558 THE CLIFF VILLAGES OF THE RED ROCK COUNTRY. 



My force of laborers at Awatobi numbered eight, and during the 

 excavations at Sikyatki fifteen, all Moki Indians, were employed. 

 While in my employ they lived at the expense of the expedition. 



I was joined at Sikyatki by Mr. F. W. Hodge, of the Bureau of 

 American Ethnology, who rendered most valuable aid, and by Mr. 

 James S. Judd, a volunteer, who contributed much to the success of the 

 expedition. Mr. G. P. Winship, whose translation of the Spanish text 

 of Castaneda's account of Ooronado's expedition is about to be pub- 

 lished by the Bureau of Ethnology, was a guest of the expedition at 

 Sikyatki for two weeks. 



The objects collected during the three months will increase the 

 Museum catalogue by 960 entries, of which nearly 500 represent speci- 

 mens of the finest pottery, fully two-thirds of which are decorated. 



In addition to objects collected, the expedition took many photo- 

 graphs, made copious notes, and prepared a few ground plans, neces- 

 sarily rough, as material for an extended systematic report. The 

 following pages 'give a fair idea of the scope and character of the work 

 accomplished, but its significance in all its bearings can be adequately 

 presented only by an elaborated discussion of the subject. 



SCOPE OF THE WORK. 



The general plan of my field work in Arizona during the summer of 

 1895 was an examination of cliff dwellings and other ruins of the val- 

 ley of the Bio Verde and an archaeological exploration of two ancient 

 ruins in the old province of Tusayan, the ancestral and present home 

 of the Moki Indians. The reason which determined my choice of the 

 Verde Valley ruins as a field of investigation was a wish to obtain 

 archaeological data bearing on certain Tusayan traditions. A study of 

 the ritual and mythology of these people for several years had familiar- 

 ized me with a rich collection of folklore consisting of tales of cosmog- 

 ony, heroic stories of supernatural beings, and migration legends. 

 These stories, existing in many variants, are the sole histories which 

 the Mokis have, and are transmitted verbally from one generation to 

 another. They have come down to our day from a remote past, often- 

 times highly embellished, doubtless more or less modified in trans- 

 mission, but presenting the only material which is available, so far as 

 records are concerned, of their origin and migrations previously to their 

 settlement in their present homes. The legends of cosmogony are 

 manifestly outside the realm of scientific verification, but migration 

 stories are evidently of much greater import to the student of archae- 

 ology. These stories are repeated, notwithstanding their variations, 

 with an exactness which is highly suggestive of truth in their general 

 character. The old story-tellers recount with detail the places where 

 their ancestors halted in their migrations, and declare that they built 

 homes or villages near certain springs, mountains, or in well-known 

 valleys, where, they declare, the visitor may still see the ruins. Evi- 



