Part 18
Several food basins from Sikyatki have a human hand depicted upon them, and in one of these both hands are represented. On the most perfect of these hand figures (plate CXXXVII, _c_) a wristlet is well represented, with two triangular figures, which impart to it an unusual form. From between the index and second finger there arises a triangular appendage, which joins a graceful curve, extending on one side to the base of the thumb and continued on the other side to the arm. The whole inside of the basin, except the figure of the hand and its appendage, is decorated with spattering,[135] and on the outside there is a second figure, evidently a hand or the paw of some animal. This external decoration also has a triangular figure in which are two terraces, recalling rain-cloud symbols.
One of the most interesting representations of the human hand (figure 354) is found on the exterior of a beautiful bowl. The four fingers and the thumb are shown with representations of nails, a unique feature in such decorations. From between the index finger and the next, or rather from the tip of the former, arises an appendage comparable with that before mentioned, but of much simpler form. The palm of the hand is crossed by a number of parallel lines, which recall a custom of using the palm lines in measuring ceremonial prayer sticks, as I have described in a memoir on the Snake dance. In place of the arm this hand has many parallel lines, the three medial ones being continued far beyond the others, as shown in the figure.
QUADRUPEDS
Figures of quadrupeds are sparingly used in the decoration of food bowls or basins, but the collection shows several fine specimens on which appear some of the mammalia with which the Hopi are familiar. Most of these are so well drawn that there appears to be no question as to their identification.
One of the most instructive of these figures is shown in plate CXXX, _a_, which is much worn, and indistinct in detail, although from what can be traced it was probably intended to represent a mythic creature known as the Giant Elk. The head bears two branched horns, drawn without perspective, and the neck has a number of short parallel marks similar to those occurring on the figure of an antelope on the walls of one of the kivas at Walpi. The hoofs are bifid, and from a short stunted tail there arises a curved line which encircles the whole figure, connecting a series of round spots and terminating in a triangular figure with three parallel lines representing feathers. Perhaps the strangest of all appendages to this animal is at the tail, which is forked, recalling the tail of certain birds. Its meaning is unknown to me.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXVIII
MEDICINE BOX AND PIGMENT POTS FROM SIKYATKI]
There can be no doubt that the delineator sought to represent in this figure one of the numerous horned _Cervidæ_ with which the ancient Hopi were familiar, but the drawing is so incomplete that to choose between the antelope, deer, and elk seems impossible. It may be mentioned, however, that the Horn people are reputed to have been early arrivals in Tusayan, and it is not improbable that representatives of the Horn clans lived in Sikyatki previous to its overthrow.
Two faintly drawn animals, evidently intended for quadrupeds, appear on the interior of the food bowl shown in plate CXXX, _b_. These are interesting from the method in which they were drawn. They are not outlined with defined lines, but are of the original color of the bowl, and appear as two ghost-like figures surrounded by a dense spattering of red spots, similar in technic to the figure of the human hand. I am unable to identify these animals, but provisionally refer them to the rabbit. They have no distinctive symbolism, however, and are destitute of the characteristic spots which members of the Rabbit clan now invariably place on their totemic signatures.
[Illustration: FIG. 264--Mountain sheep]
The animal design on the bowl illustrated in plate CXXX, _c_, probably represents a rabbit or hare, quite well drawn in profile, with a feathered appendage from the head. Behind it is the ordinary symbol of the dragon-fly. Several crosses are found in an opposite hemisphere, separated from that occupied by the two animal pictures by a series of geometric figures ornamented with crooks and other designs.
The interior of the food bowl shown in plate CXXX, _d_, as well as the inner sides of the two ladles represented in plate CXXXI, _b_, _d_, are decorated with peculiar figures which suggest the porcupine. The body is crescentic and covered with spines, and only a single leg, with claws, is represented. It is worthy of mention that so many of these animal forms have only one leg, representative, no doubt, of a single pair, and that many of these have plantigrade paws like those of the bear and badger. The appendages to the head in this figure remind one of those of certain forms regarded as reptiles, with which this may be identical.
[Illustration: FIG. 265--Mountain lion]
In another decoration we have what is apparently the same animal furnished with both fore and hind legs, the tail curving upward like that of a cottontail rabbit, which it resembles in other particulars as well. This figure also hangs by a band from a geometric design formed of two crescents and bearing four parallel marks representing feathers. The single crescent depicted on the inside of the ladle shown in plate CXXXI, _b_, is believed to represent the same conception, or the moon; and in this connection the very close phonetic resemblance between the Hopi name for moon[136] and that for the mammal may be mentioned. In the decoration last described the same crescentic figure is elaborated into its zoömorphic equivalent.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXIX
DESIGNS ON FOOD BOWLS FROM SIKYATKI]
An enumeration of the pictographic representations of mammalia includes the beautiful food bowl shown in plate CXXX, _e_, which is made of fine clay spattered with brown pigment. This design (reproduced in figure 264) represents probably some ruminant, as the mountain sheep or possibly the antelope, both of which gave names to clans said to have resided at Sikyatki. The hoofs are characteristic, and the markings on the back suggest a fawn or spotted deer. There is a close similarity between the design below this animal and that of the exterior decorations of certain vases and square medicine bowls.
