Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895: Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1895-1896, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1898, pages 519-744Fewkes, Jesse Walter
History
Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895: Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1895-1896, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1898, pages 519-744
The traditional clans which inhabited Awatobi were the Awata (Bow),
Honani (Badger), Piba (Tobacco), and Buli (Butterfly). The Bow people
appear to have been the most important of these, since their name was
applied to the village. Their totemic signatures, in pictographic
form, may still be seen on the sides of the cliff under Awatobi, and
in the ruins was found a fine arrowshaft polisher on which was an
incised drawing of a bow and an arrow, suggesting that the owner was a
member of the Bow phratry. Saliko, the chief of the woman's society
known as the Mamzrautû, insists that this priesthood was strong in the
fated pueblo, and that a knowledge of its mysteries was brought to
Walpi by one of the women who was saved.
It is claimed by the folklorists of the Tataukyamû, a priesthood
which, controls the New-fire ceremonies at Walpi, and is prominent in
the Soyaluña, or the rites of the winter solstice, that the Piba or
Tobacco phratry brought the fetishes of that society to Walpi, and
there are many obscurely known resemblances between the Mamzrauti and
the Wüwütcimti celebrations in Walpi which appear to support that
claim. The Piba phratry is likewise said to have come to Walpi
comparatively late in the history of the village, which fact points
the same way.
Undoubtedly Awatobi received additions to its population from the
south when the pueblos on the Little Colorado were abandoned, and
there are obscure legends which support that belief; but the largest
numbers were recruited from the pueblos in the eastern section of the
country.[74]
THE KIVAS OF AWATOBI
A pueblo of the size of Awatobi, with so many evidences of long
occupancy, would no doubt have several ceremonial chambers or kivas,
but as yet no one has definitely indicated their positions. I have
already called attention to evidences that if they existed they were
probably to be looked for in the open court east of the western mounds
and in the space north of the mission. In all the inhabited Tusayan
pueblos the kivas are separated from the house clusters and are
surrounded by courts or dance plazas. No open spaces existed in the
main or western mounds of Awatobi, and there was no place there for
kivas unless the pueblo was exceptional in having such structures
built among the dwellings, as at Zuñi. A tradition has survived that
Awatobi had regular kivas, partially subterranean, of rectangular
shape, and that they were situated in open courts. This would indicate
that the space east of the oldest part of the ruin may have been the
sites of these chambers. The old priests whom I have consulted in
regard to the probable positions of Awatobi kivas have invariably
pointed out the mounds north of the mission walls in the eastern
section of the ruin as the location of the kivas, and in 1892 I proved
to my satisfaction that these directions were correct.
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