n tradition as occupants of this vicinity in connection with
these flocks and herds, in the distribution of which they gave much
undesirable assistance by driving off the larger portion to their own
haunts.

The missionaries selected Awatubi, Walpi, and Shumopavi as the sites for
their mission buildings, and at once, it is said, began to introduce a
system of enforced labor. The memory of the mission period is held in
great detestation, and the onerous toil the priests imposed is still
adverted to as the principal grievance. Heavy pine timbers, many of
which are now pointed out in the kiva roofs, of from 15 to 20 feet in
length and a foot or more in diameter, were cut at the San Francisco
Mountain, and gangs of men were compelled to carry and drag them to the
building sites, where they were used as house beams. This necessitated
prodigious toil, for the distance by trail is a hundred miles, most of
the way over a rough and difficult country. The Spaniards are said to
have employed a few ox teams in this labor, but the heaviest share was
performed by the impressed Hopituh, who were driven in gangs by the
Spanish soldiers, and any who refused to work were confined in a prison
house and starved into submission.

The "men with the long robes," as the missionaries were called, are said
to have lived among these people for a long time, but no trace of their
individuality survives in tradition.

Possibly the Spanish missionaries may have striven to effect some social
improvement among these people, and by the adoption of some harsh
measures incurred the jealous anger of the chiefs. But the system of
labor they enforced was regarded, perhaps justly, as the introduction of
serfdom, such as then prevailed in the larger communities in the Rio
Grande valleys. Perhaps tradition belies them; but there are many
stories of their evil, sensual lives--assertions that they violated
women, and held many of the young girls at their mission houses, not as
pupils, but as concubines.

[Illustration: Plate VI. Adobe fragment in Awatubi.]

In any case, these hapless monks were engaged in a perilous mission in
seeking to supplant the primitive faith of the Tusayan, for among the
native priests they encountered prejudices even as violent as their own.
With too great zeal they prohibited the sacred dances, the votive
offerings to the nature-deities, and similar public observances, and
strove to suppress the secret rites and abolish the relig