is record time for the trip, when one has no obstacles in the way of atonements or punishments to work off en-route.  Supela promised this, and the people looked for its fulfillment.  Four days after Supela’s death the long drouth was broken by a terrific rain storm accompanied by heavy thunder and lightning.  Did the Hopi show astonishment?  On the contrary they were aglow with satisfaction and exchanged felicitations on the dramatic assurance of Supela’s having “gotten through” in four days.  The most wonderful eulogy possible!

It is indicated, in the story of Supela, that the Hopi believe that only the “pure in heart,” so to speak, go straight to the abode of the spirits, whereas some may have to take much longer because of atonements or punishments for misdeeds.  Their basis for this lies in a tradition regarding the visit of a Hopi youth to the underworld and his return to the earth with an account of having passed on the way many suffering individuals engaged in painful pursuits and unable to go on until the gods decreed they had suffered enough.  He had also seen a great smoke arising from a pit where the hopelessly wicked were totally burned up.  He was told to go back to his people and explain all these things and tell them to make many pahos (prayer-sticks) and live straight and the good spirits could be depended upon to help them with rain and germination.  Voth records[23] two variants of this legend.

[Footnote 23:  Voth, H.R., Op. cit, pp. 109-119 (A journey to the skeleton house).]

=Some Migration Myths=

The migration myths of the various clans are entirely too numerous and too lengthy to be in their entirety included here.  Every clan has its own, and even today keeps the story green in the minds of its children and celebrates its chief events, including arrival in Hopiland, with suitable ceremony.

We are told that when all mankind came through the sipapu from the underworld, the various kinds of people were gathered together and given each a separate speech or language by the mocking bird, “who can talk every way.”  Then each group was given a path and started on its way by the Twin War Gods and their mother, the Spider Woman.

The Hopi were taught how to build stone houses, and then the various clans dispersed, going separate ways.  And after many many generations they arrived at their present destination from all directions and at different times.  They brought corn with them from the underworld.

It is generally agreed that the Snake people were the first to occupy the Tusayan region.

There are many variations in the migration myths of the Snake people, but the most colorful version the writer has encountered is the one given to A.M.  Stephen, fifty years ago, by the then oldest member of the Snake fraternity.  A picturesque extract only is given here.

It begins:  “At the general dispersal, my people lived in snake skins, each family occupying a separate snake-skin bag, and all were hung on the end of a rainbow, which swung around until the end touched Navajo Mountain, where the bags dropped from it; and wherever their bags dropped, there was their house.  After they arranged their bags they came out from them as men and women, and they then built a stone house which had five sides.