Part 21
Figure _d_ is the only specimen of a vessel in the conventional form of a bird which was found at Sikyatki; it evidently formerly had a handle. The vessel itself is globular, and the form of the bird is intensified by the designs on its surface. The bird's head is turned to the observer, and the row of triangles represent wing feathers. The signification of the designs on _e_ and _f_ is unknown to me.
Figures _e_ and _f_ of plate CLVI are avian decorations, reduced in the case of the former to geometric forms. The triangular figure is a marked feature in the latter design.
The designs represented in plate CLVII are aberrant bird forms. Of these _a_ and _b_ are the simplest and _c_ one of the most complicated. Figure _d_ is interpreted as a double bird, or twins with a common head and tails pointing in opposite directions. Figure _e_ shows a bird in profile with one wing, furnished with triangular feathers, extended. There is some doubt about the identification of _f_ as a bird, but there is no question that the wing, tail, and breath feathers are represented in it. Of the last mentioned there are three, shown by the notch, colored black at their extremities.
VEGETAL DESIGNS
Inasmuch as they so readily lend themselves as a motive of decoration, it is remarkable that the ancient Hopi seem to have used plants and their various organs so sparingly in their pottery painting. Elsewhere, especially among modern Pueblos, this is not the case, and while plants, flowers, and leaves are not among the common designs on modern Tusayan ware, they are often employed. It would appear that the corn plant or fruit would be found among other designs, especially as corn plays a highly symbolic part in mythic conceptions, but we fail to find it used as a decoration on any ancient vessel.
In a figure previously described, a flower, evidently an aster or sunflower, appears with a butterfly, and in the bowl shown in plate CXXXIV, _e_, we have a similar design. This figure evidently represents the sunflower, the seeds of which were ground and eaten in ancient times. The plant apparently is represented as growing from the earth and is surrounded by a broad band of red in rudely circular form. The totem of the earth today among the Hopi is a circle; possibly it was the same among the ancients, in which case the horizon may have been represented by the red encircling band, which is accompanied by the crook and the emblem of rain. The petals are represented by a row of dots and no leaves are shown. From the kinship of the ancient accolents of Sikyatki with the Flute people, it is to be expected that in their designs figures of asters or sunflowers would appear, for these plants play a not inconspicuous rôle in the ritual of this society which has survived to modern times.
THE SUN
Sun worship plays a most important part in modern Tusayan ritual, and the symbol of the sun in modern pictography can not be mistaken for any other. It is a circle with radiating feathers on the periphery and ordinarily with four lines arranged in quaternary groups. The face of the sun is indicated by triangles on the forehead, two slits for eyes, and a double triangle for the mouth. This symbol, however, is not always used as that of the sun, for in the Oraibi _Powalawû_ there is an altar in which a sand picture of the sun has the form of a four-pointed star. The former of these sun symbols is not found on Sikyatki pottery, but there is one picture which closely resembles the latter. This occurs on the bowl illustrated in plate CLXI, _c_. The main design is a four-pointed star, alternating with crosses and surrounded by a zone in which are rectangular blocks. While the identification may be fanciful, its resemblances are highly suggestive. The existence of a double triangle adjacent to this figure on the same bowl, and its likeness to the modern mouth-design of sun pictures, appears to be more than a coincidence, and is so regarded in this identification.
In the design shown in plate CLVIII, _a_, one of the elaborate ancient sun figures is represented. As in modern symbols, the tail-feathers of the periphery of the disk are arranged in the four quadrants, and in addition there are appended to the same points curved figures which recall the objects, identified as stringed feathers, attached to the blanket of the maid (plate CXXIX, _a_). The design on the disk is different from that of any sun emblem known to me, and escapes my interpretation. I have used the distribution of the feathers on the four quadrants as an indication that this figure is a sun symbol, although it must be confessed this evidence is not so strong as might be wished. The triangles at the sides of two feathers indicate that a tail-feather is intended, and for the correlated facts supporting this conclusion the reader is referred to the description of the vessels shown in plate CXXXVIII.
It would appear that there is even more probability that the picture on the bowl illustrated in plate CLVIII, _b_, is a sun symbol. It represents a disk with tail and wing feathers arranged on the periphery in four groups. This recalls the sun emblems used in Tusayan at the present time, although the face of the sun is not represented on this specimen. There is a still closer approximation to the modern symbol of the sun on a bowl in a private collection from Sikyatki.
