480 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1926 
father and the mother, the lightning and the earth, the two sexes 
without whose union life is impossible. 
The ceremonials performed about the Katcina altars admit of the 
same interpretation, and it remains for me to indicate their nature 
and bearing on the above conclusions. 
ALTAR OF ORAIBI POWALAWU 
A sand picture of the great paternal deity, Tawa, the Sun, has 
never been reported from any Tusayan altar except Oraibi. Such a 
picture is made in Powalawu, the opening ceremony of Powamu 
and described by Mr. Voth. 
The altar is made on the floor of the kiva, and is placed on a 
layer of valley sand on which are made four concentric zones of 
different colored sands surrounding a middle circle of white sand 
on which is drawn a stellate figure of the sun. These different con- 
centric zones are yellow, green, red, and white, beginning with the 
smallest, and ending with a peripheral in white. They are separated 
by black lines, and a quartz crystal* to which a string, with attached 
feather, is tied, is placed in the middle of the picture of the sun. A 
quadrant apart on the periphery of the picture, beyond the white 
zone, there are four arrow-shaped projections, colored yellow, green, 
red, and white, following a circuit with the center of the whole sand 
painting on the left hand. These, like the zones, are made of differ- 
ently colored sands and are rimmed with black. Across the yellow 
arrow-headed figure extend several parallel red lines of sand}; across 
the green, white; across the red, yellow; and across the white, green. 
On the supposition that the inner figure represents the sun, the 
four peripheral arrow-shaped appendages are supposed to represent 
heads of the lightning snakes of the four cardinal points, north, 
west, south, and east, as their colors indicate.?® 
The accessories used in the celebration of the Powalawu are ar- 
ranged on the floor radially about this sand picture, and fall into 
two groups, one on lines in continuation of the rays of the central 
figure, the others on intermediary lines. There are, therefore, four 
sets of both groups alternating with each other. 
The objects which form a single group of the former in this 
quaternary arrangement are as follows: A yellow reed, a paho- 
*4In the same way that I have compared the Little War Gods and the Germ Maids of 
Katcina altars we might also compare the male and female figures of the flute altars 
which we know from variants. The same will be possible with the cultus hero and his 
female double of Lalakontu, Mamzrauti, etc. There is a striking morphological identity 
in many altars of different societies. 
*A quartz crystal is used to deflect the light of the sun into the medicine bowl in 
Niman Katcina. Journ, Amer. Ethnol. and Archeol., Vol. II, No. 1. 
% Similar projections at intervals a quadrant apart are common on symbols of the sun, 
and I have found them on ancient pottery from Homolobi. The arrow-headed appendages 
are not, as far as I know, found in any other instance of paleography. 
