nteresting pahos
similar to those from Sikyatki, which I shall later describe but which
have never before been reported from Awatobi. It was found that one of
these prayer-sticks was laid over the heart of the deceased, and as
the skeleton 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.

[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXI

VASE AND MUGS FROM THE WESTERN MOUNDS OF AWATOBI]

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
elsewhere 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_.[79] Mr Thomas V. Keam