The Hopi Tribe is one of a number of Puebloan communities that claim ancestral ties to Mesa Verde. Hopi oral tradition recounts migrations to and from a village to the northeast they call Salapa, thought by some to be Mesa Verde’s Spruce Tree House. And in fact, just a short distance from Spruce Tree House is a rock art panel interpreted by the Hopi Badger Clan as their migration story.

On the east flank of the Hopi tribe’s First Mesa in northeast Arizona lie the ruins of another ancient village: Sikyatki (Yellow House). According to Hopi accounts, the site was abandoned and destroyed around 1500 in a dispute with the neighboring Walpi, whose descendants still reside on top of First Mesa.

On July 24,1895, Bureau of American Ethnology archaeologist Jesse Walter Fewkes and a crew that included ten hired Hopi workmen, began excavating the ruins of Sikyatki. Fewkes’s assignment was to amass as large a collection as possible of objects pertaining to pueblo life. The ruin was described as extensive, and the ground was strewn with finely decorated brown and yellow polychrome pottery shards.

A number of curious potters from neighboring villages visited the site during the excavation. Fewkes reported that among them was "the best potter of East Mesa, an intelligent woman from Hano named Nampio." In fact, he was probably referring to Nampeyo, the famous Hopi potter known today for her Sikyatki-revival pottery. Although Nampeyo was clearly making innovative pottery before the 1895 excavation, there is no question that the extraordinary pottery from Sikyatki influenced her work after 1895.

Most artifacts from Fewkes’s excavation were destined for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. One was not. Fewkes gave a single, magnificent jar to two personal friends—a married couple living in the southwest—in whose family it has remained to this day. The flying saucer–shaped yellow clay jar is decorated with elaborate black and red motifs and ornamentation. It is currently on loan to the Colorado Historical Society (IL.2004.13) and may be seen in the Ancient Voices exhibit. The lender wishes to remain anonymous.

BY JAMES S. PETERSON, Curatorial assistant, Department of Material Culture