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Updated: June 17, 2025
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.
The aged Hopi folklorists insist that such is the case, and the excavations did not reveal any evidence to the contrary. If we add to the negative testimony that Sikyatki is not mentioned in any of the early writings, and that no fragment of metal, glass, or Spanish glazed pottery has been taken from it, we appear to have substantial proof of its prehistoric character.
It is thus not impossible that the sites of certain old ruins, as Sikyatki, deserted for many years, will again be built upon if better suited for new modes of life.
Awatobi was a historic ruin, destroyed in 1700, and therefore somewhat influenced by the Spaniards. Many of the survivors became amalgamated with pueblos still inhabited. Its kinship with the surviving villagers was clear. Sikyatki, however, was overthrown in prehistoric times, and at its destruction part of its people went to Awatobi. Its culture was prehistoric.
The former variety was used in making the finest Tusayan ceramics; the latter was employed in modeling cooking pots and other vessels of ruder finish. Several flute-shape objects of clay, with flaring extremities, were found on the surface of the mounds of Awatobi, and one was taken from a Sikyatki grave. The use of these objects is unknown to me.
Much of my success in the work at that ruin was due to his advice and aid. He was constantly at the excavations, and the majority of the beautiful specimens were taken out of the graves by him. It is with the greatest pleasure that I am permitted to express my appreciation of his assistance in my archeological investigations at Sikyatki.
In this interpretation we have the "carrier," "hugger," and possibly an Antelope priest with the unknown object in his hand. This interpretation appears more likely to be a correct one than that which I have suggested; and yet Kopeli, the Snake chief, declares that the Snake family was not represented at Sikyatki.
The ancient Sikyatki people were accustomed to deposit in their mortuary vessels fragments of minerals or ground oxides and carbonates, of different colors, used as paints.
Jakwaina, an enterprising Tewan who lives not far from Isba, the spring near the trail to Hano, has also erected a modern house near the Sikyatki spring, but it had not been completed at the time of our stay. Probably never since its destruction in prehistoric times have so many people as there were in our party lived for so long a time at this desolate place.
These handles are usually flat, but sometimes they are round, and often are decorated. Traces of imitations of the braiding of two coils of clay are seen in a single specimen. Small and large ladles, with long handles, occurred in large numbers in Sikyatki graves, but there was little variation among them except in the forms of their handles.
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