24 PUEBLO ARCHITECTURE. 
is preserved. The Hopituh certainly marry within phratries, and occa- 
sionally with the same gens. There is no doubt, however, that in 
the earlier villages each gens, and where practicable, the whole of the 
phratry, built their houses together. To a certain extent the house of 
the priestess of a gens is still regarded as the home of the gens. She 
has to be consulted concerning proposed marriages, and has much to 
say in other social arrangements. 
While the village of the Walpi was still upon the west side of the 
mesa point, some of them moved around and built héuses beside a 
spring close to the east side of the mesa. Soon after this a dispute over 
planting ground arose between them and the Sikyatki, whose village 
was also on that side of the mesa and but a short distance above them. 
From this time forward bad blood lay between the Sikyatki and the 
Walpi, who took up the quarrel of their suburb. It also happened about 
that time, so tradition says, more of the Coyote people came from the 
north, and the Pikyas nyu-mu, the young cornstalk, who were the 
latest of the Water people, came in from the south. The Sikyatki, hav- 
ing acquired their friendship, induced them to build on two mounds, on 
the summit of the mesa overlooking their village. They had been greatly 
harrassed by the young slingers and archers of Walpi, who would come 
across to the edge of the high cliff and assail them with impunity, but 
the occupation of these two mounds by friends afforded effectual pro- 
tection to their village. These knolls are about 40 yards apart, and 
about 40 feet above the level of the mesa which is something over 400 
feet above Sikyatki. Their roughly leveled summits measure 20 by 10 
feet and are covered with traces of house walls; and it is evident that 
groups of small-roomed houses were clustered also around the sloping 
sides. About a hundred yards south from their dwellings the people 
of the mounds built for their own protection a strong wall entirely across 
the mesa, which at that point is contracted to about 200 feet in width, 
with deep vertical cliffs on either side. The base of the wall is still 
quite distinct, and is about 5 feet thick. 
But no reconciliation was ever effected between the Walpi and the 
Sikyatki and their allies, and in spite of their defensive wall frequent 
assaults were made upon the latter until they were forced to retreat. 
The greater number of them retired to Oraibi and the remainder to Sik- 
yatki, and the feud was still maintained between them and the Walpi. 
Some of the incidents as well as the disastrous termination of this 
feud are still narrated. A party of the Sikyatki went prowling through 
Walpi one day while the men were afield, and among other outrages 
one of them shot an arrow through a window and killed a chief’s daugh- 
ter while she was grinding corn. The chief’s son resolved to avenge 
the death of his sister, and some time after this went to Sikyatki, pro- 
fessedly to take part in a religious dance, in which he joined until just 
before the close of the ceremony. Having previously observed where 
the handsomest girl was seated among the spectators on the house ter- 
