Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 Part 14

Katci, and other prominent Kokop people occupy and cultivate the land about Sikyatki on the ground of inheritance from their ancestors who once inhabited the place.

Two routes were taken to approach Sikyatki--one directly across the sandy plain from the entrance to Keam's canyon, following for some distance the road to East Mesa; the other along the edge of the mesa, on the first terrace, to the cl.u.s.ter of houses at Coyote spring. The trail to the pueblos of East Mesa ascends the cliff just above Sikyatki spring, and joins that to Kanelba or Sheep spring, not far from Kukuch.o.m.o, the twin mounds. By keeping along the first terrace a well-traveled trail, with interesting views of the plain and the ruin, joins the old wagon road to _Wala_, the "gap" of East Mesa, at a higher level than the cl.u.s.ter of Tewan houses at Isba. In going and returning from their homes our Hopi workmen preferred the trail along the mesa, which we also often used; but the climb to the mesa top from the ruin is very steep and somewhat tiresome.

We prosecuted our excavations at Sikyatki for a few days over three weeks, choosing as a site for our camp a small depression to the east of the ruin near a dwarf cedar at the point where the trail to Kanelba pa.s.ses the ruin. The place was advantageously near the cemeteries, and not too far from water. For purposes other than cooking and drinking the Sikyatki spring was used, the remainder of the supply being brought from Kanelba by means of a burro.

I employed Indian workmen at the ruin, and found them, as a rule, efficient helpers. The zeal which they manifested at the beginning of the work did not flag, but it must be confessed that toward the close of the excavations it became necessary to incite their enthusiasm by prizes, and, to them, extraordinary offers of overalls and calico.

They at first objected to working in the cemeteries, regarding it as a desecration of the dead, but several of their number overcame their scruples, even handling skulls and other parts of skeletons. The Snake chief, Kopeli, however, never worked with the others, desiring not to dig in the graves. Respecting his feelings, I allotted him the special task of excavating the rooms of the acropolis, which he performed with much care, showing great interest in the results. At the close of our daily work prayer-offerings were placed in the trenches by the Indian workmen, as conciliatory sacrifices to Masauwuh, the dread G.o.d of Death, to offset any malign influence which might result from our desecration of his domain. A superst.i.tious feeling that this G.o.d was not congenial to the work which was going on, seemed always to haunt the minds of the laborers, and once or twice I was admonished by old men, visitors from Walpi, not to persist in my excavations. The excavators, at times, paused in their work and called my attention to strange voices echoing from the cliffs, which they ascribed, half in earnest, to Masauwuh.

The Indians faithfully delivered to me all objects which they found in their digging, with the exception of turquoises, many of which, I have good reason to suspect, they concealed while our backs were turned and, in a few instances, even before our eyes.

The accompanying plan of Sikyatki (plate CXVI) shows that it was a rectangular ruin with an inclosed plaza. It is evident that the ancient pueblo was built on a number of low hills and that the eastern portion was the highest. In this respect it resembled Awatobi, but apparently differed from the latter pueblo in having the inclosed plaza. In the same way it was unlike Walpi or the ancient and modern pueblos of Middle Mesa and Oraibi. In fact, there is no Tusayan ruin which resembles it in ground plan, except Payupki, a Tanoan town of much later construction. The typical Tusayan form of architecture is the pyramidal, especially in the most ancient pueblos. The ground plan of Sikyatki is of a type more common in the eastern pueblo region and in those towns of Tusayan which were built by emigrants from the Rio Grande region. Sikyatki and some of the villages overlooking Antelope valley are of this type.

In studying the ground plans of the three modern villages on East Mesa, the fact is noted that both Sich.o.m.ovi and Hano differ architecturally from Walpi. The forms of the former smaller pueblos are primarily rectangular with an inclosed plaza in which is situated the kiva; Walpi, on the other hand, although furnished with a small plaza at the western end, has kivas located peripherally rather than in an open s.p.a.ce between the highest house cl.u.s.ters. Sich.o.m.ovi is considered by the Hopi as like Zuni, and is sometimes called by the Hano people, Sionimone, "Zuni court," because to the Tewan mind it resembles Zuni; but the term is never applied to Walpi.[107] The distinction thus recognized is, I believe, architecturally valid. The inclosed court or plaza in Tusayan is an intrusion from the east, and as eastern colonists built both Hano and Sich.o.m.ovi, they preserved the form to which they were accustomed. The Sikyatki builders drew their architectural inspiration likewise from the east, hence the inclosed court in the ruins of that village.

