects in the room. This was the only instance of intramural interment which I discovered in the excavations at Awatobi, but a human bone was found on the floor of another chamber. So far as known the Awatobi people buried most of their dead outside the town, either in the foothills at the base of the mesa, or in the adjacent sand-dunes.

The work of excavating the graves at the foot of the mesa was desultory, as I found no single place where many interments had been made. Several food vessels were dug up at a grave opened by Kopeli, the Snake chief. I was not with him when he found the grave, but he called me to see it soon after its discovery. We took from this excavation a sandstone fetish of a mountain-lion, a fragment of the bottom of a basin perforated with holes as if used as a colander.

Deposited in this fragment were many stone arrowheads, several fragments of green paint, a flat green paho ornamented with figures of dragon-flies in black. In addition to a single complete prayer-stick there were fragments of many others too much broken to be identified.

One of these was declared by Kopeli to be a chief's paho. The grave in which these objects were found was situated about halfway down the side of the mesa to the southward of the highest mounds of the western division of the pueblo.

Here and there along the base of all the foothills south of Awatobi are evidences of former burials, and complete bowls, dippers, and vases were unearthed (plate CXIII, _b_, _c_). The soil is covered with fragments of pottery, and in places, where the water has washed through them, exposing a vertical section of the ground, it was found that the fragments of pottery extended through the soil sometimes to a depth of fifty feet below the surface. There was evidence, however, that this soil had been transported more or less by rain water, which often courses down the sides of the mesa in impetuous torrents.

Human bones and mortuary vessels were found south of the mission near the trail, at the foot of the mesa. In a single grave, a foot below the surface, there were two piles of food bowls, each pile containing six vessels, all broken.

The cemetery northwest of Awatobi, where the soil is sandy and easy to excavate, had been searched by others, and many beautiful objects of pottery taken from it. This burial place yielded many bowls (plates CLXVII, CLXVIII) and jars, as well as several interesting pahos similar to those from Sikyatki, which I shall later describe but which have never before been reported from Awatobi. It was found that one of these prayer-sticks was laid over the heart of the deceased, and as the skeleton was in a sitting posture, with the hand on the breast, the prayer-stick may thus have been held at the time of burial. Our success in finding places of interment on all sides of Sikyatki, irrespective of direction, leads me to suspect that further investigation of the sand-dunes north of Awatobi will reveal graves at that point.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXI

VASE AND MUGS FROM THE WESTERN MOUNDS OF AWATOBI]

I have already called attention to the great abundance of charred corn found in the rooms north of the mission. Renewed work in this quarter revealed still greater quant.i.ties of this corn stacked in piles, sometimes filling the entire side of a room. Evidently, as I have elsewhere shown, the row of rooms at this part of the ruin were burned with all their contents. The corn was not removed from the granaries, as it would have been if the place had been gradually abandoned. When an Indian burns stored corn in such quant.i.ties as were found at Awatobi we can not believe he was bent on pillage, and it is an instructive fact that thus far no stacked corn has been found in the western or most ancient section of Awatobi.

SHRINES

Although Awatobi was destroyed almost two centuries ago, the shrines of the old pueblo were used for many years afterward, and are even now frequented by some of the Mishoninovi priests. In one of these ancient depositories two wooden figurines sat in state up to within a few years ago.

This shrine lies below the ruins of the mission, among the bowlders on the side of the cliff, about fifty feet from the edge of the mesa, and is formed in an eroded cavity in the side of a bowlder of unusual size. A rude wall had been built before this recess, which opened to the east, and apparently the orifice was closed with logs, which have now fallen in. The present appearance of this shrine is shown in the accompanying ill.u.s.tration (figure 257).

In former times two wooden idols, called the _Alosaka_, were kept in this crypt, in much the same manner as the Dawn Maid is now sealed up by the Walpians, when not used in the New-fire ceremony, as I have described in my account of _Naacnaiya_.[79] Mr Thomas V. Keam, not knowing that the Awatobi idols were still used in the Mishoninovi ritual, had removed them to his residence, but when this was known a large number of priests begged him to return them, saying that they were still used in religious exercises. With that consideration which he has always shown to the Indians, Mr Keam allowed the priests to take the images of _Alosaka_. The figurines were this time carried to Mishoninovi, the priests sprinkling a line of meal along the trail over which they carried them. The two idols[80] have not been seen by white people since that time, and are now, no doubt, in some hidden crypt near the Mishoninovi village.

