HARRINGTON] 



PLACE-NAMES 237 



refer to rabbits beings drh'en together at a communal rabbit hunt. 

 Although pu refers properly to the species of cottontail i-abbits 

 with which the Tewa are familiar, it is also used as the general 

 word for 'rabbit'. Puje means 'deerskin'. Stephen^ gives 

 "puye" as meaning 'quail' in the Hano dialect of Tewa. Note 

 also the etymology by Hewett, quoted below. "Puiye."^ 

 "Puj'e.''^" "Pu-ye."* "Puye (Tewa: [place of the] 'berryO"'.= 

 "Puyc?.'"^ 



The pueblo ruin is described by Bandelier,' by Hewett,* and by 

 S. G. Morle}'." The Santa Claras say that their ancestors lived 

 at Puye, although this is perhaps a conclusion at which thej' would 

 naturally arrive rather than a definite historical tradition. The 

 Tewa of the other pueblos consider that all the countr}- about 

 Santa Clara Creek belongs to the Santa Clara Indians, and that 

 Puye, being situated in this country, must also belong to the 

 Santa Claras. The writer has talked with many Tewa on the 

 subject, but has never been able to learn an^'thing further than 

 this. But Bandelier^" writes: 



For two consecutive years I inquired of the Tehuas of San Juan and San Ilde- 

 fonso if tht'y Ijnew anything about tlie cave dwellers, and they invariably told me 

 they did not. At last, in 1888, I became acquainted with the people of Santa 

 Clara, and during tliree protracted stays at their village I succeeiled in gaining 

 the confidence of several of their principal Sliainaus. These medicine-men 

 assured me that tlie pueblo on the summit of the Pu-ye, and the cave dwellings 

 in that cliff and at the Shu-finne, were the work and abodes of their ancestors. 

 Subsequently I questioned the medicine-men of San Juan, and they acknowl- 

 edge<l that what their neighbors had t(jld me was true, but that it was no part 

 of their local traditional history. The same was said to me afterwards by one 

 of the wizards of San lldefonso. The Indians of Santa Clara also informed me 

 that drought and the hostility of nomadic Indians had compelled tlie final aban- 

 donment of the sites. The statements of these Indians were so emphatic, that I 

 am strongly inclined to believe them. The cave-houses and the highest pueblo 

 appear therefore to have been the homes of that portion of the Tehua tribe whose 

 remnants now inhabit the village of Santa Clara, in days long previous to the 

 commg of Europeans. 



The statements which Santa Clara Indians have made to the 

 present writer relative to this subject have been onl}^ what one 

 might expect, and apparently are based on speculation rather 

 • than definite tradition. Hodge" says: 



The natives [the Santa Claras] assert that their ancestors dwelt in the clusters 

 of artificial grottos excavated in cliffs of pumice-stone (Puye and Shufinne) 



' A. M. Stephen, A Vocabulary of the Language o£ Te'wa, One of tne Moki Pueblos, extract made l)y 

 A. S. Gatschet, Bur. Amer. Ethn., MS. no. 1640. 

 ? Bandelior, Delight Makers, p. 3, 1890. 



a Ibid., p. 178; Hewett: General View, p. 598, 1905; Communautes, p. 29 et passim, 1908. 

 < Bandelier, Final Report, pt. n, p. 07 et passim, 1892. 

 ^Hewett in American AnthropologUt, vol. vi, p. 649, 1904. 



"Hewett: Antiquities, p. 14, 1900; in Out West, xxxi, p. 703 et passim, 1909; Harrington, ibid. 

 ' Final Report, pt. ii, pp. 67-71, 1892. 

 8 Antiquities, No. 2, 1906, also in Out West, xx.xi, 1909. 

 nbid., xxxn, No. 2, p. 121, 1910. 

 "Bandelier, Final Report, pt. n. pp. 74-75, 1892. 

 "Handbook Inds., pt. 2, p. 4oti, 1910. 



