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supplemented and supported by historical documents, and we know from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.
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 Shuñopovi; (2) Old
Mishoñinovi; (3) Shitaumû; (4) Chukubi; (5) Payüpki.
II. _East Mesa ruins_--(1) Kisakobi; (2) Küchaptüvela; (3)
Küküchomo; (4) Tukinobi; (5) Kachinba; (6) Sikyatki.