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.
Although we have no means of knowing how long a period has elapsed since the occupancy and abandonment of Sikyatki, we are reasonably sure that objects taken from it are purely aboriginal in character and antedate the inception of European influence. It is certain, however, that the Sikyatki people lived long enough in that pueblo to develop a ceramic art essentially peculiar to Tusayan.
The commonly accepted definition of Sikyatki is "yellow house" (_sikya_, yellow; _ki_, house). One of the most reliable chiefs of Walpi, however, called my attention to the fact that the hills in the locality were more or less parallel, and that there might be a relationship between the parallel valleys and the name. The application of the term "yellow" would not seem to be very appropriate so far as it is distinctive of the general color of the pueblo. The neighboring spring, however, contains water which after standing some time has a yellowish tinge, and it was not unusual to name pueblos from the color of the adjacent water or from some peculiarity of the spring, which was one of the most potent factors in the determination of the site of a village. Although the name may also refer to a cardinal point, a method of nomenclature followed in some regions of the Southwest, if such were the case in regard to Sikyatki it would be exceptional in Tusayan.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
The origin of the pueblo settlement at Sikyatki is doubtful, but as I have shown in my enumeration of the clans of Walpi, the Kokop (Firewood) and the Isauûh (Coyote) phratries which lived there are supposed to have come into Tusayan from the far east or the valley of the Rio Grande. The former phratry is not regarded as one of the earliest arrivals in Tusayan, for when its members arrived at Walpi they found living there the Flute, Snake, and Water-house phratries. It is highly probable that the Firewood, or as they are sometimes called the Fire, people, once lived in the round pueblo known as Fire-house, and as the form of this ruin is exceptional in Tusayan, and highly characteristic of the region east of this province, there is archeological evidence of the eastern origin of the Fire people. Perhaps the most intelligent folklorist of the Kokop people was Nasyuñweve, who died a few years ago--unfortunately before I had been able to record all the traditions which he knew concerning his ancestors. At the present day Katci, his successor[100] in these sacerdotal duties in the Antelope-Snake mysteries, claims that his people formerly occupied Sikyatki, and indeed the contiguous fields are still cultivated by members of that phratry.