Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 Part 7

THE MIDDLE MESA RUINS

SHUnOPOVI

The site of Old Shunopovi (plate CV) at the advent of the first Spaniards, and for a century or more afterward, was at the foot of the mesa on which the present village stands. The site of the old pueblo is easily detected by the foundations of the ancient houses and their overturned walls, surrounded by mounds of soil filled with fragments of the finest pottery.

The old village was situated on a ridge of foothills east of the present town and near the spring, which is still used. On the highest point of the ridge there rise to a considerable height the ma.s.sive walls of the old Spanish mission church, forming an inclosure, now used as a sheep corral. The cemeteries are near by, close to the outer walls, and among a clump of peach trees about half a mile east of the old houses. The pottery,[38] as shown by the fragments, is of the finest old Tusayan ware, cream and red being the predominating colors, while fragments of coiled and black-and-white ware are likewise common.

MISHOnINOVI

The ruins of Old Mishoninovi lie west of the present pueblo in the foothills, not far from the two rocky pinnacles at that point and adjacent to a spring. In strolling over the site of the old town I have noted its ground plan, and have picked up many sherds which indicate that the pottery made at that place was the fine cream-color ware for which Tusayan has always been famous. The site offers unusual opportunities for archeological studies, but excavation there is not practicable on account of the opposition of the chiefs.

Old Mishoninovi was a pueblo of considerable size, and was probably inhabited up to the close of the seventeenth century. It was probably on this site that the early Spanish explorers found the largest pueblo of the Middle Mesa. The ruin of s.h.i.+taimovi, in the foothills near Mishoninovi, mentioned by Mindeleff, was not visited by our party.

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

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CV.

SKETCH MAP OF THE MESA COUNTRY OCCUPIED BY THE HOPI INDIANS]

CHUKUBI

The ruin of Chukubi bears every evidence of antiquity. It is situated on one of the eastward projecting spurs of Middle Mesa, midway between Payupki and s.h.i.+paulovi, near an excellent spring at the base of the mesa.

Chukubi was built in rectangular form, with a central plaza surrounded by rooms, two deep. There are many indications of outlying chambers, some of which are arranged in rows. The house walls are almost wholly demolished, and in far poorer state of preservation than those of the neighboring ruin of Payupki. The evidence now obtainable indicates that it was an ancient habitation of a limited period of occupancy. It is said to have been settled by the Patun or Squash people, whose original home was far to the south, on Little Colorado river. A fair ground plan is given by Mindeleff in his memoir on Pueblo Architecture; but so far as known no studies of the pottery of this pueblo have ever been made.

PAYuPKI

One of the best-preserved ruins on Middle Mesa is called Payupki by the Hopi, and is interesting in connection with the traditions of the migration of peoples from the Rio Grande, which followed the troublesome years at the close of the seventeenth century. In the reconquest of New Mexico by the Spaniards we can hardly say that Tusayan was conquered; the province was visited and nominally subjugated after the great rebellion, but with the exception of repeated expeditions, which were often repulsed, the Hopi were practically independent and were so regarded. No adequate punishment was inflicted on the inhabitants of Walpi for the destruction of the town of Awatobi, and although there were a few military expeditious to Tusayan no effort at subjugation was seriously made.

Tusayan was regarded as an asylum for the discontented or apostate, and about the close of the seventeenth century many people from the Rio Grande fled there for refuge. Some of these refugees appear to have founded pueblos of their own; others were amalgamated with existing villages. Payupki seems to have been founded about this period, for we find no account of it before this time, and it is not mentioned in connection with ancient migrations. In 1706 Holguin is said to have attacked the "Tanos" village between Walpi and Oraibi and forced the inhabitants to give hostages, but he was later set upon by the Tano and driven back to Zuni. It would hardly seem possible that the pueblo mentioned could have been Hano, for this village does not lie between Oraibi and Walpi and could not have been surrounded in the way indicated in the account. Payupki, however, not only lay on the trail between Walpi and Oraibi--about midway, as the chronicler states--but was so situated on a projecting promontory that it could easily have been surrounded and isolated from the other pueblos.

