Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona: Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1891-92, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1896, pages 179-262 — John Shaqi
Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona: Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1891-92, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1896, pages 179-262Mindeleff, Cosmos
History
Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona: Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1891-92, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1896, pages 179-262
Mindeleff, Cosmos
Pueblo Indians -- Antiquities; Verde River Valley (Ariz.) -- Antiquities
down as aboriginal; and, finally, the region is still so little occupied
by modern settlers that, with the exception of the vicinity of Verde,
the remains have been practically undisturbed. A complete picture of
aboriginal life during the occupancy of the lower Verde valley would be
a picture of pueblo life pursued in the face of great difficulties, and
with an environment so unfavorable that had the occupation extended over
an indefinite period of time it would still have been impossible to
develop the great structures which resulted from the settlements in
Chaco canyon.
It is not known what particular branch of the pueblo-building tribes
formerly made their home in the lower Verde valley, but the character
of the masonry, the rough methods employed, and the character of the
remains suggest the Tusayan. It has been already stated that the
archeologic affinities of this region are northern and do not conform
to any type now found in the south; and it is known that some of the
Tusayan gentes--the water people--came from the south. The following
tradition, which, though not very definite, is of interest in this
connection, was obtained by the late A. M. Stephen, for many years a
resident near the Tusayan villages in Arizona, who, aside from his
competence for that work, had every facility for obtaining data of this
kind. The tradition was dictated by Anawita, chief of the Pat-ki-nyûmû
(Water house gentes) and is as follows:
We did not come direct to this region (Tusayan)--we had no fixed
intention as to where we should go.
We are the Pat-ki-nyû-mû, and we dwelt in the Pa-lát-kwa-bĭ (Red
Land) where the kwá-ni (agave) grows high and plentiful; perhaps it
was in the region the Americans call Gila valley, but of that I am
not certain. It was far south of here, and a large river flowed
past our village, which was large, and the houses were high, and
a strange thing happened there.
Our people were not living peaceably at that time; we were
quarreling among ourselves, over huts and other things I have heard,
but who can tell what caused their quarrels? There was a famous
hunter of our people, and he cut off the tips from the antlers of
the deer which he killed and [wore them for a necklace?] he always
carried them. He lay down in a hollow in the court of the village,
as if he had died, but our people doubted this; they thought he was
only shamming death, yet they covered him up with earth. Next day
his extended hand protruded, the four fingers erect, and the first
day after that one finger disappeared [was doubled up?]; each day a
finger disappeared, until on the fourth day his hand was no longer
visible.
The old people thought that he dug down to the under world with the
horn tips.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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