Flagstaff, 1932, p. 17.]

According to their traditions the various Hopi clans arrived in Hopiland
at different times and from different directions, but they were all a
kindred people having the same tongue and the same fundamental
traditions.

They did not at first build on the tops of the mesas, but at their feet,
where their corn fields now are, and it was not from fear of the
war-like and aggressive tribes of neighboring Apaches and Navajos that
they later took to the mesas, as we once supposed. A closer acquaintance
with these people brings out the fact that it was not till the Spaniards
had come to them and established Catholic Missions in the late
Seventeenth Century that the Hopi decided to move to the more easily
defended mesa tops for fear of a punitive expedition from the Spaniards
whose priests they had destroyed.

We are told that these desert-dwellers, whose very lives have always
depended upon their little corn fields along the sandy washes that
caught and held summer rains, always challenged new-coming clans to
prove their value as additions to the community, especially as to their
magic for rain-making, for life here was a hardy struggle for existence,
with water as a scarce and precious essential. Among the first
inhabitants was the Snake Clan with its wonderful ceremonies for rain
bringing, as well as other sacred rites. Willingly they accepted the
rituals and various religious ceremonials of new-comers when they showed
their ability to help out with the eternal problem of propitiating the
gods that they conceived to have control over rain, seed germination,
and the fertility and well-being of the race.