Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/106

 94 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

for rain was sorely needed and a famine threatened them. The priests of the Rain Cloud clans accepted the invitation, and, it # is said, erected their altars not far from a spring now called Tawapa. After they had sung their songs for some time, mist began to form, then violent rains fell and frightful lightning, which alarmed the women of Walpi. The legends state that after this show of power the Rain Cloud clans were invited to join the Hopi pueblo, assimi- lated with the original Hopi, and from that time to the present have always lived with them.

The nature of the cult which they introduced may be gathered by an investigation of the ceremonies of the Cloud people which survive, especially the winter solstice and spring equinoctial cere- monies, the fire cult and that of the Great Serpent.

The Lalakonti is also one of the ceremonies which this phratry brought with them from their southern home beyond the mountains. It is their harvest festival, and the women chiefs in this ceremony are near relations of those of the societies which brought the fetiches of a high form of sun, snake, and rain worship to Walpi from Palatkwabi.

The legends of the Rain Cloud clans declare their ancestors came from southern Arizona, and they mention the different pueblos, now ruins, which they inhabited in their migrations from that land. In the light of archaeology there is no doubt of the truth of these legends, for I have, with the help of the Indians, identified their ancient pueblos as far south as Chaves Pass on the trail of northern migration which they followed.

In my archaeological study of the Chevlon ruin (Cakwabaiyaki) about fifteen miles east of Winslow, Arizona, I was astonished at the relatively large amount of basketry found in the graves. Much of this had the forms of plaques like those still manufactured at Oraibi and the Middle Mesa. The inhabitants of the old pueblos at Chaves Pass were also clever basket-makers.

Turning now to the ruin, Sikyatki, near Walpi, which was de- stroyed before the Rain Cloud clans entered the valley, we are struck with the paucity of specimens of basketry. Over a hundred graves were opened and more than a thousand mortuary objects taken from them, and yet not one, large or small, fragment of a basket. We are certainly not justified in jumping at the conclusion that the Sikyatkians were not basket-makers, but it is not too much to claim that this art was not as highly developed here as at the Chevlon ruin. In other words, archaeological facts are in accord with Hopi legends that the Rain Cloud people in the pueblos along the Little Colorado were expert basket-makers, and introduced this industry, as well as the basket dance, into Tusayan.

�� �