338 GAMES OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS _ [erH. ann. 24 
uprights on each side of the figure. On the Mishongnovi Drab Flute 
altar (figure 446) there are two upright logs of wood, rounded at 
the top and pierced with holes, in which are stuck similar flowers. 
Doctor Fewkes, who has figured this altar, says that these logs corre- 
spond with the mounds of sand, covered with meal, of other Flute 
altars, and were called talacteomos.* The sand mounds stuck with 
flowers occur in the altar of the Blue Flute (figure 447) at Mi- 
shongnovi. These sand mounds” should be compared with the sand 
mountains into which the cane tubes are stuck in the Zuni game. 
The Flute altar at Shumopavi (figure 448) has the flower cups on 
upright sticks, as at Oraibi, while on that at Shipaulovi (figure 449) 
they are stuck in sand mounds. Mention has already been made of 
Fie. 448. Flute altar, Hopi Indians, Shumopavi, Arizona; from photograph by Sumner W. 
Matteson, August 31, 1901. 
the gaming-cup flower headdress (figure 569) of the Flute priest at 
Oraibi. The Sohu or Star katcina has similar wooden cups in the 
hair. Dr J. Walter Fewkes ¢ writes: 
The Tusayan Tewa of Hanoki, East mesa, call the January moon D’lop’o, 
wood-cup moon, referring to the e’lo, wooden cups, used by the Tcukuwympkiya 
or clowns, in their ceremonial games. 
« Journal of American Folk-Lore, v. 9, p. 245, 1896. 
> These mounds admit of the following explanation. In many stories of the origin of 
societies. of priests which took place in the under-world, the first members are represented 
as erecting their altars before the ‘“‘ flower mound” of Miiiyinwf. This was the case of 
the Flute youth and maid, progenitors of the Flute Society. These mounds, now erected on 
earth before the figurine of Miiiyinwfi in the Flute chambers, symbolize the ancestral 
mounds of the under-world, the wooden objects inserted in them representing flowers.— 
Journal of American Folk-Lore, v. 9, p. 245, note, 1896. 
¢ In a letter to the author, dated January 27, 1899. 
