Page 47 - TheHopiIndians

3IESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 39

The Pueblo folk retire early and leave the safety of
the village to the patrol. Some one is always on guard
about the pueblo, whether it be the children amusing
themselves on the rocks, — and these little folks have
eyes as sharp as any, — or the grown people looking
off into the country for "signs," a custom which has
become habitual with them. The night patrol is a
survival of the times when the whole village was a
committee of safety, for the outside foes were fierce
and treacherous.
If running about the town keeping the dogs barking
and good folks awake is the principal office of the
patrol, then it is eminently successful and the pueblos
furnish nocturnal noises on the scale of the cities of
civilization. The tradition of the coming of the Flute
clan speaks of the watchman of Walpi, who was Al-
osaka, a horned being alert as a mountain sheep. The
Flute migrants also sent out "Mountain Sheep" to as
certain whether human beings lived in the locality.
During some of the ceremonies there are vigilant
patrols, and on a few ceremonial days no living being
is allowed to come into the pueblo from the outside,
formerly under pain of death at the hands of the fra
ternity guards. It is thought that the trouble arising
between the Spaniards and the Hopi on that first visit
to Tusayan in 1540 was due to a violation of the cere
monial bar, and not to the belligerent habit of the In
dians.
The village shepherds have an easy, though very