It is said to have been shortly after the destruction of Sikyátki that the first serious inroad of a hostile tribe occurred within this region, and all the stories aver that these early hostiles were from the north, the Ute being the first who are mentioned, and after them the Apache, who made an occasional foray.
While these families of Hopituh stock had been building their straggling dwellings along the canyon brinks, and grouping in villages around the base of the East Mesa, other migratory bands of Hopituh had begun to arrive on the Middle Mesa. As already said, it is admitted that the Snake were the first occupants of this region, but beyond that fact the traditions are contradictory and confused. It is probable, however, that not long after the arrival of the Horn, the Squash people came from the south and built a village on the Middle Mesa, the ruin of which is called Chukubi. It is on the edge of the cliff on the east side of the neck of that mesa, and a short distance south of the direct trail leading from Walpi to Oraibi. The Squash people say that they came from Palát Kwabi, the Red Land in the far South, and this vague term expresses nearly all their knowledge of that traditional land. They say they lived for a long time in the valley of the Colorado Chiquito, on the south side of that stream and not far from the point where the railway crosses it. They still distinguish the ruin of their early village there, which was built as usual on the brink of a canyon, and call it Etípsíkya, after a shrub that grows there profusely. They crossed the river opposite that place, but built no permanent houses until they reached the vicinity of Chukubi, near which two smaller clusters of ruins, on knolls, mark the sites of dwellings which they claim to have been theirs. Three groups (nyumu) traveling together were the next to follow them; these were the Bear, the Bear-skin-rope, and the Blue Jay. They are said to have been very numerous, and to have come from the vicinity of San Francisco Mountain. They did not move up to Chukubi, but built a large village on the summit, at the south end of the mesa, close to the site of the present Mashongnavi. Soon afterward came the Burrowing Owl, and the Coyote, from the vicinity of Navajo Mountains in the north, but they were not very numerous. They also built upon the Mashongnavi summit.
After this the Squash people found that the water from their springs was decreasing, and began moving toward the end of the mesa, where the other people were. But as there was then no suitable place left on the summit, they built a village on the sandy terrace close below it, on the west side; and as the springs at Chukubi ultimately ceased entirely, the rest of the Squash people came to the terrace and were again united in one village. Straggling bands of several other groups, both wingwu and nyumu, are mentioned as coming from various directions. Some built on the terrace and some found house room in Mashongnavi. This name is derived as follows: On the south side of the terrace on which the Squash village was built is a high column of sandstone which is vertically split in two, and formerly there was a third pillar in line, which has long since fallen. These three columns were called Tútuwalha, the guardians, and both the Squash village and the one on the summit were so named. On the north side of the terrace, close to the present village, is another irregular massy pillar of sandstone called Mashóniniptu, meaning “the other which remains erect,” having reference to the one on the south side, which had fallen. When the Squash withdrew to the summit the village was then called Mashóniniptuovi, “at the place of the other which remains erect;” now that term is never used, but always its syncopated form, Mashongnavi.
The Squash village, on the south end of the Middle Mesa, was attacked by a fierce band that came from the north, some say the Ute, others say the Apache; but whoever the invaders were, they completely overpowered the people, and carried off great stores of food and other plunder. The village was then evacuated, the houses dismantled, and the material removed to the high summit, where they reconstructed their dwellings around the village which thenceforth bore its present name of Mashongnavi. Some of the Squash people moved over to Oraibi, and portions of the Katchina and Paroquet people came from there to Mashongnavi about the same time, and a few of these two groups occupied some vacant houses also in Shupaulovi; for this village even at that early date had greatly diminished in population, having sustained a disastrous loss of men in the canyon affrays east of Walpi.
Shumopavi seems to have been built by portions of the same groups who went to the adjacent Mashongnavi, but the traditions of the two villages are conflicting. The old traditionists at Shumopavi hold that the first to come there were the Paroquet, the Bear, the Bear-skin-rope, and the Blue Jay. They came from the west—probably from San Francisco Mountain. They claim that ruins on a mesa bluff about 10 miles south from the present village are the remains of a village built by these groups before reaching Shumopavi, and the Paroquets arrived first, it is said, because they were perched on the heads of the Bears, and, when nearing the water, they flew in ahead of the others. These groups built a village on a broken terrace, on the east side of the cliff, and just below the present village. There is a spring close by called after the Shunóhu, a tall red grass, which grew abundantly there, and from which the town took its name. This spring was formerly very large, but two years ago a landslide completely buried it; lately, however, a small outflow is again apparent.
The ruins of the early village cover a hillocky area of about 800 by 250 feet, but it is impossible to trace much of the ground plan with accuracy. The corner of an old house still stands, some 6 or 8 feet high, extending about 15 feet on one face and about 10 feet on the other. The wall is over 3 feet in thickness, but of very clumsy masonry, no care having been exercised in dressing the stones, which are of varying sizes and laid in mud plaster. Interest attaches to this fragment, as it is one of the few tangible evidences left of the Spanish priests who engaged in the fatal mission to the Hopituh in the sixteenth century. This bit of wall, which now forms part of a sheep-fold, is pointed out as the remains of one of the mission buildings.
Other groups followed—the Mole, the Spider, and the “Wíksrun.” These latter took their name from a curious ornament worn by the men. A piece of the leg-bone of a bear, from which the marrow had been extracted and a stopper fixed in one end, was attached to the fillet binding the hair, and hung down in front of the forehead. This gens and the Mole are now extinct.
Shumopavi received no further accession of population, but lost to some extent by a portion of the Bear people moving across to Walpi. No important event seems to have occurred among them for a long period after the destruction of Sikyátki, in which they bore some part, and only cursory mention is made of the ingress of “enemies from the north;” but their village, apparently, was not assailed.
The Oraibi traditions tend to confirm those of Shumopavi, and tell that the first houses there were built by Bears, who came from the latter place. The following is from a curious legend of the early settlement:
The Bear people had two chiefs, who were brothers; the elder was called Vwen-ti-só-mo, and the younger Ma-tcí-to. They had a desperate quarrel at Shumopavi, and their people divided into two factions, according as they inclined to one or other of the contestants. After a long period of contention Ma-tcí-to and his followers withdrew to the mesa where Oraibi now stands, about 8 miles northwest from Shumopavi, and built houses a little to the southwest of the limits of the present town. These houses were afterwards destroyed by “enemies from the north,” and the older portion of the existing town, the southwest ends of the house rows, were built with stones from the demolished houses. Fragments of these early walls are still occasionally unearthed.