MINDELEFF.] MYTHS AND LEGENDS. 19 
bison, feeding on neyer-failing grasses. Twining through these plains were streams 
of bright water, beautiful to look upon. A place where none but those who were 
of our people ever gained access. 
This description suggests some region of the headwaters of the Rio 
Grande. Like the Snake people, they tell of a protracted migration, 
not of continuous travel, for they remained for many seasons in one 
place, where they would plant and build permanent houses. One of 
these halting places is described as a canyon with high, steep walls, in 
which was a flowing stream; this, it is said, was the Tségi (the Navajo 
name for Canyon de Chelly). Here they built a large house in a cavern- 
ous recess, high up in the canyon wall. They tell of devoting two years 
to ladder making and cutting and pecking shallow holes up the steep 
rocky side by which to mount to the cavern, and three years more were 
employed in building the house. While this work was in progress part 
of the men were planting gardens, and the women and children were 
gathering stones. But no adequate reason is given for thus toiling to 
fit this impracticable site for occupation; the footprints of Masauwu, 
which they were following, led them there. 
The legend goes on to tell that after they had lived there for a long 
time a stranger happened to stray in their vicinity, who proved to be 
a Hopituh, and said that he lived in the south. After some stay he 
left and was accompanied by a party of the “‘ Horn,” who were to visit 
the land occupied by their kindred Hopituh and return with an account 
ot them; but they never came back. After waiting a long time another 
band was sent, who returned and said that the first emissaries had 
found wives and had built houses on the brink of a beautiful canyon, not 
far from the other Hopituh dwellings. After this many of the Horns 
grew dissatisfied with their cavern home, dissensions arose, they left 
their home, and finally they reached Tusayan. They lived at first in one 
of the canyons east of the villages, in the vicinity of Keam’s Canyon, 
and some of the numerous ruins on its brink mark the sites of their 
early houses. There seems to be no legend distinctly attaching any 
particular ruin to the Horn people, although there is little doubt that 
the Snake and the Horn were the two first peoples who came to the 
neighborhood of the present villages. The Bear people were the next, 
but they arrived as separate branches, and from opposite directions, 
although of the same Hopituh stock. It has been impossible to obtain 
directly the legend of the Bears from the west. The story of the Bears 
from the east tells of encountering the Fire people, then living about 
25 miles east from Walpi; but these are now extinct, and nearly all 
that is known of them is told in the Bear legend, the gist of which is as 
follows: 
The Bears originally lived among the mountains of the east, not far 
distant from the Horns. Continual quarrels with neighboring villages 
1The term yasuna, translated here as ‘‘ year,” is of rather indefinite significance; it sometimes means 
thirteen moons and in other instances much longer periods. 
