From the appearance of antiquity it seems probable that long before the mission buildings were erected a ridge of many-storied houses extended eastward from the pueblo on the northern side of a level space or court, in which there were, either then or later, ceremonial chambers or kivas. The southern side of this open space was the site of the mission, but was then unoccupied. This open space recalls the large court at Walpi, where the Snake dance occurs, but it was considerably broader, one side being formed by the structures which rose from the edge of the mesa. In course of time, however, the mission buildings were erected on this site, and a wall connecting the ridge of houses on the north and the outhouses of the mission was made, thus inclosing the court on all four sides. It was into this inclosure, through a gateway, the buttresses of which still remain, that the assailants passed on that eventful night when Awatobi was destroyed.

There is good evidence that a massacre of Awatobians occurred in the southeastern angle of the eastern part of the pueblo, just east of the mission. If so, it is probable that many of the unfortunates sought refuge in the outbuildings of the church. Suspecting that such was the case, I excavated a considerable space of ground at these places and found many human skulls and other bones thrown together in confusion. The earth was literally filled with bones, evidently hastily placed there or left where the dead fell. These bodies were not buried with pious care, for there were no fragments of mortuary pottery or other indication of burial objects. Many of the skulls were broken, some pierced with sharp implements. While it is true that possibly this may have been a potter's field, or, from its position east of the mission, a Christian burial place, as at Zuñi, the evidence from the appearance of the bodies points to a different conclusion. According to the legends, the hostiles entered the pueblo through the adjacent gateway; their anger led them especially against those of the inhabitants who were regarded as powako or sorcerers, and their first acts of violence would naturally have been toward those who sought refuge in the buildings adjacent the church. Near this hated "Singing-house" the slaughter began, soon extending to the kivas and the whole of the eastern section of the village. There was no evidence of murderous deeds in the rooms of the western section of the old pueblo, and the legends agree in relating that most of the men were in kivas, not far from the mission, when the village was overthrown. There is no legendary evidence that there were any Spanish priests in the mission at the time of its destruction, and there is no record extant of any Spaniards losing their lives at Awatobi at the time of its destruction, although the fact of the occurrence, according to Bandelier,[73] was recorded.

The traditional clans which inhabited Awatobi were the Awata (Bow), Honani (Badger), Piba (Tobacco), and Buli (Butterfly). The Bow people appear to have been the most important of these, since their name was applied to the village. Their totemic signatures, in pictographic form, may still be seen on the sides of the cliff under Awatobi, and in the ruins was found a fine arrowshaft polisher on which was an incised drawing of a bow and an arrow, suggesting that the owner was a member of the Bow phratry. Saliko, the chief of the woman's society known as the Mamzrautû, insists that this priesthood was strong in the fated pueblo, and that a knowledge of its mysteries was brought to Walpi by one of the women who was saved.

It is claimed by the folklorists of the Tataukyamû, a priesthood which, controls the New-fire ceremonies at Walpi, and is prominent in the Soyaluña, or the rites of the winter solstice, that the Piba or Tobacco phratry brought the fetishes of that society to Walpi, and there are many obscurely known resemblances between the Mamzrauti and the Wüwütcimti celebrations in Walpi which appear to support that claim. The Piba phratry is likewise said to have come to Walpi comparatively late in the history of the village, which fact points the same way.

Undoubtedly Awatobi received additions to its population from the south when the pueblos on the Little Colorado were abandoned, and there are obscure legends which support that belief; but the largest numbers were recruited from the pueblos in the eastern section of the country.[74]

