The Southwest has always been a storied land to its native dwellers. Mountain profile, sweep of plain, carved-out mesa, deep canyon, cave, lava stream, level lake bed, painted desert, river shore, spring and forest are theirs in intimacy, and around them have gathered legends which are bits of ancient history, together with multitude of myths of nature deities reaching back into the misty beginning.

Deep is this intimacy in the practical affairs of life, teaching the way to the salt, the place of the springs, the range of the game, the nest of the honey bee, the home of the useful plants, the quarry of the prized stones, and the beds of clay for pottery, for the desert is home and there is no thing hidden from keen eyes. From far off, too, came in trade shells from the Pacific, feathers from Mexico, buffalo pelts from the Plains, and, perhaps, pipestone from Minnesota, so that the land of sunshine was not so isolated as one might think, and its resources fed, clothed, and ministered to the esthetic and religious needs of numerous tribes of men from the old days to the present. The white men who tracked across the vast stretches of the “Great American Desert” no doubt saw ruined towns sown over the waste, and perhaps believed them lost to history, little suspecting that within reach lived dusky-hued men, to whom these potsherd-strewn mounds and crumbling walls were no sealed book. The newer explorers have drawn the old-world stories from the lips of living traditionists, and by their friendly aid have gathered the clues which, when joined, will throw a flood of light on the wanderings of the ancient people. Through them it has been learned that each pueblo preserves with faithful care the history of its beginnings and the wanderings of its clans. This at proper times the old men repeat and the story often takes a poetical form chanted with great effect in the ceremonies. As an example of these interesting myths, one should read the ZuÑi Ritual of Creation, that Saga of the Americans which reveals a beauty and depth of thought and form surprising to those who have a limited view of the ability of the Indian.

One thing is settled in the minds of the Pueblo dwellers. In the beginning all the people lived in the seven-story cave of the underworld, whence they climbed toward the light and after reaching the surface of the earth, migrated, led by supernatural beings. Where the mythical underworld adventures leave off begins a real account, telling the wanderings of the clans and the laying of the foundations of the multitudinous ruins of the Pueblo region. It may not be possible to connect all the ruinous villages with the migrations of the present Indians, for there is room enough in this vast country to have sunk into oblivion other peoples and languages, as the vanished Piro, who passed away since the white strangers came to Cibola, but much may be done to gather the glittering threads before they slip from sight.

The journeyings and campings of the ancient people becomes intelligible when the make-up of the present pueblos is known. One finds that every pueblo consists of clans which are larger families of blood relations having certain duties and responsibilities together; a name, such as the bear, cloud, or century plant; certain rites and ceremonies to the beings; clan officers and customs amounting to laws, and a history preserved in the minds of the members. So it will be seen that a tribe among the house-builders is composed of a number of smaller tribes, called clans, each complete and able to take care of itself, forming the present villages. Often in the early days a powerful clan migrated long distances and left members in many different places, because clan law forbids marriage within the clan, and the man must live with the people of his wife. In these migrations portions of a clan would break off and cast their lot with other villages, and often several clans traveled in company, building their pueblos near one another, and thus came the groups of ruins so common in the Southwest. For this reason, all the present villages have received swarms from other hives and have sent out in turn swarms from the home village, during their slow migrations around the compass. The habits of the ancient people thus led to a constant flux and reflux in the currents of life in the Southwest and in spite of their substantial houses and works costly of labor the Pueblo Indians were as migratory as the tent-dwellers of the Plains, though they moved more slowly. Their many-celled villages on mesas or on the banks of streams, in the cliffs of the profound canyons, dug in the soft rocks or built in the lava caves, were but camps of the wanderers, to be abandoned sooner or later, leaving the dead to the ministrations of the drifting sand.

Nor with the coming of the white people did the wandering cease. There were Seven Cities of Cibola in the subsequent stretch of time, these seven towns were fused into the Pueblo of ZuÑi and again came a dispersal and from this great pueblo formed the small summer villages of Nutria, Pescado, and Ojo Caliente. A human swarm built Laguna two centuries ago to swarm again other times. Acoma is mistress of Acomita; Isleta has a namesake on an island in the Rio Grande near El Paso, and in Tusayan the farming pueblo of Moenkapi Hotavila and Ushtioki in the plains in front of Walpi, are late additions. Thus, in times of peace, these hamlets spring up, each having the possibilities of becoming large settlements, and in times of danger they come together to better withstand the common enemy, for the union born of need and strengthened by the coming of wily foes was inculcated by former experiences. But these unions were never close, even between the clans when they forsook their small community houses and came together forming tribes. Between tribes of the same language there were but the faintest traces of combinations for mutual welfare.

