Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 Part 18

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 _Cervidae_ 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 Cx.x.x, _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 dest.i.tute of the characteristic spots which members of the Rabbit clan now invariably place on their totemic signatures.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 264--Mountain sheep]

The animal design on the bowl ill.u.s.trated in plate Cx.x.x, _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 Cx.x.x, _d_, as well as the inner sides of the two ladles represented in plate Cx.x.xI, _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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Cx.x.xI, _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 zoomorphic equivalent.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Cx.x.x, _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 ill.u.s.trated in plate Cx.x.x, _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 wors.h.i.+p 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 _Soyaluna_ in December and the _Palulukonti_ 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Cx.x.xII, _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 dest.i.tute 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. Cx.x.x

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 a.s.sociated. 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 cl.u.s.ter about the Great Plumed Serpent were a.s.sociated 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 ill.u.s.trated in plate Cx.x.xII, _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 Cx.x.xII, _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 pa.s.ses. 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 a.s.sociation 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 267--Unknown reptile]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. Cx.x.xI

ORNAMENTED LADLES FROM SIKYATKI]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 268--Unknown reptile]

A similar reptile is pictured on the food bowl shown in plate Cx.x.xII, _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 Cx.x.xII, _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 a.n.a.lysis. 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 h.o.m.ologue 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 Cx.x.xVII, _c_. In attempting to identify the pictograph on the bowl reproduced in plate Cx.x.xIV, _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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. Cx.x.xII

FOOD BOWLS WITH FIGURES OF REPTILES FROM SIKYATKI]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. Cx.x.xIII

BOWLS AND DIPPERS WITH FIGURES OF TADPOLES, BIRDS, ETC. FROM SIKYATKI]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. Cx.x.xIV

FOOD BOWLS WITH FIGURES OF SUN, b.u.t.tERFLY, 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 kins.h.i.+p of birds and reptiles was unconsciously recognized by a people dest.i.tute of the rudiments of the knowledge of morphology.

TADPOLES