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

all laid in mud; the inside of the walls also show a smooth coating
of mud plaster. The dimensions of the rooms are very small, the largest
measuring 9½ feet long, by 4½ feet wide. It is improbable that any of
these structures were over two stories high, and many of them were
built in excavated places around the rocky summits of the knolls. In
these instances no 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