FEWKES] ' THE ALOSAKA SHRINE 619 
ton was in a sitting posture, with the hand on the breast, the prayer- 
stick may thus have been held at the time of burial. Our success 
in finding places of interment on all sides of Sikyatki, irrespective of 
direction, leads me to suspect that further investigation of the sand- 
dunes north of Awatobi will reveal graves at that point. 
I have already called attention to the great abundance of charred 
corn found in the rooms north of the mission. Renewed work in this 
quarter revealed still greater quantities of this corn stacked in piles, 
sometimes filling the entire side of a room. Evidently, as I have else- 
where shown, the row of rooms at this part of the ruin were burned 
with all their contents. The corn was not removed from the granaries, 
as it would have been if the place had been gradually abandoned. 
When an Indian burns stored corn in such quantities as were found at 
Awatobi we can not believe he was bent on pillage, and it is an 
instructive fact that thus far no stacked corn has been found in the 
western or most ancient section of Awatobi. 
SHRINES 
Although Awatobi was destroyed almost two centuries ago, the 
shrines of the old pueblo were used for many years afterward, and are 
even now frequented by some of the Mishoninovi priests. In one of 
these ancient depositories two wooden figurines sat in state up to within 
a few years ago. 
This shrine lies below the ruins of the mission, among the bowlders 
on the side of the cliff, about fifty feet from the edge of the mesa, and 
is formed in an eroded cavity in the side of a bowlder of unusual size. 
A rude wall had been built before this recess, which opened to the 
east, and apparently the orifice was closed with logs, which have now 
fallen in. The present appearance of this shrine is shown in the 
accompanying illustration (figure 257). 
In former times two wooden idols, called the Alosaka, were kept in 
this crypt, in much the same manner as the Dawn Maid is now sealed 
up by the Walpians, when not used in the New-fire ceremony, as I have 
described in my account of Naacnaiya.! Mr Thomas V. Keam, not 
knowing that the Awatobi idols were still used in the Mishoninovi 
ritual, had removed them to his residence, but when this was known a 
large number of priests begged him to return them, saying that they 
were still used in religious exercises. With that consideration which 
he has always shown to the Indians, Mr Keam allowed the priests to 
take the images of Alosaka. The figurines were this time carried to 
Mishoninovi, the priests sprinkling a line of meal along the trail over 
which they carried them. The two idols” have not been seen by white 
1 Journal of American Folk-lore, vol. vy, No. xviii, 1892. 
2 There is a rude sketch of these two idols of Alosaka in the archives of the Hemenway Expedition. 
They represent figurines about 4 feet tall, with two horns on the head not unlike those of the Tewan 
clowns or gluttons called Parakyami. As so little is known of the Mishoninovi ritual, the rites in 
which they are used are at present inexplicable. 