THE KIVAS OF AWATOBI

A pueblo of the size of Awatobi, with so many evidences of long occupancy, would no doubt have several ceremonial chambers or kivas, but as yet no one has definitely indicated their positions. I have already called attention to evidences that if they existed they were probably to be looked for in the open court east of the western mounds and in the space north of the mission. In all the inhabited Tusayan pueblos the kivas are separated from the house clusters and are surrounded by courts or dance plazas. No open spaces existed in the main or western mounds of Awatobi, and there was no place there for kivas unless the pueblo was exceptional in having such structures built among the dwellings, as at Zuñi. A tradition has survived that Awatobi had regular kivas, partially subterranean, of rectangular shape, and that they were situated in open courts. This would indicate that the space east of the oldest part of the ruin may have been the sites of these chambers. The old priests whom I have consulted in regard to the probable positions of Awatobi kivas have invariably pointed out the mounds north of the mission walls in the eastern section of the ruin as the location of the kivas, and in 1892 I proved to my satisfaction that these directions were correct.

There is no reason to suppose that the kiva was a necessity in the ancient performance of the Tusayan ritual, and there are still performed many ceremonials as secret and as sacred as any others which occur in rooms used as dwellings or for the storage of corn. Thus, the Flute ceremony, one of the most complicated in Tusayan, is not, and according to legends never was, performed in a kiva. On the contrary, the secret rites of the Flute society are performed in the ancestral Flute chamber or home of the oldest woman of the Flute clan. Originally, I believe, the same was true in the case of other ceremonials, and that the kiva was of comparatively recent introduction into Tusayan.[75]

Speaking of the sacred rooms of Awatobi, Mindeleff says: "No traces of kivas were visible at the time the ruin was surveyed," but Stephen is quoted in a legend that "the people of Walpi had partly cleaned out one of these chambers and used it as a depository for ceremonial plume-sticks, but the Navaho carried off their sacred deposits, tempted probably by their market value as ethnologic specimens." It is true that while from a superficial examination of the Awatobi mounds the position of the kivas is difficult to locate, a little excavation brings their walls to light. It is likewise quite probable that the legend reported by Stephen has a basis in fact, and that the people at Walpi may have used old shrines in Awatobi, after its destruction, as the priests of Mishoñinovi do at the present time; but I very much doubt if the Navaho sold any of the sacred prayer emblems from these fanes. It is hardly characteristic of these people to barter such objects among one another, and no specimens from the shrines appear to have made their way into the numerous collections of traders known to me. There is, however, archeological evidence revealed by excavations that the room centrally placed in the court north of the mission contained a shrine in its floor on the night Awatobi fell.

In 1892, while removing the soil from a depression about the middle of the eastern court of Awatobi, about 100 feet north of the northern wall of the mission, I laid bare a room 28 by 14 feet, in which were found a skull and many other human bones which, from their disposition, had not been buried with care. The discovery of these skeletons accorded with the Hopi traditions that this was one of the rooms in which the men of Awatobi were gathered on the fatal night, and the inclosure where many died. I was deterred from further excavation at that place by the horror of my workmen at the desecration of the chamber. In 1895, however, I determined to continue my earlier excavations and to trace the course of the walls of adjacent rooms. The results obtained in this work led to a new phase of the question, which sheds more light on the character of the rooms in the middle of the eastern court of Awatobi. Instead of a single room at this point, there are three rectangular chambers side by side, all of about the same size ([plate cviii]). In the center of the floor of the middle room, 6 feet below the surface, I came upon a cist or stone shrine. As the workmen approached the floor they encountered a stone slab, horizontally placed in the pavement of the room. This slab was removed, and below it was another flat stone which was perforated by a rectangular hole just large enough to admit the hand and forearm. This second slab was found to cover a stone box, the sides of which were formed of stone slabs about 2-1/2 feet square. On the inner faces of the upright slabs rain-cloud symbols were painted. These symbols were of terrace form, in different colors outlined with black lines. One of the stones bore a yellow figure, another a red, and a third white. The color of the fourth was not determinable, but evidently, from its position relatively to the others, was once green. This arrangement corresponds with the present ceremonial assignment of colors to the cardinal points, or at least the north and south, as at the present time, were yellow and red, respectively, and presumably the white and green were on the east and west sides of the cist. The colors are still fairly bright and may be seen in the restoration of this shrine now in the National Museum.