586 EXPEDITION TO ARIZONA IN 1895 [ETH. ANN. 17 
ancient or modern Pueblo ware. But even Kisakobi! was not a safe 
site for the Walpians to choose for their village, so after they destroyed 
the mission and killed the priest they moved up to their present site 
and abandoned both of their former villages. 
It is said that with this removal of the villagers there were found to 
be no easy means of climbing the precipitous walls, and that the stairway 
trails were made as late as the beginning of the present century. In 
those early days there was a ladder near where the stairway trail is 
now situated, and some of the older men of Walpi have pointed out to 
me where this ladder formerly stood. 
The present plan of Walpi shows marked differences from that made 
twenty years ago, and several houses between the stairway trail and 
the Wikwaliobi kiva, on the edge of the mesa, which have now fallen 
into ruin, were inhabited when I first visited Walpi in 1890. The build- 
ings between the Snake kiva and the Nacab kiva are rapidly becoming 
unsate for habitation, and most of these rooms will soon be deserted. 
As many Walpi families are building new houses on the plain, it needs 
no prophet to predict that the desertion of the present site of Walpi 
will progress rapidly in the next few years, and possibly by the end of 
our generation the pueblo may be wholly deserted—one more ruin 
added to the multitudes in the Southwest. 
The site of Old Walpi, at Kiichaptiivela, is the scene of an interesting 
rite in the New-fire ceremony at Walpi, for not far from it is a shrine 
dedicated to a supernatural being called Tiiwapontumsi, ‘ Harth-altar- 
woman.” This shrine, or house, as it is called, is about 230 feet from 
the ruin, among the neighboring bowlders, and consists of four flat slabs 
set upright, forming an inclosure in which stands a log of fossil wood. 
The ceremonials at Old Walpi in the New-fire rites are described in 
my account” of this observance, and from their nature I suspect that 
the essential part of this episode is the deposit of offerings at this 
shrine. The circuits about the old ruin are regarded as survivals of 
the rites which took place in former times at Old Walpi. The ruin was 
spoken of in the ceremony as the Sipapiini, the abode of the dead who 
had become katcinas, to whom the prayers said in the circuits were 
addressed. 
KUKUCHOMO 
The two conical mounds on the mesa above Sikyatki are often 
referred to that ancient pueblo, but from their style of architecture and 
from other considerations I am led to connect them with other phra- 
tries of Tusayan. From limited excavations made in these mounds in 
1891, I was led to believe that they were round pueblos, similar to those 
! Sometimes called Niisaki, a corruption of ‘‘ Missa ki,’ Mass House, Mission. One of the beams of the 
old mission at Niisaki or Kisakobiis in the roof of Pauwatiwa’'s house in the highest range of rooms 
of Walpi. This beam is nicely squared, and bears marks indicativo of carving. There are also large 
planks in one of the kivas which were also probably from the church building, although no one has 
stated that they are. Pauwatiwa, however, declares that a legend has been handed down in his family 
that the above-mentioned rafter came from the mission. 
2 Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, January 2, 1895, p. 441. 
