Only one side of the valley was occupied—the north side. The south side was covered with trees, bare now because winter was here. The south wall of the Canyon was not as conducive to habitation as the north because it was worn down at a sharp angle. There were no vertical cliffs from which to carve out caves and no talus slopes on which to build little houses of stone and mud. No sun directed its rays toward the south cliff. The snow lay there all winter and helped cut it down at a sharp angle from top to bottom. The north side was sunny and dry—a perfect place for habitation. There were not many people here during these last years of the sixteenth century. Great numbers had gone: but where, and why? A few cronies could have been seen crouching against stone houses at the base of the cliff, basking in the afternoon sun. A woman or two could have been grinding corn on flat stone slabs inside a cliff house, keeping time to a weird monotonous chant sung by old men as they pounded drums. Things were hanging from the ends of roof poles protruding through the front walls of houses—perhaps a piece of highly prized venison. House tops were strewn with corncobs. A weather-beaten corn field had spent itself. This was the valley known to the Keres as “Tyuonyi.” It was the place where their people had lived only a few generations before. It was a valley over which most any group of primitive people would fight and was a place where the water supply was constant except in times of intense drought. Tyuonyi is a Keres word which signifies a treaty or contract and was so-called because of a treaty made with Tewa-speaking people years before, marking it as the boundary between Keres and Tewa territory. But who was to occupy Tyuonyi, the Hidden Valley and the most ideal spot on all the Pajarito Plateau? It seems that the Tewas (the little strong people) were the ones who occupied it until the very last. This was perhaps the reason why the Keres became envious and that is why to this day they retain a feeling of criticism for the Tewa-speaking people. Legend has it that relations between the two groups in prehistoric times were normally unfriendly.