Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 Part 6

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 Nordenskiold 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 doc.u.ments, 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 doc.u.mentary 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 Zuni, 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 Payupki. 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 Kuchaptuvela, are now pointed out as the sites of Old Walpi. Of these Kuchaptuvela 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 Kuchaptuvela 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 Nushaki, a corruption of "Missa-ki," Ma.s.s-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 Tsegi, or Canyon de Ch.e.l.ly, as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century. This, however, is not the place to trace the composition of the different modern villages.

Sich.o.m.ovi 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 Zuni, con alguna inclinacion al N. O. estan 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 o penoles que corren linea recta de Oriente a Poniente.

_Tanos_[33]

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

El segundo[34] pueblo dista del precedente como un tiro de piedra, es de fundacion moderna, y se compondra 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 a legua y media de distancia esta 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 a Gualpi hay dos anillos distantes entre si un tiro de piedra. En la cima del primero esta situado el pueblo de Mosasnabi compuesto de 50 familias poco mas o menos.

_Xipaolabi_[36]

En la c.u.mbre del secundo cerrito se fundo el quinto pueblo llamado Xipaolabi, que tendra solo 14 familias: esta casi arruinado, porque sus vecinos se han trasladado al brazo austral de la mesa y formaron el s.e.xto 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, esta 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 o manzanas bien largas y dispuestos con calles a cordel ya (113 r.) todos vientos, y puede llegar su poblacion a 800 familias. Tienen buena caballada, mucho ganado menor y algun vacuno. Aunque no gozan sino una pequena 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 a 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, Sich.o.m.ovi, 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 cl.u.s.ters 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.

In order to become familiar with the general character of Tusayan ruins, I made a brief reconnoissance of those mentioned in the following list, from which I selected Awatobi and Sikyatki as places for a more exhaustive exploration. This list is followed by a brief mention of those which I believe would offer fair opportunities for a continuation of the work inaugurated. The ruins near Oraibi were not examined and are therefore omitted, not that they are regarded as less important, but because I was unable to undertake a study of them in the limited time at my disposal. There are also many ruins in Tusayan, north of the inhabited pueblos, which have never been described, and would well repay extended investigation. Some of these, as the ruins at the sacred spring called Kishuba, are of the utmost traditional importance.

I. _Middle Mesa ruins_--(1) Old Shunopovi; (2) Old Mishoninovi; (3) s.h.i.taumu; (4) Chukubi; (5) Payupki.

II. _East Mesa ruins_--(1) Kisakobi; (2) Kuchaptuvela; (3) Kukuch.o.m.o; (4) Tukin.o.bi; (5) Kachinba; (6) Sikyatki.

III. _Ruins in Keam's canyon_.

IV. _Jeditoh valley ruins_--(1) Bat-house; (2) Jeditoh, Kawaika; (3) Horn-house; (4) Awatobi; Smaller Awatobi.

This method of cla.s.sification is purely geographical, and is adopted simply for convenience; but there are one or two facts worthy of mention in regard to the distribution of ruins in these four sections.

The inhabited pueblos, like the ruins, are, as a rule, situated on the eastern side of their respective mesas, or on the cliffs or hills which border the adjacent plains on the west. This uniformity is thought to have resulted from a desire to occupy a sunny site for warmth and for other reasons.

The pueblos at or nearest the southern ends of the mesas were found to be best suited for habitation, consequently the present towns occupy those sites, or, as in the case of the Jeditoh series, the pueblo at that point was the last abandoned. The reason for this is thought to be an attempt to concentrate on the most inaccessible sites available, which implies inroads of hostile peoples. For the same reason, likewise, the tendency was to move from the foothills to the mesa tops when these invasions began.

Early settlers near East Mesa appeared to have chosen exposed sites for their pueblos. This would imply that they feared no invasion, and legendary history indicates that the first pueblos were erected before the hostile Ute, Apache, and Navaho appeared. The early settlements on Middle Mesa were also apparently not made with an absorbing idea of inaccessibility. All the Jeditoh villages, however, were on the mesa tops, these sites having been selected evidently with a view to protection, since they were not convenient to the farms.

For many reasons it would seem that the people who occupied the now ruined Jeditoh villages were later arrivals in Tusayan than those of East and Middle Mesas, and that, as a rule, they came from the eastward, while those of Middle Mesa arrived from the south. The first colonists of all, however, appear to have been the East Mesa clans, the Bear and Snake families. If this conjecture be true, we may believe that the oldest pueblos in Tusayan were probably the house groups of the Snake clan of East Mesa, for whom their traditionists claim a northern origin.