ORNITHOLOGICAL VOCABULARY OF THE MOKI 

 INDIANS 



DR EDGAR A. MEARNS, U. S. A. 



The people whose ornithology I have attempted to portray 

 are a tribe of more than ordinary interest, whether judged from 

 an ornithologist's point of view or otherwise. The Molds inhabit 

 a region of country in longitude 109°, lying just west of the 

 New Mexico-Arizona boundary, northeastward from Little Colo- 

 rado river, and 65 miles south of the Colorado. Their seven 

 villages or pueblos are Oraibi, Shumopavi, Shipaulovi, Mashong- 

 navi, Walpi, Sichumovi, and Hano or Tewa. Each is built on 

 the lofty crest of a precipice of sandstone, and combines a town 

 and fortress which is impregnable to any assault to be antici- 

 pated from aboriginal foes. Thus romantically situated are the 

 seven Mold cities today, although they do not occupy the sites 

 of the villages first seen by the Spaniards, who were the first 

 Europeans whose feet pressed the soil of Arizona in the early 

 part of the sixteenth century. The people were then peaceful, 

 intelligent, and industrious; they raised good crops of corn, 

 beans, and pumpkins, wore cotton cloth and dressed deerskins, 

 and were in no respect materially different from their descend- 

 ants of the present day. Aside from these olden records, the 

 Mokis have a far more ancient history, written in monuments 

 scattered over their present domain and probably as far south- 

 ward as the Gila river. These monuments are the remains of 

 single-house structures as well as towns,- built of stone and adobe, 

 many of them wonders of aboriginal architecture. Some of 

 these structures are cliff or cave dwellings, whose builders were 

 the immediate ancestors of the Molds and Zuiiis, as these In- 

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