_a_, Tunwup, or Sun Katcina; _as_, Aspergill; _b_, Tcuelawu; _c_, Corn mound; _co_, Cotokinungwu; _g_, Gourd; _h_, Planting stick; _l_, Lightning symbols; _m_, Ears of maize; _mb_, Medicine bowl; _p_, Prayer sticks; _ph_, God of war; _pm_, Prayer meal; _ps_, Prayer sticks in basket; _pt_, Gourd (netted) for sacred water; _r_, Rattles; _rc_, Rain _clouds_; _sc_, Sun emblems; _t_, Tiponi.] [Illustration: PLATE 2 KATCINA ALTAR AT ORAIBI] Our knowledge of Katcina altars of the Rio Grande in the other pueblos is very scanty, owing largely to the exclusion of ethnologists from the kivas. Katcina dances in the open plazas are repeatedly figured but the secret rites and accompanying altars, if any, are not known. In the following pages the author presents a morphological study of the four known Katcina altars of Hopi. The illustrations of the most complex, that of Oraibi, have been taken from the excellent memoir of Voth on the Powamu of that pueblo; the others are from personal studies made in 1890-1895. The structure of the Oraibi Katcina altar is as follows: The reredos consists of two upright wooden slats united above by a crosspiece which in the illustration (pl. 2) is surmounted by a row of four segments of circles with rain cloud pictures representing the four directions, and colored with appropriate pigments, beginning with yellow or north at the right. The decoration of the crosspiece is obscure, but on the uprights there are figures recalling sprouting vegetation, and circles with differently colored quadrants. Two idols, probably of wood, stand between the vertical slats of the altar, filling nearly the whole space. That on the left evidently represents the Sky God (Cotokinungwu) for it has a conical apex to the head, a painted chin, and near its left hand stands a wooden slat of zigzag form, a prescribed symbol of lightning.[3] This image has several short parallel marks of different colors on the body, and wears horsehair, stained red, about the loins. The other figurine wears a coronet with triangular-shaped rain cloud symbols, which remind one of the headdress of the Lakonemana, a tutelary goddess of the woman’s society, the Lalakontu, whose ceremonials in September have been described elsewhere.[4] The two vertical wooden slats, one on each side of the uprights, bear pictures of the same personage, probably Tunwupkatcina, on whose head is a fan-shaped crest of feathers. On each side the head has a horn, at the extremity of which hangs a symbolic feather. The human figures have characteristic markings on their foreheads, and their bodies are black, dotted with white spots. There is no mistaking the symbolism of the remaining idol standing at the right of the altar, as an image of Puukonhoya, the “Little War God,” whose characteristic features are the parallel marks on the body, and the weapons of war in his hands.