The Hopi legends definitely a.s.sert that the Payupki people came from the "great river," the Rio Grande, and spoke a language allied to that of the people of Hano. They were probably apostates, who came from the east about 1680, but did not seem to agree well with the people of the Middle Mesa, and about 1750 returned to the river and were domiciled in Sandia, where their descendants still live. The name Payupki is applied by the Hopi to the pueblo of Sandia as well as to the ruin on the Middle Mesa. The general appearance of the ruin of Payupki indicates that it was not long inhabited, and that it was abandoned at a comparatively recent date. The general plan is not that common to ancient Tusayan ruins, but more like that of Hano and Sich.o.m.ovi, which were erected about the time Payupki was built. Many fragments of a kind of pottery which in general appearance is foreign to Tusayan, but which resembles the Rio Grande ware, were found on the mounds, and the walls are better preserved than those of the ancient Tusayan ruins.

A notable absence of fragments of obsidian, the presence of which in abundance is characteristic of ancient ruins, was observed on the site of Payupki. All these evidences substantiate the Hopi legend that the Tanoan inhabitants of the village of Middle Mesa, above the trail from Walpi to Oraibi, made but a short stay in Tusayan.[39]

There is good doc.u.mentary evidence that Sandia was settled by Tanoan people from Tusayan. Morfi in 1782 so states,[40] and in a copy of the acts of possession of the pueblo grants of 1748 we find still further proof of the settlement of "Moquinos" in Sandia.[41]

When Otermin returned to New Mexico in his attempted reconquest, in 1681, he reached Isleta on December 6, and on the 8th Dominguez encamped in sight of Sandia, but found the inhabitants had fled. The discord following this event drove the few surviving families of the Tiwa on their old range to Tusayan, for they were set upon by Keres and Jemez warriors on the plea that they received back the Spaniards.

Possibly these families formed the nucleus of Payupki. It was about this time, also, if we can believe Niel's story, that 4,000 Tanos went to Tusayan. It would thus appear that the Hopi Payupki was settled in the decade 1680-1690.

THE EAST MESA RUINS

KuCHAPTuVELA AND KISAKOBI

The two ruins of Kuchaptuvela and Kisakobi mark the sites of Walpi during the period of Spanish exploration and occupancy between 1540 and 1700. The former was the older. In all probability the latter had a mission church and was inhabited at the time of the great rebellion in 1680, having been founded about fifty years previously.

The former or more ancient[42] pueblo was situated on the first or lowest terrace of East Mesa, below the present pueblo, on the northern and western sides. The name Kuchaptuvela signifies "Ash-hill terrace,"

and probably the old settlement, like the modern, was known as Walpi, "Place-of-the-gap," referring to the gap or notch (_wala_) in the mesa east of Hano.

Old Walpi is said to have been abandoned because it was in the shade of the mesa, but doubtless the true cause of its removal was that the site was too much exposed, commanded as it was by the towering mesa above it, and easily approached on three sides. The Walpi which was contemporary with Sikyatki was built in an exposed location, for at that time the Hopi were comparatively secure from invaders. Later, however, Apache, Ute, and Navaho began to raid their fields, and the Spaniards came in their midst again and again, forcing them to work like slaves. A more protected site was necessary, and late in the seventeenth century the Walpians began to erect houses on the mesa, which formed the nucleus of the present town. The standing walls of Old Walpi are buried in the debris, but the plans of the rooms may readily be traced. Comparatively speaking, it was a large, compact, well-built pueblo, and, from the great piles of debris in the neighborhood, would seem to have been occupied during several generations.

The pottery found in the neighborhood is the fine, ancient Tusayan ware, like that of Sikyatki and Shunopovi. Extended excavations would reveal, I am sure, many beautiful objects and shed considerable light on the obscure history of Walpi and its early population.

After moving from Old Walpi it seems that the people first built houses on the terrace above, or on the platform extending westward from the western limits of the summit of East Mesa. The whole top of that part of the mesa is covered with house walls, showing the former existence of a large pueblo. Here, no doubt, if we can trust tradition, the mission of Walpi was built, and I have found in the debris fragments of pottery similar to that used in Mexico, and very different from ancient or modern Pueblo ware. But even Kisakobi[43]

was not a safe site for the Walpians to choose for their village, so after they destroyed the mission and killed the priest they moved up to their present site and abandoned both of their former villages.

It is said that with this removal of the villagers there were found to be no easy means of climbing the precipitous walls, and that the stairway trails were made as late as the beginning of the present century. In those early days there was a ladder near where the stairway trail is now situated, and some of the older men of Walpi have pointed out to me where this ladder formerly stood.

