This movement is shared to a less extent by the Middle Mesa and Oraibi people. On my first visit to the pueblos of these mesas, in 1890, there was not a single permanent dwelling save in the ancient pueblos; but now numerous small farmhouses have been erected at or near the springs in the foothills. I mention these facts as a matter of record of progress in the life of these people in adapting themselves to the new conditions or influences by which they are surrounded. I believe that if this exodus of Hopi families from the old pueblo to the plain continues during the next two decades as it has in the last ten years, there are children now living in Walpi who will some day see it uninhabited.
This disintegration of the Hopi phratries, by which families are separated from one another, is, I believe, a return to the prehistoric distribution of the clans, and as Walpi grew into a pueblo by a union of kindred people, so now it is again being divided and distributed, still preserving family ties in new clusters or groupings. It is thus not impossible that the sites of certain old ruins, as Sikyatki, deserted for many years, will again be built upon if better suited for new modes of life. The settlement near Coyote spring, for instance, is not far from the old site of a former home of the Tanoan families, who went to Tusayan in the beginning of the eighteenth century, and the people who inhabit these new houses are all Tanoan descendants of the original contingent.
In order to become familiar with the general character of Tusayan ruins, I made a brief reconnoissance of those mentioned in the following list, from which I selected Awatobi and Sikyatki as places for a more exhaustive exploration. This list is followed by a brief mention of those which I believe would offer fair opportunities for a continuation of the work inaugurated. The ruins near Oraibi were not examined and are therefore omitted, not that they are regarded as less important, but because I was unable to undertake a study of them in the limited time at my disposal. There are also many ruins in Tusayan, north of the inhabited pueblos, which have never been described, and would well repay extended investigation. Some of these, as the ruins at the sacred spring called Kishuba, are of the utmost traditional importance.
I. Middle Mesa ruins—(1) Old Shuñopovi; (2) Old Mishoñinovi; (3) Shitaumû; (4) Chukubi; (5) Payüpki.
II. East Mesa ruins—(1) Kisakobi; (2) Küchaptüvela; (3) Küküchomo; (4) Tukinobi; (5) Kachinba; (6) Sikyatki.
III. Ruins in Keam's canyon.
IV. Jeditoh valley ruins—(1) Bat-house; (2) Jeditoh, Kawaika; (3) Horn-house; (4) Awatobi; Smaller Awatobi.
This method of classification is purely geographical, and is adopted simply for convenience; but there are one or two facts worthy of mention in regard to the distribution of ruins in these four sections. The inhabited pueblos, like the ruins, are, as a rule, situated on the eastern side of their respective mesas, or on the cliffs or hills which border the adjacent plains on the west. This uniformity is thought to have resulted from a desire to occupy a sunny site for warmth and for other reasons.
The pueblos at or nearest the southern ends of the mesas were found to be best suited for habitation, consequently the present towns occupy those sites, or, as in the case of the Jeditoh series, the pueblo at that point was the last abandoned. The reason for this is thought to be an attempt to concentrate on the most inaccessible sites available, which implies inroads of hostile peoples. For the same reason, likewise, the tendency was to move from the foothills to the mesa tops when these invasions began.
Early settlers near East Mesa appeared to have chosen exposed sites for their pueblos. This would imply that they feared no invasion, and legendary history indicates that the first pueblos were erected before the hostile Ute, Apache, and Navaho appeared. The early settlements on Middle Mesa were also apparently not made with an absorbing idea of inaccessibility. All the Jeditoh villages, however, were on the mesa tops, these sites having been selected evidently with a view to protection, since they were not convenient to the farms.