Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 Part 22

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.

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SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLII

FOOD BOWLS WITH BIRD, FEATHER, AND FLOWER SYMBOLS FROM SIKYATKI]

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SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLIII

FOOD BOWLS WITH FIGURES OF BIRDS AND FEATHERS FROM SIKYATKI]

In a figure previously described, a flower, evidently an aster or sunflower, appears with a b.u.t.terfly, and in the bowl shown in plate Cx.x.xIV, _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 kins.h.i.+p 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 role in the ritual of this society which has survived to modern times.

THE SUN

Sun wors.h.i.+p 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 _Powalawu_ 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 Cx.x.xVIII.

It would appear that there is even more probability that the picture on the bowl ill.u.s.trated 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 cl.u.s.ters 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 ill.u.s.trated in plate Cx.x.xIV, _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 Sich.o.m.ovi 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 Mishoninovi, 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 ill.u.s.trated in plate Cx.x.xIV, _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.

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SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLIV

FOOD BOWLS WITH FIGURES OF BIRDS AND FEATHERS FROM SIKYATKI]

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SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLV

FOOD BOWLS WITH FIGURES OF BIRDS AND FEATHERS FROM SIKYATKI]

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

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLVI

FOOD BOWLS WITH FIGURES OF BIRDS AND FEATHERS FROM SIKYATKI]

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 a.s.sociation 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" G.o.d, 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 s.p.a.ces 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 _Powamu_ 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 _Powalawu_. 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 relations.h.i.+p 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.

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SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLVII

FIGURES OF BIRDS AND FEATHERS FROM SIKYATKI]

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SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLVIII

FOOD BOWLS WITH FIGURES OF SUN AND RELATED SYMBOLS FROM SIKYATKI]