In plate CLVIII, _c_, the sun's disk is represented with the four clusters of feathers replaced by the extremities of the bodies of four birds, the tail-feathers, for some unknown reason, being omitted. The design on the disk is highly symbolic, and the only modern sun symbol found in it are the triangles, which form the mouth of the face of the sun in modern Hopi symbolism.
One of the most aberrant pictures of the sun, which I think can be identified with probability, is shown in the design on the specimen illustrated in plate CXXXIV, _b_. The reasons which have led me to this identification may briefly be stated as follows:
Among the many supernaturals with which modern Hopi mythology is replete is one called Calako-taka, or the male Calako. In legends he is the husband of the two Corn-maids of like name. The ceremonials connected with this being occur in Sichomovi in July, when four giant personifications enter the village as have been described in a former memoir. The heads of these giants are provided with two curved horns, between which is a crest of eagle tail-feathers.
Two of these giants, under another name, but with the same symbolism, are depicted on the altars of the _katcinas_ at Walpi and Mishoñinovi, where they represent the sun. A chief personifying the same supernatural flogs children when they are initiated into the knowledge of the _katcinas_.
The figure on the bowl under discussion has many points of resemblance to the symbolism of this personage as depicted on the altars mentioned. The head has two horns, one on each side, with a crest, apparently of feathers, between them. The eyes and mouth are represented, and on the body there is a four-pointed cross. The meaning of the remaining appendages is unknown, but the likenesses to Calako-taka[150] symbolism are noteworthy and important. The figure on the food bowl illustrated in plate CXXXIV, _c_, is likewise regarded as a sun emblem. The disk is represented by a ring in the center, to which feathers are appended. The triangle, which is still a sun symbol, is shown below a band across the bowl. This band is decorated with highly conventionalized feathers.
It may be added that in this figure we have probably the most aberrant sun-symbol yet recognized, and on that account there is a possibility that the validity of my identification is more or less doubtful.
The three designs shown in plate CLVIII, _c_, _d_, _e_, evidently belong in association with sun or star symbols, but it is hardly legitimate to definitely declare that such an interpretation can be demonstrated. The modern Tusayan Indians declare that the equal-arm cross is a symbol of the "Heart of the Sky" god, which, from my studies of the effigies of this personage on various altars, I have good reason to identify with the lightning.
GEOMETRIC FIGURES
INTERPRETATION OF THE FIGURES
Most of the pottery from Sikyatki is ornamented with geometric designs and linear figures, the import of many of which are unknown.
Two extreme views are current in regard to the significance of these designs. To one school everything is symbolic of something or some religious conception; to the other the majority are meaningless save as decorations. I find the middle path the more conservative, and while regarding many of the designs as highly conventionalized symbols, believe that there are also many where the decorator had no thought of symbolism. I have ventured an explanation of a few of the former.
Terraced figures are among the most common rectangular elements in Pueblo ceramic decorations. These designs bear so close a likeness to the modern rain-cloud symbol that they probably may all be referred to this category. Their arrangement on a bowl or jar is often of such a nature as to impart very different patterns. Thus terraced figures placed in opposition to each other may leave zigzag spaces suggesting lightning, but such forms can hardly be regarded as designed for symbols.
Rectangular patterns (plates CLXII-CLXV) are more ancient in the evolution of designs on Tusayan pottery than curved geometric figures, and far outnumber them in the most ancient specimens; but there has been no epoch in the development reaching to modern times when they have been superseded. While there are many specimens of Sikyatki pottery of the type decorated with geometric figures, which bear ornamentations of simple and complex terraced forms, the majority placed in this type are not reducible to stepped or terraced designs, but are modified straight lines, bars, crosshatching, and the like. In older Pueblo pottery the relative proportion of terraced figures is even less, which would appear to indicate that basket-ware patterns were secondary rather than primary decorative forms.
By far the largest element in ancient Tusayan pottery decoration must be regarded as simple geometric lines, triangles, spirals, curves, crosshatching, and the like, some of which are no doubt symbolic, others purely decorative (plate CLXVI). In the evolution of design I am inclined to believe that this was the simplest form, and I find it the most constant in the oldest ware. Rectangular figures are regarded as older than circular figures, and they possibly preceded the latter in evolution, but in many instances both are forms of reversion, highly conventionalized representations of more elaborate figures. Circles and crosses are sometimes combined, the former modified into a wavy line surrounding the latter, as in plate CLIX, _c_, _d_, where there is a suggestion (_d_) of a sun emblem.
