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Updated: May 14, 2025
In questioning the priests in regard to the derivation of the Plumed Serpent cult in Tusayan, I have found that they declare that this cultus was brought into Tusayan from a mythic land in the south, called Palatkwabi, and that the effigies and fetiches pertaining to it were introduced by the Patki or Water-house people.
As one of the oldest elements in the decoration of Tusayan ceramics, figures of birds have in many instances become highly conventionalized; so much so, in fact, that their avian form has been lost, and it is one of the most instructive problems in the study of Hopi decoration to trace the modifications of these designs from the realistic to the more conventionalized.
I know of no natural deposit of obsidian near Sikyatki or in the province of Tusayan, so that the probability is that these fragments had been brought a considerable distance before they were buried in the earth that now covers the dead of the ancient pueblos. The Sikyatki people buried their dead adorned with necklaces and other ornaments as when living.
The notched or T-shape doorway, which is quite common in the Mesa Verde ruins and in Tusayan, is not abundant in De Chelly, but some examples can be seen there. One is shown in figure 67, which illustrates the type.
From good evidence, I suspect that the arrival of this phratry was comparatively late in Tusayan history, and it is possible that Sikyatki was destroyed before their advent, for in all the legends which I have been able to gather no one ascribes to Sikyatki any clan belonging to the phratries which are said to have migrated from the far south.
There is legendary and other evidence that this custom is very ancient among the Tusayan Indians, and the data obtainable from their ritual point the same way.
I have not recorded this as a universal or an aboriginal belief among the Hopi, but rather to show certain current ideas which may have been brought to Tusayan by missionaries or others. The details of the purification of the evil soul are characteristic.
Handled dippers or mugs have been found so often by me in the prehistoric ruins of our Southwest that I can not accept the dictum that the mug form was not prehistoric, and the conclusion is legitimate that the Tusayan Indians were familiar with mugs when the Spaniards came among them.
This latter method of recording accounts is commonly used at the present time in Tusayan, both in houses and on cliffs; and one of the best of these, said to enumerate the number of Apache killed by the Hopi in a raid many years ago, may be seen above the trail by which the visitor enters the pueblo of Hano on the East Mesa.
An example in point is the ruined pueblo of A´ wat u i or Aguatóbi, as it was known to the Spaniards at the time of the conquest, when it was the leading "city of the Province of Tusayan," now Moki. Over the entire extent of this ruin, and to a considerable distance around it, fragments of the greatest variety in color, shape, size, and finish of ware occur in abundance.
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