Its peaks were always snow covered, and the trees were always green. From the hillside the plains were seen, over which roamed the deer, the antelope, and the bison, feeding on never-failing grasses. Twining through these plains were streams of bright water, beautiful to look upon. A place where none but those who were of our people ever gained access.
This description suggests some region of the head-waters of the Rio Grande. Like the Snake people, they tell of a protracted migration, not of continuous travel, for they remained for many seasons in one place, where they would plant and build permanent houses. One of these halting places is described as a canyon with high, steep walls, in which was a flowing stream; this, it is said, was the Tségi (the Navajo name for Canyon de Chelly). Here they built a large house in a cavernous recess, high up in the canyon wall. They tell of devoting two years[3] to ladder making and cutting and pecking shallow holes up the steep rocky side by which to mount to the cavern, and three years more were employed in building the house. While this work was in progress part of the men were planting gardens, and the women and children were gathering stones. But no adequate reason is given for thus toiling to fit this impracticable site for occupation; the footprints of Másauwu, which they were following, led them there.
The legend goes on to tell that after they had lived there for a long time a stranger happened to stray in their vicinity, who proved to be a Hopituh, and said that he lived in the south. After some stay he left and was accompanied by a party of the “Horn,” who were to visit the land occupied by their kindred Hopituh and return with an account of them; but they never came back. After waiting a long time another band was sent, who returned and said that the first emissaries had found wives and had built houses on the brink of a beautiful canyon, not far from the other Hopituh dwellings. After this many of the Horns grew dissatisfied with their cavern home, dissensions arose, they left their home, and finally they reached Tusayan. They lived at first in one of the canyons east of the villages, in the vicinity of Keam’s Canyon, and some of the numerous ruins on its brink mark the sites of their early houses. There seems to be no legend distinctly attaching any particular ruin to the Horn people, although there is little doubt that the Snake and the Horn were the two first peoples who came to the neighborhood of the present villages. The Bear people were the next, but they arrived as separate branches, and from opposite directions, although of the same Hopituh stock. It has been impossible to obtain directly the legend of the Bears from the west. The story of the Bears from the east tells of encountering the Fire people, then living about 25 miles east from Walpi; but these are now extinct, and nearly all that is known of them is told in the Bear legend, the gist of which is as follows:
The Bears originally lived among the mountains of the east, not far distant from the Horns. Continual quarrels with neighboring villages
brought on actual fighting, and the Bears left that region and traveled westward. As with all the other people, they halted, built houses, and planted, remaining stationary for a long while; this occurred at different places along their route.
A portion of these people had wings, and they flew in advance to survey the land, and when the main body were traversing an arid region they found water for them. Another portion had claws with which they dug edible roots, and they could also use them for scratching hand and foot holes in the face of a steep cliff. Others had hoofs, and these carried the heaviest burdens; and some had balls of magic spider web, which they could use on occasion for ropes, and they could also spread the web and use it as a mantle, rendering the wearer invisible when he apprehended danger.
They too came to the Tségi (Canyon de Chelly), where they found houses but no people, and they also built houses there. While living there a rupture occurred, a portion of them separating and going far to the westward. These seceding bands are probably that branch of the Bears who claim their origin in the west. Some time after this, but how long after is not known, a plague visited the canyon, and the greater portion of the people moved away, but leaving numbers who chose to remain. They crossed the Chinli valley and halted for a short time at a place a short distance northeast from Great Willow water (“Eighteen Mile Spring”). They did not remain there long, however, but moved a few miles farther west, to a place occupied by the Fire people who lived in a large oval house. The ruin of this house still stands, the walls from 5 to 8 feet high, and remarkable from the large-sized blocks of stone used in their construction; it is still known to the Hopituh as Tebvwúki, the Fire-house. Here some fighting occurred, and the Bears moved westward again to the head of Antelope (Jeditoh) Canyon, about 4 miles from Keam’s Canyon and about 15 miles east from Walpi. They built there a rambling cluster of small-roomed houses, of which the ground plan has now become almost obliterated. This ruin is called by the Hopituh “the ruin at the place of wild gourds.” They seem to have occupied this neighborhood for a considerable period, as mention is made of two or three segregations, when groups of families moved a few miles away and built similar house clusters on the brink of that canyon.
The Fire-people, who, some say, were of the Horn people, must have abandoned their dwelling at the Oval House or must have been driven out at the time of their conflict with the Bears, and seem to have traveled directly to the neighborhood of Walpi. The Snakes allotted them a place to build in the valley on the east side of the mesa, and about two miles north from the gap. A ridge of rocky knolls and sand dunes lies at the foot of the mesa here, and close to the main cliff is a spring. There are two prominent knolls about 400 yards apart and the summits of these are covered with traces of house walls; also portions of walls can be discerned on all the intervening hummocks. The place is known as Sikyátki,
the yellow-house, from the color of the sandstone of which the houses were built. These and other fragmentary bits have walls not over a foot thick, built of small stones dressed by rubbing, and all laid in mud; the inside of the walls also show a smooth coating of mud plaster. The dimensions of the rooms are very small, the largest measuring 9½ feet long, by 4½ feet wide. It is improbable that any of these structures were over two stories high, and many of them were built in excavated places around the rocky summits of the knolls. In these instances no rear wall was built; the partition walls, radiating at irregular angles, abut against the rock itself. Still, the great numbers of these houses, small as they were, must have been far more than the Fire-people could have required, for the oval house which they abandoned measures not more than a hundred feet by fifty. Probably other incoming gentes, of whom no story has been preserved, had also the ill fate to build there, for the Walpi people afterward slew all its inhabitants.
There is little or no detail in the legends of the Bear people as to their life in Antelope Canyon; they can now distinguish only one ruin with certainty as having been occupied by their ancestors, while to all the other ruins fanciful names have been applied. Nor is there any special cause mentioned for abandoning their dwellings there; probably, however, a sufficient reason was the cessation of springs in their vicinity. Traces of former large springs are seen at all of them, but no water flows from them at the present time. Whatever their motive, the Bears left Antelope Canyon, and moved over to the village of Walpi, on the terrace below the point of the mesa. They were received kindly there, and were apparently placed on an equal footing with the Walpi, for it seems the Snake, Horn, and Bear have always been on terms of friendship. They built houses at that village, and lived there for some considerable time; then they moved a short distance and built again almost on the very point of the mesa. This change was not caused by any disagreement with their neighbors; they simply chose that point as a suitable place on which to build all their houses together. The site of this Bear house is called Kisákobi, the obliterated house, and the name is very appropriate, as there is merely the faintest trace here and there to show where a building stood, the stones having been used in the construction of the modern Walpi. These two villages were quite close together, and the subsequent construction of a few additional groups of rooms almost connected them, so that they were always considered and spoken of as one.