w. In their enthusiasm to get the buried treasures they worked
very well so long as objects were found, but became at once
discouraged when relics were not so readily forthcoming and went off
prospecting in other places when our backs were turned. A shout that
anyone had discovered a new grave in the trench was a signal for the
others to stop work, gather around the place, light cigarettes, and
watch me or my collaborators dig out the specimens with knives. This
we always insisted on doing, for the reason that in their haste the
Indians at first often broke fragile pottery after they had discovered
it, and in spite of all precautions several fine jars and bowls were
thus badly damaged by them. It is therefore not too much to say that
most of the vessels which are now entire were dug out of the impacted
sand by Mr Hodge or myself.

No rule could be formulated in regard to the place where the pottery
would occur, and often the first indication of its presence was the
stroke of a shovel on the fragile edge of a vase or bowl. Having once
found a skeleton, or discolored sand which indicated the former
presence of human remains, the probability that burial objects were
near by was almost a certainty, although in several instances even
these signs failed.

A considerable number of the pottery objects had been broken when the
soil and stones were thrown on the corpse at interment. So many were
entire, however, that I do not believe any considerable number were
purposely broken at that time, and none were found with holes made in
them to "kill" or otherwise destroy their utility.

No evidences of cremation--no charred bones of man or animal in or
near the mortuary vessels--were found. From the character of the
objects obtained from neighboring graves, rich and poor were
apparently buried side by side in the same soil. Absolutely no
evidence of Spanish influence was encountered in all the excavations
at Sikyatki--no trace of metal, glass, or other object of Caucasian
manufacture such as I have mentioned as having been taken from the
ruins of Awatobi--thus confirming the native tradition that the
catastrophe of Sikyatki antedated the middle of the sixteenth century,
when the first Spaniards entered the country.

It is remarkable that in Sikyatki we found no fragments of basketry or
cloth, the fame of which among the Pueblo Indians was known to
Coronado before he left Mexico. That the people of Sikyatki wore
cotton kilts no on