The tiponi is to the Hopi what the cross is to the devout Catholic. No altar is complete without it. Altars are often set up with a substitute for a tiponi, but all recognize its insufficiency. Tiponis vary, that of the Antelope Society being a bunch of long feathers (see the photograph in the chapter on the "Snake Dance"), while that of the Soyal ceremony is of a quartz crystal inserted into a cylindrical-shaped vessel of cottonwood root. In the Lelentu and Lalakonti ceremonies part of the rites consist in an unwrapping of the tiponis. In both of them either kernels of corn or other seeds formed essential parts. Dr. Fewkes says: "From chiefs of other societies it has been learned that their tiponis likewise contained corn, either in grains or on the ear. Although from this information one is not justified in concluding that all tiponis contain corn, it is probably true with one or two exceptions. The tiponi is called the "mother," and an ear of corn given to a novice has the same name. There is nothing more precious to an agricultural people than seed, and we may well imagine that during the early Hopi migrations the danger of losing it may have led to every precaution for its safety. Thus it may have happened that it was wrapped in the tiponi and given to the chief to guard with all care as a most precious heritage. In this manner it became a mere symbol, and as such it persists to-day." Whenever ceremonies are about to take place in the kivas the chief priest puts in place on the ladder-poles or near the hatchway of each participating kiva a sign of the fact, called the natchi. This I have later described on the Snake and Antelope kivas. At the Soyal ceremony on the Kwan (Agave) kiva, the natchi consisted of a bent stick, to which were fastened six feathers, representing the Hopi six world-quarters. For the north, a yellow feather of the flycatcher or warbler; for the west, a blue feather of the bluebird; for the south, a red feather of the parrot; for the east, a black-and-white feather of the magpie; for the northeast (above), a black feather of the hepatic tanager; and for the southwest (below), a feather from an unknown source and called _toposhkwa_, representing different colors. The natchis of two of the kivas in the New Fire ceremony held in Walpi in 1898 were sticks, about a foot long, to the ends of which bundles of hawk feathers were attached. At another kiva it was an agave stalk, at one end of which were attached several crane feathers and a circlet of corn husks. A natchi used later by another society consisted of a cap-shaped object of basketry, to which were attached two small whitened gourds in imitation of horns.