Part 10— The Conquest until Siwañ Wa'aki
1. 'Bad Willow-place' [I think]. "Willow-place" is the name of a Papago village north of Santa Rosa. As I understand it, this story belongs particularly to that people, and they take their place-name from a willowy place where they formerly lived, some say around the location of the present-day town of Queen Creek, Ariz., between the Gila and Salt rivers, 20 or 30 miles northeast of Snaketown (Snaketown is located where that creek joins the Gila River). [BACK]
2. "Mescal" probably means the agave cactus ( Agave americana ), which is sometimes called mescal cactus. [BACK]
3. This is the exact wording of the manuscript. I cannot envision the scene clearly. [BACK]
4. This "mind" could be a mistyping of "wind." There are many songs that say "green wind," but this would be the first known to me that says "green mind." Note that the pair of songs seem to grant solar ("shining") and wet ("green" and presumably cloud-having) powers to the Hohokam. [BACK]
5. Probably the former. [BACK]
6. Probably the former. [BACK]
7. Like the mention of seawater as discussed in connection with story 8, this mention of a whale connects to an important continue
Papago myth, namely, an account of Siuuhu's (there called I'itoi, or Montezuma) killing a menacing whale or sea monster ( ñe:big in Pima-Papago). Interestingly, both the seawater/children's shrine myth (connected to story 8) and the Papago whale-killing myth are closely associated with wi:gita ceremonies, which were large, famous, and highly sacred affairs. Wi:gitas were performed (so far as is known, from the ninteenth century to the present) at just two locations, both in Papago country, one near Santa Rosa, Ariz., and the other at Quitovac, Sonora, Mexico. The Arizona ceremony venerated the children's shrine myth, and the Sonora one venerated the myth of the killing of the whale; which is to say that those myths justified and were the charters of those two wi:gitas.
Pimas knew about the ceremonies, including the ceremonies' origin myths, but Pimas did not have a wi:gita of their own. Had they had one, it seems that they would also have needed a localized origin of myth for it, equivalent to the children's shrine or whale-killing myth. Now, in effect, Smith passes (as in card playing) on this matter. I assume that he knew the established, localized Papago wi:gita myths. He does not tell them outright but tells localized (set in Pima country) refractions of them. He does not use those refractions to justify a wi:gita in Pima country, which he could not do because there was no wi:gita in Pima country. Rather, he passes, mentioning the appropriate ancient things (sea-water in a hole, a whale) but not advocating a Pima wi:gita. I may mention that these Smith-Allison whale songs do not refer to salt water, as do the wi:gita origin myths, but to wind and clouds, typical Hohokam/siwañ properties. See Hayden (1987), Galinier (1991), and Bahr (1991), on the mythology and performance of the wi:gita. [BACK]
8. This was part of the method used by I'itoi to kill the whale in one of the wi:gita foundation myths (Saxton and Saxton 1973: 305-316). [BACK]
9. This is almost the only reference to death among the invaders. Part 11, on the aftermath of the conquest, has the proper, individualized origin of death among them. [BACK]
10. This corresponds closely with a song in Russell (281). Russell's narrator, Thin Leather, assigned the song to the point at which the Wooshkam (Russell did not record that word, but it is certainly correct, although better spelled as "wu:skam * ") approached Sacaton. Here is how I would edit (correct, slightly modify) Russell's song language transcription and literal translation. break
Pipinu havavaki kutda hamo-olina.
Mud their-house inside their-[they]-stay.
Kutda maka hitcu,
Inside [the house] become-medicine-men
Kotdena sinyu-upuiitoka,
Inside very-frighten me,
Kutda ahamo-olina,
Inside there-[I
they
]-stay,
Pipinu havavahaki kutda maka hitcu.
Mud their-house inside become-medicine-men [BACK]
11. This pair roughly corresponds with a single song in Russell (281), designated "As they approached the village below Santan":
Amuko vu-uhonyui-ita,
You-[imperative]-go-and truly see-it,
Amuko vu-uhonyuita-a,
You-[imperative]-go-and truly see-it,
Hamonyui-i-i.
will-see-some.
Kuhiyu hukiva mu-ulihoku rso-onuka puva-aki nyui-i.
Just-the old ocotillo based the-rainhouse see. [BACK]
12. Archaeological ruin in Phoenix, Arix. [BACK]
13. Archaeological ruin in Phoenix, Ariz.
In a letter of June 1993 Hayden wrote,
After the detailed descriptions of the arduous conquest of the Big Houses of the Gila Valley, this brief mention of the taking of the Guadalupe and Pueblo Grande (Huamanui-ki) Big Houses is almost in passing. This is curious, for the Salt River Valley contained the largest and densest population in the Hohokam region. Its many Big Houses with their attendant villages oversaw a vast system of canals with their intakes, their distribution ditches, and their broad irrigated fields of the monocrop, corn, the apparent basis of Hohokam life there. Why was the conquest of this valley given so little attention
An answer to this is now known: in all likelihood, the valley of the Salt was deserted when Emergents entered, and they faced little or no opposition. A flood of a 2,000-year magnitude from the Verde and Salt rivers had inundated the valley in 1358-59, destroying the canals, the fields, and ditches, and, in short, the food supplies of the people. This was followed by a very severe 20-year drought, and three more consecutive years of flood completed the destruction of the once prosperous valley. Recent excavations of some 500 or more burials of the time revealed very high infant and young mortality, and skeletal pathologies associated with starvation and malnutrition, osteoporosis even in the very young, arthritis, continue
hypoplasia, etc. Accompanying this was evidence of a rapid decrease of corn pollen in the village soils and a marked increase in pollens of wild native food plants, marking a surely desperate and futile attempt to replace corn with gathering. Deliberate abandonment of the valley ensued, for the undamaged pithouse floors of the terminal occupation had been swept clean of artifacts. By 1400 or at the latest 1425, the Salt River Valley was empty. Several lines of evidence indicate that some of the people moved north to join the Hopi and perhaps the Zuni communities; certain clans of both claim descent from the immigrants. The Emergents, then, swept through a deserted Salt River region, meeting perhaps stragglers and last-ditch folk. (Teague and Deaver 1989: 145-167, and C. Breternitz, personal communication) [BACK]
15. He probably means the two sibs of the Coyote moiety. See note 13, part 9, and note 15, above. [BACK]