J'ewkes.] 482 [Jaii. 2, 
The cereinonials of a secret nature opened with the manufac- 
ture of the medicine, but before we give a detailed account of the 
waj' it was made it may be well to consider the extension of a 
word which has been rather loosely used in descriptions of primi- 
tive ceremonial. In the manufacture of the medicine charm an 
altar was employed. 
The word altar is used in my descri|)tions of the Tusayan ritual 
in at least two apparently different meanings so that it may 
be well to clearly define their differences. The one essential 
object of altars of the first kind, however modified, is the presence 
of one or more venerated society badges or palladia called the 
tiponi. In the second group this object is commonly missing. 
TiPONi Altars. 
This kind of altar always has a tiponi with varying accessories 
consisting of meal or sand figures with or without an upright 
frame or fetishes. The essential object, the tiponi, is commonly 
placed to the west of the sipapu or back of the sand mosaic or 
meal-picture, with fetishes, stone implements, and sacred objects of 
different kinds varying with the society. The reredos of each 
society has characteristic sj^mbolic paintings. I have elsewhere 
figured these accessories of the Lalakonti, Jfamzrauti, 
Snake, Flute, Antelope, and JS^iman Katcina. This kind of 
altar is much more complicated than the second kind in 
which the six radial direction lines are the characteristic. The 
customary way to place the society palladium {tiponi^) in posi- 
tion is to draw on the floor of the room six radiating lines of 
sacred meal corresponding to the six cardinal directions. In the 
simplest form of the first kind of altar there are no other acces- 
sories, simply a tiponi placed at the junction of the lines of meal. 
' The tiponi or " mother " is in essentials an ear of corn with accompanying ap- 
pendages and wrappings. I limit the term as the Hopi do to the society palladium 
or badge. Every initiated person has an ear of corn which is called the " mother " 
and is comparable with the tiponi, iTut in the restricted sense in which the word is 
used by the Tusayan Indians we cannot say that every one has a tiponi. While 1 
can readily believe, as stated by Mrs. Stevenson, that " a yaya (mother) is presented 
by the theurgist to each official member " of the society, I am not sure that the form 
of the yayu called by the Sia the larriko is not limited to the theurgist himself. 
