It has been mentioned before that Keres-speaking Indians have a legend that long years ago a treaty or contract was made between their ancestors and Tewa-speaking people. It is said that certain loosely defined ranges of territory were to belong to each of the two groups. The meeting place or the place where the treaty was made was called “[Tyuonyi].” “Tyuonyi” means “place of treaty.” Thus the dividing line between [Tewa] and [Keres] lands became sharply defined by what is now known as “Frijoles [Canyon].” But how long was such a treaty to last among primitive people? All the lands to the south of Frijoles Canyon were supposedly Keres and those to the north were Tewa. After this treaty was made, Indians probably spread out on each side of the Canyon like the parting of the waters of the Red Sea. Small house sites dotted the [mesas] and canyons on both sides. But still, members of both groups could possibly have lived here together. Legend hints at this.
As time went on more houses sprang up at the base of the north cliff and crude [pueblos] were erected on the floor of the [Canyon]. [Kivas] or ceremonial chambers were dug out of the valley floor and lined with walls of rock. Indians gathered cobble stone because they might not have known how to cut blocks during these early times with which to lay masonry walls. They gathered thousands of them and built their kiva walls eight or ten feet thick. This was their attempt to utilize the pieces of crudely shaped felsite or volcanic ash. They laid huge timbers fifteen or more inches in diameter across the walls of their large underground chambers. Then smaller poles of pine were cut and laid on top of the large vigas. Splittings were hacked from down trees. Pine, cottonwood, juniper, [piñon]—anything that would split easily with crude stone implements—were used for the next roof course. Then brush and grass and mud were put on top. The roofs must have been two or more feet thick but little did the Indians realize that the tremendous weight might crack the big timbers after they dried out. How ingenious were these Indians in their simple way!
Many a moon passed. Many houses were built. Jealousy might have arisen between these two groups of Indians. Who was to raise corn on this or that little patch of fertile ground? Who should have a right to hunt deer and turkey in the Valley of the Frijoles? How could Keres-speaking people go to [Tewa] [kivas] or how could Tewas go to [Keres] kivas? Trouble reigned over the entire plateau and most of it was possibly in the Valley of the Frijoles. Was it ever decided which group should live in Hidden Valley when it was given the name [Tyuonyi]?
Jealousy could have arisen over pottery. When the Frijoles area was first occupied clay deposits were discovered in [arroyos] and along river banks. Indian women began moulding pottery with local clays. They discovered mineral pigments. They used paints from wild plants which fired the black designs in fast color in the vessels. The color would never come out. But slowly and surely the women began to depart from the techniques which they and their ancestors had previously used. Out of these techniques new styles of pottery were developed by using local materials. These white wares with black designs became thick and coarse as time went on and probably decreased in popularity as far as usefulness was concerned.
The Keres-speaking people had kin far to the south of the [Pajarito] Plateau. And these people were ingenious. Sometime in the thirteenth century, it seems, Indians living in the Little Colorado River district of what is now eastern Arizona and western New Mexico, were making a style of red pottery with black designs. This pottery was apparently very popular and spread by trade to the [Rio Grande] Valley. Indians in this same region eventually learned to produce a glaze paint by using lead-manganese ore. This ware also spread to the Rio Grande and glaze paint was used in decorating pottery from about 1350 A.D. to the time of the [Pueblo] Rebellion in 1680. It is thought that shortly after its inception and perhaps by 1400 A.D. this red pottery spread by trade to [Tyuonyi].
The [Keres] living here might have brought this red ware in from their southern relatives living below the [Pajarito] Plateau. On the other hand, it is possible that they might not have lived in the [Canyon] before the time of the glaze pottery. The most plausible explanation seems to be that the people to the south brought the materials to their kin in the Frijoles. These materials were then transformed into the beautiful new hard red ware to catch the eye of the Tewa-speaking people who likely were modeling inferior white wares with black designs. However, there is a remote possibility that this glaze ware was never manufactured in Frijoles Canyon and this possibility brings up the question as to whether or not the ware was used as a wedge to gain entrance into [Tyuonyi]. The folk who were living here, either [Tewa] or Keres, or it could have been both, were making an inferior type of black-on-white pottery with local materials. It was inferior because it was so porous. So, the Tewa-speaking people might have readily accepted this red ware in trade from the Keres. And it seems this trading might have been carried on for a half-century or thereabout. No one is sure. At this particular time there seems to have been a definite decrease in the manufacture or trading of glaze pottery.
Something very drastic must have taken place. Could it be that there was just not enough room in the beautiful Frijoles for two groups of people who spoke different languages? It was easily a prize spot. It was a green valley—a perfect place to live and the water supply was constant. It might have been the envy of Indians for many miles around. There was not this constant water supply either to the north or to the south. Some groups living on the high [mesas] might even have depended on open basins hollowed out of soft rock to catch the rain water. Great jealousy could have arisen between individuals or even groups. And one might safely guess that love affairs were broken up between [Tewa] maidens and [Keres] boys or vice versa. And who can say with certainty that the [Tyuonyi] was not the earliest known home of the Keres-speaking people in this vicinity? Or that it was not the Tewas from the north who did the encroaching and forced their way into the Valley of the Frijoles and lived and traded pottery with the Keres?
By the time of the fifteenth century, there were many of the Indians living to the north of [Tyuonyi]. Little house sites were being abandoned. People were drawing closer together to live in larger communities. Surely, the soft volcanic ash from the cliffs was being fashioned into building blocks with stone axes. Some were square, some were rectangular—long heavy four-sided blocks. It had taken Indians years and years, possibly, to learn that this soft stone could be quarried and then shaped. These blocks were definitely better and single thickness coursed masonry walls were in vogue by this time. This was the highest type of [prehistoric] [pueblo] architecture on the [Pajarito] Plateau.
This was most likely the period in which the terraced communal apartment houses were developed and erected. There were centers of population from this time on. There were no more small family houses. Indians built houses with several hundred rooms, at least two, and, in some cases, three stories high. What was the reason? Was it for defense purposes or was it just a normal outgrowth of the discovery of the fashioned block technique? There were several main villages occupied by the Tewa-speaking people to the north. They were all built in defensible positions: on a knoll, a high [mesa] top overlooking the entire surrounding country, or in a valley away from the cliffs from which heavy objects could be thrown down by enemies. These four villages were [Potsui’i], [Sankawi], [Navawi] and [Tshirege]. Potsui’i was located in a deep valley on a knoll. It was known as “gap where the water sinks.” Sankawi was “gap of the sharp round cactus.” It was built high on a mesa top in a defensible position. A trail was worn in the soft rock by thousands of moccasined feet going and coming from the [pueblo]. Another of their villages, Navawi, was so-called because of a pitfall gap or game trap. Game coming from either direction on the trail was caught in a deep pit. Tshirege was “House of the Bird People.” It was the largest pueblo on the [Pajarito] and had extensive villages built at the base of the cliff. The numbers of Indians who lived at these sites during these times cannot be estimated though all four villages were large. It would appear that nothing but Tewas lived here. But there also lived their kin and kind in Frijoles [Canyon].
[Keres] people were living to the south of Frijoles—in large [pueblos] too. They had been living in this south country for years at [Yapashi], “pueblo of the Stone Lions,” and at [Haatze], “House of the Earth People.” These were communal apartment houses also but the Keres population on the [Pajarito] probably was not as great as that of the Tewas in those days. Nobody but Keres lived here to the south of [Tyuonyi].