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CHAPTER XIII

HOW HOTEVILLA AND BAKABI WERE FOUNDED

WHILE the Shipaulovi hostiles were living over at Shung-opovi they were very much stronger against the school. The agent would send out policemen every once in awhile to try to get their leader, Tawahonganiwa. 39 Of course those policemen did not have much authority, so they could not take him. He would put up a big fight and his sons were the ones who would do the fighting. These policemen were mostly Navajos.

The move to Shung-opovi occurred after the people had the smallpox and the government was fumigating all the villages. The government people were trying to get these hostiles over to the Toreva school to give them a good cleaning up, so they could give them clean clothes and burn up what they were wearing, but these hostiles did not want to go there, because they did not want to put on what the government would issue to them. So finally the Agent had to send out a regiment, composed of colored soldiers from Fort Wingate. When these soldiers arrived the hostile women made up a lot of piki and took it over to the soldiers to feed them, thinking that the soldiers might recognize them when they came up to the Mesa. The next morning the captain sent over a soldier to warn the people that they must be ready to come right along, otherwise there would be some shooting. But Tawahonganiwa refused to do as he was bid and said he would not go. He said if they wanted to take him they would have to kill him, so he called all his followers, women and all, to one house. Whoever was an officer or priest of some kind in some of the societies would take in an image or emblem to put in the house. 40 One of these families happened to have the image of the war god, Piakonghoya. This little image was put up by the door, for they thought he might have some power to help them. When the soldiers came up on top of the mesa they were lined up about one-fourth mile outside the village and from there the captain sent in policemen to ask these hostiles to surrender. They were asked four times, but they refused every time. So the captain thought it was time to march up. When they got there, they surrounded this house and the captain went to the house himself and asked them if they were ready to

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surrender and they refused again, so then it was time to take them by force, so he gave orders to the soldiers to take picks and dig around the walls and on the housetops. There must have been about seventy-five or a hundred people in this house. Just as soon as the picks were seen coming through the roofs they all started to run out and as they did this they were taken hold of by the soldiers. The leader was the last one to come out and just as soon as he was outside the door he was grabbed by the soldiers and his five sons piled up on them and the fight began.

They fought there for quite awhile. All the hostile people were fighting with the soldiers, hand to hand. Finally the old chief was knocked out and all the sons had their hands tied up behind their backs. Their father was strapped on to a horse and they were all taken to the Toreva School and there they were given baths and clean clothes and what clothes they had on were taken away and burned.

The smallpox epidemic had not yet spread to Oraibi which was well guarded so that nobody could go there. (The agent's name was Migle and the man in charge of the fumigation, etc., was Sam Shoemaker.) Most of the leading men of the hostiles were put under arrest and taken to Keams Canyon the next day and then on to Fort Defiance. They were kept at Fort Defiance for about 90 days and after that they were sent home, on their agreement that they would behave, themselves. When they got home they turned back and were just as hostile as before they were taken. They said the white man was a fool to let them go, for he was just fooled by them.

They didn't make very much trouble from then on, though their ideas against the schools were just as strong as ever and the two factions would be saying all kinds of things about one another. They were quiet from then on, but, of course, many of their followers began to fall away from the hostiles because they thought that the chief at Shung-opovi had not recognized them, so some of these people went back to Shipaulovi.

The trouble started again in the year 1906, and this was between the same two factions. It started in Shung-opovi and this was during the time of the Bean Dance. The hostiles did not plant their crop of beans with the others and eight days later they came into the kiva to plant their crop. One kiva was divided up--part hostiles and part friendlies. The night of the dance they asked these hostiles to get their plants out of the kiva because some young children who were not initiated into the Kachina ceremony

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would see the plants. But these men refused to take their plants away because it was against their law to take plants out of the kiva before their time. So in order to have a dance they brought in several wedding robes so as to hide the plants from the children. From then on those people were always fighting one another. So again the hostile leader decided to leave. From there Tawahonganiwa and twenty-five to thirty men and women moved to Oraibi. By this time Lololama was dead and his nephew, Tewaquoptiwa was then chief of Oraibi, but Youkioma was stronger at this time. 41 When they got to the mesa top at Oraibi, Youkioma's men met them. These men sprinkled sacred cornmeal on the path that the Shung-opovi people followed to the village. Of course this was not the proper thing to do, for Youkioma was usurping the chief's function and Chief Tewaquoptiwa did not like it.

The leading men from both sides held council every once in a while trying to see what must be done with these people who were being taken in by Youkioma, and Youkioma always said that he had as much right to do this as the chief. It was his "theory" that he was going to follow out what his great-uncles had taught him of their traditions. This tradition told him that he was to destroy Oraibi or be destroyed himself. He belonged to the Fire or Masauwu Clan. 42 This gave him the idea that his clan ancestor had the power to do almost anything. This clan has the idea that Masauwu can hypnotize people, so he always had said that if any expedition is sent against him all he has to do is to take out a handful of ashes and blow them on the army and they would fall to pieces. Chief Tewaquoptiwa wanted to send these people back to Shung-opovi, but Youkioma, of course, was standing up for them and if Tewaquoptiwa wanted to move them he would have had to move him too. 43 He said that he had already had a site picked out somewhere in the north called Kawishtima (a ruin in a canyon near Navajo Mountain). 44

As long as he had this site already picked out Tewaquoptiwa wanted to send him there, but Tewaquoptiwa was in doubt that Youkioma would go there. Finally this trouble got so bad that if the two parties should happen to meet out in the street they would start an argument and whoever was passing would stop too and it would get worse and worse.

