990 TUSAYAN FLUTE AND SNAKE CEREMONIES [ETH. ANN. 19 
and have the same names. Just in front of the figurines, one on each 
side, were placed short, thick, upright sticks, rounded at the top and 
pierced with holes, from which, like pins from a cushion, projected 
small rods tipped with flaring ends painted in several colors, repre- 
senting flowers. These sticks correspond to the mounds of sand, coy- 
ered with meal, of other Flute altars, and are called talasteomos. The 
mounds admit of the following explanation: In many stories of the ori- 
ein of societies of priests which took place in the underworld, the first 
members are represented as erecting their altars before the ‘flower 
mound” of Mitiyitwi. This was the case of the Flute youth and 
VE OAR, OF Bs 
OY BD OI9 OE. 

Fic. 43—Altar of the Macilefiya at Mishongnovi. 
Flute maid, progenitors of the Flute Society. These mounds, now 
erected on earth before the figurine of Miiiyinwit in the Flute cham- 
bers, symbolize the ancestral mounds of the underworld, the wooden 
objects inserted in them representing flowers. 
The interval between the uprights of the reredos was occupied by a 
number of zigzag sticks or rods (symbolic of lightning), cornstalks, 
and other objects. 
These rods and sticks, as well as the uprights themselves, were held 
vertically by a ridge of sand on the floor. From the middle of this 
ridge, half way from each end and at right angles to the altar, there 
