[116] Symbolism rather than realism was the controlling element of archaic decoration. Thus, while objects of beauty, like flowers and leaves, were rarely depicted, and human forms are most absurd caricatures, most careful attention was given to minute details of symbolism, or idealized animals unknown to the naturalist.
[117] Certainly no more appropriate design could be chosen for the decoration of the inside of a food vessel than the head of the Corn-maid, and from our ideas of taste none less so than that of a lizard or bird. The freshness and absence of wear of many of the specimens of Sikyatki mortuary pottery raises the question whether they were ever in domestic use. Many evidently were thus employed, as the evidences of wear plainly indicate, but possibly some of the vessels were made for mortuary purposes, either at the time of the decease of a relative or at an earlier period.
[118] The figure shown in [plate cxxix, a], was probably intended to represent the Corn-maid, or an Earth goddess of the Sikyatki pantheon. Although it differs widely in drawing from figures of Calako-mana on modern bowls, it bears a startling resemblance to the figure of the Germ goddess which appears on certain Tusayan altars.
[119] Hopi legends recount how certain clans, especially those of Tanoan origin, lived in Tségi canyon and intermarried with the Navaho so extensively that it is said they temporarily forgot their own language. From this source may have sprung the numerous so-called Navaho katcinas, and the reciprocal influence on the Navaho cults was even greater.
[120] These priests wear a close-fitting skullcap, with two long, banded horns made of leather, to the end of which corn husks are tied. For an extended description see Journal of American Ethnology and Archæology, vol. ii, No. 1, page 11.
[121] The rarity of human figures on such kinds of pottery as are found in the oldest ruins would appear to indicate that decorations of this kind were a late development. No specimen of black-and-white ware on which pictures of human beings are present has yet been figured. The sequence of evolution in designs is believed to be (1) geometrical figures, (2) birds, (3) other animals, (4) human beings.
[122] In some of the figurines used in connection with modern Hopi altars these whorls are represented by small wheels made of sticks radiating from a common juncture and connected by woolen yarn.
[123] The natives of Cibola, according to Castañeda, "gather their hair over the two ears, making a frame which looks like an old-fashioned headdress." The Tusayan Pueblo maidens are the only Indians who now dress their hair in this way, although the custom is still kept up by men in certain sacred dances at Zuñi. The country women in Salamanca, Spain, do their hair up in two flat coils, one on each side of the forehead, a custom which Castañeda may have had in mind when he compared the Pueblo coiffure to an "old-fashioned headdress."
[124] American Anthropologist, April, 1892.
[125] Troano and Cortesiano codices.