Sikyatki

“ I believe this vessel was exhumed from a ruin of more modern date than Sikyatki. The woman who sold it to me has farming interests near Awatobi, which leads me to conjecture that she or possibly one of her ancestors found it at or near that ruin. She admitted that it had been in the possession of her family for some time, but that the story she had heard concerning it attributed its origin to Sikyatki.
Human Figures
Very few figures of men or women are found on the pottery, and these are confined to the interior of food basins (plate cxxix) . ”

“ The cause of the destruction of Sikyatki is not clearly known, and probably was hardly commensurate with the result. Its proximity to Walpi may have led to disputes over the boundaries of fields or the ownership of the scanty water supply. The people who lived there were intruders and belonged to clans not represented in Walpi, which in all probability kept hostility alive. The early Tusayan peoples did not readily assimilate, but quarreled with one another even when sorely oppressed by common enemies. ”

“ Nasyuñweve, [106] [Pg 641] Katci, and other prominent Kokop people occupy and cultivate the land about Sikyatki on the ground of inheritance from their ancestors who once inhabited the place.
Two routes were taken to approach Sikyatki—one directly across the sandy plain from the entrance to Keam's canyon, following for some distance the road to East Mesa; the other along the edge of the mesa, on the first terrace, to the cluster of houses at Coyote spring. ”

“ As adding weight to this theory it may be mentioned that traditionally the Flute people claim to be the ancient people of Tusayan, and possibly contemporaries, in that province, with the ancient inhabitants of Sikyatki. There is likewise a most suggestive resemblance between these pahos and certain similar sticks from cliff dwellings, and it is a belief, which I can not yet demonstrate as true, that kindred people, or the same sacerdotal societies represented in cliff houses and in Sikyatki, manufactured ceremonial prayer offerings which are identical in design. ”

“ The assertions of all Hopi traditionists that Sikyatki is a prehistoric ruin, as well as the scientific evidence looking the same way, are most important facts in considering the weight of deductions in regard to the character of prehistoric Tusayan culture. ”

“ The geometrical forms are rarely curved lines, and it may be said that spirals, which appear so constantly on pottery from other (and possibly equally ancient or older) pueblos than Sikyatki, are absent in the external decorations of specimens found in the ruins of the latter village. ”

“ All the Sikyátki men were to begin the season by planting the fields of their chief on a certain day, which was announced from the housetop by the Second Chief as he made his customary evening proclamations, and the Walpi, becoming aware of this, planned a fatal onslaught. Every man and woman able to draw a bow or wield a weapon were got in readiness and at night they crossed the mesa and concealed themselves along its edge, overlooking the doomed village. ”

“ He is the recognized owner of the farm land about Sikyatki and the cultivator of the soil in the old plaza of the ruins. Jakwaina, an enterprising Tewan who lives not far from Isba, the spring near the trail to Hano, has also erected a modern house near the Sikyatki spring, but it had not been completed at the time of our stay. Probably never since its destruction in prehistoric times have so many people as there were in our party lived for so long a time at this desolate place. ”

“ Some specimens of smooth pottery are coarse in texture and without decoration; others have elaborate geometrical figures; but animate objects are confined almost entirely to a few pictures of birds or other animals and rudely drawn human figures. The pictography of the pottery affords scant data bearing on the interpretation of the ancient symbolism of the inhabitants, as compared with that of Sikyatki, for example, in the Hopi country. ”

“ The totem of the earth today among the Hopi is a circle; possibly it was the same among the ancients, in which case the horizon may have been represented by the red encircling band, which is accompanied by the crook and the emblem of rain. The petals are represented by a row of dots and no leaves are shown. From the kinship of the ancient accolents of Sikyatki with the Flute people, it is to be expected that in their designs figures of asters or sunflowers would appear, for these plants play a not inconspicuous rôle in the ritual of this society which has survived to modern times. ”

