Page 262 - TheHopiIndians

254 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

times of danger they come together to better with
stand the common enemy, for the union born of need
and strengthened by the coming of wily foes was in
culcated by former experiences. But these unions
were never close, even between the clans when they
forsook their small community houses and came to
gether forming tribes. Between tribes of the same
language there were but the faintest traces of com
binations for mutual welfare.
Perhaps about the time of the landfall of Columbus
a group of tribes began to push their way into the
region of the house-builders.18 These tribes were re
lated and had crept down from the north, where now
their kinsfolk live under the Arctic Circle. It was
many years before the Apache and Navaho were
strong enough to try conclusions with the settled peo
ples, but when they had gathered to themselves the
lawless from many tribes, then began terrible chap
ters of history which only recently have been written
to a finis. Wherever these conscienceless savages
ranged were carnage and destruction. The habits of
the house-builders changed and the ruins on high
mesas and the lookouts on every hill tell plainly how
they sought defence from the scouting enemy. The
large towns in the Salinas of Manzano passed into
oblivion under the attacks of the Apache and began
a mythical career as the "Gran Quivira" of treasure
i» The Early Navaho and Apaehe. F. W. Hodge, Amer.
Anthropologist. July. 1895.