The people of Oraibi got so that they were very much troubled and impatient and at last they decided to move

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them out. Right at this time they were having a Snake Dance and Youkioma insisted he would like to be moved away on this day, but Tewaquoptiwa refused to do anything with him on that day because of the ceremony, for he did not want to trouble this religious party. So he set the day for the fourth day after the dance. From the many arguments that all the people had had in the streets both sides had the idea that there would be a fight, so they tried to collect as many weapons as possible-bows and arrows and guns, and to get them ready. Come to find out, Tewaquoptiwa did not have enough men and the hostiles were about three or four times as many as his people. So he called on the Moenkopi 45 people for help and all the other villages of Second Mesa.

The night before the fight both parties stayed up all night for their luck, because this was rather a ceremony. They smoked all night long. When morning came Tewaquoptiwa went to the house where the hostile party was and asked them if they were ready for the day and were willing to put up a fight against his people. He also asked them if any of them would be ready to surrender and follow him. But none would surrender, because of the good sayings of Youkioma and how he was going to take them to a prosperous land.

During these hours of the morning, the men on both sides had rather a creepy feeling about what was going to be the outcome, and the men out in the streets gathered here and there listening to the many arguments. The Oraibi chief made his request four times of the hostile party. Each time he asked them if they would be willing to take the step and leave of their own free will, and that if they would, they would not be bothered or hunted. But each time Youkioma said he would have to be forced to move out. Come to find out, Tewaquoptiwa was a little afraid and he did not have nerve enough to go in and put Youkioma out of the house. So one of the men on the Chief's side was rather tired of all this foolishness that they were going through, so he called the chief, Tewaquoptiwa, a coward and jumped into the house. When he did that the rest of the men followed. When they got in there they got hold of Youkioma and just slung him out of the door. When he landed outside another party picked him up. By this time the men in the street had formed a double line and the men in the house just kept throwing men out and passing them down the line. It seemed as though they were handed out and as if they were unloading sacks of flour or watermelons and passing them on

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down the line. Every now and then someone would put up a fight but he was pretty well beaten. Now this was kept up until they had emptied the house. When Tewaquoptiwa's men were through they went through the village and got all the hostile women out and drove them to the outside of the village.

On that morning the missionaries had come up and they made the people on both sides give up their weapons and they took them all away. They said it would not be fair for them to have weapons, but they could fight all they wanted, hand to hand.

They passed all the hostiles out of the village and it was something awful on both sides--women and children crying. It might be sisters, it might be brothers, mothers and daughters that were separated. Just about this time one old man, a hostile, came up from his field. The day before he had baked some corn in his ground oven and he had eight burros loaded with sacks of corn, each sack holding about 100 to 150 pounds. When he came to his house no one was at home. Then someone came and drove him out with his burros and when he got out there the hostile people ripped up the sacks and helped themselves. Again Chief Tewaquoptiwa went out and asked them if they were ready to move on. Youkioma said he would not move unless Tewaquoptiwa could push him across the line which he had drawn on the flat rock of the mesa top. 46 So here they had to put up another fight again, to put Youkioma across the line. When the chief was ready to go against them, the hostile men gathered about Youkioma, intending to hold him so that the other side could not move him across the line. Then the fight began, one party pushing toward the village and another pushing away from the village. Tewaquoptiwa had about one hundred men and Youkioma about two hundred. There they pushed back and forth for two hours and a half. When they got out of breath they stopped and then began again. Every once in awhile the pressure would be so great that old Youkioma would rise up in the air. Being quite a bunch of men they were hard to move.

One of the men from Shung-opovi, a friendly who was looking on from a housetop, could not stand it, he was so excited, and seeing one of his relations in the crowd, he dragged him away and threw him up in the air and did it again and again.

Tewaquoptiwa's men found they could pull away their relatives too. They did not like to fight other clans and all this time they had a hard feeling against their relatives

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who had gone over to the hostiles. By doing this they reduced the hostiles quite a bit, but no one knew why Youkioma was in the midst of the crowd. He must have had some object on either side that he was looking out for. Just as soon as he was pushed over the line, he said, "It is done, I have passed my mark," and all at once they dropped him. When this was done Chief Tewaquoptiwa asked them if they would like to take anything along, food and bedding. He told them they could go back to the village for it, so they did. The men went back and got their bedding and the women got piki and food. All this time the children were crying for something to eat and they were very thirsty. Well, that evening the whole village was like a disturbed anthill. People were everywhere, coming and going and people from other villages were there to see what was going on. You would see a woman with a bundle on her back crying and other people would be making fun of them because they were crying.

Just about sundown they were already to move on-all their burros were loaded and they were pretty well packed themselves. Youkioma took the lead and off they went to the north. They got to Hotevilla just about dark and there they made camp. 47,  48,  49

 


Next: Chapter XIV. Youkioma