The present plan of Walpi shows marked differences from that made twenty years ago, and several houses between the stairway trail and the Wikwaliobi kiva, on the edge of the mesa, which have now fallen into ruin, were inhabited when I first visited Walpi in 1890. The buildings between the Snake kiva and the Nacab kiva are rapidly becoming unsafe for habitation, and most of these rooms will soon be deserted. As many Walpi families are building new houses on the plain, it needs no prophet to predict that the desertion of the present site of Walpi will progress rapidly in the next few years, and possibly by the end of our generation the pueblo may be wholly deserted--one more ruin added to the mult.i.tudes in the Southwest.

The site of Old Walpi, at Kuchaptuvela, is the scene of an interesting rite in the New-fire ceremony at Walpi, for not far from it is a shrine dedicated to a supernatural being called Tuwapontumsi, "Earth-altar-woman." This shrine, or house, as it is called, is about 230 feet from the ruin, among the neighboring bowlders, and consists of four flat slabs set upright, forming an inclosure in which stands a log of fossil wood.

The ceremonials at Old Walpi in the New-fire rites are described in my account[44] of this observance, and from their nature I suspect that the essential part of this episode is the deposit of offerings at this shrine. The circuits about the old ruin are regarded as survivals of the rites which took place in former times at Old Walpi. The ruin was spoken of in the ceremony as the _Sipapuni_, the abode of the dead who had become _katcinas_, to whom the prayers said in the circuits were addressed.

KuKuCh.o.m.o

The two conical mounds on the mesa above Sikyatki are often referred to that ancient pueblo, but from their style of architecture and from other considerations I am led to connect them with other phratries of Tusayan. From limited excavations made in these mounds in 1891, I was led to believe that they were round pueblos, similar to those east of Tusayan, and that they were temporary habitations, possibly vantage points, occupied for defense. Plate CVI ill.u.s.trates their general appearance, while the rooms of which they are composed are shown in figure 253. At the place where the mesa narrows between these mounds and the pueblos to the west, a wall was built from one edge of the mesa to the other to defend the trail on this side. This wall appears to have had watch towers or houses at intervals, which are now in ruins, as shown in figure 254.

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

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CVI

THE RUINS OF KuKuCh.o.m.o]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 253--Kukuch.o.m.o]

The legends concerning the ancient inhabitants of Kukuch.o.m.o are conflicting. The late A. M. Stephen stated that tradition ascribes them to the Coyote and Pikya (Corn) peoples, with whom the denizens of Sikyatki made friends.h.i.+p, and whom the latter induced to settle there to protect them from the Walpians. He regarded them as the last arrivals of the Water-house phratry, while the Coyote people came from the north at nearly the same time. From his account it would appear that the twin mounds, Kukuch.o.m.o, were abandoned before the destruction of Sikyatki. The Coyote people were, I believe, akin to the Kokop or Firewood phratry, and as the pueblo of Sikyatki was settled by the latter, it is highly probable that the inhabitants of the two villages were friendly and naturally combined against the Snake pueblo of Walpi. I believe, however, there is some doubt that any branch of the Patki people settled in Kukuch.o.m.o, and the size of the town as indicated by the ruin was hardly large enough to accommodate more than one clan. Still, as there are two Kukuch.o.m.o ruins, there may have been a different family in each of the two house cl.u.s.ters.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 254--Defensive wall on the East Mesa]

It has been said that in ancient times, before the twin mounds of Kukuch.o.m.o were erected, the people of Sikyatki were greatly hara.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. Anyone, however, who contemplates the great distance from Sikyatki to the edge of the mesa may well doubt whether it was possible for the Walpi bowmen to inflict much harm in that way.

Moreover, if the word "slingers" is advisedly chosen, it introduces a kind of warfare which is not mentioned in other Tusayan legends, although apparently throwing stones at their enemies was practiced among Pueblos of other stocks in early historic times.[45]

We may suppose, however, that the survivors of both Kukuch.o.m.o and Sikyatki sought refuge in Awatobi after the prehistoric destruction of their pueblos, for both were peopled by clans which came from the east, and naturally went to that village, the founders of which migrated from the same direction.

KACHINBA

The small ruin at Kachinba, the halting place of the Kachina people, seems to have escaped the attention of students of Tusayan archeology.

It lies about six miles from Sikyatki, about east of Walpi, and is approached by following the trail at the foot of the same mesa upon which Kukuch.o.m.o is situated. The ruin is located on a small foothill and has a few standing walls. It was evidently diminutive in size and only temporarily inhabited. The best wall found at this ruin lies at the base of the hill, where the spring formerly was. This spring is now filled in, but a circular wall of masonry indicates its great size in former times.