Sichumavi—"the mound of flowers"—was founded about the year 1750 by Walpians of the Badger Clan, who for some reason or other grew discontented and wished a town of their own. Here they were joined by Tanoans of the Asa Clan from the Rio Grande, who for a time had lived in the seclusion of the Tsegi, as the Navahoes term the Canyon de Chelly in New Mexico.
Exactly when Shipauluvi was founded is not known, though its name—"the place of peaches"—clearly denotes that it must have been after the Spanish invasion, for it was the conquerors who brought with them peaches. Nor were peaches the only good things the Hopis and other American aborigines owed to the hated foreigners. They introduced horses, cows, sheep (which latter have afforded them a large measure of sustenance and given to them and the Navahoes the material with which to make their useful rugs and blankets), and goats, besides a number of vegetables.
Here, then, about the middle of the eighteenth century the Hopi mesa towns were settled as we now find them, and doubtless with populations as near as can be to their present numbers.
Hano we have already visited. Let us now, hastily but carefully, glance at each of the other villages as they appear at the present time.
Passing on to Sichumavi from Hano we find it similar in all its main features to Hano, except that none of its houses are as high. In the centre of the town is a large plaza where, in wet weather, a large body of rain-water collects. This is used for "laundry" purposes, as drink for the burros and goats, and a bathing pond for all the children of the pueblo. It is one of the funniest sights imaginable to see the youngsters playing and frolicking in the water by the hour,—I should have said liquid mud, for the filth that accumulates in this plaza reservoir is simply indescribable. Children of both sexes, their brown, swarthy bodies utterly indifferent to the piercing darts of the sun, lie down in this liquid filth, roll over, splash one another, run to and fro, and enjoy themselves hugely, even in the presence of the white visitor, until a glimpse of the dreaded camera sends them off splashing, yelling, gesticulating, and some of them crying, to the nearest shelter.
That supereminence of Hopi character is conservatism is shown as one walks from Sichumavi to Walpi. Here is a literal exemplification demonstrating how the present generations "tread in the footsteps" of their forefathers. The trail over which the bare and moccasined feet of these people have passed and repassed for years is worn down deep into the solid sandstone. The springy and yielding foot, unprotected except by its own epidermis or the dressed skin of the goat, sheep, or deer, has cut its way into the unyielding rock, thus symbolizing the power of an unyielding purpose and demonstrating the force of an unchangeable conservatism.
Between these two pueblos the mesa becomes so narrow that we walk on a mere strip of rock, deep precipices on either side. To the left are Keam's Canyon and the road over which we came; to the right are the gardens, corn-fields, and peach orchards, leading the eye across to the second mesa, on the heights of which are Mashonganavi and Shipauluvi.
These gardens and corn-fields are the most potent argument possible against the statements of ignorant and prejudiced white men who claim that the Indians—Hopis as well as others—are lazy and shiftless.
If a band of white men were placed in such a situation as the Hopis, and compelled to wrest a living from the sandy, barren, sun-scorched soil, there are few who would have faith and courage enough to attempt the evidently hopeless task. But with a patience and steadiness that make the work sublime, these heroic bronze men have sought out and found the spots of sandy soil under which the water from the heights percolates. They have marked the places where the summer's freshets flow, and thus, relying upon sub-irrigation and the casual and uncertain rainfalls of summer, have planted their corn, beans, squash, melons, and chili, carefully hoeing them when necessary, and each season reap a harvest that would not disgrace modern scientific methods.