Among the pictures of quadrupedal animals depicted on ancient food bowls there is none more striking than that illustrated in plate CXXX, _f_, which has been identified as the mountain lion. While this identification is more or less problematical, it is highly possible. The claws of the forelegs (figure 265) are evidently those of one of the carnivora of the cat family, of which the mountain lion is the most prominent in Tusayan. The anterior part of the body is spotted; the posterior and the hind legs are black. The snout bears little resemblance to that of the puma.
The entire inner surface of the bowl, save a central circle in which the head, fore-limbs, and anterior part of the body are represented, is decorated by spattering. Within this spattered area there are highly interesting figures, prominent among which is a squatting figure of a man, with the hand raised to the mouth and holding a ceremonial cigarette, as if engaged in smoking. The seven patches in black might well be regarded as either footprints or leaves, four of which appear to be attached to the band inclosing the central area. In the intervals between three of these there are branched bodies representing plants or bushes.
REPTILES
Snakes and other reptilian forms were represented by the ancient potters in the decoration of food bowls, and it is remarkable how closely some of these correspond in symbolism with conceptions still current in Tusayan. Of all reptilian monsters the worship of which forms a prominent element in Hopi ritual, that of the Great Plumed Snake is perhaps the most important. Effigies of this monster exist in all the larger Hopi villages, and they are used in at least two great rites--the _Soyaluña_ in December and the _Palülükonti_ in March, as I have already described. The symbolic markings and appendages of the Plumed Snake effigy are distinctive, and are found in all modern representations of this mystic being. While several pictographs of snakes are found on Sikyatki pottery, there is not a single instance in which these modern markings appear; consequently there is considerable doubt in regard to the identification of many of the Sikyatki serpents with modern mythologic representatives.
[Illustration: FIG. 266--Plumed serpent]
In questioning the priests in regard to the derivation of the Plumed Serpent cult in Tusayan, I have found that they declare that this cultus was brought into Tusayan from a mythic land in the south, called Palatkwabi, and that the effigies and fetiches pertaining to it were introduced by the Patki or Water-house people. From good evidence, I suspect that the arrival of this phratry was comparatively late in Tusayan history, and it is possible that Sikyatki was destroyed before their advent, for in all the legends which I have been able to gather no one ascribes to Sikyatki any clan belonging to the phratries which are said to have migrated from the far south. I believe we must look toward the east, whence the ancestors of the Kokop or Firewood people are reputed to have come, for the origin of the symbolic markings of the snakes represented on Sikyatki ceramics. Figures of apodal reptiles, with feathers represented on their heads, occur in Sikyatki pictography, although there is no resemblance in the markings of their bodies to those of modern pictures. One of the most striking of these occurs on the inside of the food basin shown in plate CXXXII, _a_. It represents a serpent with curved body, the tail being connected with the head, like an ancient symbol of eternity. The body (figure 266) is destitute of any distinctive markings, but is covered with a crosshatching of black lines. The head bears two triangular markings, which are regarded as feather symbols. The position of the eyes would seem to indicate that the top of the head is represented, but this conclusion is not borne out by comparative studies, for it was often the custom of ancient Tusayan potters, like other primitive artists, to represent both eyes on one side of the head.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXX
FOOD BOWLS WITH FIGURES OF QUADRUPEDS FROM SIKYATKI]
The zigzag line occupying the position of the tongue and terminating in a triangle is a lightning symbol, with which the serpent is still associated. While striving not to strain the symbolism of this figure, it is suggested that the three curved marks on the lower and upper jaws represent fangs. It is highly probable that conceptions not greatly unlike those which cluster about the Great Plumed Serpent were associated with this mythic snake, the figure of which is devoid of some of the most essential elements of modern symbolism.
While from the worn character of the middle of the food bowl illustrated in plate CXXXII, _b_, it is not possible to discover whether the animal was apodal or not from the crosshatching of the body and the resemblance of the appendages of the head to those of the figure last considered, it appears probable that this pictograph likewise was intended to represent a snake of mystic character. Like the previous figure, this also is coiled, with the tail near the head, its body crosshatched, and with two triangular appendages to the head. There is, however, but one eye, and the two jaws are elongated and provided with teeth,[137] as in the case of certain reptiles.