The two most considerable house cl.u.s.ters of Sikyatki are at each end of a longer axis, connected by a narrow row of houses on the other sides. The western rows of houses face the plain, and were of one story, with a gateway at one point. The opposite row was more elevated, no doubt overlooking cultivated fields beyond the confines of the ruin. No kivas were discovered, but if such exist they ought to be found in the ma.s.s of houses at the southern end. I thought we had found circular rooms in that region, but cursory excavations did not demonstrate their existence. As there is no reason to suspect the existence of circular kivas in ancient Tusayan, it would be difficult to decide whether or not any one of the large rectangular rooms was used for ceremonial purposes, for it is an interesting fact that some of the oldest secret rites in the Hopi villages occur, not in kivas, but in ordinary dwelling rooms in the village. It has yet to be shown that there were special kivas in prehistoric Tusayan.

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

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXVII

EXCAVATED ROOMS ON THE ACROPOLIS OF SIKYATKI]

The longer axis of the ruin is about north and south; the greatest elevation is approximately 50 feet. Rocks outcrop only at one place, the remainder of the ruin being covered with rubble, sand, stones, and fragments of pottery. The mounds are not devoid of vegetation, for sagebrush, cacti, and other desert genera grow quite profusely over their surface; but they are wholly barren of trees or large bushes, and except in the plaza the ruin area is uncultivated. As previously stated, Sikyatki is situated about 250 or 300 feet above the plain, and when approached from Keam's canyon appears to be about halfway up the mesa height. On several adjacent elevations evidences of former fires, or places where pottery was burned, were found, and one has not to go far to discover narrow seams of an impure lignite. Here and there are considerable deposits of selenite, which, as pointed out by Sitgreaves in his report on the exploration of the Little Colorado, looks like frost exuding from the ground in early spring.

THE ACROPOLIS

During the limited time devoted to the excavation of Sikyatki it was impossible, in a ruin so large, to remove the soil covering any considerable number of rooms. The excavations at different points over such a considerable area as that covered by the mounds would have been more or less desultory and unsatisfactory, but a limited section carefully opened would be much more instructive and typical. While, therefore, the majority of the Indian workmen were kept employed at the cemeteries, Kopeli, the Snake chief, a man in whom I have great confidence, was a.s.signed to the excavation of a series of rooms at the highest point of the ruin, previously referred to as the acropolis (figure 262). Although his work in these chambers did not yield such rich results as the others, so far as the number of objects was concerned, he succeeded in uncovering a number of rooms to their floors, and unearthed many interesting objects of clay and stone. A brief description of these excavations will show the nature of the work at that point.

The acropolis, or highest point of Sikyatki, is a prominent rocky elevation at the western angle, and overlooks the entire ruin. On the side toward the western cemetery it rises quite abruptly, but the ascent is more gradual from the other sides. The surface of this elevation, on which the houses stood, is of rock, and originally was as dest.i.tute of soil as the plaza of Walpi. This surface supported a double series of rooms, and the highest point is a bare, rocky projection.

From the rooms of the acropolis there was a series of chambers, probably terraced, sloping to the modern gardens now occupying the old plaza, and the broken walls of these rooms still protrude from the surface in many places (plate CXVIII). When the excavations on the acropolis were begun, no traces of the biserial rows of rooms were detected, although the remains of the walls were traceable. The surface was strewn with fragments of pottery and other evidences of former occupancy.

On leveling the ground and throwing off the surface stones, it was found that the narrow ridge which formed the top of the acropolis was occupied by a double line of well-built chambers which show every evidence of having been living rooms. The walls were constructed of squared stones set in adobe, with the inner surface neatly plastered.

