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The many coincidences between this figure and that used in the ceremonials of the September moon, called Lalakonti, would seem to show that in both instances it was intended to represent the same mythic being. There is, however, another aspect of this question which is of interest.
In the personification of the Corn-maid by symbolic figures, such as graven images, pictures, and the like, in secret rites, the style of coiffure worn by the maidens is common, as I have elsewhere shown in the descriptions of the ceremonials known as the Flute, Lalakonti, Mamzrauti, Palülükoñti, and others.
On each lower corner representations of feathered strings, called in the modern ritual nakwákwoci, are appended. The figure is represented as kneeling, and the four parallel lines are possibly comparable with the prayer-sticks placed in the belt of the Germ goddess on the Lalakonti altar.
However indecisive the last-mentioned picture may be in regard to the coiffure of the ancient Sikyatki women, plate CXXIX, a, affords still more conclusive evidence. This picture represents a woman of remarkable form which, from likenesses to figures at present made in sand on an altar in the Lalakonti ceremony, I have no hesitation in ascribing to the Corn-maid.
Among these the most beautiful are small cephalopods called by the Hopi, koaitcoko. Among the many sacred objects in the tiponi baskets of the Lalakonti society, as described in my account of the unwrapping of that fetish, there was a specimen of this ammonite; that the shell was preserved in this sacred bundle is sufficient proof that it is highly venerated.
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