Pocine next went up the kiva ladder, and standing on the upper rung in the sunlight, sought, by means of an angular piece of glass, to reflect a ray of sunlight on the altar, but more especially into the vase of medicine. Four turkey-feathers were then inserted at equal intervals along the base of the serpent effigy, as shown in plate XIX.
After the stone objects had been arranged on the meal picture, a line of meal was drawn along the floor, from the right pole of the ladder to the altar. This line was drawn with great care, particular pains being taken to make it as straight as possible. There was no singing while this occurred, thus differing from the ceremony performed in the other Hano kiva. Four small feathers were placed at intervals along the line of meal. These, in sequence, beginning with the one nearest the ladder, were _sikyatci_, yellow-bird; _kwahu_, eagle or hawk; _koyoña_, turkey; and _pociwû_. Pocine sprinkled pollen along this line or meal trail.
There was then emptied from a canvas bag upon the rectangular meal figures a heterogeneous collection of objects, among which may be mentioned a bundle of gaming reeds, the humerus of a turkey, a whistle made of a turkey bone, and a zigzag wooden framework such as is used by the Hopi to represent lightning.[39]
Back of the altar, leaning against the wall of the kiva, was set upright a wooden slat, notched on both edges and called _tawa-saka_, "sun-ladder." Miniature imitations (plate XX) of this are made in this kiva on the last day of the _Tûñtai_ and deposited in a shrine near Sikyaowatcomo, the site of the early settlement of the Tewa. The _poñya-saka_ or _tawa-saka_ mentioned has not before been seen in any Hopi ceremony, and it may be characteristic of Tewa altars. A notched prayer-stick, called the rain-cloud ladder, is placed in the same shrine at this time. This is characteristic of the Tewa of Tusayan, but is not found in the Hopi _pahos_, with which I am familiar.[40]
[Illustration: AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST No. 8., Vol. 1, PL. XIX Drawn by J. L. RIDGWAY MINIATURE IMITATION OF THE TAWA-SAKA OR SUN-LADDER (About one-half size)]
The reason these prayer-sticks are termed "ladders" is because they have the form of an ancient type of ladder made by notching a log of wood. They are symbols of the ladders by which the Sun is supposed to emerge from his house at sunrise. In the Hopi and Tewa conception the Sun is weary as he withdraws to the south in winter and these ladders are made to aid him in rising, and thus in returning to bless them. More light will doubtless be shed on the significance of the sun-ladder prayer-offerings when we know more of the ceremonies about the _Tûñtai_ altars.