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The trees were of course planted there since the fall of the village, on land claimed by the Kokop phratry by virtue of their descent from the same phratral organization of the ancient pueblo. The spring shows no evidence of having been walled up, but apparently has been filled in by drifting sand since the time that it formed the sole water supply of the neighboring pueblo.
This conclusion is further substantiated by the statements of one of the oldest members of the Kokop phratry who frequently visited me while the excavations were in progress. The destruction of Sikyatki and its consequent abandonment doubtless occurred before the Spaniards obtained a foothold in the country.
In order to obtain legends of the former occupancy and destruction of Sikyatki, I consulted Nasyuñweve, the former head of the Kokop people, and while the results were not very satisfactory, I learned that the land about Sikyatki is still claimed by that phratry.
All my informants agree that on the destruction of Sikyatki some of its people fled to Awatobi, but no one has yet stated that the Kokop people were represented in the latter pueblo. The distinctive clans of the pueblo of Antelope mesa are not mentioned as living in Sikyatki, and yet the two pueblos are said to have been kindred.
The Coyote people were, I believe, akin to the Kokop or Firewood phratry, and as the pueblo of Sikyatki was settled by the latter, it is highly probable that the inhabitants of the two villages were friendly and naturally combined against the Snake pueblo of Walpi.
The round type of ruin is, however, to be seen in the two conical mounds on the mesa above Sikyatki, which was connected in some way with the inhabitants who formerly lived at its base. The reason the Kokop people left Fire-house is not certain, but it is said that they came in conflict with Bear clans who were entering the province from the east.
Perhaps the most intelligent folklorist of the Kokop people was Nasyuñweve, who died a few years ago unfortunately before I had been able to record all the traditions which he knew concerning his ancestors.
Mr Mindeleff identified the former inhabitants with the ancestors of the Kokop people, and mentioned the more important details of their legend concerning the destruction of the village. We can rely on the statement that Sikyatki was inhabited by the Kokop or Firewood people of Tusayan, who were so named because they obtained fire from wood by the use of drills.
I believe we must look toward the east, whence the ancestors of the Kokop or Firewood people are reputed to have come, for the origin of the symbolic markings of the snakes represented on Sikyatki ceramics. One of the most striking of these occurs on the inside of the food basin shown in plate CXXXII, a.
Certain it is that if the Kokop people once inhabited Fire-house they must have been joined by other clans when they lived at Sikyatki, for the mounds of this pueblo indicate a village much larger than the round ruin on the brink of the mesa northeast of Keam's canyon.
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