d never catch them. There was
a skirmish at Oraibi, too, over the stealing of girls.

"One Walpi man in the fields was unable to keep them from taking his two
girls, so he just had to give them up and he never saw them again. The
poor father had few relations and had to go from house to house asking
for food, for he was so grieved that he could never get along after
that, but just was always worrying about his girls, and he died in less
than a year.

"After a long time other Spaniards came, and a young man who was down
below the mesa, practicing for a race before sunrise, saw them and ran
back and got enough men to go down and capture them. They kept their
prisoners fastened in a room for a while and then the older men decided
that they would not let them be killed although some wanted to; so they
took them to some houses below the mesa--the place is still called
Spanish Seat--and kept them there.

"After a few weeks they let them go away. Some Hopi men were bribed to
get some girls to go down off the mesa that day so these Spaniards could
take them away with them.

"They asked me to go and a girl friend of mine, but we would not go. One
girl did go, for a famine was beginning and this poor girl thought she
was being taken to visit with the Zunis and would be better off there.
Nobody ever got track of her again.

"Once food was so scarce that I had to go with my mother and sister to
Second Mesa, and we stayed there with our clan relations till food was
scarce, and then we went to Oraibi and stayed with our clan relations
there until summer. We could go back to Walpi then because corn and
melons were growing again; but we left my sister because she had married
there.

"This was a two-year famine and almost everybody left Walpi and wandered
from village to village, living wherever they could get food. There had
been more rain and better crops in some of the other places.

"Ever since then some Walpi people have scattered among other villages,
where they married, and some went as far as the Rio Grande villages, and
some perished on the way.

"Again after many years, Spaniards came, stealing corn, and this time
they went through the houses and stole whatever they wanted. They took
away ceremonial and sacred things, that was the worst. And when they
left, they went northeast, past where Tom's store is now.

"No, there were never any Spanish missionaries living in Walpi; those
who tell of priests living here are mi