Beneath the suspended calabashes was placed a small table containing piles of tortillas and calabashes of masa and water. In carrying out this ceremony it is essential that everything used in it be perfectly fresh and new; the leaves, sticks, bejuco, and jabin must be freshly cut, and the masa, _sikil_, _balchè_, and even the calabashes must be freshly made. The masa was taken from the large to the small shed, where the priest and several male members of the family sat around it. After flattening out a small ball of the masa the priest placed it on a square of plantain leaves and poured over it a little _sikil_ (a thin paste made of ground pumpkin seed and water). Then the next man flattened out a piece of masa, which he placed over the _sikil,_ and the process was continued until a cake was formed containing 5 to 13 alternating layers of masa and _sikil_. On top of each cake, as it was completed, the priest traced with his forefinger a cross surrounded with holes; these were first partly filled with _balchè_, which was allowed to soak into the cake, after which they were filled completely with _sikil_, whereupon the whole cake was carefully tied up in plantain leaf, with an outer covering of palm leaf (fig. 12). These cakes are known as _tutiua_; their number is generally gauged by the number of participants in the ceremony. When _sikil_ is not available, a paste of ground black beans is used; in this case the cakes are known as _buliua_ (Maya _bul_, "bean"; _ua_, "bread"). The priest next made a deep depression in a ball of masa about the size of a tennis ball, which he filled with _sikil_, covering it with the masa, so as to leave a ball of masa with a core of _sikil_. [Illustration: FIG. 13.--Sacrificing a turkey at the Cha chac ceremony.]