with the lifting of timbers, and now-a-days often lay up the masonry if
desired; the woman is still the plasterer. The ancestral home is very
dear to the Hopi heart, men, women, and children alike.

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. Next, the door is located by placing a bowl of
food on each side of where it is to be. Likewise particles of food,
mixed with salt, are sprinkled along the lines upon which the walls are
to stand. The women bring water, clay, and earth, and mix a mud mortar,
which is used sparingly between the layers of stone. Walls are from
eight to eighteen inches thick and seven or eight feet high, above which
rafters or poles are placed and smaller poles crosswise above these,
then willows or reeds closely laid, and above all reeds or grass holding
a spread of mud plaster. When thoroughly dry, a layer of earth is added
and carefully packed down. All this is done by the women, as well as the
plastering of the inside walls and the making of the plaster floors.

Now the owner prepares four more eagle feathers and ties them to a
little willow stick whose end is inserted in one of the central roof
beams. No home is complete without this, for it is the soul of the house
and the sign of its dedication. These feathers are renewed every year at
the feast of Soyaluna.

The writer remembers once seeing a tourist reach up and pull off the
little tuft of breath feathers from the mid-rafter of the little house
he had rented for the night. Naturally he replaced it when the enormity