BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY—— SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CX
EXCAVATED ROOM IN THE WESTERN MOUND OF AWATOBI
SMALLER AWATOBI
About an eighth of a mile west of the great mounds of Awatobi there is a small rectangular ruin, the ground plan of which is well marked, and in which individual houses are easy to trace. Like its larger neighbor, it stands on the very edge of the mesa. None of its walls rise above the surface of the mounds, which, however, are considerably elevated and readily distinguished for some distance. The pueblo was built in the form of a rectangle of single-story houses surrounding a plaza. There was an opening or entrance on the southern side, near which is a mound, possibly the remains of a kiva. A trail now passes directly through the ruin and down the mesa side to Jeditoh valley, probably the pathway by which the ancient inhabitants ascended the cliff. The Hopi Indians employed by me in excavating Awatobi had no name for this ruin and were not familiar with its existence before I pointed it out to them. For want of a better interpretation I have regarded it as a colony of old Awatobi, possibly of later construction.
Excavations in its mounds revealed no objects of interest, although fragments of beautiful pottery, related to that found at Awatobi and Sikyatki, show that it must have been made by people of the older or best epoch[78] of Tusayan ceramics.
MORTUARY REMAINS
Although it is well known that the ancient inhabitants of the great houses of the Gila-Salado drainage buried some of their dead within their dwellings, or in other rooms, and that the same mortuary practice was observed in ancient Zuñi-Cibola, up to the time of my excavations this form of burial had never been found in Tusayan. I am now able to record that the same custom was practiced at Awatobi.
Excavation made in the southeastern declivity of the western mounds led to a burial chamber in which we found the well-preserved skeleton of an old man, apparently a priest. The body was laid on the floor, at full length, and at his head, which pointed southward, had been placed, not mortuary offerings of food in bowls, but insignia of his priestly office. Eight small objects of pottery were found on his left side ([plate cxii], a, b, d, e). Among these was a symmetrical vase of beautiful red ware ([plate cxi], a) richly decorated with geometric patterns, and four globular paint pots, each full of pigment of characteristic color. These paint pots were of black-and-white ware, and contained, respectively, yellow ocher, sesquioxide of iron, green copper carbonate, and micaceous hematite ([plate cxiii], a, d, e) such as is now called yayala and used by the Snake priests in the decoration of their faces. There were also many arrowpoints in an earthen colander, and a ladle was luted over the mouth of the red vase. My native excavators pronounced this the grave of a warrior priest. The passageways into this chamber of death had all been closed, and there were no other mortuary objects in the room. This was the only instance of intramural interment which I discovered in the excavations at Awatobi, but a human bone was found on the floor of another chamber. So far as known the Awatobi people buried most of their dead outside the town, either in the foothills at the base of the mesa, or in the adjacent sand-dunes.
The work of excavating the graves at the foot of the mesa was desultory, as I found no single place where many interments had been made. Several food vessels were dug up at a grave opened by Kópeli, the Snake chief. I was not with him when he found the grave, but he called me to see it soon after its discovery. We took from this excavation a sandstone fetish of a mountain-lion, a fragment of the bottom of a basin perforated with holes as if used as a colander. Deposited in this fragment were many stone arrowheads, several fragments of green paint, a flat green paho ornamented with figures of dragon-flies in black. In addition to a single complete prayer-stick there were fragments of many others too much broken to be identified. One of these was declared by Kópeli to be a chief's paho. The grave in which these objects were found was situated about halfway down the side of the mesa to the southward of the highest mounds of the western division of the pueblo.