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In former times two wooden idols, called the Alosaka, were kept in this crypt, in much the same manner as the Dawn Maid is now sealed up by the Walpians, when not used in the New-fire ceremony, as I have described in my account of Naacnaiya.
A more protected site was necessary, and late in the seventeenth century the Walpians began to erect houses on the mesa, which formed the nucleus of the present town. The standing walls of Old Walpi are buried in the débris, but the plans of the rooms may readily be traced.
There is nothing to show that any considerable massacre of the people took place when the village was destroyed, in which respect it differs considerably from Awatobi. There is little doubt that many Sikyatki women were appropriated by the Walpians, and in support of this it is stated that the Kokop people of the present Walpi are the descendants of the people of that clan who dwelt at Sikyatki.
From the configuration of the valley it would not, however, have been easier for Awatobians to have seen the approaching Spaniards than for the Walpians; still it was possible for the invaders to conceal their approach to Walpi in the same way.
It is also related that the Walpians fell upon the village of Sikyatki to avenge this bloody deed, but it is much more likely that there was ill feeling between the two villages for other reasons, probably disputes about farm limits or the control of the water supply, inflamed by other difficulties.
The indications are that the inhabitants of both came from the east possibly were intruders, which may have been the cause of the hostility entertained by both toward the Walpians. The problem is too complex to be solved with our present limited knowledge in this direction, and archeology seems not to afford very satisfactory evidence one way or the other.
But even Kisakobi was not a safe site for the Walpians to choose for their village, so after they destroyed the mission and killed the priest they moved up to their present site and abandoned both of their former villages.
My knowledge of the mounds which mark the site of this ancient village dates back to 1892, when I visited them with one of the old men of Walpi, who then and there narrated the legend of its destruction by the Walpians previously to the advent of the Spaniards.
From Küchaptüvela the ancient Walpians moved to a point higher on the mesa, nearer its western limit, and built Kisakobi, where the pueblo stood in the seventeenth century. There is evidence that a Spanish mission was erected at this point, and the place is sometimes called Nüshaki, a corruption of "Missa-ki," Mass-house.
From this place the original nucleus of Walpians moved to the present site about the close of the seventeenth century. Later the original population was joined by other phratries, some of which, as the Asa, had lived in the cliff-houses of Tségi, or Canyon de Chelly, as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century.
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