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.
BUREAU Of AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY—— SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLVII
FIGURES OF BIRDS AND FEATHERS FROM SIKYATKI
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY—— SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLVIII
FOOD BOWLS WITH FIGURES OF SUN AND RELATED SYMBOLS FROM SIKYATKI