A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola | Page 9

rear wall was built; the partition walls, radiating at irregular angles, abut against the rock itself. Still, the great numbers of these houses, small as they were, must have been far more than the Fire-people could have required, for the oval house which they abandoned measures not more than a hundred feet by fifty. Probably other incoming gentes, of whom no story has been preserved, had also the ill fate to build there, for the Walpi people afterward slew all its inhabitants.
There is little or no detail in the legends of the Bear people as to their life in Antelope Canyon; they can now distinguish only one ruin with certainty as having been occupied by their ancestors, while to all the other ruins fanciful names have been applied. Nor is there any special cause mentioned for abandoning their dwellings there; probably, however, a sufficient reason was the cessation of springs in their vicinity. Traces of former large springs are seen at all of them, but no water flows from them at the present time. Whatever their motive, the Bears left Antelope Canyon, and moved over to the village of Walpi, on the terrace below the point of the mesa. They were received kindly there, and were apparently placed on an equal footing with the Walpi, for it seems the Snake, Horn, and Bear have always been on terms of friendship. They built houses at that village, and lived there for some considerable time; then they moved a short distance and built again almost on the very point of the mesa. This change was not caused by any disagreement with their neighbors; they simply chose that point as a suitable place on which to build all their houses together. The site of this Bear house is called Kisákobi, the obliterated house, and the name is very appropriate, as there is merely the faintest trace here and there to show where a building stood, the stones having been used in the construction of the modern Walpi. These two villages were quite close together, and the subsequent construction of a few additional groups of rooms almost connected them, so that they were always considered and spoken of as one.
It was at this period, while Walpi was still on this lower site, that the Spaniards came into the country. They met with little or no opposition, and their entrance was marked by no great disturbances. No special tradition preserves any of the circumstances of this event; these first coming Spaniards being only spoken of as the "Kast′ilumuh who wore iron garments, and came from the south," and this brief mention may be accounted for by the fleeting nature of these early visits.
The zeal of the Spanish priests carried them everywhere throughout their newly acquired territory, and some time in the seventeenth century a band of missionary monks found their way to Tusayan. They were accompanied by a few troops to impress the people with a due regard for Spanish authority, but to display the milder side of their mission, they also brought herds of sheep and cattle for distribution. At first these were herded at various springs within a wide radius around the villages, and the names still attaching to these places memorize the introduction of sheep and cattle to this region. The Navajo are first definitely mentioned in tradition as occupants of this vicinity in connection with these flocks and herds, in the distribution of which they gave much undesirable assistance by driving off the larger portion to their own haunts.
The missionaries selected Awatubi, Walpi, and Shumopavi as the sites for their mission buildings, and at once, it is said, began to introduce a system of enforced labor. The memory of the mission period is held in great detestation, and the onerous toil the priests imposed is still adverted to as the principal grievance. Heavy pine timbers, many of which are now pointed out in the kiva roofs, of from 15 to 20 feet in length and a foot or more in diameter, were cut at the San Francisco Mountain, and gangs of men were compelled to carry and drag them to the building sites, where they were used as house beams. This necessitated prodigious toil, for the distance by trail is a hundred miles, most of the way over a rough and difficult country. The Spaniards are said to have employed a few ox teams in this labor, but the heaviest share was performed by the impressed Hopituh, who were driven in gangs by the Spanish soldiers, and any who refused to work were confined in a prison house and starved into submission.
The "men with the long robes," as the missionaries were called, are said to have lived among these people for a long time, but no trace of their individuality survives