The similarity of the head and its appendages to the snake figure last described would lead me to regard the figure shown in plate CXXXII, _c_, as representing a like animal, but the latter picture is more elaborately worked out in details, and one of the legs is well represented. I have shown in the discussion of a former figure how the decorator, recognizing the existence of two eyes, represented them both on one side of the head of a profile figure, although only one is visible, and we see in this picture (figure 267) a somewhat similar tendency, which is very common in modern Tusayan figures of animals. The breath line is drawn from the extremity of the snout halfway down the length of the body. In modern pictography a representation of the heart is often depicted at the blind extremity of this line, as if, in fact, there was a connection with this organ and the tubes through which the breath passes. In the Sikyatki pottery, however, I find only this one specimen of drawing in which an attempt to represent internal organs is made.
The tail of this singular picture of a reptile is highly conventionalized, bearing appendages of unknown import, but recalling feathers, while on the back are other appendages which might be compared with wings. Both of these we might expect, considering the association of bird and serpent in the Hopi conception of the Plumed Snake.
Exact identifications of these pictures with the animals by which the Hopi are or were surrounded, is, of course, impossible, for they are not realistic representations, but symbolic figures of mythic beings unknown save to the imagination of the primitive mythologist.
[Illustration: FIG. 267--Unknown reptile]
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXXI
ORNAMENTED LADLES FROM SIKYATKI]
[Illustration: FIG. 268--Unknown reptile]
A similar reptile is pictured on the food bowl shown in plate CXXXII, _d_, in which design, however, there are important modifications, the most striking of which are: (1) The animal (figure 268) has both fore and hind legs represented; (2) the head is round; (3) the mouth is provided with teeth; and (4) there are four instead of two feather appendages on the head, two of which are much longer than the others. Were it not that ears are not represented in reptiles, one would be tempted to regard the smaller appendages as representations of these organs. Their similarity to the row of spines on the back and the existence of spines on the head of the "horned toad" suggests this reptile, with which both ancient and modern Hopi are very familiar. On a fragment of a vessel found at Awatobi there is depicted the head of a reptile evidently identical with this, since the drawing is an almost perfect reproduction. There is a like figure, also from Sikyatki, in the collection of pottery made at that ruin by Dr Miller, of Prescott, the year following my work there. The most elaborate of all the pictures of reptiles found on ancient Tusayan pottery is shown in plate CXXXII, _e_, in which the symbolism is complicated and the details carefully worked out. A few of these symbols I am able to decipher; others elude present analysis. There is no doubt as to the meaning of the appendage to the head (figure 269), for it well portrays an elaborate feathered headdress on which the markings that distinguish tail-feathers, three in number, are prominent. The extension of the snout is without homologue elsewhere in Hopi pictography, and, while decorative in part, is likewise highly conventionalized. On the body semicircular rain cloud symbols and markings similar to those of the bodies of certain birds are distinguishable. The feet likewise are more avian than reptilian, but of a form quite unusual in structure. It is interesting to note the similarity in the carved line with six sets of parallel bars to the band surrounding the figure of the human hand shown in plate CXXXVII, _c_. In attempting to identify the pictograph on the bowl reproduced in plate CXXXIV, _a_, there is little to guide me, and the nearest I can come to its significance is to ascribe it to a reptile of some kind. Highly symbolic, greatly conventionalized as this figure is, there is practically nothing on which to base the absolute identification of the figure save the serrated appendage to the body and the leg, which resembles that of the lizard as it is sometimes drawn. The two eyes indicate that the enlargement in which these were placed is the head, and the extended curved snout a beak. All else is incomprehensible to me, and my identification is therefore provisional and largely speculative.
[Illustration: FIG. 269--Unknown reptile]
I wish, however, in leaving the description of this beautiful bowl, to invite attention to the brilliancy and the characteristics of the coloring, which differ from the majority of the decorated ware from Sikyatki.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXXII
FOOD BOWLS WITH FIGURES OF REPTILES FROM SIKYATKI]
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXXIII
BOWLS AND DIPPERS WITH FIGURES OF TADPOLES, BIRDS, ETC. FROM SIKYATKI]
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXXIV
FOOD BOWLS WITH FIGURES OF SUN, BUTTERFLY, AND FLOWER FROM SIKYATKI]
Among the fragments of pottery found in the Sikyatki graves there was one which, had it been entire, would doubtless have thrown considerable light on ancient pictography. This fragment has depicted upon it portions of the body and the whole head and neck of a reptilian animal. We find on that part of the body which is represented, three parallel marks which recall those on the modern pictures of the Great Plumed Serpent. On the back there were apparently the representations of wings, a feather of which is shown above the head. The head likewise bears a crest of three feathers, and there are three reptilian like toes. Whether this represents a reptile or a bird it is impossible for me to say, but enough has already been recorded to indicate how close the symbolism of these two groups sometimes is in ancient pictography. It would almost appear as if the profound anatomical discovery of the close kinship of birds and reptiles was unconsciously recognized by a people destitute of the rudiments of the knowledge of morphology.
