The mission church of San Bernardino de Awatobi was erected very early
in the history of the Spanish occupancy, and its ruined walls are the
only ones now standing above the surface. This building was
constructed by the padres on a mesa top, while the churches at Walpi
and Shuñopovi were built in the foothills near those pueblos. The
mission at Oraibi likewise stood on a mesa top, so that we must
qualify Mindeleff's statement[71] that "at Tusayan there is no
evidence that a church or mission house ever formed part of the
villages on the mesa summits.... These summits have been extensively
occupied only in comparatively recent time, although one or more
churches may have been built here at an early date as outlooks over
the fields in the valley below."
At the time of the Spanish invasion three of the Hopi villages stood
on the foothills or lower terraces of the mesas on which they now
stand, and the other two, Awatobi and Oraibi, occupied the same sites
as today, on the summits of the mesas.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY