Page 263 - TheHopiIndians

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 255

hunters. Great was the devastation of which the com
plete story may never be told, yet nearly every tribe
preserves legends of bloody contacts with the Navaho
and Apache.
Still at an early period the Navaho became changed
from a fierce warrior to a comparatively peaceful
herdsman, subject to the maddening vagaries of that
most whimsical of gentle creatures, the sheep. Early
in the Spanish colonial period the Navaho preyed on
the flocks of sheep of the Rio Grande pueblos, where
they had been brought by the Conquistadores, and by
that act his destiny was altered. Later on, instead of
hunting the scalps of his fellow creatures, his flint
knife became more useful in removing the wool from
the backs of his charges ; he thus became famous as a
blanket weaver, and soon excelled his teachers in that
peaceful art.
Other visitors and neighbors of the Pueblo people
were almost as undersirable as the Apache and Nava
ho. The Comanche of the Plains brought ruin to
many a clan by his forays, and his brother, the Ute,
from the mountains to the north, was a dangerous
enemy to encounter and at many times in the past
attacked the villages of the Hopi. To the west were
the Yuma and Mohave, to the south were the Pima,
extending into Mexico, and in the Cataract Canyon of
the Colorado lived the Havasupai deep in the earth.
These have been the neighbors of the Pueblos since
recorded history began. Also the tent dwellers of the