The studies of the conventional bird figures which are developed in the preceding pages make it possible to interpret one of the two pictures on the food bowl represented in [plate clii], while the realistic character of the smaller figure leaves no question that we can rightly identify this also as a bird. In the larger figure the wings are of unequal size and are tipped with appendages of a more or less decorative nature. The posterior part of the body is formed of two triangular extensions, to which feathers are suspended, and the tail is composed of three large pointed feathers. The head bears the terraced rain-cloud designs almost universal in pictographs of birds.
It is hardly necessary for me to indicate the head, body, wings, and legs of the smaller figure, for they are evidently avian, while the character of the beak would indicate that a parrot or raptorial genus was intended. The same beak is found in the decoration of a vase with a bird design, which will later be considered.
From an examination of the various figures of birds on the Sikyatki pottery, and an analysis of the appendages to the wings, body, and legs, it is possible to determine the symbolic markings characteristic of two different kinds of feathers, the large wing or tail feathers and the so-called breath or body feathers. There is therefore no hesitation, when we find an object of pottery ornamented with these symbols, in interpreting them as feathers. Such a bowl is that shown in [plate cxli], c, in which we find a curved line to which are appended three breast feathers. This curved band from which they hang may take the form of a circle with two pendent feathers as in [plate cxli], d.
In the design on the bowl figured in [plate cxli], e, tail-feathers hang from a curved band, at each extremity of which is a square design in which the cross is represented. It has been suggested that this represents the feathered rainbow, a peculiar conception of both the Pueblo and the Navaho Indians. The design appearing on the small food bowl represented in [plate cxli], f, is no doubt connected in some way with that last mentioned, although the likeness between the appendages to the ring and feathers is remote. It is one of those conventionalized pictures, the interpretation of which, with the scanty data at hand, must be largely theoretical.
Figures of feathers are most important features in the decoration of ancient Sikyatki pottery, and their many modifications may readily be seen by an examination of the plates. In modern Tusayan ceremonials the feather is appended to almost all the different objects used in worship; it is essential in the structure of the tiponi or badge of the chief, without which no elaborate ceremony can be performed or altar erected; it adorns the images on the altars, decorates the heads of participants, is prescribed for the prayer-sticks, and is always appended to aspergills, rattles, and whistles.
In the performance of certain ceremonials water from sacred springs is used, and this water, sometimes brought from great distances, is kept in small gourd or clay vases, around the necks of which a string with attached feathers is tied. Such a vase is the so-called patne which has been described in a memoir on the Snake ceremonies at Walpi.[147] The artistic tendency of the ancient people of Sikyatki apparently exhibited itself in painting these feathers on the outside of similar small vases. [Plate cxlii], a, shows one of these vessels, decorated with an elaborate design with four breath-feathers suspended from the equator. (See also [figure 273].) On the vases shown in [plate cxlii], b, c, are found figures of tail-feathers arranged in two groups on opposite sides of the rim or orifice. One of these groups has eight, the other seven, figures of these feathers, and on the two remaining quadrants are the star emblems so constantly seen in pottery decorated with bird figures. The upper surface of the vase ([figure 274]) shows a similar arrangement, although the feathers here are conventionalized into triangular dentations, seven on one side and three on the other, individual dentations alternating with rectangular designs which suggest rain-clouds. This vase ([plate cxliii], a, b) is also striking in having a well-drawn figure of a bird in profile, the head, wings, tail, and legs suggesting a parrot. The zone of decoration of this vessel, which surrounds the rows of feathers, is strikingly complicated, and comprises rain-cloud, feather, and other designs.
Fig. 273—Pendent feather ornaments on a vase.