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After the stone for building has been gathered, the builder goes to the chief of the village who gives him four small eagle feathers to which are tied short cotton strings. These, sprinkled with sacred meal, are placed under the four corner stones of the new house. The Hopi call these feathers Nakiva Kwoci, meaning a breath prayer, and the ceremony is addressed to Masauwu.
This is Masauwu, to whom many prayers are said. Then there is the Spider Woman or Earth Goddess, Spouse of the Sun and Mother of the Twin War Gods, prominent in all Hopi mythology. Apart from these and the deified powers of nature, there is another revered group, the Kachinas, spirits of ancestors and some other beings, with powers good and bad.
These people are represented today at Walpi by Katci, whose totem is a picture of Masauwû, the God of Fire. It is said that the home of the Firewood people before they built Sikyatki was at Tebuñki, or Fire-house, a round ruin northeastward from Keam's canyon.
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