A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola | Page 8

dissatisfied with their cavern home, dissensions arose, they left their
home, and finally they reached Tusayan. They lived at first in one of
the canyons east of the villages, in the vicinity of Keam's Canyon, and
some of the numerous ruins on its brink mark the sites of their early
houses. There seems to be no legend distinctly attaching any particular
ruin to the Horn people, although there is little doubt that the Snake and
the Horn were the two first peoples who came to the neighborhood of
the present villages. The Bear people were the next, but they arrived as
separate branches, and from opposite directions, although of the same
Hopituh stock. It has been impossible to obtain directly the legend of
the Bears from the west. The story of the Bears from the east tells of
encountering the Fire people, then living about 25 miles east from
Walpi; but these are now extinct, and nearly all that is known of them
is told in the Bear legend, the gist of which is as follows:

The Bears originally lived among the mountains of the east, not far
distant from the Horns. Continual quarrels with neighboring villages
brought on actual fighting, and the Bears left that region and traveled
westward. As with all the other people, they halted, built houses, and
planted, remaining stationary for a long while; this occurred at different
places along their route.
A portion of these people had wings, and they flew in advance to
survey the land, and when the main body were traversing an arid region
they found water for them. Another portion had claws with which they
dug edible roots, and they could also use them for scratching hand and
foot holes in the face of a steep cliff. Others had hoofs, and these
carried the heaviest burdens; and some had balls of magic spider web,
which they could use on occasion for ropes, and they could also spread
the web and use it as a mantle, rendering the wearer invisible when he
apprehended danger.
They too came to the Tségi (Canyon de Chelly), where they found
houses but no people, and they also built houses there. While living
there a rupture occurred, a portion of them separating and going far to
the westward. These seceding bands are probably that branch of the
Bears who claim their origin in the west. Some time after this, but how
long after is not known, a plague visited the canyon, and the greater
portion of the people moved away, but leaving numbers who chose to
remain. They crossed the Chinli valley and halted for a short time at a
place a short distance northeast from Great Willow water ("Eighteen
Mile Spring"). They did not remain there long, however, but moved a
few miles farther west, to a place occupied by the Fire people who
lived in a large oval house. The ruin of this house still stands, the walls
from 5 to 8 feet high, and remarkable from the large-sized blocks of
stone used in their construction; it is still known to the Hopituh as
Tebvwúki, the Fire-house. Here some fighting occurred, and the Bears
moved westward again to the head of Antelope (Jeditoh) Canyon, about
4 miles from Keam's Canyon and about 15 miles east from Walpi. They
built there a rambling cluster of small-roomed houses, of which the
ground plan has now become almost obliterated. This ruin is called by
the Hopituh "the ruin at the place of wild gourds." They seem to have

occupied this neighborhood for a considerable period, as mention is
made of two or three segregations, when groups of families moved a
few miles away and built similar house clusters on the brink of that
canyon.
[Illustration: Plate V. Standing walls of Awatubi.]
The Fire-people, who, some say, were of the Horn people, must have
abandoned their dwelling at the Oval House or must have been driven
out at the time of their conflict with the Bears, and seem to have
traveled directly to the neighborhood of Walpi. The Snakes allotted
them a place to build in the valley on the east side of the mesa, and
about two miles north from the gap. A ridge of rocky knolls and sand
dunes lies at the foot of the mesa here, and close to the main cliff is a
spring. There are two prominent knolls about 400 yards apart and the
summits of these are covered with traces of house walls; also portions
of walls can be discerned on all the intervening hummocks. The place
is known as Sikyátki, the yellow-house, from the color of the sandstone
of which the houses were built. These and other fragmentary bits have
walls not over a foot thick, built of small stones dressed by rubbing,
and