Hopi legends of clans whose ancestors once peopled the Sikyatki ruin,
but are now absorbed in the Walpi population, recount that in their
western migration they built, near a deep canyon, a village which they
named Fire House. These legends were first obtained from the Hopi by A.
M. Stephen and recorded by Victor Mindeleff[3] who located Fire House
ruin over 20 years ago. His valuable description and ground plan, the
only account heretofore printed, is graphic and substantially correct.
He calls attention to the characteristic or salient points which
distinguish Fire House from ruined buildings in the Hopi reservation,
especially its circular or oval form and the massive, well-constructed
masonry of its walls.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.—Fire House.]
The exact dimensions of Fire House (pl. 1) can be obtained only by
excavation, but it is approximately 94 by 79 feet in greater and lesser
diameter. Some parts of the outside wall are now 10 feet high, and its
thickness averages 3 feet, but if the stones accumulated about its
base were removed the height would be 4 or 5 feet greater. There are
evidences of an external passage-way through the outer wall indicating
a central court. Within the enclosure there are many indications of
rooms some of which appear to be circular, but the interior is so
filled with fallen walls that an accurate ground plan could not be
drawn without extensive excavation. The stones forming the wall are,
as a rule, cubical blocks, well dressed and accurately fitted, showing
good masonry.
Two of the largest of the wall stones are 5 feet long and 3 feet wide,
with an estimated thickness of 2 feet. As it would take several men
to carry one of these stones from the quarry to its place in the wall,
they might be called megaliths.
The fine spring at the base of the cliff below Fire House was evidently
used by the inhabitants for drinking water, and the trail from here to
a gateway in the outer wall is still well marked. As one climbs from
the spring to the top of the plateau the way passes between the cliff
and a flat stone set on edge and pierced with a hole about 5 feet above
the pathway. This stone was evidently a means of defense; behind it the
warriors may have stood peering down upon their enemies through this
orifice. Near it are pictographs of unknown meaning.
The circular form of Fire House (fig. 1) and its well-constructed
surrounding wall are more characteristic of eastern than of western
pueblo masonry. This round type[4] is found from southern Colorado on
the north to the neighborhood of the Zuñi settlements on the south; it
has not been reported from the region on both banks of the Rio Grande.
Roughly speaking, circular ruins correspond, in their distribution,
with a line extending north-south midway between the eastern and
western sections of the pueblo area—a limitation that can hardly be
regarded as fortuitous. Its meaning we may not be able to correctly
interpret, but the fact calls for an explanation. The type is old, the
modern pueblos having abandoned this form. The area where circular
ruins occur corresponds, in a way, to that inhabited in part by the
modern Keres, none of whom, however, now dwell in circular towns.
Provisionally we shall consider the Keresan pueblos as the nearest of
all descendants of those who once inhabited villages of circular or
oval form, a generalization substantiated by the existence of words of
Keres language in many old ceremonies among all the pueblos.
There is a sharp line of demarcation between the zone of circular ruins
and that inhabited by the pueblos along the Rio Grande, but on the
western border these circular buildings extend as far west as the Hopi
country.
In attempting to connect the oval form of Fire House with the
rectangular form of Sikyatki we are met with the difficulty of
architectural dissimilarity. Fire House is circular, Sikyatki is
rectangular. If the descendants of the inhabitants of Fire House later
constructed Sikyatki, why did they make this radical change in the
form of their dwellings? They may have constructed a habitation en
route before they reached Sikyatki, and this village may have had a
form like Fire House. On the Hopi plateau above Sikyatki there are
two conical mounds visible for a long distance as one approaches East
Mesa from the mouth of Keam’s Canyon, which should be considered in
this connection. These mounds, called Kükütcomo, are connected in
Hopi legends with those of Sikyatki at the foot of the mesa on which
they stand, and the buildings they cover are said once to have been
inhabited by the Coyote (Fire?) clan of eastern kinship. They have not
been excavated completely but several rooms have been opened up enough
to show that they are round towers or kivas with rooms annexed to their
bases. They resemble, in fact, circular ruins and may well have been
the home of some of the people who abandoned Fire House. They must
be considered in discussing the reliability of the legend, for they
are the only circular houses yet reported from the Hopi country. The
reason why this form of house was abandoned can not be determined with
any certainty, even though some of the clans from Fire House may have
built the round towers above Sikyatki. The only other round room known
to me in the Hopi country, besides Kükütcomo, is one in a ruin in the
Oraibi Valley mentioned by Victor Mindeleff (_op. cit._). The reference
is very meager and on account of its exceptional character should be
verified. Assuming the observation as correct it may be said that this
so-called circular room lies embedded in a mass of rectangular rooms
and not as kivas in the inhabited Hopi pueblos in the plazas free from
houses.
The legends of the Snake people of Walpi who came from the San Juan
near Navaho Mountain, probably Betatakin or Kitsiel, distinctly state
that their ancestors built both round and square or “five-cornered”
houses. The rooms referred to are believed to be kivas, since another
legend declares the earliest snake ceremonies were performed in
circular rooms. After visiting Fire House the author desired greatly to
find other oval ruins between it and the zone of circular ruins, but
his efforts were not successful.