ARCHEOLOGY

НомоOLOVI

Standing by an abandoned pueblo at Homolovi, once home to his ancestors, Austin Nevayaktewa's eyes took in the grand sweep of the landscape spread out before him. In the distance, the sacred San Francisco Peaks broke the horizon, and in the foreground bare cottonwoods threaded the banks of the Little Colorado River.

As a Hopi elder, Nevayaktewa was adamant that his grandchildren know their origins, and how they came to live in northern Arizona. "We have to tell them, so they will know all those things." Hopis say that Homolovi was one of the last stops before they came to their present homes on First, Second, and Third mesas. According to their oral tradition, the bisatsinom, the "long ago people," traveled from the south, stopping for a time at Homolovi. They now believe that the ruins there are like footprints, visible to the creator as boundary markers of Hopi territory.

With his nephew Cedric Kuwaninvaya, Nevayaktewa had agreed to go with us to Homolovi, now a new state park just north of Winslow. We met at a restaurant in the town on a chill December morning. Accessorized with white tennis shoes, sky blue cardigan, and red-white-and-blue baseball cap, Nevayaktewa

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did not exactly fit my preconception of what a Hopi elder should look like.

Though Nevayaktewa said little, his eyes spoke volumes. He listened intently while his nephew told us the significance of this ancient habitation. “Our elders say always to look back to Homolovi,” he related. “This is the place where Hopi comes from, and it is important to verify this.. We want the whole world to know of the importance of the place to the Hopi.” An administrator for the village of Sipaulovi, Kuwaninvaya is trying to perpetuate his tribe's history, a daunting task in a time when young people more often want to watch television than listen to the stories of their elders. When we arrived at the trail to Homolovi, it seemed like a homecoming of sorts to Nevayaktewa. He bounded out of the van and hurried up the hillside, pausing only to study pictographs on the boulders, to examine a rock or a piece of pottery. Obviously there was much here that was important and familiar. As he saw various things, he explained: this kind of stone was fashioned into pipes; that grass is called “wheatgrass,” used to make bread. A charred corncob led him to tell of the four colors of corn and their relationship to the four cardinal directions: yellow is north, white is east, red is south, and blue is west.

What caused the people to leave Homolovi? Nevayaktewa and his nephew belong to the Sun Forehead Clan, so they told us their clan's version of the story. Mosquitoes carried a disease to the children at Homolovi, they said, so the people decided to look for a better place to live. One woman, pregnant with twins, stayed behind and promised that, wherever they were going, she would hold their place so they could always return. When the people finally got to the Hopi mesas, they asked the leader of the Bear Clan, who was already there, if they could settle. They received permission, and because they arrived just as the sun was coming over the horizon, they were named the Sun Forehead Clan.

Set aside by the Arizona legislature in 1986, Homolovi Ruins State Park provides an important link between prehistoric and historic pueblo people of the Southwest. Within the park's 10,000 acres are six major 14th century pueblos: Homolovi I and II on the east side of the Little Colorado, III and IV on the west side, and the two satellite ruins, at Cottonwood Creek (Muwavi) and at Chevelon Creek (Sakwavaya). All are within a 15-mile radius of Winslow.

Travelers streaming by on Interstate Route 40, however, are hard-pressed to identify anything spectacular in the way of archeology here. The flat windy country appears almost featureless from that perspective, and most of the ruins are buried under sand and mud. But at Homolovi II, where we had gone with Nevayaktewa and his nephew, a small roomblock has been excavated, and a trail winding through the site interprets part of the story.

Homolovi first became known to archeologists in the 1890s when Jesse Walter Fewkes of the Smithsonian's Bureau of American Ethnology visited the Hopi mesas and heard the migration legends. Seeking substantiation, Fewkes returned to Winslow in the summer of 1896, and some local Hopis led him to the place that Fewkes called “Homolobi.” “The site of Homolobi,” he reported, “was found to be exactly where the Hopi stories placed it.” Though Fewkes investigated all four of the sites at Homolovi, and nearby Chevelon as well, he wrote that his “knowledge of the character of prehistoric culture at Homolovi is drawn mainly from facts obtained at the first ruin.” His excavations at Homolovi I, which he considered “true Homolobi,” yielded the best results.

In Fewkes' eyes, “results” closely equated with quantity of artifacts collected. His primary aim that summer was to gather as many prehistoric objects as possible. He succeeded, mostly by digging in burial grounds, a practice now opposed by Native Americans. During those three months, some 2,500 pieces were catalogued and shipped to the National Museum in Washington, D.C.

For nearly a century after Jesse Walter Fewkes left Homolovi, little systematic archeological research had taken place. Meanwhile, the ruins were being vandalized and pillaged by pothunters. The damage they caused is much in evidence today. The scavenging of these artifacts had gone beyond the shovel to bulldozers and backhoes. Finally, concerned individuals, government agencies, and the Hopi Tribe took steps to protect what remained of the sites.

