FEWKES] A SHRINE AT AWATOBL 613 
below it was another flat stone which was perforated by a rectangular 
hole just large enough to admit the hand and forearm. This second 
slab was found to cover a stone box, the sides of which were formed 
of stone slabs about 24 feet square. On the inner faces of the upright 
slabs rain-cloud symbols were painted. These symbols were of terrace 
form, in different colors outlined with black lines. One of the stones 
bore a yellow figure, another a red, and a third white. The color of the 
fourth was not determinable, but evidently, from its position relatively 
to the others, was once green. This arrangement corresponds with 
the present ceremonial assignment of colors to the cardinal points, or 
at least the north and south, as at the present time, were yellow and 
red, respectively, and presumably the white and green were on the east 
and west sides of the cist. The colors are still fairly bright and may 
be seen in the restoration of this shrine now in the National Museum. 
There was no stone floor to this shrine, but within it were found 
fragments of prayer-plumes or pahos painted green, but so decayed 
that, when exposed to sunlight, some of them fell into dust. There 
were likewise fragments of green carbonate of copper and kaolin, a 
yellow ocher, and considerable vegetal matter mixed with the sand. 
All these facts tend to the belief that this crypt was an ancient shrine 
in the floor of a chamber which may have been a kiva. 
The position of this room with a shrine in the middle of the court is 
interesting in comparison with that of similar shrines in some of the 
modern Hopi pueblos. Shrines occupy the same relative position in 
Sichomovi, Hano, Shipaulovi, and elsewhere, and within them sacred 
prayer-offerings are still deposited on ceremonial occasions. At Walpi, 
in the middle of the plaza, there is a subterranean crypt in which offer- 
ings are often placed, as I have elsewhere described in treating of 
certain ceremonies. This shrine is not visible, for a slab of stone which 
is placed over it lies on a level with the plaza, and is securely luted in 
place with adobe. There are similar subterranean prayer crypts in 
other Tusayan villages.. They represent the traditional opening, or 
sipapu, through which, in Pueblo cosmogony, races crawled to the 
surface of the earth from an underworld. In Awatobi also there is a 
similar shrine, for the deposit of prayer-offerings, almost in the middle 
of a plaza bounded on three sides by the mission, the spur of many- 
storied houses, and the wall with a gateway, while the remaining side 
was formed by the great communal houses of the western part of the 
pueblo. 
While we were taking from their ancient resting places the slabs of 
stone which formed this Awatobi shrine, the workmen reminded me 
how closely it resembled the pahoki used by the katcinas, and when, a 
month later, I witnessed the Nimdn-katcina ceremony at Walpi, and 
accompanied the chief, Intiwa, when he deposited the prayer-sticks in 
that shrine,’ I was again impressed by the similarity of the two, one ina 
1See Journal of American Ethnology and Archeology, vol. 11. 
