MINDELEFF. ] TRADITIONS—THE WATER PEOPLE. 31 
found their old houses occupied. The Asa were taken into the village of 
Walpi, being given a vacant strip on the east edge of the mesa, just 
where the main trail comes up to the village. The Navajo, Ute, and 
Apache had frequently gained entrance to the village by this trail, and 
to guard it the Asa built a house group along the edge of the cliff at that 
point, immediately overlooking the trail, where some of the people still 
live; and the kiva there, now used by the Snake order, belongs to them. 
There was a crevice in the rock, with a smooth bottom extending to the 
edge of the cliff and deep enough for a ki‘koli. A wall was built to 
close the outer edge and it was at first intended to build a dwelling house 
there, but it was afterward excavated to its present size and made into 
a kiva, still called the wikwalhobi, the kiva of the Watchers of the 
High Place. The Walpi site becoming crowded, some of the Bear and 
Lizard people moved out and built houses on the site of the present 
Sichumovi; several Asa families followed them, and after them came 
some of the Badger people. The village grew to an extent considerably 
beyond its present size, when it was abandoned on account of a ma- 
lignant plague. After the plague, and within the present generation, 
the village was rebuilt—the old houses being torn down to make the 
new ones. 
After the Asa came the next group to arrive was the Water family. 
Their chief begins the story of their migration in this way: 
In the long ago the Snake, Horn, and Eagle people lived here (in Tusayan), but 
their corn grew only a span high, and when they sang for rain the cloud god sent 
only a thin mist. My people then lived in the distant Pa-lat Kw4-bi in the South. 
There was a very bad old man there, who, when he met any one, would spit in his 
face, blow his nose upon him, and rub ordure upon him. He ravished the girls and 
did all manner of evil. Baholikonga got angry at this and turned the world upside 
down, and water spouted up through the kivas and through the fireplaces in the 
houses. The earth was rent in great chasms, and water covered everything except 
one narrow ridge of mud; and across this the serpent deity told all the people to 
travel. As they journeyed across, the feet of the bad slipped and they fell into the 
dark water, but the good, after many days, reached dry land. While the water was 
rising around the village the old people got on the tops of the houses, for they thought 
they could not struggle across with the younger people; but Baholikonga clothed 
them with the skins of turkeys, and they spread their wings out and floated in the 
air just above the surface of the water, and in this way they got across. There were 
saved of our people Water, Corn, Lizard, Horned Toad, Sand, two families of Rabbit, 
and Tobacco. The turkey tail dragged in the water—hence the white on the turkey 
tail now. Wearing these turkey-skins is the reason why old people have dewlaps 
under the chin like aturkey; it is also the reason why old people use turkey-feathers 
at the religious ceremonies. 
In the story of the wandering of the Water people, many vague ref- 
erences are made to various villages in the South, which they constructed 
or dwelt in, and to rocks where they carved their totems at temporary 
halting places. They dwelt for a long time at Homélobi, where the Sun 
people joined them; and probably not long after the latter left the Water 
people followed on after them. The largest number of this family seem 