CROSSES
A large number of food bowls are decorated with simple or elaborate crosses, stars, and like patterns. Simple crosses with arms of equal length appear on the vessels shown in plate CLIX, _c_, _d_. There are many similar crosses, subordinate to the main design, in various bowls, especially those decorated with figures of birds and sky deities.
Plate CLX, _a_, exhibits a cruciform design, to the extremities of three arms of which bird figures are attached. In this design there are likewise two sunflower symbols. The modified cross figure in _b_ of the same plate, like that just mentioned, suggests a swastica, but fails to be one, and unless the complicated design in figure _c_ may be so interpreted, no swastica was found at Sikyatki or Awatobi. Plate CLX, _d_, shows another form of cross, two arms of which are modified into triangles.
On the opening of the great ceremony called _Powamû_ or "Bean-planting," which occurs in February in the modern Tusayan villages, there occurs a ceremony about a sand picture of the sun which is called _Powalawû_. The object of this rite is the fructification of all seeds known to the Hopi. The sand picture of the sun which is made at that time is in its essentials identical with the design on the food bowl illustrated in plate CLXI, _c_; consequently it is possible that this star emblem represents the sun, and the occurrence of the eight triangles in the rim, replaced in the modern altar by four concentric bands of differently colored sands, adds weight to this conclusion. The twin triangles outside the main figure are identical with those in the mouth of modern sun emblems. These same twin triangles are arranged in lines which cross at right angles in plate CLXI, _d_, but from their resemblance to figure _b_ they possibly have a different meaning.
The most complicated of all the star-shape figures, like the simplest, takes us to sun emblems, and it seems probable that there is a relationship between the two. Plate CLXI, _f_, represents four bundles of feathers arranged in quadrants about a rectangular center. These feathers vary in form and arrangement, and the angles between them are occupied by horn-shape bodies, two of which have highly complicated extremities recalling conventionalized birds.
A large number of crosses are represented in plate CLXII, _d_, in which the remaining semicircle is filled with a tessellated pattern. A spiral line with round spots at intervals adorns the specimen shown in plate CLXI, _a_. Parallel lines with similar spots appear on the vessel illustrated in plate CLXII, _e_, and a network of the same is shown in _f_ of the same plate. Plate CLXVII, _b_, represents a compound star.
While simple swasticas are not found on any of the Sikyatki pottery, modified and compound forms are well represented. There are several specimens of figures of the Maltese cross, and one closely approximating the Saint Andrew's cross. It is scarcely necessary to say that the presence of the various kinds of crosses do not necessarily indicate the influence of Semitic or Aryan races, for I have already shown[151] that even cross-shape prayer-sticks were in use among the Pueblos when Coronado first visited them.
TERRACED FIGURES
Among the most common of all geometric designs on ancient Tusayan pottery none excel in variety or number those which I place in the above group. They form the major part of all decoration, and there is hardly a score of ornamented vessels in which they can not be detected. In a typical form they appear as stepped designs, rectangular figures with diagonals continuous, or as triangular designs with steps represented along their sides.
While it is probable that in some instances these figures are simply decorative, with no attempt at symbolism, in other cases without doubt they symbolize rain-clouds, and the same figures are still used with similar intent in modern ceremonial paraphernalia--altars, mask-tablets, and the like. Decorative modifications of this figure were no doubt adopted by artistic potters, thus giving varieties where the essential meaning has been much obscured or lost.
THE CROOK
Among the forms of geometric designs on ancient Tusayan pottery there are many jars, bowls, and other objects on which a crook, variously modified, is the essential type. This figure is so constant that it must have had a symbolic as well as a decorative meaning. The crook plays an important part in the modern ritual, and is prominent on many Tusayan altars. Around the sand picture of the rain-cloud, for example, we find a row of wooden rods with curved ends, and in the public Snake dance these are carried by participants called the Antelopes. A crook in the form of a staff to which an ear of corn and several feathers are attached is borne by _katcinas_ or masked participants in certain rain dances. It is held in the hand by a personage who flogs the children when they are initiated into certain religious societies. Many other instances might be mentioned in which this crozier-like object is carried by important personages. While it is not entirely clear to me that in all instances this crook is a badge of authority, in some cases it undoubtedly represents the standing of the bearer. There are, likewise, prayer offerings in the form of crooks, and even common forms of prayer-sticks have miniature curved sticks attached to them.
