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Updated: June 14, 2025
As there is no reason to suspect the existence of circular kivas in ancient Tusayan, it would be difficult to decide whether or not any one of the large rectangular rooms was used for ceremonial purposes, for it is an interesting fact that some of the oldest secret rites in the Hopi villages occur, not in kivas, but in ordinary dwelling rooms in the village.
The ruin was described and figured a few years later by Mr Victor Mindeleff in his valuable memoir on Cibola and Tusayan architecture. Bourke's reference is very brief and Mindeleff's plan deficient, as it includes only a portion of the ruin, namely, the conspicuous mission walls and adjacent buildings, overlooking entirely the older or western mounds, which are the most characteristic.
They had already heard from Cibola of the strange beings, men mounted on animals which were said to devour enemies. It may seem strange that the departure of an expedition against Tusayan was unknown to the Hopi, but the narrative leads us to believe that such was the fact.
Perhaps, however, no ruined pueblo presents more interesting problems than the magnificent Pueblo Grande or Kintiel, about 20 miles north of Navaho Springs. This large ruin, lying between the Cibolan and Tusayan groups, has been referred to both of these provinces, and would, if properly excavated, shed much light on the archeology of the two provinces. Kinnazinde lies not far from Kintiel.
There is no doubt, however, that they represent mythic conceptions, and are emblematic of birds which figured conspicuously in the ancient Hopi Olympus. The modern legends of Tusayan are replete with references to such bird-like beings which play important rôles and which bear evidence of archaic origins.
Possibly a dance similar to the Antelope performance on the eighth day of the Snake dance may have been celebrated at that pueblo, and the discovery of a rattlesnake's rattle in a Sikyatki grave is yet to be explained. One of the most prominent of all the deities in the modern Tusayan Olympus is the cultus-hero called Püükoñhoya, the Little War God.
Good trails run northward to the San Juan and northeastward over the Tunicha mountains to the upper part of that river; Fort Defiance is but half a day's journey to the southeast; Tusayan and Zuñi are but three days distant to the traveler on foot; the Navaho often ride the distance in a day or a day and a half. The canyon is accessible to wagons, however, only at its mouth.
Among the present Tusayan Indians the human hand is rarely used, but oftentimes the beams of the kivas are marked by the girls who have plastered them with impressions of their muddy hands, and there is a katcina mask which has a hand painted in white on the face.
So close is its likeness in form and texture to cliff-house pottery that the two may be regarded as identical. Moreover, it is not impossible that the object may have been brought to Tusayan from Tségi canyon, in the cliff-houses of which Hopi clans lived while Awatobi was in its prime, and, indeed, possibly after the tragedy of 1700.
Among the most significant mortuary objects used by the ancient Tusayan people may be mentioned the so-called prayer-sticks or pahos. As I shall discuss the forms and meaning of prayer-sticks in my account of Sikyatki, where a much larger number were found, I will simply mention a few of the more striking varieties from Awatobi.
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