“ These trees belong to an inhabitant of Sichomovi named Tcino, who, it is claimed, is a descendant of the ancient Sikyatkians. The trees were of course planted there since the fall of the village, on land claimed by the Kokop phratry by virtue of their descent from the same phratral organization of the ancient pueblo. [110] The spring shows no evidence of having been walled up, but apparently has been filled in by drifting sand since the time that it formed the sole water supply of the neighboring pueblo. It still preserves the yellow color mentioned in traditions of the place. ”

“ Under the malignant polar wind in the ice, the gliding foxes would find her body, or the haggard, restless old he bears, who could not sleep in the winter but hunted desperately throughout the long Arctic night, would come to her. Sitika’s mother looked dully across at her son, with a remote pleading in her eyes, so remote that it might be Sitika only imagined it. For even as we, feeling that we are dying in the natural fashion of man’s death, do not plead to our own people to save us from it, so Sitika’s mother did not plead to her son to save her from the ice-hole. ”

“ His heart warmed within him as he saw the sun sparkle on the lakes between the dark branches of the pines. When a cloud sailed over the sky, one gleam after another flashed, vanished in shadow and shone out anew in another spot. Sikku sang and sang, blowing his wooden horn between times. The sounds rang out merrily up there on the mountain and turned into a little song:
"Oh, Sipuri Mountain! Tu-tu ́! Falidu ́!
Tu-tu ́! Falidu ́!
In all the whole world not a boy can be found
Who is tending his cows, with such grandeur around. ”

“ Well, Sikku had proved himself a fine fellow;—a promise was a promise;—they needed the cows sadly. One might as well make the best of the situation.
"Listen now, Sikku," said he. "Let us be good friends. What could you do with so much land while you are so little? Serve me faithfully for seven years, and I will then keep my promise and give you all the land you can see from Sipuri Mountain." ”

“ Each man of them was assured in his heart that he went to certain death. They knew that those who had borne away the bodies of the dead ankoot and his kinsman were not bears, but spirits, fierce and ravening from the ghost-haunted north; the spirits of Sitika’s outcast dead. True, the tracks were bear tracks, very enormous, but a spirit can go abroad in any form. Bear, narwhal, walrus, fox, gull. Had not the dead ankoot himself told them that a narwhal which had played daily along the ice-holes at the end of the last summer, was the spirit of a tribesman who had been drowned? ”

“ Sitika’s mother was aware of all her deficiencies, and she blinked sorrowfully and ashamedly as the sorcerer explained that it was her turn to go out to the ice. She was not afraid, for she knew the custom of her people. The Arctic gives too sparingly to the able-bodied to encourage weaklings and encumbrances. The tribe would find it hard to keep from starvation this winter, and, for the sake of the majority, the able-bodied must be fed, and since somebody must starve or die, the useless must go. ”

“ But high over mountain and forest, over the lakes, the dew, the thrushes and even the stars and the moon, there is nevertheless One who sees all the oppressed and miserable upon earth; and He saw even poor forsaken Sikku and sent to him a faithful friend. Who was the faithful friend? Who should it be but Kettu?
Kettu could have porridge to eat at the farm; he could steal milk, as was his custom, from the cat's broken dish by the water-tub; but though he was hungry, Kettu chose rather to dash up the mountain in search of Sikku, to lie at Sikku's bound feet, and lick his bound hands. ”

“ Sikkim is included in a section of the Himalaya, about sixty miles broad from east to west, where it is bounded respectively by the mountain states of Bhotan and Nepal. Its southern limits are easily defined, for the mountains rise abruptly from the plains of Bengal, as spurs of 6000 to 10,000 feet high, densely clothed with forest to their summits. The northern and north-eastern frontier of Sikkim is beyond the region of much rain, and is not a natural, but a political line, drawn between that country and Tibet. ”

“ They would kill him more gently, perhaps, for that he had saved them trouble and had not defied them. Spirits do not like defiance. The ankoot had said so often.
The sleigh vanished round a hummock. The faint, far crack of Sitika’s curling, snaky whip came remotely across the ice to them—and, so far as they were concerned, that was the death of Sitika. They turned back to the huts to talk. Little enough they had to talk of usually.
They told Sitika’s mother that he had driven in desperate haste to the spirit-bears, and that, therefore, he was dead. ”