TADPOLES
Among the inhabitants of an arid region, where rain-making forms a dominant element in their ritual, water animals are eagerly adopted as symbols. Among these the tadpole occupies a foremost position. The figures of this batrachian are very simple, and are among the most common of those used on ceremonial paraphernalia in Tusayan at the present time. In none of these is anything more than a globular head and a zigzag tail represented, and, as in nature, these are colored black. The tadpole appears on several pieces of painted pottery from Sikyatki, one of the best of which is the food bowl illustrated in plate CXXXIII, _a_. The design represents a number of these aquatic animals drawn in line across the diameter of the inner surface of the bowl, while on each side there is a row of rectangular blocks representing rain clouds. These blocks are separated from the tadpole figures by crescentic lines, and above them are short parallel lines recalling the symbol of falling rain.
One of the most beautiful forms of ladles from Sikyatki is figured in plate CXXXIII, _b_, a specimen in which the art of decoration by spattering is effectively displayed. The interior of the bowl of this dipper is divided by parallel lines into two zones, in each of which two tadpoles are represented. The handle is pointed at the end and is decorated. This specimen is considered one of the best from Sikyatki.
The rudely drawn picture on the bowl figured in plate CXXXII, _f_, would be identified as a frog, save for the presence of a tail which would seem to refer it to the lizard kind. But in the evolution of the tadpole into the frog a tailed stage persists in the metamorphosis after the legs develop. In modern pictures[138] of the frog with which I am familiar, this batrachian is always represented dorsally or ventrally with the legs outstretched, while in the lizards, as we have seen, a lateral view is always adopted. As the sole picture found on ancient pottery where the former method is employed, this fact may be of value in the identification of this rude outline as a frog rather than as a true reptile.
BUTTERFLIES OR MOTHS
One of the most characteristic modern decorations employed by the Hopi, especially as a symbol of fecundity, is the butterfly or moth. It is a constant device on the beautiful white or cotton blankets woven by the men as wedding gifts, where it is embroidered on the margin in the forms of triangles or even in more realistic patterns. This symbol is a simple triangle, which becomes quite realistic when a line is drawn bisecting one of the angles. This double triangle is not only a constant symbol on wedding blankets, but also is found on the dadoes of houses, resembling in design the arrangement of tiles in the Alhambra and other Moorish buildings. This custom of decorating the walls of a building with triangles placed at intervals on the upper edge of a dado is a feature of cliff-house kivas, as shown in Nordenskiöld's beautiful memoir on the cliff villages of Mesa Verde. While an isosceles triangle represents the simplest form of the butterfly symbol, and is common on ancient pottery, a few vessels from Sikyatki show a much more realistic figure. In plate CXXXIV, _f_, is shown a moth with extended proboscis and articulated antennæ, and in _d_ of the same plate another form, with the proboscis inserted in a flower, is given. As an associate with summer, the butterfly is regarded as a beneficent being aside from its fecundity, and one of the ancient Hopi clans regarded it as their totem. Perhaps the most striking, and I may say the most inexplicable, use of the symbol of the butterfly is the so-called _Hokona_ or Butterfly virgin slab used in the Antelope ceremonies of the Snake dance at Walpi, where it is associated with the tadpole water symbol.
[Illustration: FIG. 270--Outline of plate CXXXV, _b_]
The most beautiful of all the butterfly designs are the six figures on the vase reproduced in plate CXXXV, _b_. From the number of these pictures it would seem that they bore some relationship to the six world-quarters--north, west, south, east, zenith, and nadir. The vase has a flattened shoulder, and the six butterfly figures are represented as flying toward the orifice. These insect figures closely resemble one another, and are divided into two groups readily distinguished by the symbolism of the heads. Three have each a cross with a single dot in each quadrant, and each of the other three has a dotted head without the cross. These two kinds alternate with each other, and the former probably indicate females, since the same symbols on the heads of the snakes in the sand picture of the Antelope altar in the Snake dance are used to designate the female.[139]
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXXV
VASES WITH FIGURES OF BUTTERFLIES FROM SIKYATKI]
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXXVI
VASES WITH FIGURES OF BIRDS AND FEATHERS FROM SIKYATKI]
Two antennæ and a double curved proboscis are indicated in all the figures of butterflies on the vase under consideration. The zones above and below are both cut by a "line of life," the opening through which is situated on opposite equatorial poles in the upper and under rim.
[Illustration: FIG. 271--Butterfly design on upper surface of plate CXXXV, _b_]