Many of the rooms communicated by means of pa.s.sageways with adjacent chambers, some of them being provided with niches and shelves. The average height of the standing walls revealed by excavation, as indicated by the distance of the floor below the surface of the soil, was about 5 feet.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 262--The acropolis of Sikyatki]

The accompanying ill.u.s.tration (plate CXVIII) shows a ground plan of nine of these rooms, which, for purposes of reference, are lettered _a_ to _l_. A description of each, it is hoped, will give an idea of a typical room of Sikyatki. Room _a_ is rectangular in shape, 5 feet 3 inches by 6 feet 8 inches, and is 5 feet 8 inches deep. It has two depressions in the floor at the southeastern corner, and there is a small niche in the side wall above them. Some good specimens of mural plastering, much blackened by soot, are found on the eastern wall.

Room _a_ has no pa.s.sageway into room _b_, but it opens into the adjoining room _c_ by an opening in the wall 3 feet 4 inches wide, with a threshold 9 inches high.

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

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXVIII

PLAN OF EXCAVATED ROOMS ON THE ACROPOLIS OF SIKYATKI

(Dimensions in feet and inches)]

The shape of room _b_ is more irregular. It is 8 feet 1 inch long by 4 feet 5 inches wide, and the floor is 5 feet 2 inches below the surface. In one corner there is a raised triangular platform 2 feet 7 inches above the floor. A large cooking pot, blackened with soot, was found in one corner of this room, and near it was a circular depression in the floor 17 inches in diameter, evidently a fireplace.

Room _c_ is smaller than either of the preceding, and is the only one with two pa.s.sageways into adjoining chambers. Remains of wooden beams in a fair state of preservation were found on the floors of rooms _c_ and _b_, but they were not charred, as is so often the case, nor were there any ashes except in the supposed fireplace.

Room _d_ is larger than those already mentioned, being 7 feet 8 inches by 5 feet, and connects with room _c_ by means of a pa.s.sageway. Rooms _e_ and _f_ communicate with each other by an opening 16 inches wide.

We found the floors of these rooms 4 feet below the surface. The length of room _e_ is 8 feet.

Room _f_ is 6 feet 8 inches long and of the same width as _e_. The three chambers _g_, _h_, and _i_ are each 6 feet 9 inches wide, but of varying width. Room _g_ is 5 feet 2 inches, _h_ is 8 feet 6 inches, and _i_, the smallest of all, only a foot wide. These three rooms have no intercommunication.

The evidence of former fires in some of these rooms, afforded by soot on the walls and ashes in the depressions identified as old fireplaces, is most important. In one or two places I broke off a fragment of the plastering and found it to be composed of many strata of alternating black and adobe color, indicating successive plasterings of the room. Apparently when the surface wall became blackened by smoke it was renewed by a fresh layer or wash of adobe in the manner followed in renovating the kiva walls today.[108]

An examination of the dimensions of the rooms of the acropolis will show that, while small, they are about the average size of the chambers in most other southwestern ruins. They are, however, much smaller than the rooms of the modern pueblo of Walpi or those of the cliff ruins in the Red-rock region, elsewhere described. Evidently the roof was 2 or 3 feet higher than the top of the present walls, and the absence of external pa.s.sageways would seem to indicate that entrance was through the roof. The narrow chamber, _i_, is no smaller than some of those which were excavated at Awatobi, but unless it was a storage bin or dark closet for ceremonial paraphernalia its function is not known to me. The mural plastering was especially well done in rooms _g_ and _h_, a section thereof showing many successive thin strata of soot and clay, implying long occupancy. No chimneys were found, the smoke, as is the case with that from kiva fires today, doubtless finding an exit through the hatchway in the roof.

