Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/601

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53 8 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., i, 1899

unknown so many years, that they killed them, and still greater sufferings ensued.

" They again repented, and carved two stone images of the Aldsaka which they painted and decked with feathers and sought to propitiate the mother. She was full of pity for her people, and prayed to the Sky-god ' to relieve them. A period elapsed in which their sufferings were in great measure abated.

" The Patun then sought to join the Pdtki clans, but the Pdtki would not permit this, and compelled them to keep east of Awatobi.

" Many ruins of phratry and family houses of the Patun people exist on the small watercourses north of the Puerco at various distances eastward from the present village of Walpi. The nearest are almost fifteen miles, the farthest about fifty miles.*

" Their wandering course was now stayed. When they essayed to move farther eastward, a nomadic hunting race who occupied that region besought them not to advance farther. Their evil notoriety had preceded them, and the nomads feared the malificent influence of their neighborhood. It would seem, however, that instead of hostile demonstrations the nomads entered into a treaty with them, offering to pay tribute of venison, roots, and grass-seeds, if they would abstain from traversing and blighting their land, to which the Patun agreed.

" But these unfortunate wretches were soon again embroiled in factional warfare which finally involved all the Hopi, and the stone images of the Aldsaka were lost or destroyed. Famine and pestilence again decimated them, until finally the Aldsaka katcina appeared to them and instructed them to carve ' two

1 That is, to the Sun, their father.

  • There is here such marked contradiction of other legends that this account must

not be accepted as final. Probably Awatobi, and possibly other pueblos on the same mesa, had Patun clans in their populations.

3 These are the two images found at Awatobi which this account considers in the opening pages, and the principal reason why the people from the Middle Mesa were so solicitous concerning them is shown in the closing paragraphs of the legend above quoted.

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