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Updated: June 17, 2025
The general ground plan of the ruin indicates an inclosed court with surrounding tiers of houses, suggesting the eastern type of pueblo architecture. The traditional knowledge of the destruction of Sikyatki is very limited among the present Hopi, but the best folklorists all claim that it was destroyed by warriors from Walpi and possibly from Middle Mesa.
It is peculiarly interesting as connecting the prehistoric culture of Sikyatki and modern Tusayan life, with which we have become well acquainted through recent research. Awatobi was one of the largest Tusayan pueblos in the middle of the sixteenth century, and continued to exist to the close of the seventeenth. It was therefore a historic pueblo.
The length of the ancient Sikyatki pahos, ascribed to the Flute society, follows the same rule. Plate CLXXIV, e, f, have the same ferules referred to in the description above, but are of greater diameter. They are unlike any modern paho except in this particular. In g is depicted a still larger prayer-stick, with two serrate incisions on each side of the continuation of the flattened facet.
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.
This design is interpreted as that of one of the numerous birds associated with the sun. The crescentic extension above what is apparently the head occurs in many bird figures and may represent a beak. Many food bowls from Sikyatki are ornamented on their interior with highly conventionalized figures, generally of curved form, in which the feather is predominant.
As at least some of the cliff houses were doubtless inhabited contemporaneously with and long after the destruction of Sikyatki, I do not hesitate to say that the potters of that pueblo were familiar with the cliff-dweller type of pottery and acquainted with the technic which gave the black-and-white ware its distinctive colors.
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.
This fear they afterward overcame to a certain extent, but never completely outgrew, although the cemeteries at Sikyatki were quite thoroughly excavated, yielding some of the most striking results of the summer's exploration. The sand hills west of Sikyatki are often swept by violent gales, by which the surface is continually changing, and mortuary pottery is frequently exposed.
Conditions were favorable for success at the mounds called by the Indians Sikyatki. These ruins are situated near the modern Tusayan pueblos of East Mesa, from which I could hire workmen, and not far from Keam's Canyon, which could be made a base of supplies. The existing legends bearing on these ruins, although obscure, are sufficiently definite for all practical purposes.
The characteristics of the external decorations of food bowls are symbolic, mostly geometric, square or rectangular, triangular or stepped figures; curved lines and spirals rarely if ever occur, and human or animal figures are unknown in this position in Sikyatki pottery; the geometric figures can be reduced to a few patterns of marked simplicity.
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