MODERN GARDENS

The whole surface of the ancient plaza of Sikyatki is occupied by rectangular gardens outlined by rows of stones. These are of modern construction and are cultivated by an enterprising Hopi who, as previously mentioned, has erected a habitable dwelling on one of the western mounds from the stones of the old ruin. These gardens are planted yearly with melons and squashes, and stones forming the outlines serve as wind-breaks to protect the growing plants from drifting sand. The plotting of the plan of these gardens was made in 1891, when a somewhat larger part of the plaza was under cultivation than in 1895.[109]

There is a grove of dwarf peach trees in the sands between the northern side of the ruin and the mesa along the run through which sometimes trickles a little stream from the spring. These trees belong to an inhabitant of Sich.o.m.ovi named Tcino, who, it is claimed, is a descendant of the ancient Sikyatkians. The trees were of course planted there since the fall of the village, on land claimed by the Kokop phratry by virtue of their descent from the same phratral organization of the ancient pueblo.[110] The spring shows no evidence of having been walled up, but apparently has been filled in by drifting sand since the time that it formed the sole water supply of the neighboring pueblo. It still preserves the yellow color mentioned in traditions of the place.

THE CEMETERIES

By far the largest number of objects found at Sikyatki were gathered from the cemeteries outside the ruin, and were therefore mortuary in character. It would seem that the people buried their dead a short distance beyond the walls, at the three cardinal points. The first of these cemeteries was found in the dune between the ruin and the peach trees below the spring, and from its relative position from the pueblo has been designated the northern cemetery. The cemetery proper lies on the edge of the sandy tract, and was first detected by the finding of the long-bones of a human skeleton projecting from the soil. The position of individual graves was indicated usually by small, oblong piles of stones; but, as this was not an invariable sign, it was deemed advisable to extend long trenches across the lower part of the dune. As a rule, the deeper the excavations the more numerous and elaborate were the objects revealed. Most of the skeletons were in a poor state of preservation, but several could have been saved had we the proper means at our disposal to care for them.

No evidence of cremation of the dead was found, either at Awatobi or Sikyatki, nor have I yet detected any reference to this custom among the modern Hopi Indians. They have, however, a strange concept of the purification of the breath-body, or shade of the dead, by fire, which, although I have always regarded it as due to the teaching of Christian missionaries, may be aboriginal in character. This account of the judgment of the dead is as follows:

There are two roads from the grave to the Below. One of these is a straight way connected with the path of the sun into the Underworld.

There is a branch trail which divides from this straight way, pa.s.sing from fires to a lake or ocean (_patubha_). At the fork of the road sits Tokonaka, and when the breath-body comes to this place this chief looks it over and, if satisfied, he says "_um-pac lo-la-mai, ta ai_,"

"You are very good; go on." Then the breath-body pa.s.ses along the straight way to the far west, to the early _Sipapu_, the Underworld from which it came, the home of Muiyinwu. Another breath-body comes to the fork in the road, and the chief says, "You are bad," and he conducts it along the crooked path to the place of the first fire pit, where sits a second chief, Tokonaka, who throws the bad breath-body into the fire, and after a time it emerges purified, for it was not wholly bad. The chief says, "You are good now," and carries it back to the first chief, who accepts the breath-body and sends it along the straight road to the west.

If, on emerging from the first fire, the soul is still unpurified, or not sufficiently so to be accepted, it is taken to the second fire pit and cast into it. If it emerges from this thoroughly purified, in the opinion of the judge, it is immediately transformed into a _ho-ho-ya-uh_, or prayer-beetle. All the beetles we now see in the valleys or among the mesas were once evil Hopi. If, on coming out of the second fire pit, the breath-body is still considered bad by the chief, he takes it to the third fire, and, if there be no evil in it when it emerges from this pit, it is metamorphosed into an ant, but if unpurified by these three fires--that is, if the chief still finds evil left in the breath-body--he takes it to a fourth fire and again casts it into the flames, where it is utterly consumed, the only residue being soot on the side of the pit.

I have not recorded this as a universal or an aboriginal belief among the Hopi, but rather to show certain current ideas which may have been brought to Tusayan by missionaries or others. The details of the purification of the evil soul are characteristic.

