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 neighborhood of the Hopi
mesas.[43] They are ordinarily simply rude inclosures made of stones or
flat stone slabs set on edge, forming boxes, which may either be closed
or open on one side. The simplest pictographic 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.[44]
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 depicted. 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,[45]
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 appears to
be surrounded by radial lines representing curved sticks like those
set around sand pictures of the Snake and Antelope altars of the Snake
ceremonies at Walpi.[46]
It is suggested that the figure below the mountain sheep (see fig. 18)
and the circles with dots accompanying the butterfly and bird designs may
also represent shrines. Attention is also called to the fact that each
of the six animal figures of the elaborate butterfly vase (pl. 90, _c_)
is accompanied by a rectangular design representing a shrine in which
feathers are visible.
[Illustration: FIG. 100.—Horned snake with conventionalized shrine.]
The general forms of these shrines, are shown in figures 101 and 102. The
one shown in figure 103 is especially instructive from its association
with a highly conventionalized animal.
[Illustration: FIG. 101.—Shrine.]
[Illustration: FIG. 102.—Shrine.]
The Sikyatki epoch of Hopi ceramics is more closely allied to early
Keresan[47] than to ancient Tanoan, and has many likenesses to modern
Keresan pottery. In fact, none of the distinctive figures have yet been
found on true Tanoan ware in any great numbers. There appear also no
evidences of increments peculiar to the Little Colorado culture center
of which Zuñi is the modern survival; consequently we look in vain for
evidence of early communication between these two centers; possibly
Sikyatki fell before Zuñi attained any prominence in the Little Colorado
area.[48]