NO. I ARCHEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS FEWKES 5 



constructed Sikyatki, why did they make this radical change in the 

 form of their dwellings? They may have constructed a habitation 

 en route before they reached Sikyatki, and this village may have had 

 a form like Fire House. On the Hopi plateau above Sikyatki there 

 are two conical mounds visible for a long distance as one approaches 

 East Mesa from the mouth of Keam s Canyon, which should be con 

 sidered in this connection. These mounds, called Kiikutcomo, are 

 connected in Hopi legends with those of Sikyatki at the foot of the 

 mesa on which they stand, and the buildings they cover are said once 

 to have been inhabited by the Coyote (Fire ?) clan of eastern kinship. 

 They have not been excavated completely but several rooms have been 

 opened up enough to show that they are round towers or kivas with 

 rooms annexed to their bases. They resemble, in fact, circular ruins 

 and may well have been the home of some of the people who aban 

 doned Fire House. They must be considered in discussing the 

 reliability of the legend, for they are the only circular houses yet 

 reported from the Hopi country. The reason why this form of house 

 was abandoned can not be determined with any certainty, even though 

 some of the clans from Fire House may have built the round towers 

 above Sikyatki. The only other round room known to me in the Hopi 

 country, besides Kukutcomo, is one in a ruin in the Oraibi Valley 

 mentioned by Victor Mindeleff (op. cit.). The reference is very 

 meager and on account of its exceptional character should be verified. 

 Assuming the observation as correct it may be said that this so-called 

 circular room lies embedded in a mass of rectangular rooms and not 

 as kivas in the inhabited Hopi pueblos in the plazas free from houses. 

 The legends of the Snake people of Walpi who came from the 

 San Juan near Navaho Mountain, probably Betatakin or Kitsiel, 

 distinctly state that their ancestors built both round and square or 

 &quot; five-cornered &quot; houses. The rooms referred to are believed to be 

 kivas, since another legend declares the earliest snake ceremonies 

 were performed in circular rooms. After visiting Fire House the 

 author desired greatly to find other oval ruins between it and the zone 

 of circular ruins, but his efforts were not successful. 



SEARCH FOR HOPI RUINS EAST OF TEBUNGKI 



After having visited Fire House and verified to his satisfaction 

 that it was a former home of a Hopi clan, as recounted in legends 

 of that clan, the author sought still further evidence of an archeo- 

 logical character in the region east of Fire House, as recorded in 

 migration stories. The area between Fire House and Jemez is exten- 



