Fig. 356—Kaolin disk (natural size)
STONE OBJECTS
Almost every grave at Sikyatki contained stone objects which were found either in the bowls or in the soil in the immediate neighborhood of the skeletons. Some of these implements are pecked or chipped, others are smooth—pebbles apparently chosen for their botryoidal shape, polished surface, or fancied resemblance to some animal or other form.
Many of the smooth stones were probably simply polishing stones, used by the women in rubbing pottery to a gloss before it was fired. Others were charm stones such as are still employed in making medicine, as elsewhere described. There were still other stones which, from their resemblance to animals, may have been personal fetishes. Among the unusual forms of stones found in this association is a quartz crystal. As I have shown in describing several ceremonies still observed, a quartz crystal is used to deflect a ray of sunlight into the medicine bowl, and is placed in the center of a sand picture of the sun in certain rites called Powalawû; the crystal is also used in divining, and for other purposes, and is highly prized by modern Tusayan priests.
A botryoidal fragment of hematite found in a grave reminds me that in the so-called Antelope rock[154] at Walpi, around which the Snake dancers biennially carry reptiles in their mouths, there is in one side a niche in which is placed a much larger mass of that material, to which prayers are addressed on certain ceremonial occasions, and upon which sacred meal and prayer emblems are placed.
One or two mortuary bowls contained fragments of stalactites apparently from the Grand canyon of the Colorado or from some other locality where water is or has been abundant.
The loose shaly deposit which underlies the Tusayan mesas contains many cephalopod fossils, a collection of which was made in former years and deposited in the National Museum. Among these the most beautiful are small cephalopods called by the Hopi, koaitcoko. Among the many sacred objects in the tiponi baskets of the Lalakonti society, as described in my account[155] of the unwrapping of that fetish, there was a specimen of this ammonite; that the shell was preserved in this sacred bundle is sufficient proof that it is highly venerated. As a natural object with a definite form it is regarded as a fetish which is looked upon with reverence by the knowing ones and pronounced bad by the uninitiated. The occurrence of this fossil in one of the mortuary bowls is in harmony with the same idea and shows that it was regarded in a similar light by the ancient occupants of Sikyatki.
But the resemblance of these and other stones to animal fossils[156] is not always so remote as in the instances above mentioned. There was in one grave a single large fetish of a mountain lion, made of sandstone ([plate clxxii], b, c), in which legs, ears, tail, and eyes are represented, and the mouth still retains the red pigment with which it was colored, although there was no sign of paint on other parts of the body. This fetish is very similar to the one found at Awatobi, and is identical in form with those made by the Hopi at the present time.
It was customary to bury in Sikyatki graves plates or fragments of selenite or mica, some of which are perforated as if for suspension, while others are in plain sheets ([plate clxix], c).
Among the stone implements used as mortuary offerings which were found in the cemeteries, was one made of the same fine lithographic limestone as the so-called tcamahia ([plate clxxi], g) which occur on the Antelope altar in the Snake ceremonies. The exceptional character of this fragment is instructive, and its resemblance to the finely polished stone hoes found in other ruins is very suggestive.