All the water used
in these villages, except such as is caught during showers in the
basin-like water pockets of the mesa top, is laboriously brought up
these trails in large earthenware canteens slung over the backs of the
women.
Supplies of every kind, provisions, harvested crops, fuel, etc., are
brought up these steep trails, and often from a distance of several
miles, yet these conservative people tenaciously cling to the
inconvenient situation selected by their fathers long after the
necessity for so doing has passed away. At present no argument of
convenience or comfort seems sufficient to induce them to abandon their
homes on the rocky heights and build near the water supply and the
fields on which they depend for subsistence.
One of the trails referred to in the description of Hano has been
converted into a wagon road, as has been already described. The Indians
preferred to expend the enormous amount of labor necessary to convert
this bridle path into a wagon road in order slightly to overcome the
inconvenience of transporting every necessary to the mesa upon their own
backs or by the assistance of burros. This concession to modern ideas is
at best but a poor substitute for the convenience of homes built in the
lower valleys.
[Illustration: Fig. 9. Mashongnavi and Shupaulovi from Shumopavi.]
MASHONGNAVI.
Mashongnavi, situated on the summit of a rocky knoll, is a compact
though irregular village, and the manner in which it conforms to the
general outline of the available ground is shown on the plan.
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