Perhaps about the time of the landfall of Columbus a group of tribes began to push their way into the region of the house-builders[19]. These tribes were related and had crept down from the north, where now their kinsfolk live under the Arctic Circle. It was many years before the Apache and Navaho were strong enough to try conclusions with the settled peoples, but when they had gathered to themselves the lawless from many tribes, then began terrible chapters of history which only recently have been written to a finis. Wherever these conscienceless savages ranged were carnage and destruction. The habits of the house-builders changed and the ruins on high mesas and the lookouts on every hill tell plainly how they sought defence from the scouting enemy. The large towns in the Salinas of Manzano passed into oblivion under the attacks of the Apache and began a mythical career as the “Gran Quivira” of treasure hunters. Great was the devastation of which the complete story may never be told, yet nearly every tribe preserves legends of bloody contacts with the Navaho and Apache.

Still at an early period the Navaho became changed from a fierce warrior to a comparatively peaceful herdsman, subject to the maddening vagaries of that most whimsical of gentle creatures, the sheep. Early in the Spanish colonial period the Navaho preyed on the flocks of sheep of the Rio Grande pueblos, where they had been brought by the Conquistadores, and by that act his destiny was altered. Later on, instead of hunting the scalps of his fellow creatures, his flint knife became more useful in removing the wool from the backs of his charges; he thus became famous as a blanket weaver, and soon excelled his teachers in that peaceful art.

Other visitors and neighbors of the Pueblo people were almost as undesirable as the Apache and Navaho. The Comanche of the Plains brought ruin to many a clan by his forays, and his brother, the Ute, from the mountains to the north, was a dangerous enemy to encounter and at many times in the past attacked the villages of the Hopi. To the west were the Yuma and Mohave, to the south were the Pima, extending into Mexico, and in the Cataract Canyon of the Colorado lived the Havasupai deep in the earth. These have been the neighbors of the Pueblos since recorded history began. Also the tent dwellers of the buffalo plains sometimes visited the Pueblos, tracking up the Canadian, and perhaps other neighbors there were, now vanished beyond resurrection or legend or the spade of the archeologist into the dust of the wind-swept plains.

Besides the harrying of enemies of the wandering sort, there were quarrels among the sedentary tribes and the old-fashioned way of fighting it out according to Indian methods left many a village desolate. For this reason the villages were often built on mesas before the ancient enemies of their occupants began their range of the Southwest, and hostilities were carried on against brothers located near the corn lands and life-giving springs of the Pueblo country.

In the ancient days, as at present, the secret of the distribution of Pueblo men was the distribution of water. It seems that in the vast expanse embraced in the Pueblo region every spring has been visited by the Indians, since whoever would live must know where there is water. The chief springs near the villages they dug out and walled up and built steps or a graded way down to the water, and often these works represent great labor. Likewise, the irrigation canals and reservoirs of southern Arizona show what he could do and surprise the moderns. One soon sees that there is not a spring near the present villages that does not receive its offerings of painted sticks adorned with feathers, as prayers to the givers of water. These simple-hearted folk in the toils of drought seem to have all their ceremonies to bring rain, and there is nothing else quite as important in their thoughts. In the same way the Southwest has made the settlers workers in stone and clay, for Nature has withheld the precious wood. Few other parts of the world show so clear an instance of the compelling power of the surroundings on the customs of a people.

Why or how the pueblo builders came into this inhospitable region no one may decide. The great plateau extending from Fremont’s Peak to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, with its varied scenery, its plants and animals, and its human occupants is replete with interesting problems of the Old New World. Perhaps as the people crowded from the North along the Rockies toward the fertile lands of Mexico, some weaker tribes were thrust into the embrace of the desert and remained to work out their destiny. It would appear that no tribe could adopt the land as a home through free choice, because the sparseness of the arid country must make living a desperate struggle to those who had not the precious seeds of corn.

Corn is the mother of the Pueblos, ancient and modern. Around it the Indian’s whole existence centers, and the prevalent prayers for rain have corn as the motive, for corn is life. Given corn and rain or flowing water, even in small amount, and the Indian has no fear of hard times, but prospers and multiplies in the sanitorium where his lot is cast.