The western cemetery of Sikyatki is situated among the hillocks covered with surface rubble below a house occupied in summer by a Hopi and his family. From the nature of the soil the excavation of this cemetery was very difficult, although the mortuary objects were more numerous. Repeated attempts to make the Indians work in a systematic manner failed, partly on account of the hard soil and partly from other reasons. Although the lower we went the more numerous and beautiful were the objects exhumed, the Indians soon tired of deep digging, preferring to confine their work to within two or three feet of the surface. At many places we found graves under and between the huge bowlders, which are numerous in this cemetery.

The southern cemetery lies between the outer edge of the ruin on that side and the decline to the plain, a few hundred feet from the southern row of houses. Two conspicuous bowlders mark the site of most of the excavations in that direction. The mortuary objects from this cemetery are not inferior in character or number to those from the other burial places. All attempts to discover a cemetery on the eastern side of the pueblo failed, although a single food basin was brought to the camp by an Indian who claimed he had dug it out of the deep sand on the eastern side of the ruins. Another bowl was found in the sand drift near the trail over the mesa to Kanelba, but careful investigation failed to reveal any systematic deposit of mortuary vessels east of the ruin.[111]

The method of excavation pursued in the cemeteries was not so scientific as I had wished, but it was the only practicable one to be followed with native workmen. Having found the location of the graves by means of small prospecting holes sunk at random, the workmen were aligned and directed to excavate a single long, deep trench, removing all the earth as they advanced. It was with great difficulty that the Indians were taught the importance of excavating to a sufficient depth, and even to the end of the work they refused to be taught not to burrow. In their enthusiasm to get the buried treasures they worked very well so long as objects were found, but became at once discouraged when relics were not so readily forthcoming and went off prospecting in other places when our backs were turned. A shout that anyone had discovered a new grave in the trench was a signal for the others to stop work, gather around the place, light cigarettes, and watch me or my collaborators dig out the specimens with knives. This we always insisted on doing, for the reason that in their haste the Indians at first often broke fragile pottery after they had discovered it, and in spite of all precautions several fine jars and bowls were thus badly damaged by them. It is therefore not too much to say that most of the vessels which are now entire were dug out of the impacted sand by Mr Hodge or myself.

No rule could be formulated in regard to the place where the pottery would occur, and often the first indication of its presence was the stroke of a shovel on the fragile edge of a vase or bowl. Having once found a skeleton, or discolored sand which indicated the former presence of human remains, the probability that burial objects were near by was almost a certainty, although in several instances even these signs failed.

A considerable number of the pottery objects had been broken when the soil and stones were thrown on the corpse at interment. So many were entire, however, that I do not believe any considerable number were purposely broken at that time, and none were found with holes made in them to "kill" or otherwise destroy their utility.

No evidences of cremation--no charred bones of man or animal in or near the mortuary vessels--were found. From the character of the objects obtained from neighboring graves, rich and poor were apparently buried side by side in the same soil. Absolutely no evidence of Spanish influence was encountered in all the excavations at Sikyatki--no trace of metal, gla.s.s, or other object of Caucasian manufacture such as I have mentioned as having been taken from the ruins of Awatobi--thus confirming the native tradition that the catastrophe of Sikyatki antedated the middle of the sixteenth century, when the first Spaniards entered the country.

It is remarkable that in Sikyatki we found no fragments of basketry or cloth, the fame of which among the Pueblo Indians was known to Coronado before he left Mexico. That the people of Sikyatki wore cotton kilts no one can doubt, but these fabrics, if they were buried with the dead, had long since decayed. Specimens of strings and ropes of yucca, which were comparatively abundant at Awatobi, were not found at Sikyatki; yet their absence by no means proves that they were not used, for the marks of the strings used to bind feathers to the mortuary pahos, on the green paint with which the wood was covered, may still be readily seen.

The insight into ancient beliefs and practices afforded by the numerous objects found at Sikyatki is very instructive, and while it shows the antiquity of some of the modern symbols, it betrays a still more important group of conventionalized figures, the meaning of which may always remain in doubt. This is particularly true of the decoration on many specimens of the large collection of highly ornamented pottery found in the Sikyatki cemeteries.