“ All the hunters muttered together, glancing fearfully from Sitika to the north.
Sitika looked bleakly at them with bloodshot eyes.
“Kill seal then! Crouch by the air-holes—as women crouch!” he said bitterly, and strode off toward his dogs, squat and bulky in his many furs.
He harnessed his team to his sleigh; they were snarling and dangerous with hunger, but sprang to their places cringing from the whip. Then he drove off in silence, down the trail of the bears. ”

“ Larry excused himself from joining the party; he had a barbarian’s reluctance to assisting at an Imperial triumph.
“I think I’ll push off to the swimming-bath,” he said to Cicely; “see you again about tea-time.”
Cicely walked with Lady Bailquist and the literary baronet towards the crowd of spectators, which was steadily growing in dimensions. A newsboy ran in front of them displaying a poster with the intelligence “Essex wickets fall rapidly”—a semblance of county cricket still survived under the new order of things. ”

“ The Dhimal bring us to Sikkim. The dominant nation of Sikkim are—
The Lepchas.—Their language also is monosyllabic; but it is Tibetan rather than Burmese. They are a Sikkim rather than a British Indian population. [130]
When we have passed the rajahship of Sikkim, we reach that of Nepâl. This, again, is independent. Such being the case, the line of frontier between the Hindú populations and the populations of the Bodo and Garo character lies beyond the pale of the British dependencies. ”

“ In the United States Exploring Expedition, the same sentence which speaks to the similarity of tongue, speaks also to the difference of manners and customs.—
[Pg 307]
"The Sikani, though speaking a language of the same family, differ widely from the Tahkali in their character and customs. They live a wandering life, and subsist by the chase. They are a brave, hardy, and active people, cleanly in their persons and habits, and in general agreeing nearly with the usual idea of an American Indian. They bury their dead, and have none of the customs of the Tahkali with respect to them." ”

“ Sikkim stags are sometimes shot by native shikaris, and there is great rivalry among members of the mission force in buying their heads. They are shy, inaccessible beasts, and they are not met with beyond the wood limit. ”

“ Beyond this the view of black, rugged precipices with snowy mountains towering above them, is one of the finest in Sikkim. There is a pass in that direction, from Bah over the Tckonglah to the Thlonok valley, and thence to the province of Jigatzi in Tibet, but it is almost impracticable.
A race of wild men, called “Harrum-mo,” are said to inhabit the head of the valley, living in the woods of a district called Mund-po, beyond Bah; tbey shun habitations, speak an unintelligible tongue, have more hair on the face than Lepchas, and do not plait that of their heads, but wear it in a knot ”

“ Sapyeha smiled when he saw that pride, but half of his smile was compassion. Every man may impose much with daring and impudence, but on people of a certain measure; the hetman was above the measure of Sakovich.
“My master, prince in Birji and Dubinki, commander-in-chief of the armies of his princely highness the elector,” said Sakovich, “has sent me with a greeting, and to ask about the health of your worthiness.” ”

“ Most of the Sitkan Kolosh kept aloof from the Russian settlement after the establishment of the new fort on Chatham Strait, near the entrance of Peril Strait. All the kwans, the Khootznoos, the Hoonahs, the Chilkats, the Auks, Stikines, Kakes and others, joined with the Sitkas in the hatred of the Russians. Parties going out from the fort at Sitka for hunting expeditions, for cutting of wood, for traveling to the Hot Springs, had to be on their guard and with arms at hand prepared to fight at a moment’s notice. [9] Small groups were often cut off and murdered. ”

“ Pan Sakovich rose, went to Kmita, and struck him with his eyes. But he met his own, or better; and in the eyes of Pan Andrei the starosta found such an answer that he dropped his glance to the floor.
The hetman frowned. “Take your seat, Pan Sakovich. And do you preserve calm” (turning to Kmita) . Then he said to Sakovich,—
“Conscience speaks only the truth, but mouths chew it and spit it into the world as calumny. ”