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Updated: May 3, 2025
The paho shown in figure d is flat on one side and rounded on the other, narrowing at one end, where it was probably continued in a shaft, and a hole is punctured at the opposite extremity, as if for suspension.
Frequently this packet of meal may be replaced by a picture of an ear of corn drawn on a flat slat, the so-called "corn paho" of the Flute maidens, or we may have an ear of corn tied to the wooden slat. In the Mamzrau ceremony the women carry these painted slats in their hands, as I have elsewhere described.
It appears as if, in all these instances, there exists a sacrificial object, a symbolic offering of corn or meal. The constant appearance of the feather on the paho has suggested an interpretation of the prayer-plumes as symbolic sacrifices of birds on the theory of a part for the whole; we know that among the Nahua sacrifices of birds were common in many ceremonials.
While it is probably true that the Hopi barters his paho with the idea of receiving in return some desired gift, the main element is probably homage, but there is involved in it the third and highest element of sacrifice, abnegation. It is a sacrifice by symbolism, a part for the whole. On this theory the query naturally is, what does a paho represent?
The stick of the left has a facet cut on one side, upon which originally three dots were depicted to represent the eyes and the mouth. This member of the paho was the female; the remaining stick was the male. There are two deep grooves, or ferules, cut midway of their length, a distinctive characteristic of the modern flute paho.
Deposited in this fragment were many stone arrowheads, several fragments of green paint, a flat green paho ornamented with figures of dragon-flies in black. In addition to a single complete prayer-stick there were fragments of many others too much broken to be identified. One of these was declared by Kópeli to be a chief's paho.
Specimens h to m are forms of pahos which I can not identify. They are painted green, generally with black tips, round, flattened, and of small size. Numerous specimens of a peculiar razor-shape paho were found, two of which are shown in plate CLXXV, o, s.
This interpretation, however, is highly speculative, and should be accepted only with limitations. I have sometimes thought that the prayer-stick or paho may originally have represented a bird, and the use of it is an instance of the substitution of a symbolic effigy of a bird, a direct survival of the time when a bird was sacrificed to the deity addressed.
"When the box finally stopped Tiyo drew the plug, and looking out saw on one side a muddy bank, and on the other nothing but water; so he pushed out the end, and taking his paho mantle in his hand passed to the dry land.
This is likewise true of both extremities of the object shown in v; it is also probable that it had originally a serrated end, comparable with that shown in c. A similar terraced extremity survives in the corn paho carried by the so-called Flute girls in the biennial celebrations of the Flute ceremonies in the modern Tusayan pueblos.
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