Only once during their history did the Hopi light the fires of war, and this was a religious conflict carried on in true Indian fashion. About the beginning of the seventeenth century the Spanish priests had gained a foothold in the town of Awatobi, situated on a high mesa south of Walpi. The Awatobi Hopi had prospered, and their valley, presenting to the south a marvelous panorama of the lava buttes, produced abundant food besides cotton for woven fabrics. Awatobi was a large town of Hopiland; the walls of the mission church still stand high enough to be a landmark miles away. The houses were four stories high and they were sufficient to accommodate 1,000 souls.
Perhaps this prosperity caused envy; perhaps the submission to the priests roused enmity; the other Hopi said that the Awatobi were witches, and one night they gathered to exterminate them. The Awatobi men were conducting a ceremony in the underground rooms when blazing fagots were thrown down, followed by pepper pods, and they perished miserably. Those who were captured in the houses were led out to a spring and massacred. The women and children, many of them, were taken to other Hopi towns and their lives spared.
This massacre took place about the year 1700 and forms the darkest page in the history of Tusayan; it shows also that the Peaceful People can be overzealous at times. In times much before this, according to tradition, Sikyatki, the home of the Firewood people, who were the last potters of Tusayan, was destroyed, as were, no doubt, other pueblos of tribes of different origin from the Hopi.
The story of Saalako, who descends from a survivor of the Awatobi massacre, runs as follows:
The chiefs Wiki and Simo, and others, have told you their stories, and surely their ancestors were living here at Walpi when Awatobi was occupied. It was a large village, and many people lived there, and the village chief was called Tapolo, but he was not at peace with his people, and there was quarreling and trouble. Owing to this conflict only a little rain fell, but the land was fertile and fair harvests were still gathered. The Awatobi men were bad [powako, sorcerers]. Sometimes they went in small bands among the fields of the other villagers and cudgeled any solitary workers they found. If they overtook any woman they ravished her, and they waylaid hunting parties, taking the game and sometimes killing the hunters. There was considerable trouble at Awatobi, and Tapolo sent to the Oraibi chief asking him to bring his people and kill the evil Awatobeans. The Oraibis came and fought with them, and many were killed on both sides, but the Oraibis were not strong enough to enter the village and were compelled to withdraw. On his way back, the Oraibi chief stopped at Walpi and talked with the chiefs there. Said he, “I can not tell why Tapolo wants the Oraibis to kill his folks, but we have tried and have not succeeded very well. Even if we did succeed, what benefit would come to us who live too far away to occupy the land? You Walpi people live close to them and have suffered most at their hands; it is for you to try.” While they were talking Tapolo had also come, and it was then decided that other chiefs of all the villages should convene at Walpi to consult. Couriers were sent out, and when all the chiefs had arrived Tapolo declared that his people had become sorcerers [Christians], and hence should all be destroyed.
It was then arranged that in four days large bands from all the other villages should prepare themselves, and assemble at a spring not far away from Awatobi. A long while before this, when the Spaniards lived there, they had built a wall on the side of the village that needed protection, and in this wall was a great, strong door. Tapolo proposed that the assailants should come before dawn, and he would be at this door ready to admit them, and under this compact he returned to his village. During the fourth night after this, as agreed upon, the various bands assembled at the deep gulch spring, and every man carried, besides his weapons, a cedar-bark torch and a bundle of greasewood. Just before dawn they moved silently up to the mesa summit, and, going directly to the east side of the village they entered the gate, which opened as they approached. In one of the courts was a large kiva, and in it were a number of men engaged in sorcerer’s rites. The assailants at once made for the kiva, and plucking up the ladder, they stood around the hatchway, shooting arrows down among the entrapped occupants. In the numerous cooking pits fire had been maintained through the night for the preparation of food for a feast on the appointed morning, and from these they lighted their torches. Great numbers of these and the bundles of greasewood being set on fire were then cast down the hatchway, and firewood from stacks upon the house terraces was also thrown into the kiva. The red peppers for which Awatobi was famous were hanging in thick clusters along the fronts of the houses, and these they crushed in their hands and flung upon the blazing fire in the kiva to torment their blazing occupants. After this, all who were capable of moving were compelled to travel or drag themselves until they came to the sand hills of Miconinovi, and there the final disposition of the prisoners was made.
My maternal ancestor had recognized a woman chief (Mamzrau monwi), and saved her at the place of massacre called Maski, and now he asked her whether she would be willing to initiate the women of Walpi in the rites of the Mamzrau. She complied, and thus the observance of the ceremony called Mamzrauti came to the other villages. This Mamzrau monwi had no children and hence my maternal ancestor’s sister became chief, and her badge of office, or tiponi, 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 the peach to grow, and that is why Oraibi has such an abundance of peaches now. The Miconinovi chief saved a prisoner who knew how to make the sweet, small-ear corn grow, and this is why it is more abundant there than elsewhere. All the women who knew 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 Miconinovi. 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 the place is called Mastcomo, or Death Mound. This is the story of Awatobi told by my people.[17]
[17] “Preliminary account of an expedition to the cliff villages of the Red Rock country; and the Tusayan ruins of Sikyatki and Awatobi, Arizona, in 1895.” By J. Walter Fewkes, from the Smithsonian Report for 1895, pp. 568-569.
It is difficult to conceive of the conservatism of some of the older Hopi. A glimpse of the clinging to the myth of the golden age is shown by the speech of the old chief Nashihiptuwa, to whom the past was an ideal time of plenty and contentment under the bright sky of Tusayan.
It was Sunday and the camp by a peach orchard in a deep valley at the Middle Mesa was made lively by the presence of about thirty Indian laborers, mostly Walpi “boys.” Far above on the rocky mesas could be seen three Hopi towns which bear names difficult of pronunciation, “The place of peaches” being most picturesque. To the West were innumerable barren hillocks, furrowed and gullied, rising toward the warm sandstone cliffs bearing the pueblos at the top. Along the wash which from time immemorial had been carving out this wonderfully sculptured valley were the bean and melon patches of the Indians, and on the higher ground dark green peach orchards. Out of the mouth of the valley there stretched the wide plain, merging into the many-hued desert.
On this particular Sunday the exploring party felt out of sorts. The Indian workmen who had been digging in the ruins of an ancient pueblo near by had been served notice by the chief of the neighboring village to quit and a warning sent to our party in this wise, “Go away, you are bad; you bring the wind and keep away the rains.” This is a grave charge in a country where winds disperse the thunder clouds with their precious burden before they reach the corn fields. No invention could devise a more damaging statement. The Walpi, who are freer from superstition than most of the Hopi, felt less desire to earn the coveted silver after this announcement. Finally it was decided to ask Nashihiptuwa to a council, talk it over with him and persuade him to withdraw his ultimatum. A boy was dispatched to find him in his field where he was at work.
Shortly the old chief of Shumopavi appeared in the distance, clad in a breech-clout and with a hoe on his shoulder. He stopped outside the camp and put on an abbreviated cotton shirt, making himself somewhat more presentable. Squatting on the sand with hands clasped around the knees, a favorite Indian posture, the superannuated chief helped himself to tobacco and prepared for the argument with the circle of interested listeners. The day was very warm and a bank of clouds slowly coming up from the San Francisco Mountains seemed to promise rain which might convince the old man of the fallacy of his views. Hence the progress of this rain storm was an object of uncommon solicitude to the explorers. Dan, a school boy, who had been taught English, acted as interpreter.