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MINDELEFF. ] THE WALPI PROMONTORY. 65 
also subterranean and was built in an accidental break in sandstone. 
On the very margin of this fissure stands a curious isolated rock that 
has survived the general erosion of the mesa. It is near this rock that 
the celebrated Snake-dance takes place, although the kiva from which 
the dancers emerge to perform the open air ceremony is not adjacent to 
this monument (Pl. xxtv). 
A short distance farther toward the north occur a group of three 
more kivas. These are on the very brink of the mesa, and have been 
built in recesses in the crowning ledge of sandstone of such size 
that they could conveniently be walled up on the outside, the outer sur- 
face of rude walls being continuous with the precipitous rock face of the 
mesa. 
The positions of all these ceremonial chambers seem to correspond 
with exceptionally rough and broken portions of the mesa top, Showing 
that their location in relation to the dwelling clusters was due largely 
to accident and does not possess the significance that position does in 
many ancient pueblos built on level and unencumbered sites, where the 
adjustment was not controlled by the character of the surface. 
The Walpi promontory is so abrupt and difficult of access that there 
is no trail by which horses can be brought to the village without pas- 
sing through Hano and Sichumovi, traversing the whole length of the 
mesa tongue, and crossing a rough break or depression in the mesa 
summit close to the village. Several foot trails give access to the vil- 
lage, partly over the nearly perpendicular faces of rock. All of these 
have required to be artificially improved in order to render them prac- 
ticable. Plate xxv, from a photograph, illustrates one of these trails, 
which, a portion of the way, leads up between a huge detached slab of 
sandstone and the face of the mesa. It will be seen that the trail at 
this point consists to a large extent of stone steps that have been built 
in. At the top of the flight of steps where the trail to the mesa summit 
turns to the right the solid sandstone has been pecked out so as to 
furnish a series of footholes, or steps, with no projection or hold of any 
kind alongside. There are several trails on the west side of the mesa 
leading down both from Walpi and Sichiumovi to a spring below, which 
are quite as abrupt as the example illustrated. All the water used in 
these villages, except such as is caught during showers in the basin- 
like water pockets of the mesa top, is laboriously brought up these trails 
in large earthenware canteens slung over the backs of the women. 
Supplies of every kind, provisions, harvested crops, fuel, ete., are 
brought up these steep trails, and often from a distance of several miles, 
yet these conservative people tenaciously cling to the inconvenient sit- 
uation selected by their fathers long after the necessity for so doing has 
passed away. At present no argument of convenience or comfcrt seems 
sufficient to induce them to abandon their homes on the rocky heights 
and build near the water supply and the fields on which they depend 
for subsistence. 
8 ETH——) 
