592 EXPEDITION TO ARIZONA IN 1895 [ETH. ANN. 17 
(1) Hopi legends all declare that Sikyatki was destroyed before the 
Spaniards, called the “long-gowned” and “‘iron-shirted” men, came to 
Tusayan. (2) Sikyatki is not mentioned by name in any documentary 
account of Tusayan, although the other villages are named and are 
readily identifiable with existing pueblos. (3) No fragment of glass, 
metal, or other object indicative of the contact of European civilization 
was found anywhere in the ruin. If we add to the above the general 
appearance of age in the mounds and the depth of the débris which 
has accumulated in the rooms and over the graves, we have the main 
facts on which I haye relied to support my belief that Sikyatki is a 
prehistorice ruin. 
AWATOBI 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RUIN 
No Tusayan ruin offers to the archeologist a better picture of the 
character of Hopi village life in the seventeenth century than that 
known as Awatobi (plate cyi).' It is peculiarly interesting as con- 
necting the prehistoric culture of Sikyatki and modern Tusayan life, 
with which we have become well acquainted through recent research. 
Awatobi was one of the largest Tusayan pueblos in the middle of the 
sixteenth century, and continued to exist to the close of the seven- 
teenth. It was therefore a historic pueblo. It had a mission, notices 
of which oceur in historical documents of the period. From its pre- 
ponderance in size, no less than from its position, we may suspect that 
it held relatively the same leadership among the other Antelope valley 
ruins that Walpi does today to Sichomovi and Hano. 
The present condition of the ruins of Awatobi is in no respect pecu- 
liar or different from that of the remains of prehistoric structures, 
except that its mounds occupy a position on a mesa top commanding a 
wide outlook over a valley. On its east it is hemmed in: by extensive 
sand dunes, which also stretch to the north and west, receding from the 
village all the way from a few hundred yards to a quarter of a mile. 
On the south the ruins overlook the plain, and the sands on the west 
separate it from a canyon in which there are several springs, some corn- 
fields, and one or two modern Hopi houses. There is no water in the 
valley which stretches away from the mesa on which Awatobi is situ- 
ated, and the foothills are only sparingly clothed with desert vegeta- 
tion. The mounds of the ruin have numerous clumps of sibibi (Rhus 
trilobata), and are a favorite resort of Hopi women for the berries of this 
highly prized shrub. There is a solitary tree midway between the sand 
dunes west of the village and the western mounds, near which we found 
it convenient to camp. The only inhabitants of the Awatobi mesa are 
a Navaho family, who have appropriated, for the shade it affords, a 
1For a previous description see the Preliminary Account, Smithsonian Report for 1895; also ‘‘Awa 
tobi: An Archeological Verification of a Tusayan Legend,” American Anthropologist, Washington, 
October, 1893. * 
