The day previous to the ceremony the men of the family prepared the _pib_, an oblong hole in the ground, in which the various corn offerings were to be baked, while during the night the women were busy grinding corn to make masa (a thick paste of ground maize) and pumpkin seeds to make _sikil_. Very early in the morning of the day of the ceremony the priest with his assistant arrived at the house of the giver. This priest called himself _men_, but was called by the owner a _chac_, while the Chichanha priest called himself an _ah kin_. The Indians chose a site in the midst of a grove of large trees. After clearing away the undergrowth they swept clean a circular space about 25 feet in diameter. In this they proceeded to erect two rude huts, one 12 feet the other 6 feet square; both were thatched with huano leaf, and the floor of the smaller hut was covered with wild plantain leaves. In the center of the larger hut was erected a rough altar 6 by 4 feet and 4 feet 6 inches high, built of sticks bound together with bejuco (fig. 11). The central part of this altar was covered by an arch of "jabin" branches with the leaves still attached. About a dozen small calabashes in their ring supports (Maya _chuyub_) were placed on the altar, and three more were hung to a string passing from the side of the shed to a post a few yards away. The masa prepared the previous night was then brought out in four large calabashes, two of these being placed under the altar and two on top of it; a large calabash of _sikil_ and one of water were also placed on the altar and a jar of _balchè_ (a drink made of fermented honey in which is soaked the bark of a tree) beneath it. [Illustration: FIG. 12.--Priest tracing cross on cake and filling it in with sikil.]