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It may be advantageous, however, to refer briefly to some of the ruins thus far discovered in the Tusayan region as preliminary to more systematic descriptions of the two which I have chosen for special description. The legends of the surviving Hopi contain constant references to former habitations of different clans in the country round about their present villages.
A knowledge of the inner life of the inhabitants of Tusayan as it exists today is a necessary prerequisite to the interpretation of the ancient culture of that province; but we must always bear in mind the evolution of society and the influences of foreign origin which have been exerted on it.
The Tusayan claim that some of the timbers used in the construction of the mission buildings, which were established prior to the insurrection of 1680, were brought on the backs of men from San Francisco mountains, a distance of over 100 miles, and references to the transportation of timber over long distances are not uncommon in Pueblo traditions.
Also, the end of the trip will drop you near your next jumping-off place in the Coconino and Tusayan Forests of the Grand Cañon.
In Castañeda's account of Tobar's visit we find that the latter with his command entered Tusayan so secretly that their presence was unknown to the inhabitants, and they traversed a cultivated plain without being seen, so that, we are told, they approached the village near enough to hear the voices of the Indians without being discovered.
On the surface of the mesa, beyond the extension of the ground plan of the ruin, there are many depressions worn in the rocks where the Awatobi women formerly whetted their grinding stones, doubtless in the manner practiced by the modern villagers of Tusayan. These depressions are especially numerous near the edge of the cliff, between the eastern and western sections of the ruin.
If, however, it should prove to be an ancient vessel it would carry back to the time of its manufacture the existence of the katcina cult in Tusayan, no actual proof of the existence of which, at a time when Sikyatki was in its prime, has yet been discovered.
This figure is so constant that it must have had a symbolic as well as a decorative meaning. The crook plays an important part in the modern ritual, and is prominent on many Tusayan altars. Around the sand picture of the rain-cloud, for example, we find a row of wooden rods with curved ends, and in the public Snake dance these are carried by participants called the Antelopes.
There were seven villages each of Cibola, Tusayan, Quivira, and Hemes, and twelve of Tiguex; it would give an average of about fourteen hundred and fifty persons to each village.
* This Sacred Dance and the life of the Hopi Indians is more fully set out in the author's larger work "The Indians of the Painted Desert Region". The Painted Desert. The region they live in, named the Province of Tusayan by the Spanish conquistadores, three hundred and fifty years ago, is a region of color.
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