2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 68 



of the migrations of a Hopi (Walpi) clan that once lived in a ruined 

 pueblo called Sikyatki, where the cemeteries, exhumed in 1895, 

 yielded one of the most beautiful and instructive collections of pre- 

 historic pottery * ever brought to the U. S. National Museum from the 

 Southwest. 



Legends mention by name several habitations of the Sikyatki 

 people during their migration from the Jemez region, before they 

 built their Hopi pueblo, but lack of time prevented the author from 

 tracing their trail throughout the entire distance back to their original 

 home. The object of the present investigation was to examine one 

 of their halting places, a ruined pueblo called Tebungki, or Fire 

 House, 2 on the prehistoric trail about 25 miles east of Walpi. Between 

 this ruined village and the ancestral home there are large and as yet 

 undescribed ruins, such as those of the Chaco Canyon, which may 

 once have been inhabited by some of these people. 



Our knowledge of the former shifting of ancient clans, derived 

 from legends, is fragmentary, and one way to gain further informa- 

 tion and revivify forgotten or unrecorded history, is to study the 

 remains of their material culture. Architecture is a most important 

 survival, and pottery, which has transmitted ancient symbolism un- 

 changed, is also valuable. It happens that both these aids characterize 

 the southwestern culture areas. Other objects, as stone implements, 

 woven and plaited fabrics, and basketry, are not greatly unlike those 

 made by unrelated Indians and consequently add little to our knowl- 

 edge in studies of cultures, but architecture and ceramics are distinc- 

 tive and afford data from which we can gather much information on 

 the history of vanished races. 



TEBUNGKI (FIRE HOUSE) 



Hopi legends of clans whose ancestors once peopled the Sikyatki 

 ruin, but are now absorbed in the Walpi population, recount that in 

 their western migration they built, near a deep canyon, a village 

 which they named Fire House. These legends were first obtained 

 from the Hopi by A. M. Stephen and recorded by Victor Mindeleff 3 

 who located Fire House ruin over 20 years ago. His valuable 

 description and ground plan, the only account heretofore printed, is 

 graphic and substantially correct. He calls attention to the charac- 



1 17th Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnology, Part 2. 



2 Called by the Navaho, Beshbito, Piped Water ; from a metallic pipe at the 

 spring. 



3 8th Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnology, i886-'87 ( 1901 ) . 



