612 EXPEDITION TO ARIZONA IN 1895 [RrH. ANN. 17 
ceremony, one of the most complicated in Tusayan, is not, and accord- 
ing to legends never was, performed in a kiva. On the contrary, the 
secret rites of the Flute society are performed in the ancestral Flute 
chamber or home of the oldest woman of the Flute clan. Originally, I 
believe, the same was true in the. case of other ceremonials, and that 
the kiva was of comparatively recent introduction into Tusayan.! 
Speaking of the sacred rooms of Awatobi, Mindeleff says: ‘‘ No traces 
of kivas were visible at the time the ruin was surveyed,” but Stephen 
is quoted in a legend that “‘the people of Walpi had partly cleaned 
out one of these chambers and used it as a depository for ceremonial 
plume-sticks, but the Navaho carried off their sacred deposits, tempted 
probably by their market value as ethnologic specimens.” It is true 
that while from a superficial examination of the Awatobi mounds the 
position of the kivas is difficult to locate, a little excavation brings 
their walls to light. It is likewise quite probable that the legend 
reported by Stephen has a basis in fact, and that the people at Walpi 
may have used old shrines in Awatobi, after its destruction, as the 
priests of Mishoninovi do at the present time; but I very much doubtif 
the Navaho sold any of the sacred prayer emblems from these fanes. It 
is hardly characteristic of these people to barter such objects among 
one another, and no specimens from the shrines appear to have made 
their way into the numerous collections of traders known tome. There 
is, however, archeological evidence revealed by excavations that the 
room centrally placed in the court north of the mission contained a 
shrine in its floor on the night Awatobi fell. 
In 1892, while removing the soil from a depression about the middle of 
the eastern court of Awatobi, about 100 feet north of the northern 
wall of the mission, I laid bare a room 28 by 14 feet, in which were 
found a skull and many other human bones which, from their dis- 
position, had not been buried with care. The discovery of these skel- 
etons accorded with the Hopi traditions that this was one of the rooms 
in which the men of Awatobi were gathered on the fatal night, and the 
inclosure where many died. I was deterred from further excavation 
at that place by the horror of my workmen at the desecration of the 
chamber. In 1895, however, I determined to continue my earlier 
excavations and to trace the course of the walls of adjacent rooms. 
The results obtained in this work led to a new phase of the question, 
which sheds more light on the character of the rooms in the middle of 
the eastern court of Awatobi. Instead of a single room at this point, 
there are three rectangular chambers side by side, all of about the 
same size (plate Cyiit). In the center of the floor of the middle room, 
6 teet below the surface, I came upon a cist or stone shrine. As the 
workmen approached the floor they encountered a stone slab, horizon- 
tally placed in the pavement of the room. This slab was removed, and 
! This explains the fact that the ruins in Tusayan, as a rule, have no signs of kivas, and the same 
appears to be true of the ruins of the pueblos on the Little Colorado and the Verde, in Tonto Basin, 
and other more southerly regions. 