There is a shrine of simple character, near the ruins of smaller Awatobi, which bears evidence of antiquity (figure 258). It consisted, in 1892, of a circle of small stones in which were two large water-worn stones and a fragment of petrified wood. There was no evidence that it had lately been used.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 257--Alosaka shrine at Awatobi]

On the extreme western point of the mesa, at the very edge of the cliff, there was also a simple shrine (figure 259). Judging from its general appearance, this, likewise, had not been used in modern times, but there were several old prayer-sticks not far away.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXII

PAINT POTS, BOWL, AND DIPPER FROM AWATOBI]

At the foot of the mesa, below the point last mentioned, however, there is a shrine (figure 260), the earth of which contained hundreds of prayer-sticks, in all stages of decay, while some of them had been placed there only a few days before my visit. This shrine, I was told, is still used by the Mishoninovi priests in their sacred observances. Among other forms of prayer offerings there were many small wooden cylinders with radiating sticks connected with yarn, the symbolic prayer offering for squashes.[81] In former times Antelope valley was the garden spot of Tusayan, and from what we know of the antiquity of the cultivation of squashes in the Southwest, there is little doubt that they were cultivated by the Awatobians, and that similar offerings were made by the ancient farmers for a good crop of these vegetables.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 258--Shrine at Awatobi]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 259--Shrine at Awatobi]

POTTERY

The mounds of Awatobi are entirely covered with fragments of pottery of all the various kinds and colors known to ancient Tusayan. There were found coiled and indented ware, coa.r.s.e undecorated vessels, fine yellow and smooth ware with black-and-white and red decorations. There is no special kind of pottery peculiar to Awatobi, but it shares with the other Tusayan ruins all types, save a few fragments of black glazed ware, which occur elsewhere.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 260--Shrine at Awatobi]

It is highly probable that the few specimens of black-and-white ware found in this ruin were not manufactured in the village, and the red ware probably came from settlements to the south, on the Little Colorado. These colors are in part due to the character of the paste which was used, and the clay most often selected by Awatobi potters made a fine yellow vessel. The material from which most of the vessels were manufactured came, no doubt, from a bank near the ruin, where there is good evidence that it was formerly quarried.

Three coa.r.s.e clay objects, such as might have been used for roof drains, were found. The use of these objects, possibly indicated by their resemblance, is not, however, perfectly clear. Their capacity would not be equal to the torrents of rain which, no doubt, often fell on the housetops of Awatobi, and they can hardly be identified as spouts of large bowls, since they are attached to a circular disk with smooth edges. In want of a satisfactory explanation I have provisionally regarded them as water spouts, but whether they are from ancient vessels or from the roofs of houses I am in much doubt.[82]

One of the most instructive fragments of pottery taken from the ruins is that of a coa.r.s.e clay vessel, evidently a part of a flat basin or saucer. The rim of this vessel is punctured with numerous holes, the intervals between which are not greater than the diameter of the perforations.

Several platter-like vessels with similar holes about their rims have been taken from other ruins of Jeditoh valley and mesa, the holes being regarded as having been made as a means of suspension. Near a sacred spring called Kawaika,[83] not far from Jeditoh, near Awatobi, a large number of beautiful vessels with similar holes in their rims were excavated by Mr T. V. Keam, and later pa.s.sed into the collections of the Hemenway Expedition, now installed at Cambridge. They are of all kinds of ware, widely different in shape, the number of marginal perforations varying greatly. As they were found in large numbers near a spring they are regarded as sacrificial vessels, in which food or sacred meal was deposited as an offering to some water deity. The handle of a mug (plate CXI, _f_) from Awatobi, so closely resembles the handles of certain drinking cups taken from the cliff-houses of San Juan valley that it should be specially mentioned. There is in the handle of this mug a T-shape opening quite similar in form to the peculiar doorways of certain cliff-dwellings. The mug is made of the finest white ware, decorated with black lines arranged in geometric patterns. So close is its likeness in form and texture to cliff-house pottery that the two may be regarded as identical. Moreover, it is not impossible that the object may have been brought to Tusayan from Tsegi canyon, in the cliff-houses of which Hopi clans[84] lived while Awatobi was in its prime, and, indeed, possibly after the tragedy of 1700. The few fragments of Tsegi canyon pottery known to me have strong resemblances to ancient Hopi ware, although the black-and-white variety predominates.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXIII

