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Updated: May 31, 2025
If there were danger of this the warriors, to whom he belonged, that is, the special group of war magicians, would have been the first to be informed of it; and they would all be now in the estufa preparing themselves for duty, and the maseua first of all. Instead of it the old man was up and about as usual. No, it could not be; and he accordingly said,
To his right lay some caves that had been long ago forsaken, and whose front wall had partly crumbled. Below the short slope leading up to them are the traces of an old round estufa. A plain concavity in the ground indicates its site to-day.
During that time only those who have been initiated into the Sacred Fraternities of the tribe may enter the estufa, on the floor of which weird pictures have been made with colored sand. In the tribe of Moquis there are two fraternities known as the Antelopes and the Snakes, Each has from twenty to thirty members, some of whom are boys who serve as acolytes.
During that time the Catholic missionaries endeavored to convert them to Christianity, but with only partial success. While they appeared to acquiesce, by giving formal obedience to the requirements of the new religion, they yet held sacred their old beliefs and in the privacy of the estufa practiced in secret the rites and ceremonies of their ancient faith.
Below the central figures and not quite reaching up to them, an arch of wood, painted green with a yellow middle stripe, was held aloft by two poles driven into the floor of the estufa. Under this arch stood a wooden screen, green and black with a yellow border at the bottom, while the upper edge was carved into four terraced pyramids surmounted by as many black arches.
On the terrace roof of the home of Tyope's wife a young girl stood quite alone, gazing at that moon where the mother of all mankind, the Sanatyaya, is supposed to reside. It was Mitsha Koitza, who had just returned from the estufa of her clan with the mother-soul of her own home, and who still lingered here holding in her hands the cluster of snowy, delicate feathers.
To the dynasty of traders had succeeded the spiritual rule of a Jesuit Mission; then miners kindled camp fires in the deserted excavations, as they probed the mountain for ores; and more recently the noiseless feet of a band of holy celibates belonging to an austere Order, went up and down the face of the cliff, with cross and bell and incense exorcising haunting aboriginal spectres; while holy water sprinkled the uncanny, dismal precincts of a circular room hollowed behind and beneath all other apartments, the monumental, sacred Estufa.
When we entered the town we left our horses hitched to the willows on the bank of the irrigating ditch, near the wall of the first house, and I ordered the dog Vic to remain with them. Three-quarters of an hour afterwards Vic looked into the estufa from above, gave three sharp barks, and dashed away.
There are two estufas; one near the east end of the wing, which is twenty-seven feet in diameter, was three stories in height. The floor-beams are removed, but the remains show this plainly. The interior is nearly filled up, but it was originally over twenty-five feet in depth. The ruins of the other estufa are insignificant compared with this, and it probably consisted of but one low room.
Both bunches were given to the tapop, who placed them on the floor before him. The Hishtanyi Chayan inquired further, "Where did you find the feathers? Say it once more." "At the foot of the rocks, where we ascend to our estufa on cross-timbers." "Did you see who put them there?" "No." "When do you think they were placed there?" "While the Koshare were at work in the estufa." "Do you know more?"
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