The explorations in the buried towns of a section of the ancient Hopi which extend in a line from the Gila River to their present mesa homes show that for all these centuries they have been unwarlike people. There is the greatest scarcity of weapons, such as arrowheads and spearheads, and there are few war axes to be found among the numerous relics of peaceful pursuits, though wooden clubs were no doubt used. This accords with the situation of the towns on high, easily defended positions and the building of houses in clusters, the outer walls forming a fortification which defied assailants. 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: