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There is a legend that formerly the site of this spring was dry, when an ancient priest, who had deposited his tiponi, or chieftain's badge, at the place, caused the water to flow from the ground; at present however the water rushes from a hole as large as the arm in the face of the rock, as well as from several minor openings.
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.
In modern Tusayan ceremonials the feather is appended to almost all the different objects used in worship; it is essential in the structure of the tiponi or badge of the chief, without which no elaborate ceremony can be performed or altar erected; it adorns the images on the altars, decorates the heads of participants, is prescribed for the prayer-sticks, and is always appended to aspergills, rattles, and whistles.
This hole symbolizes the sipapu or entrance to the underworld. Antelope Priest with Tiponi. At last comes the event for which the thronged village has been waiting for hours, and for which some of the white visitors have crossed the continent.
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