k evidently came from a distance. A number of metates
and mullers were found in the graves at Sikyatki. One of the best of
the latter is shown in plate CLXX. These stones are of different
degrees of fineness, and vary from simple triangular slabs of fine
sandstone to very coarse lava. The specimen figured has depressions on
the sides to facilitate handling.[157]

Perhaps the most significant of all the worked stones found in the
Sikyatki cemeteries were the flat slabs the edges of which near the
surface of the soil marked the presence of the graves. These slabs may
be termed headstones, but they have a far different meaning from those
that bear the name of the deceased with which we are most familiar,
for when they have any marking on their faces, it is not a totem of
the dead, but a symbol of the rain-cloud, which is connected with
ancestor worship.

One of the best of these mortuary slabs has its edge cut in such a way
as to give it a terraced outline, and on one face a similar terrace is
drawn in black pigment. These figures are symbols of rain-clouds, and
the interpretation of the use of this design in graves is as follows:

The dead, according to current Tusayan thought, become rain-cloud
gods, or powerful intercessors with those deities which cause or send
the rains. Hence, the religious society to which the deceased
belonged, and the members of the clan who survive, place in the
mortuary bowls, or in the left hand of their friend, the paho or
prayer emblem for rain; hence, also, in prayers at interment they
address the breath body of the dead as a _katcina_, or rain god. These
_katcinas_, as divinized ancestors, are supposed to return to the
villages and receive prayers for rain. In strict accord with this
conception the rain-cloud symbol is placed, in some instances, on the
slab of rock in the graves of the dead at Sikyatki. It proves to me
that the cult of ancestor worship, and the conception that the dead
have power to bring needed rain, were recognized in Sikyatki when the
pueblo was in its prime. One of these slabs is perforated by a small
hole, an important fact, but one for which I have only a fanciful
explanation, namely, to allow the escape of the breath body. Elsewhere
I have found many instances of perforated mortuary stone slabs, which
will be considered in a report of my excavations in 1896.

OBSIDIAN

Many fragments of obsidian, varying in size, are found strewn over the
surface of the major