Some of the warrior societies are said to make offerings in the form of a crook, and a stick of similar form is associated with the gods of war. There is little doubt that some of the crook-form decorations on ancient vessels may have been used as symbols with the same intent as the sticks referred to above. The majority of the figures of this shape elude interpretation. Many of them have probably no definite meaning, but are simply an effective motive of decoration.
In some instances the figure of the crook on old pottery is a symbol of a prayer offering of a warrior society, made in the form of an ancient weapon, allied to a bow.
THE GERMINATIVE SYMBOL
The ordinary symbol of germination, a median projection with lateral extensions at the base (plate CXLIX, _e_), occurs among the figures on this ancient pottery. In its simplest form, a median line with a triangle on each side attached to one end, it is a phallic emblem. When this median line becomes oval, and the triangles elongated and curved at the ends, it represents the ordinary squash symbol,[152] also used as an emblem of fertility.
The triangle is also an emblem of germination and of fecundity--the female, as the previously mentioned principle represents the male. The geometric designs on the ancient Sikyatki ware abundantly illustrate both these forms.
BROKEN LINES
In examining the simple encircling bands of many of the food bowls, jars, and other ceramic objects, it will be noticed that they are not continuous, but that there is a break at one point, and this break is usually limited to one point in all the specimens. Various explanations of the meaning of this failure to complete the band have been suggested, and it is a remarkable fact that it is one of the most widely extended characteristics of ancient pottery decoration in the whole Pueblo area, including the Salado and Gila basins. While in the specimens from Sikyatki the break is simple and confined to one point, in those from other regions we find two or three similar failures in the continuity of encircling lines, and in some instances the lines at the point of separation are modified into spirals, terraces, and other forms of geometric figures. In the more complex figures we find the most intricate variations, which depart so widely from the simple forms that their resemblances are somewhat difficult to follow. A brief consideration of these modifications may aid toward an understanding of the character of certain geometric ornamental motives.
If any of the interlocking spirals on bowls or vases are traced, it is found that they do not join at the center of the figure. The same is true when these spirals become frets. There is always a break in the network which they form. This break is comparable with the hiatus on encircling bands and probably admits of the same interpretation. In a simple form this motive appears as two crescents or two key patterns with the ends overlapping. This simple ornament, called the friendship sign, is commonly used in the decoration of the bodies of _katcinas_, and has been likened to the interlocking of fingers or hands of the participants in certain dances, the fingers half retracted with inner surfaces approximated, the palms of the hands facing in opposite directions and the wrists at opposite points. If the points be extended into an elaborate key pattern or curved into extended spirals, a complicated figure is produced in which the separation is less conspicuous although always present.
The same points may be modified into terraced figures, the separation then appearing as a zigzag line drawn across the figure, or they may have interlocking dentate or serrate prolongations imparting a variety of forms to the interval between them.[153] In order to trace out these modifications it would be necessary to specify each individual case, but I think that is unnecessary. In other words, the broken line appears to be a characteristic not only of simple encircling bands, but also of all geometric figures in which highly complicated designs extend about the periphery of a utensil.
DECORATIONS ON THE EXTERIOR OF FOOD BOWLS
The decorations on the exterior of the ancient food bowls are in most instances very characteristic and sometimes artistic. Generally they reproduce patterns which are found on the outside of vases and jars and sometimes have a distant relationship to the designs in the interior of the bowl upon which they occur. Usually these external decorations are found only on one side, and in that respect they differ from the modern food bowls, in which nothing similar to them appears.
The characteristics of the external decorations of food bowls are symbolic, mostly geometric, square or rectangular, triangular or stepped figures; curved lines and spirals rarely if ever occur, and human or animal figures are unknown in this position in Sikyatki pottery; the geometric figures can be reduced to a few patterns of marked simplicity.
It is apparent that I can best discuss the variety of geometric designs by considering these external decorations of food vessels at length. From the fact that they are limited to one side, the design is less complicated by repetition and seems practically the same as the more typical forms. It is rarely that two of these designs are found to be exactly the same, and as there appears to be no duplication a classification of them is difficult. Each potter seems to have decorated her ware without regard to the work of her contemporaries, using simple designs but combining them in original ways. Hence the great variety found even in the grave of the same woman, whose handiwork was buried with her. As, however, the art of the potter degenerated, as it has in later times, the patterns became more alike, so that modern Tusayan decorated earthenware has little variety in ornamentation and no originality in design. Every potter uses the same figures.