"They asked me to go and a girl friend of mine, but we would not go. One
girl did go, for a famine was beginning and this poor girl thought she
was being taken to visit with the Zunis and would be better off there.
Nobody ever got track of her again.
"Once food was so scarce that I had to go with my mother and sister to
Second Mesa, and we stayed there with our clan relations till food was
scarce, and then we went to Oraibi and stayed with our clan relations
there until summer. We could go back to Walpi then because corn and
melons were growing again; but we left my sister because she had married
there.
"This was a two-year famine and almost everybody left Walpi and wandered
from village to village, living wherever they could get food. There had
been more rain and better crops in some of the other places.
"Ever since then some Walpi people have scattered among other villages,
where they married, and some went as far as the Rio Grande villages, and
some perished on the way.
"Again after many years, Spaniards came, stealing corn, and this time
they went through the houses and stole whatever they wanted. They took
away ceremonial and sacred things, that was the worst. And when they
left, they went northeast, past where Tom's store is now.
"No, there were never any Spanish missionaries living in Walpi; those
who tell of priests living here are mistaken--too young to know. I have
heard of those at Oraibi long ago, and at Awatobi; some were killed at
those places.
"Some of the rafters of this house, not of this room but another part,
were brought from ruins of Awatobi. An uncle of my daughter's husband
here brought some sacred things from Awatobi and revived some of the old
ceremonials that had been dropped on account of our not having the right
things to use for them. Spaniards had already been here and taken some
of those things out of the houses, so some ceremonies could never be
held any more without those things. You see, the Awatobi people had some
such things, too, and so our people wanted to save them. I think some of
our trouble with Awatobi was to get these things.
"I remember that after the famine, when crops were good again, we had
trouble with Navajos. It was in the summer and a Hopi hoeing his field
was killed by a bunch of thieving Navajos, and that started the trouble.
This man who was killed had a crippled nephew working with him at the
time, and that boy got away and ran back to Walpi with the word, and
everybody was surprised that he could run fast enough to get away.
"After that they made him a watchman to look out for Navajos.