The position of this room with a shrine in the middle of the court is interesting in comparison with that of similar shrines in some of the modern Hopi pueblos. Shrines occupy the same relative position in Sichomovi, Hano, Shipaulovi, and elsewhere, and within them sacred prayer-offerings are still deposited on ceremonial occasions. At Walpi, in the middle of the plaza, there is a subterranean crypt in which offerings are often placed, as I have elsewhere described in treating of certain ceremonies. This shrine is not visible, for a slab of stone which is placed over it lies on a level with the plaza, and is securely luted in place with adobe. There are similar subterranean prayer crypts in other Tusayan villages. They represent the traditional opening, or _sipapu_, through which, in Pueblo cosmogony, races crawled to the surface of the earth from an underworld. In Awatobi also there is a similar shrine, for the deposit of prayer-offerings, almost in the middle of a plaza bounded on three sides by the mission, the spur of many-storied houses, and the wall with a gateway, while the remaining side was formed by the great communal houses of the western part of the pueblo. While we were taking from their ancient resting places the slabs of stone which formed this Awatobi shrine, the workmen reminded me how closely it resembled the _pahoki_ used by the _katcinas_, and when, a month later, I witnessed the _Nimán-katcina_ ceremony at Walpi, and accompanied the chief, Intiwa, when he deposited the prayer-sticks in that shrine,[76] I was again impressed by the similarity of the two, one in a ruin deserted two centuries ago, the other still used in the performance of ancient rites, no doubt much older than the overthrow of the great pueblo of Antelope mesa. OLD AWATOBI The western mounds of Awatobi afford satisfactory evidence that they cover the older rooms of the pueblo, and show by their compact form that the ancient village in architectural plan was similar to modern Walpi. They indicate that Awatobi was of pyramidal form, was symmetrical, three or four stories high,[77] without a central plaza, but probably penetrated by narrow courts or passages. No great ceremonial dance could have taken place in the heart of the pueblo, since there was not sufficient space for its celebration, but it must have occurred outside the village, probably in the open space to the east, near where the ruined walls of the mission now stand.