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Another bowl was found in the sand drift near the trail over the mesa to Kanelba, but careful investigation failed to reveal any systematic deposit of mortuary vessels east of the ruin. The method of excavation pursued in the cemeteries was not so scientific as I had wished, but it was the only practicable one to be followed with native workmen.
The adjacent foothills contain piles of ashes in several places, as if the sites of ancient pottery kilns, and very old stone inclosures occur on the top of the mesa above Kanelba. All indications seem to point to the ancient occupancy of the region about Kanelba by many more farmers than today.
Along the ridge of this great drift there runs a trail which passes over the mesa top to a beautiful spring, on the other side, called Kanelba. The highest point of the ruin as seen from the plain is the rocky eminence rising at the western edge, familiarly known among the members of my party as the "acropolis."
The nearest spring of potable water available for our excavation camp at Sikyatki was Kanelba, or Sheep spring, one of the best sources of water supply in Tusayan. The word Kanelba, containing a Spanish element, must have replaced a Hopi name, for it is hardly to be supposed that this spring was not known before sheep were brought into the country.
Possibly the inhabitants of Sikyatki, which is only two or three miles away, frequented this place and cultivated these ancient gardens. Kanelba is regarded as a sacred spring by several Hopi religious societies of East Mesa. The Snake priests of Walpi always celebrate a feast there on the day of the snake hunt to the east in odd years, while in the alternate years it is visited by the Flute men.
For purposes other than cooking and drinking the Sikyatki spring was used, the remainder of the supply being brought from Kanelba by means of a burro. I employed Indian workmen at the ruin, and found them, as a rule, efficient helpers.
Judging from their size, many of the peach trees are very old, although they still bear their annual crop of fruit. Everything indicates, as the legends relate, that these Kanelba gardens, the walls of which now form sheep corrals, were long ago abandoned. The terraces south of the Kanelba peach grove resemble the lower terraces of Wipo.
The trail to the pueblos of East Mesa ascends the cliff just above Sikyatki spring, and joins that to Kanelba or Sheep spring, not far from Küküchomo, the twin mounds. By keeping along the first terrace a well-traveled trail, with interesting views of the plain and the ruin, joins the old wagon road to Wala, the "gap" of East Mesa, at a higher level than the cluster of Tewan houses at Isba.
We prosecuted our excavations at Sikyatki for a few days over three weeks, choosing as a site for our camp a small depression to the east of the ruin near a dwarf cedar at the point where the trail to Kanelba passes the ruin. The place was advantageously near the cemeteries, and not too far from water.
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