Sunset Crater

IF, WHEN you visit Sunset Crater in the early morning, you should happen to see a little cloud hiding itself in the pine trees, don't dismiss it as just a wisp of fog. It's not. It's really a squatty little Indian deity peeking out at you, a Kana-a Kachina, whom the Hopi Indians revere.

They carve dolls in his honor, dolls with funny painted slit eyes, big ears, feathers on their helmet-like heads, and ears of corn in their hands.

But don't let your offspring worry; the Kana-a Kachinas are friendly little supernatural beings. They are kindly and compassionate,– not like the other Kachinas who live on the nearby San Francisco Peaks, who are always regarded with awe. Tell the kids to play at Sunset Crater unafraid. The Indian Gods there are friendly. The wealth of legendary and human history which mantles the striking volcanic cone serves to soften and enhance what otherwise would be a harsh and violent example of one of Nature's fiery convulsions.

The story of Sunset Crater might tersely be summed up in three-fold fashion: (1) Of all the nearly four hundred craters and vents known in the Flagstaff area, Sunset alone has been singled out and enshrined by the Hopi Indians As a sort of Parnassus second only to the austere and towering San Francisco Peaks; (2) Sunset's eruption initiated a cycle of aboriginal Indian development unique in American history; and (3) it is the most recent and one of the most interesting phenomena of the immense San Francisco mountain volcanic field.

Edmund Nequatewa, one of the Hopi on the staff of the Museum of Northern Arizona, relates a story of the Kana-a Kachinas which, briefly, is this: At the old Hopi pueblo of Mishongnovi lived a beautiful maiden whom all men sought but none could obtain in marriage. A young Kachina from the San Francisco Peaks finally wooed and won her, although she supposed him mortal.

The girl became much frightened when on their honeymoon journey to the Peaks he magically created a rainbow path to the Little Colorado River. Another rainbow took them to the south side of Sunset Crater, and their approach was observed by one of the Kana-a Kachinas hiding in a little cloud in the pines.

Here the maiden begged to rest, and was befriended by Spider Woman who lived in a little kiva in the ground. Spider Woman offered assistance, and the girl hid her inside her ear so that the Spider Woman could constantly give advice. The Kana-a Kachina in his little cloud heard and saw all.

When the bride reached the Kachina kiva far up in the Peaks, she underwent and surmounted with the help of Spider Woman many hard tests posed by her husband's suspicious relatives. On the journey back home (Hopi couples reside with the family of the bride) the Little Cloud was there again as they stop ped at Sunset Crater and he omnisciently missed nothing that took place.

The bridegroom and bride returned to the Hopi villages safely and for several years the couple and all the Hopi were happy and prosperous. Finally a wicked and envious man, egged on by plotters, made a costume like the Kachina husband and succeeded in winning the unsuspecting girl's love by impersonating the husband when he was gone. This broke up the marriage, the Kachina returned to his godly home on the mountain and two years later famine came to the Hopi.

The Hopi prayed desperately. The offended San Francisco Mountain Kachinas displayed no compassion, but then came our merciful Kana-a Kachinas to the rescue. They knew that the Mishongnovi maiden had not been treated fairly and they knew of the hard tests she had had to go through. They did not think it right for the San Francisco Mountain Kachinas to bring a terrible calamity on the whole people.

"The Kana-a Kachinas then took much sweet corn and strung it up with yucca and many other good foodstuffs. They came across the desert to the Hopi villages to make the people happy and to relieve their hunger. Now when they got there they went dancing through the streets and distributed their sweet corn and The crest of the crater is of a reddish color, which seems to flame in the light of the setting sun, and because of that Sunset Crater was named. There is much evidence of volcanic action in the vicinity of San Francisco Peaks, where Sunset Crater stands today a silent and colorful landmark. (Photo by Josef Muench.) Hopi Indians make these little dolls of carved and painted wood to represent Kana-a Kachinas, the friendly deities who inhabit Sunset Crater.

food to the people. But they asked the people not to eat everything up that day which they had received and told them that each family must leave an ear of corn in the corner of their empty storage room. "All the people were made happy and glad so that they asked these Kachinas not to go back to their Sunset Crater home, but to live with them always there. But they, being superna-tural beings, could not do this, so of their own choice, they went to a little butte which stands by Mishongnovi today, and they opened it up and went in. So that to this day the little butte is called Kana-a Katchin-ki.

"Waking up the following morning, to their great wonder, the people found that their empty rooms were full of corn and from then on joy was with the people again. After this the Kana-a Kachina dance was celebrated every year till 1902." Designation of Sunset Crater by the Hopi as the home of some of their revered gods reveals that the crater occupies an important place in their ritual which may indicate the last vestiges of some devious group memory of events which occurred there. For if the Kana-a Kachinas, as assumed by the Hopi, have lived in the region always, their narrow eyes and floppy ears beheld and heard one of the most unusual prehistoric sagas of the continent, the transformation by a natural cataclysm of a desert into a fruitful garden, occupation by diverse human beings in cultural turmoil, and final abandonment when the strangely formed en-vironment reverted to its natural inhospitality.

Sunset Crater, about 885 A. D. spewed a moisture-conserving mulch of black cinders over nearly one thousand square miles of hitherto Dunes of cinders flow around the base of Sunset Crater. The wind has whipped up the fine cinders and blown them into gracefully curved dunes. The coarser rock of the Bonito Lava Flow can be seen where it has not been covered by the cinders. (Photographs by Josef Muench.) Fumaroles or Spatter-cones were formed after the major eruption. They are found along a fault line and are miniature volcanoes. The one in the foreground was excavated by overly hopeful miners.barren land. Indians learned that maize agriculture was possible in the new black sand. Hundreds of them flocked into the area in a prehistoric "land rush." Different tribes, languages, and customs met, clashed, fused, and the people developed methods of living in harmony.Later, when the cinder mulch gradually was bblown into ravines and "duned up" by the continual winds, the country reverted to barrenness and farming land was insufficient to support a large population. Friction and strife developed. People banded together in large towns for protection and selected their building sites with an eye to defensibility. Warfare, even of the internecine variety, broke out and there was a bitter struggle for existence. Many groups migrated to more favorable regions. Finally, the famous drought of 1276 to 1299 A. D. forced the last lingering survivors to abandon the mesas and basins of the region.

Perhaps the most graphic description of this (Continued on Page Thirty-nine)