262 DESIGNS ON HOPI POTTERY [BTH. ANN. 33 
is called Ahiil, and the symbolism of his mask, especially feathers 
attached to the head, suggests some of the Sikyatki designs con- 
sidered above. 
Recrancuniar Figures RepreseNTING SHRINES 
The word pahoki, prayer-stick house or “shrine,” is applied by the 
modern Hopi to the receptacle, commonly a ring of stones, in which 
prayer offerings are deposited, and receives its name from the special 
supernatural personage worshiped. These shrines are regarded as 
sacred by the Hopi and are particularly numerous in the neighbor- 
hood of the Hopi mesas.t| They are ordinarily simply rude inclo- 
sures made of stones or flat stone slabs set on edge, forming boxes, 
which may either be closed or open on one side. The simplest pic- 
tographic representation of such a shrine is the same as that of a 
house, or a circular or rectangular figure. A similar design is drawn 
in meal on the floor of the kiva or traced with the same material on 
the open plaza when the priest wishes to represent a house or shrine. 
Elaborate pictures made of different colored sands to represent gods 
are often inclosed by encircling lines, the whole called a house of 
the gods. Thus the sand picture on the Antelope altar of the Snake 
dance is called the house of the rain-cloud beings.? When reptiles 
are washed on the ninth day of the Snake dance they are said to be 
thrown into the house, a sand picture of the mountain lion. It is 
customary to make in some ceremonies not only a picture of the god 
worshiped, but also a representation of his or her house. The custom 
of adding a picture of a shrine to that of the supernatural can be seen 
by examining a series of pictures of Hopi kachinas. Here the shrine 
is a rain-cloud symbol introduced to show that the house of the 
kachina represented is a rain cloud. 
Sikyatki bowls decorated with figures identified as supernaturals 
often bear accompanying designs which may, from comparative 
reasoning, be interpreted as shrines of the supernatural being de- 
picted. They have at times a form not unlike that of certain sand 
pictures, as in the case of the curved figure accompanying a highly 
conventionalized plumed serpent. A great variety of figures of this 
kind are found on Sikyatki bowls,* and often instead of being a 
rectangular figure they may be elongated more like a prayer offering. 
The rectangular figure that accompanies a representation of a 
great horned serpent (fig. 100) may be interpreted as the shrine 
house of that monster, and it is to be mentioned that this shrine ap- 
pears to be surrounded by radial lines representing curved sticks 
1Wewkes, Hopi Shrines Near the Bast Mesa, Arizona, pp. 346—375. 
2The sand picture made by the Antelope priest is regarded as a house of the rain gods 
depicted upon it. 
% Seventeenth Ann, Rept. Bur. Amer. Ethn., pt. 2. 
