568 ETHNOGEOGRAPHY OF THE TKWA INDIANS [eth. ans. 29 



deep. It is probably 100 yards across. Tbe water is very offensive. Around 

 the sliore is a continuous line of (load cattle. The place intere.stsnie very much. 

 There are no settlements within a distance of many miles, and the only in- 

 formation I could gain concerning it was from a very garrulous old man (the 

 only human being that we saw during the day), who with his team of oxen 

 pulled us out of an old irrigating ditch in which we were stalled for an hour or 

 more in the afternoon. He lived uj) on the mountain side (Sierra Blanca) and 

 liad for many years. He had seen the lake and claimed that it never dried up: 

 that many cattle died from drinking the water every dry season. I remember 

 that my old friend J. M. Hanks of Florence, Colorado, told me something of 

 this place before I started on this trip. He knew this country well years ago 

 and stated that this was a place around which some interesting legends centered. 

 The heat during the day was intense. Our horses' noses were blistered by 

 it. The wind was most di.«agreeable. Late in the afternoon we came into the 

 area of the San Luis valley, that had been settled by homeseekers a few years 

 before. All had starved out; not a single settler remains. On every ejuarter 

 section of land there is a deserted shack, and on man\' are flowing wells. The 

 artesian water appears to be mineralized and totally unfit for irrigating purposes. 

 This part of the valley approaching the Eio Grande looks rather attractive, 

 but tlie portion in the neighborhood of the sand dunes and the black lake is of 

 most forbidding aspect. We reached Alamosa long after dark and camped in 

 the outskirts of the village. 



The location of ^ipop'e is generally and definitely known to the 

 Tewa. 



"Their [the Tewa"s] ancestors, they say, came out upon the 

 surface of the earth at a place called Ci-bo-be, now a lagune 

 [lagoon] in Southern Colorado".' Baodelier^ erroneously gives 

 ■'Shi-pa-puyna" as the Santa Clara form of his Tewa "Ci-bo-be". 

 Perhaps he was thinking of Sifwp'enie. 



The name Sipop'e occurs in varying forms in other Pueblo 

 languages. The Taos form has not been published, but as Pande- 

 lier ^ suggests, perhaps the " Copiala" or " Colela" of a manuscript 

 of the seventeenth century is intended for it. The Isleta form is 

 " Shi-pa-pu", according to Lunmiis.^ " They [the Jemez] are said 

 to have originated at a lagune [lagoon] called Ua-bima-tota, and the 

 souls of the dead go to rest there". ^ The Cochiti form of Sipop'e 

 is fepapu- According to San Juan informants the Cochiti and 

 other Kere.san people entered this world not at Sipoj:>'e but at La 

 Cueva in Taos county; see [6:30], [6::]!], etc. The Zuiii form is, 

 according to Cushing,' "Shi-papu-lima'\ said to mean '"The 

 Mist-enveloped city''. Fewkes spells the Hopi form "Sipapu", 

 "Sipapu", "SipapH". He says:" "Sipapu. The place desig- 

 nated is a saline deposit in the Grand Canon, a short distance west 



1 Bnndelier, Final Report, pt. i, p. S03, 1890. 



2 Ibid., pt. II, p. 30, 1R92. 

 :< Ibid., p. 29. 



< Ibid., pt. I, p. 315. 

 lUiid., pt. II, p. 49. 

 > Joiini. Amer. Elhml. ami ArcluoL, iv, p. 106 and note, 1894. 



