Weekly journal-miner., 1911-03-15

present day students 10 regard lnt
 ruins of all this large region as the
 work of successive generations of kin
 dred tribes seems very strongly borne
 out by those ruins themselves and by all the fragments of tradition whicf
 are preserved among the tribes now
 living in the country The varying de
 graes of deXterity and development in l dicated by differences in the pottery
 household articles, and stone imple
 ments, are no greater than might cas-
 fly be due to combinations of favorable
 or hindering local circumstances anC
 conditions, and 1t is very probable that
 further comparative study will strength
 en the evidence toward a general kin
 ship of the prehistoric Arizonans ir
 blood and customs of life.
 The most important traditional or le- gendary material for this study comes , from the HOpi or Moqui Indians of Arizona and their race kindred the , the Zuni myths as being as unchang-
 ed and dependable as those of the
 Hopi, for the reason that the Zunis
 have since the Spanish occupation come
 much more in contact with the white J race and with other religious teach ings. as well as cleaning some garbled stories from the tales of the first white men to come among them.
 The Hopi stories cover most of tho region of prehistoric ruins, as to place. but as to. time only the most uncertain settling of the present mesas not more 1 than a hundred or two years back of
 the Spanish discovery. and putting | their various mgrations some few hum | dred years back of that.
 It is certain that the different fami-
 lies now represented at the villages. | and some now extinct, came part from
 the north out of the region of the San
 Juan river ruins and adjacent regions | and part from the south out of the Land of the Tall. Cactus of which they of southern Arizona. They tell how on the migration from the south they stop ped in the Red Land to the South. the present Red Rock country across the Verde river from Jerome. and of how they build cliff and cave homes there and grew crops in the valley below. One story Is to the effect that they were at last driven out by a flood. and though it is fantastic and full of their mythical personages it is none the less indicative of real residence in that re- ba seen and are of the general char actsr of those throughout the region between the Verde river and the Hopi villages.
 The story is that a hunter came to a village in the Red Rocks wearing a necklace of the tips of deer horns. He lay down in the center of the village and seemed to go to sleep but in a day or two he had covered himself with earth, all but one hand. At last that was. drawn in and from the hole the peared and demanded a boy and a girl from the people. Water flowed from this hole till all the valley was filled and the people that escaped went on northward and settled in Chaves Pass and on the Little Colorado river near Winslow. where they lived a long time before going on to Walpi.
 Much pottery of very fine kind has been taken from the ruin of this town near Winsow. which the HopiS call HO-mo-lo-bi. and from other village In a village near Springarville about one hundred miles from Holbrook on the south side of the Santa Fe road a huge stone snake was found in one of the ruins and it is supposed that this village may have been built bv the Snake clan. who later went on to the present villages. told with good many variations but the simplest one is worth repeating as explaining the ceremony of the Snake Dance. Tn a time when the people were not prosperous and when it was very dry a youth of the Hopi sat on the edga of the Grand Canyon think i ing of what he might do for his peo- on the water tO the Underworld and see if the people there could not tell him some wise thing to do.
 In the dark gorges he met the Spider !, Woman, a curious creature who talk ed to him and told him she would guide him. She made herself small whisper directions from time to time. | After a long journey and many ad- !, ventures from which the Spider Woman saved him, he found the people of the of their clan to be his wife and teach his clan the way to bring rain. !
 At her first confinement this woman bore number of rattlesnakes instead of child and these snakes caused the people so much fear that they were taken out of the village and driv- man bore children from which the Snake People are descended. but soon the fields were dying for rain and the l Hopis were told that the snakes they had driven away were friends of the rain gods. then told his clan how to gather the snakes all over the desert and bring them in and wash them and carry them through the prayers for rain-then turn them loose unharmed far out on the gods the prayers for rain and good crops. The Hopi believe the snakes to . be relatives of the Snake clan and i feel little fear for the Snake priests who handle them in the dance. They indeed treat the snakes with gentle ness and care and try not to hurn fluence the gods to send rain.
 It is rather pitiful that the need of rain is so great with these poor In disns that they believe that the dead become rain gods and they vii cry to the dead to send rain for the crops. In tradition the causes for their mi grationS' are always given as dry years or great floods, and they seem to have been driven back and forth by cli- matic influences as much as by human enemies.
 Beyond question the most beautiful pottery, pre- historic or otherwise that has been taken out of Arizona has come from the ruined Hopi village of Sikiyatki, a village which was destroy ed some time before the Spanish dis covery by quarrels between its people and those of Walpi In the graveyard below the almost-obliterated village an expedition of the Bureau of EthnoloEy under Dr. Fewkes took out several hun dred bowls and jars of very beautiful shapes and of elaborate and artistic decoration.
 The Hopis of today have very much the burial customs of their ancestors; the body is frequently placed in a cleft between two bOulders pushed un- der a shelving ledge and covered up. or buried in a shallow grave where the earth is soft. The graves are nearly always very near to the villages and usually grouped together. With the body the jars are inferred. filled with food and water for the journey to the Otherland.
 The jars from Sikiyatki were a dac3 with brown and blarE patterns sometimes red-and some jars
 Al.