Page 264 - TheHopiIndians

256 MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND

buffalo plains sometimes visited the Pueblos, tracking
up the Canadian, and perhaps other neighbors there
were, now vanished beyond resurrection or legend or
the spade of the archeologist into the dust of the wind
swept plains.
Besides the harrying of enemies of the wandering
sort, there were quarrels among the sedentary tribes
and the old-fashioned way of fighting it out according
to Indian methods left many a village desolate. For
this reason the villages were often built on mesas be
fore the ancient enemies of their occupants began
their range of the Southwest, and hostilities were car
ried on against brothers located near the corn lands
and life-giving springs of the Pueblo country.
In the ancient days, as at present, the secret of the
distribution of Pueblo men was the distribution of
water. It seems that in the vast expanse embraced
in the Pueblo region every spring has been visited by
the Indians, since whoever would live must know
where there is water. The chief springs near the vil
lages they dug out and walled up and built steps or
a graded way down to the water, and often these
works represent great labor. Likewise, the irrigation
canals and reservoirs of southern Arizona show what
he could do and surprise the moderns. One soon sees
that there is not a spring near the present villages that
does not receive its offerings of painted sticks adorned
with feathers, as prayers to the givers of water. These
simple-hearted folk in the toils of drought seem to