If we travel backward into the Ancient Southwest we must leave behind many things that came to the people since the Spaniards sallied from Mexico to the new land of wonders. Sheep, goats, chickens, burros, horses, cattle there are none, and the children of the sun have no domestic animal except the turkey. The coyote-like dog haunted the pueblos, but his ancient enemy, the cat, was not there to dispute with him. No peaches or apricots were on the bill of fare, and the desert must be scoured for small berries and the fruit of the yucca and prickly-pear. Corn, beans, melons, and squashes there were, but wheat, oats, and alfalfa came from other hands. What would be the deprivation if sugar, coffee, flour, and baking powder were cut off from the present Indians. The ancients had none, nor were the useful vessels of tin and iron for cooking dreamed of. The agave of the South furnished a sweet in the roasted leaves, which took the place of sugar and went far and wide by early commerce. Tobacco always grew wild around the pueblos, but the ancients never knew the fascination of the modern leaf.

Before the trader’s cotton stuffs, were those of native cotton and before woolen stuffs there were warm blankets of strips of rabbit fur interwoven with cord, feather garments, mats of yucca, and blankets of mountain goat and buffalo wool, with girdles and stockings of the same textile. Perhaps more in use than these for clothing were the tanned skins of the elk, deer, and antelope, ornamented with native colors before aniline dyes came into existence. Buffalo skins were a part of the belongings of the ancients secured through trade with the people of the plains. There were sandals of plaited yucca and moccasins of turkey feathers. For jewelry there were seeds of the pine, shells, beads, and ornaments of turquoise and colored stones, quite enough to satisfy the love of ornament and quite suitable to the dusky skins of the Indians, as anyone may verify, if he will travel to the pueblos.

About the houses every vestige of metal and glass is absent. The windows may have been glazed with irregular plates of selenite, and the marks of fire and the rude stone axe are upon the beams. Instead of the gun, curved clubs, the bow, and stone-tipped arrows hang from the rafters with the lance thrown by the atlatl. In the corner stands a hoe of stone and a digging stick; pottery, gourds, and basketry are the sole utensils, the knife is a chipped stone blade set with pine gum in a wooden handle, and the horns of the mountain sheep are formed into spoons.

The rooms are smoky and dark, since the chimney is not yet, and the fire on the floor must be nursed, for, when it goes out, it must be rekindled by the friction of two pieces of wood or borrowed from a neighbor in the manner of primitive times, not yet forgotten among the advanced sharers of civilization. Much might be added to this picture of the early life of the Pueblos, and the exploration of the ruins will tell us yet more to excite our interest and admiration.

Among the inhabited Hopi pueblos are many seats of the ancient people now become mounds or fallen walls and their memory a tradition. There were four mission churches; hardly a vestige of them remains, and a few of the carved beams support the roofs of pagan kivas. This bears strong testimony to the completeness of the weeding out of the foreign missions by the Hopi more than two centuries ago. The Hopi have always been free and independent, even when the search for gold by the Conquistadores had been turned to the search for souls to the subjugation of most of the other Pueblos in the Southwest.

Several of the interesting ruins in Tusayan have been explored. Sikyatki, or “Yellow House,” lying on the sand hills four miles east of Walpi, has yielded many strange and beautiful relics of pottery and stone, as has Awatobi, a large town on a mesa ten miles southeast of Walpi, destroyed about the year 1700 by the other villagers. Here may be traced the walls of the mission of San Bernardino de Awatobi, a large church built of blocks of adobe mixed with straw. The church stood on the mesa commanding a superb view of the lava buttes to the south and must have been in its time an imposing building. The old town of Kisakobi, near Walpi, has yielded relics in profusion of a later period than the sites mentioned, and it is here that we must look for the arts of the Hopi just before they came into the light of history. The prevalence of ruins around the Hopi mesas is in keeping with the movements of the tribes in the Pueblo region. Of the seven Hopi towns, Oraibi is the only one now on the site it occupied when the Spaniards came to Tusayan.

Not long ago, according to Hopi traditionists, some clans withdrew from Tusayan and rebuilt cliff-houses in the Canyon de Chelly, where before some of the clans that finally settled in Tusayan lived for a time.

Without doubt the connection between the early Hopi clans and the people who lived in the cliff-dwellings was close at a former period, and there is reason to believe that the older clans who are said to have come in from the North possessed the black-and-white pottery and the arts of the cliff-dwellers. Other clans coming from the South must have worked considerable changes in Hopi arts. While the southern clans brought yellow pottery, it remained for the great influx of peoples from the Rio Grande to introduce the artistic ware with complicated symbolic decoration that rendered the Tusayan ceramics superior to all others in northern America.