"My maternal ancestor had recognized a woman chief (Mamzrau moñwi), and saved her at the place of massacre called Maski, and now he asked her whether she would be willing to initiate the woman of Walpi in the rites of the Mamzrau. She complied, and thus the observance of the ceremonial called the Mamzráuti came to Walpi. I can not tell how it came to the other villages. This Mamzrau-moñwi had no children, and hence my maternal ancestor's sister became chief, and her tiponi (badge of office) came to me. Some of the other Awatobi women knew how to bring rain, and such of them as were willing to teach their songs were spared and went to different villages. The Oraibi chief saved a man who knew how to cause peaches to grow, and that is why Oraibi has such an abundance of peaches now. The Mishoñinovi chief saved a prisoner who knew how to make the sweet, small-ear corn grow, and that is why it is more abundant there than elsewhere. All the women who knew song prayers and were willing to teach them were spared, and no children were designedly killed, but were divided among the villages, most of them going to Mishoñinovi. The remainder of the prisoners, men and women, were again tortured and dismembered and left to die on the sand hills, and there their bones are, and that is the reason the place is called Maschomo (Death-mound). This is the story of Awatobi told by my old people."
All variants of the legend are in harmony in this particular, that Awatobi was destroyed by the other Tusayan pueblos, and that Mishoñinovi, Walpi, and probably Oraibi and Shuñopovi participated in the deed. A grievance that would unite the other villagers against Awatobi must have been a great one, indeed, and not a mere dispute about water or lands. The more I study the real cause, hidden in the term powako, "wizard" or "sorcerer," the more I am convinced that the progress Christianity was making in Awatobi, after the reconquest of the Pueblos in 1692, explains the hostility of the other villagers. The party favoring the Catholic fathers in Awatobi was increasing, and the other Tusayan pueblos watched its growth with alarm. They foresaw that it heralded the return of the hated domination of the priests, associated in their minds with practical slavery, and they decided on the tragedy, which was carried out with all the savagery of which their natures were capable.
They greatly feared the return of the Spanish soldiers, as the epoch of Spanish rule, mild though it may have been, was held in universal detestation. Moreover, after the reconquest of the Rio Grande pueblos, many apostates fled to Tusayan and fanned the fires of hatred against the priests. Walpi received these malcontents, who came in numbers a few years later. Among these arrivals were Tanoan warriors and their families, part of whom were ancestors of the present inhabitants of Hano.
It was no doubt hoped that the destruction of Awatobi would effectually root out the growing Christian influence, which it in fact did; and for fifty years afterward Tusayan successfully resisted all efforts to convert it. Franciscans from the east and Jesuits from the Gila in the south strove to get a new hold, but they never succeeded in rebuilding the missions in this isolated province, which was generally regarded as independent.
From the scanty data I have been able to collect from historical and legendary sources, it seems probable that Awatobi was always more affected by the padres than were the other Tusayan pueblos. This was the village which was said to have been "converted" by Padre Porras, whose work, after his death by poison in 1633, was no doubt continued by his associates and successors. About 1680, as we learn from documentary accounts, the population of Awatobi was 800,[70] and it was probably not much smaller in 1700, the time of its destruction.
EVIDENCES OF FIRE IN THE DESTRUCTION
Wherever excavations were conducted in the eastern section of Awatobi, we could not penetrate far below the surface without encountering unmistakable evidences of a great conflagration. The effect of the fire was particularly disastrous in the rooms of the eastern section, or that part of the pueblo contiguous to the mission. Hardly a single object was removed from this part of Awatobi that had not been charred. Many of the beams were completely burned; others were charred only on their surfaces. The rooms were filled with ashes and scoriæ, while the walls had been cracked as if by intense heat.
Perhaps the most significant fact in regard to the burning of Awatobi was seen in some of the houses where the fire seems to have been less intense. In many chambers of the eastern section, which evidently were used as granaries, the corn was stacked in piles just as it is today under many of the living rooms at Walpi, a fact which tends to show that there was no attempt to pillage the pueblo before its destruction. The ears of corn in these store-rooms were simply charred, but so well preserved that entire ears of maize were collected in great numbers. It may here be mentioned that upon one of the stacks of corn I found during my excavations for the Hemenway Expedition in 1892, a rusty iron knife-blade, showing that the owner of the room was acquainted with objects of Spanish manufacture. This blade is now deposited with the Hemenway collection in the Peabody Museum at Cambridge.