United States or Niger ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Sichomovi is considered by the Hopi as like Zuñi, and is sometimes called by the Hano people, Sionimone, "Zuñi court," because to the Tewan mind it resembles Zuñi; but the term is never applied to Walpi. The distinction thus recognized is, I believe, architecturally valid.
When the Navajo invasion came, by which kindred tribes were displaced from the district farther west, these Tewan Indians left their pueblos on the plateau and their dwellings by the rivers below in the depths of the canyon and constructed cavate homes for themselves; that is, they excavated chambers in the cliffs where these cliffs were composed of soft, friable tufa.
Can any one breathe so treasonable a suggestion in the presence of the heir-apparent to the throne? If such there be, Major-General Morton, I call upon you to attach him for a traitor!" "And I," cried Johnny, "what shall I do!" "Why," answered Max, "you shall rejoice the hearts of the Tewan juveniles, by introducing among them the precious lore of the story-books.
So the Tewan Plateau has a foundation of red sandstone; upon this are piled sheets of lava and sheets of dust in many alternating layers. It is estimated that there still remain more than two hundred cubic miles of this dust, now compacted into somewhat coherent rocks and interpolated between sheets of lava. Everywhere this dust-formed rock is exceedingly light.
Scarcely any resistance was made: the principal Tewan warriors were slain in their beds, or taken prisoners; and Eiulo's father and grandfather, with Wakatta, only saved their lives by fleeing to the mountains.
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.
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.
When the Navajo invasion was long past, civilized men as Spanish adventurers entered this country from Mexico, and again the Tewan peoples left their homes on the mesas and by the canyons to find safety in the cavate dwellings of the cliffs; and now the archaeologist in the study of this country discovers these two periods of construction and occupation of the cavate dwellings of the Tewan Indians.
It is a beautiful region. The low mesas on every side are almost treeless and are everywhere deserts, but the great Tewan Plateau is booned with abundant rains, and it is thus a region of forests and meadows, divided into blocks by deep, precipitous canyons and crowned with cones that rise to an altitude of from 10,000 to 12,000 feet.
Farther to the east, on the border of the region which we have described, beyond the drainage of the Little Colorado and San Juan and within the drainage of the Rio Grande, there lies an interesting plateau region, which forms a part of the Plateau Province and which is worthy of description. This is the great Tewan Plateau, which carries several groups of mountains.
Word Of The Day