After a tour of Homolovi in 1980, thenGov. Bruce Babbitt appointed a group to advise him on site preservation.

The planners decided that a state park would be the best option. In 1986 the state parks department was put in charge with the task of making Homolovi into a regional archeological “theme park.” Designation of the park was the first step. Karen Berggren, formerly with the National Park Service, was hired to manage the fledgling park. Doug Johnson, park archeologist, was the only other employee initially. The next order of business was to make the place attractive as a destination for visitors. Toward that end, a visitors center was constructed and is scheduled to open this month. Located between Homolovi I and II, it will offer

information, orientation, and exhibits about the park. A nearby interpretive trail leads through a prehistoric pit house village. Plans include expanding the visitors center to house an auditorium, a library, a working archeological laboratory for public viewing, and possibly a small restaurant. Existing ranch roads may become walking and equestrian trails to connect the sites. In addition, a campground with tent spaces and recreational vehicle hookups is under construction at the park. Other overnight accommodations are available in Winslow.

Homolovi II, believed to contain more than 700 rooms, is the focus of activity for several reasons. It is located away from the distraction of the interstate highway, has good research and recreation potential, and is a scenic spot. The new road into The park off State Route 87 (the road to Second Mesa) makes it readily accessible. Homolovi also has become the object of an ambitious 10-year archeological research project of the Arizona State Museum in Tucson. Dr. E. Charles Adams heads the operation.

The strength of his labor force has been in the form of volunteers from Earthwatch, an organization that offers persons an opportunity to take educational vacations by working on various scientific projects, such as archeological excavations. Earthwatchers have endured the hot sun and relentless wind to shovel, sift, sweep, and measure artifact locations.

They also reenact prehistory by making and using their own tools to grind corn, shape beads, and work bone and wood.

Their efforts are helping to answer some of the central questions that guide the research project: why and how did so many people group together at Homolovi; how did they maintain their community, and what were the consequences of the population concentration?

Immigrants came into the area sometime after A.D. 1275 and founded Homolovi III and IV, according to Adams. Homolovi III, which has been studied in detail, was a pueblo hamlet of some 40 rooms in the floodplain of the Little Colorado River. It was occupied initially by farmers who found the land suitable for crops. About 1300 it was abandoned, and the people apparently moved across the river to the larger pueblos at Homolovi I and II. But they returned to their former hamlet seasonally to raise crops.

The east side of the river had been used for farming for a long time, probably as early as the 700s. The bigthree crops corn, beans, and squash were being grown, but as the population increased during the peak years between 1300 and 1400, cotton gained in importance. More than a hundred stone hoes have been found, giving the name Hoe Valley to a large area east of the river. The abundance of hoes indicates to archeologist Richard Lange that there was an "explosion" in land use during the later years.

Also as population increased, the people began trading with their neighbors, evidence of which is the marked increase in the amount of obsidian and the appearance of a particular pottery type. Obsidian, a black volcanic glass, was a desirable commodity because it made excellent arrow points. It does not occur naturally at

HOMOLOVI

Homolovi. Tests have shown that most of it came from Government Mountain, northwest of Flagstaff.

The appearance of Jeddito Yellow Ware, a prehistoric pottery type made on the Hopi mesas, was also a strong clue that trading was taking place. Some pottery was made locally, but the scarcity of fuelwood around Homolovi, needed for firing pots, led to the importation of the yellow wares. Adams believes that cotton grown by Homolovians was probably the medium of exchange.

A significant clue to maintaining the growing population at Homolovi was the development of beliefs about kachinas, which are the spiritual beings the Hopi beseech during religious ceremonies and dances to bring rain and prosperity. Kachina images pecked onto patinated boulders can be found all around Homolovi. Adams theorizes that the kachina rituals were part of an open, public system used to enhance cooperation among the many groups that came together here.

As we left Homolovi at dusk that December day, the full moon was ballooning over Ives Mesa. The Hopi call it Kyamuya, signaling the time to make prayer feathers in the kivas so that all living things will prosper and have a long, healthy life. I thought of Nevayaktewa, the farmer, who every day walks eight miles to his cornfields. Certainly, prayers for prosperity would hold great importance to him. I remembered, too, that winter is the time when the Hopi elders traditionally tell stories to their young people; when Austin Nevayaktewa will tell his grandchildren those things they need to know.

Author's Note: The dedication of Homolovi Ruins State Park is scheduled for March 9, 1991, to coincide with observation of Arizona Archaeology Week. For more information on dates and planned events, contact the Arizona State Parks Department at (602) 542-4174 or Homolovi Ruins State Park at (602) 289-4106.

Flagstaff-based author Rose Houk is a former newspaper reporter and editor who also spent some time as a naturalist at Grand Canyon National Park. She writes primarily about archeology and natural history.

Michael Collier, a Flagstaff physician, is also a pilot, writer, and photographer. His aerial photography illustrated "Arizona from a Thousand Feet" in the December 1990 issue of Arizona Highways.