POTTERY FROM INTRAMURAL BURIAL AT AWATOBI]

The collection of pottery from Awatobi is, comparatively speaking, small, but it shows many interesting forms. Awatobi pottery may be cla.s.sed under the same groups as other old Tusayan ceramics, but most of the specimens collected belong to the yellow, black-and-white, and red varieties. It resembles that of Sikyatki, but bears little likeness to modern ware in texture or symbolism. One is impressed by the close resemblance between the Awatobi pottery and that from the ruins of the Little Colorado and Zuni,[85] which no doubt is explained, in part, by the ident.i.ty in the const.i.tuents of the potter's clay near Awatobi with that in more southerly regions.

Evidences of Spanish influence may be traced on certain objects of pottery from Awatobi, especially on those obtained from the eastern mounds of the ruin. In most essentials, however, the Awatobi ware resembles that of the neighboring ruins, and is characteristically Tusayan.

The differentiation in modern Cibolan and Tusayan symbolism is much greater than that of the ancient pottery from the same provinces, a fact which is believed to point to a similarity, possibly ident.i.ty, of culture in ancient times. With this thought in mind, it would be highly instructive to study the ancient ruins of the Rio Grande region, as unfortunately no large collections of archeological objects from that part of the Southwest have been made.[86]

The majority of the bowls from Awatobi are decorated in geometric patterns and a few have animal or human figures. The symbols, as well as the pottery itself, can not be distinguished from those of Sikyatki. Fragments of glazed ware are not unknown at Awatobi, but so far as recorded, entire specimens have never been obtained from the latter ruin.

In order that the character of the geometric designs on Awatobi pottery may be better understood, two plates are introduced to ill.u.s.trate their modifications in connection with my discussion of the geometric forms figured on Sikyatki ware. The figures on these bowls (plates CLXVI, CLXVII), with one or two exceptions, need no special description in addition to what is said of Sikyatki geometric designs, which they closely resemble.

The cross-shape figure (plate CLXVI, _b_) may profitably be studied in connection with the account of the modification of Sikyatki sun symbols. Evidences of the use of a white pigment as a slip were found on one or two fragments of fine pottery from Awatobi, but no decoration of this kind was observed on the Sikyatki vessels. The red ware is the same as that found in ancient Cibola, while one or two fragments of glossy black recall the type common to modern Santa Clara.

Two bird-shape vessels, one made of black-and-white ware, the other red with black-and-white decoration, were found at Awatobi. Large ma.s.ses of clay suited to the potter's art were not uncommonly found in the corners of the rooms or in the niches in their walls. Some of these ma.s.ses are of fine paste, the others coa.r.s.e with grains of sand.

The former variety was used in making the finest Tusayan ceramics; the latter was employed in modeling cooking pots and other vessels of ruder finish.

Several flute-shape objects of clay, with flaring extremities, were found on the surface of the mounds of Awatobi, and one was taken from a Sikyatki grave. The use of these objects is unknown to me.

Among the fragments of dippers from Awatobi are several with perforations in the bottom, irregularly arranged or in geometric form, as that of a cross. These colanders were rare at Sikyatki, but I find nothing in them to betray Spanish influence.[87] Handled dippers or mugs have been found so often by me in the prehistoric ruins of our Southwest that I can not accept the dictum that the mug form was not prehistoric, and the conclusion is legitimate that the Tusayan Indians were familiar with mugs when the Spaniards came among them. The handles of the dippers or ladles are single or double, solid or hollow, simply turned up at one end or terminating with the head of an animal. The upper side of the ladle handle may be grooved or convex.

No ladle handle decorated with an image of a "mud-head" or clown priest, so common on modern ladles, was found either at Awatobi or Sikyatki.