No object made of metal was found at Sikyatki, nor is there any evidence that the ancient people of that pueblo ever saw the Spaniards or used any implement of their manufacture. While negative evidence can hardly be regarded as a safe guide to follow, so far as knowledge of copper is concerned, it is possible that the people of ancient Tusayan pueblos, in their trading expeditions to southern Arizona, may have met races who owned small copper bells and trinkets of metal. I can hardly believe, however, that the Tusayan Indians were familiar with the art of tempering copper, and even if objects showing this treatment shall be found hereafter in the ruins of this province it will have to be proved that they were made in that region, and not brought from the far south.
No glazed pottery showing Spanish influence was found at Sikyatki, but there can hardly be a doubt that the art of glazing pottery was practiced by the ancestors of the Tusayan people. The modern potters of the East Mesa never glaze their pottery, and no fragment of glazed ware was obtained from the necropolis of Sikyatki.
PERISHABLE CONTENTS OF MORTUARY FOOD BOWLS
It is the habit of the modern Tusayan Indians to deposit food of various kinds on the graves of their dead. The basins used for that purpose are heaped up with paper-bread, stews, and various delicacies for the breath-body of the deceased. Naturally from its exposed position much of this food is devoured by animals or disappears in other ways. There appears excellent evidence, however, that the mortuary food offerings of the ancient Sikyatkians were deposited with the body and covered with soil and sometimes stones.
The lapse of time since these burials took place has of course caused the destruction of the perishable food substances, which are found to be simple where any sign of their former presence remains. Thin films of interlacing rootlets often formed a delicate network over the whole inner surface of the bowl. Certain of the contents of these basins in the shape of seeds still remain; but these seeds have not germinated, possibly on account of previous high temperatures to which they have been submitted. A considerable quantity of these contents of mortuary bowls were collected and submitted to an expert, the result of whose examination is set forth in the accompanying letter:
U. S. Department of Agriculture, Division of Botony,
Washington, D. C., March 25, 1896.
Dear Dr Fewkes: Having made a cursory examination of the samples of supposed vegetable material sent by you day before yesterday, collected at Sikyatki, Arizona, in supposed prehistoric burial places, I have the following preliminary report to make:
No. 156247. A green resinous substance. I am unable to say whether or not this is of vegetable origin.
No. 156248. A mass of fibrous material intermixed with sand, the fibers consisting in part of slender roots, in part of the hair of some animal.