FEWKES] NAVAHO NATIONAL MONUMENT, ARIZONA 38 
Victor Mindeleff? summarizes the Hopi traditions concerning To- 
kénabi still preserved by the Horn and Flute clans of Walpi: 
The Horn people, to which the Lenbaki [Flute] belonged, have a legend of coming 
from a mountain range in the east. 
Its peaks were always snow covered, and the trees were always green. From the 
hillside the plains were seen, over which roamed the deer, the antelope, and the 
bison, feeding on never-failing grasses. [Possibly the Horn people were so called 
from an ancient home where horned animals abounded.] Twining through these 
plains were streams of bright water, beautiful to look upon. A place where none but 
those who were of our people ever gained access. 
This description suggests some region of the headwaters of the Rio Grande. Like 
the Snake people, they tell of a protracted migration, not of continuous travel, for 
they remained for many seasons in one place, where they would plant and build per- 
manent houses. One of these halting places is described as a canyon with high, steep 
walls, in which was a flowing stream; this, it is said, was the Tségi (the Navajo name 
for Canyon de Chelly).® Here they built a large house in a cavernous recess, high 
up in the canyon wall. They tell of devoting two years to ladder making and 
cutting and pecking shallow holes up the steep rocky side by which to mount to the 
cavern, and three years more were employed in building the house. 
The legend goes on to tell that after they had lived there for a long time a Paster 
happened to stray in their vicinity, who proved to be a Hopituh [Hopi], and said 
that he lived in the south. After some stay he left and was accompanied by a party 
of the “‘Horn” [clan], who were to visit the land occupied by their kindred Hopituh 
and return with an account of them; but they never came back. After waiting a 
long time another band was sent, who returned and said that the first emissaries had 
found wives and had built houses on the brink of a beautiful canyon, not far from the 
other Hopituh dwellings. After this many of the Horns grew dissatisfied with their 
cavern home, dissensions arose, they left their home and finally they reached Tusayan. 
The early legends of the Snake clans tell how bags containing 
their ancestors were dropped from a rainbow in the neighborhood of 
Navaho mountain. They recount how they built a pentagonal home 
and how one of their young men married a Snake girl who gave birth 
to reptiles, which bit the children and compelled the people to migrate. 
They left their canyon homes and went southward, building houses 
at the stopping-places all the way from Navaho mountain to Walpi. 
Some of these houses, probably referring to their kivas and kihus, 
legends declare, were round* and others square. 
Some of the ruins here mentioned have been known to white men 
for many years. There is evidence that they have been repeatedly 
a See A Study of Pueblo Architecture, Tusayan and Cibola, !in Eighth Annual Report of the Bureau of 
Ethnology. The legend was obtained by Mr. A. M. Stephen. 
> Evidently a mistake in identification of localities. Although the Navaho name 7'ségi has persisted 
as the designation of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, there is little doubt that when the Ho pigave to Stephen 
the tradition of their former life in ‘‘Tségi,” they did not refer, as he interpreted the narration, to what 
is now called Canyon de Chelly, but to Laguna canyon, likewise bordered by high cliffs, which the 
Navaho also designate T'ségi. The designation Canyon de Chelly was used by Simpson in 1850 (Sen. Ex. 
Doe. no. 64, 31st Cong., 1st sess.), who wrote (p. 69, footnote): ‘The orthography of this word I got from 
Sefior Donaciano Vigil, secretary of the province, who informs me that it is of Indian origin. Its 
pronunciation is chay-e.”—J. W. F. 
¢ The circular type disappeared before they arrived in the valley below Walpi. Legends declare 
that the original Snake kivas were circular, and there are references, in legends of clans other than those 
that formerly lived in the north, to circular kivas formerly used by the Hopi. 
