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Updated: July 12, 2025
Then with his knife he cut long curling shavings, which he left sticking in a fuzz at the end of each stick. "Oh, I've seen a picture of an Indian making them. They call them 'prayer-sticks," said Yan. "Well, prayer-sticks is mighty good kindlin'" replied the other. He struck a match, and in a minute he had a blazing fire in the middle of the wigwam.
The cemetery northwest of Awatobi, where the soil is sandy and easy to excavate, had been searched by others, and many beautiful objects of pottery taken from it. It was found that one of these prayer-sticks was laid over the heart of the deceased, and as the skeleton was in a sitting posture, with the hand on the breast, the prayer-stick may thus have been held at the time of burial.
The length of these prayer-sticks varies on different ceremonial days, and is determined by the distance of the shrines for which they are intended. The unit of measurement is the length of certain joints of the finger, and the space between the tip of longest digit to certain creases in the palm of the hand.
The prayer-sticks from the shrine in the middle of the rooms in the plaza of the eastern section crumbled into fragments when exposed to the air, but they were apparently small, painted green, and decorated with black spots. On several of the prayer-sticks the impressions of the string and feathers that were formerly attached are still readily seen.
Or are they wise in their handling of the snakes, so that danger is reduced to the vanishing point? No one knows. The writer has made no attempt to go into the very numerous minute details of this ceremony, such as the mixing of the liquid for snake washing, the making of the elaborate sand painting for the Snake altar, or descriptions of various kinds of prayer-sticks and their specific uses.
"Now when the father started his children off, he gave them two prayer-sticks for protection, and he said when they were pursued they must conceal these and never let anyone touch them and they will be protected. "Well, when they got there the clowns were dancing with the Kachinas.
Here the priests sing, accompanied with flutes, the shrine is ceremonially opened and prayer-sticks placed within, and they return to the kiva. At some of the pueblos there is a race up the mesa at dawn on the ninth day, as in other ceremonies.
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.
"They remembered their two prayer-sticks, so they took them out of where they had hidden them in their clothes and they planted them at the two sides of the wash. "And immediately a great whirl wind started up from that place and grew into a great sand storm that blotted out their tracks and made such a thick cloud that their enemies could no longer see them. Then they turned straight home.
Both components are painted green, as is still customary in prayer-sticks of this fraternity. The pahos shown in b, c, and d, are likewise ascribed to the same society, and differ from the first only in length. They represent female sticks of double flute pahos.
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