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While the different pueblos of Tusayan were not specially mentioned until forty years after they were first visited, the name Awatobi is readily recognized in the account of Espejo in 1583, where it is called Aguato, which appears as Zaguato and Ahuato in Hakluyt. In the time of Oñate the same name is written Aguatuybá.
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 former inhabitants lived in pueblos on the northern side, high up on the mesa which separates Jeditoh valley from Keam's canyon. All of these pueblos are now in ruins, and only a few Navaho and Hopi families cultivate small tracts in the once productive fields. The majority of the series of ruins along the northern rim of Antelope valley resemble Awatobi, which is later described in detail.
On a fragment of a vessel found at Awatobi there is depicted the head of a reptile evidently identical with this, since the drawing is an almost perfect reproduction. There is a like figure, also from Sikyatki, in the collection of pottery made at that ruin by Dr Miller, of Prescott, the year following my work there.
In all the inhabited Tusayan pueblos the kivas are separated from the house clusters and are surrounded by courts or dance plazas. No open spaces existed in the main or western mounds of Awatobi, and there was no place there for kivas unless the pueblo was exceptional in having such structures built among the dwellings, as at Zuñi.
From the scanty data I have been able to collect from historical and legendary sources, it seems probable that Awatobi was always more affected by the padres than were the other Tusayan pueblos. This was the village which was said to have been "converted" by Padre Porras, whose work, after his death by poison in 1633, was no doubt continued by his associates and successors.
This warning was no doubt well advised, and the tragic fate which befell Awatobi before the close of the year shows that the trouble was brewing when the padre was there, and possibly Garaycoechea's visit hastened the catastrophe or intensified the hatred of the other pueblos. At the time of Garaycoechea's visit he baptized, it is said, 73 persons.
While we were taking from their ancient resting places the slabs of stone which formed this Awatobi shrine, the workmen reminded me how closely it resembled the pahoki used by the katcinas, and when, a month later, I witnessed the Nimán-katcina ceremony at Walpi, and accompanied the chief, Intiwa, when he deposited the prayer-sticks in that shrine, I was again impressed by the similarity of the two, one in a ruin deserted two centuries ago, the other still used in the performance of ancient rites, no doubt much older than the overthrow of the great pueblo of Antelope mesa.
The few fragments of Tségi canyon pottery known to me have strong resemblances to ancient Hopi ware, although the black-and-white variety predominates. The collection of pottery from Awatobi is, comparatively speaking, small, but it shows many interesting forms.
Awatobi seems not to have taken part in the tragedy, while Hano and Sichomovi did not exist when the catastrophe took place. The cause of the destruction of Sikyatki is not clearly known, and probably was hardly commensurate with the result. Its proximity to Walpi may have led to disputes over the boundaries of fields or the ownership of the scanty water supply.
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