Although it is well known that the ancient inhabitants of the great
houses of the Gila-Salado drainage buried some of their dead within
their dwellings, or in other rooms, and that the same mortuary
practice was observed in ancient Zuñi-Cibola, up to the time of my
excavations this form of burial had never been found in Tusayan. I am
now able to record that the same custom was practiced at Awatobi.
Excavation made in the southeastern declivity of the western mounds
led to a burial chamber in which we found the well-preserved skeleton
of an old man, apparently a priest. The body was laid on the floor, at
full length, and at his head, which pointed southward, had been
placed, not mortuary offerings of food in bowls, but insignia of his
priestly office. Eight small objects of pottery were found on his left
side (plate CXII, _a_, _b_, _d_, _e_). Among these was a symmetrical
vase of beautiful red ware (plate CXI, _a_) richly decorated with
geometric patterns, and four globular paint pots, each full of pigment
of characteristic color. These paint pots were of black-and-white
ware, and contained, respectively, yellow ocher, sesquioxide of iron,
green copper carbonate, and micaceous hematite (plate CXIII, _a_,
_d_, _e_) such as is now called _yayala_ and used by the Snake priests
in the decoration of their faces. There were also many arrowpoints in
an earthen colander, and a ladle was luted over the mouth of the red
vase. My native excavators pronounced this the grave of a warrior
priest. The passageways into this chamber of death had all been
closed, and there were no other mortuary objects in the room. This was
the only instance of intramural interment which I discovered in the
excavations at Awatobi, but a human bone was found on the floor of
another chamber. So far as known the Awatobi people buried most of
their dead outside the town, either in the foothills at the base of
the mesa, or in the adjacent sand-dunes.
The work of excavating the graves at the foot of the mesa was
desultory, as I found no single place where many interments had been
made. Several food vessels were dug up at a grave opened by Kópeli,
the Snake chief. I was not with him when he found the grave, but he
called me to see it soon after its discovery. We took from this
excavation a sandstone fetish of a mountain-lion, a fragment of the
bottom of a basin perforated with holes as if used as a colander.
Deposited in this fragment were many stone arrowheads, several
fragments of green paint, a flat green paho ornamented with figures of
dragon-flies in black. In addition to a single complete prayer-stick
there were fragments of many others too much broken to be identified.
One of these was declared by Kópeli to be a chief's paho. The grave in
which these objects were found was situated about halfway down the
side of the mesa to the southward of the highest mounds of the western
division of the pueblo.
Here and there along the base of all the foothills south of Awatobi
are evidences of former burials, and complete bowls, dippers, and
vases were unearthed (plate CXIII, _b_, _c_). The soil is covered with
fragments of pottery, and in places, where the water has washed
through them, exposing a vertical section of the ground, it was found
that the fragments of pottery extended through the soil sometimes to a
depth of fifty feet below the surface. There was evidence, however,
that this soil had been transported more or less by rain water, which
often courses down the sides of the mesa in impetuous torrents.
Human bones and mortuary vessels were found south of the mission near
the trail, at the foot of the mesa. In a single grave, a foot below
the surface, there were two piles of food bowls, each pile containing
six vessels, all broken.
The cemetery northwest of Awatobi, where the soil is sandy and easy to
excavate, had been searched by others, and many beautiful objects of
pottery taken from it. This burial place yielded many bowls (plates
CLXVII, CLXVIII) and jars, as well as several interesting pahos
similar to those from Sikyatki, which I shall later describe but which
have never before been reported from Awatobi. It was found that one of
these prayer-sticks was laid over the heart of the deceased, and as
the skeleton was in a sitting posture, with the hand on the breast,
the prayer-stick may thus have been held at the time of burial. Our
success in finding places of interment on all sides of Sikyatki,
irrespective of direction, leads me to suspect that further
investigation of the sand-dunes north of Awatobi will reveal graves at
that point.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY