For many reasons it would seem that the people who occupied the now ruined Jeditoh villages were later arrivals in Tusayan than those of East and Middle Mesas, and that, as a rule, they came from the eastward, while those of Middle Mesa arrived from the south. The first colonists of all, however, appear to have been the East Mesa clans, the Bear and Snake families. If this conjecture be true, we may believe that the oldest pueblos in Tusayan were probably the house groups of the Snake clan of East Mesa, for whom their traditionists claim a northern origin.
The Middle Mesa Ruins
SHUÑOPOVI
The site of Old Shuñopovi ([plate cv]) at the advent of the first Spaniards, and for a century or more afterward, was at the foot of the mesa on which the present village stands. The site of the old pueblo is easily detected by the foundations of the ancient houses and their overturned walls, surrounded by mounds of soil filled with fragments of the finest pottery.
The old village was situated on a ridge of foothills east of the present town and near the spring, which is still used. On the highest point of the ridge there rise to a considerable height the massive walls of the old Spanish mission church, forming an inclosure, now used as a sheep corral. The cemeteries are near by, close to the outer walls, and among a clump of peach trees about half a mile east of the old houses. The pottery,[38] as shown by the fragments, is of the finest old Tusayan ware, cream and red being the predominating colors, while fragments of coiled and black-and-white ware are likewise common.
MISHOÑINOVI
The ruins of Old Mishoñinovi lie west of the present pueblo in the foothills, not far from the two rocky pinnacles at that point and adjacent to a spring. In strolling over the site of the old town I have noted its ground plan, and have picked up many sherds which indicate that the pottery made at that place was the fine cream-color ware for which Tusayan has always been famous. The site offers unusual opportunities for archeological studies, but excavation there is not practicable on account of the opposition of the chiefs.
Old Mishoñinovi was a pueblo of considerable size, and was probably inhabited up to the close of the seventeenth century. It was probably on this site that the early Spanish explorers found the largest pueblo of the Middle Mesa. The ruin of Shitaimovi, in the foothills near Mishoñinovi, mentioned by Mindeleff, was not visited by our party.
