[136] Muryi, mole or gopher; muriyawû, moon. There maybe some Hopi legend connecting the gopher with the moon, but thus far it has eluded my studies, and I can at present do no more than call attention to what appears to be an interesting etymological coincidence.
[137] This form of mouth I have found in pictures of quadrupeds, birds, and insects, and is believed to be conventionalized. Of a somewhat similar structure are the mouths of the Natacka monsters which appear in the Walpi Powamû ceremony. See the memoir on "Tusayan Katcinas," in the Fifteenth Annual Report.
[138] Figures of the tadpole and frog are often found on modern medicine bowls in Tusayan. The snake, so common on Zuñi ceremonial pottery, has not been seen by me on a single object of earthenware in use in modern Hopi ritual.
[139] Journal of American Ethnology and Archæology, vol. iv.
[140] Although made of beautiful yellow ware, it shows at one point marks of having been overheated in firing, as is often the case with larger vases and jars.
[141] One of the best examples of the rectangular or ancient type of medicine bowl is used in the celebration of the Snake dance at Oraibi, where it stands on the rear margin of the altar of the Antelope priesthood of that pueblo.
[142] One of the best of these is that of the Humis-katcina, but good examples occur on the dolls of the Calakomanas. The Lakone maid, however, wears a coronet of circular rain-cloud symbols, which corresponds with traditions which recount that this form was introduced by the southern clans or the Patki people.
[143] In the evolution of ornament among the Hopi, as among most primitive peoples where new designs have replaced the old, the meaning of the ancient symbols has been lost. Consequently we are forced to adopt comparative methods to decipher them. If, for instance, on a fragment of ancient pottery we find the figure of a bird in which the wing or tail feathers have a certain characteristic symbol form, we are justified, when we find the same symbolic design on another fragment where the rest of the bird is wanting, in considering the figure that of a wing or tail feather. So when the prescribed figure of the feather has been replaced by another form it is not surprising to find it incomprehensible to modern shamans. The comparative ethnologist may in this way learn the meanings of symbols to which the modern Hopi priest can furnish no clue.
[144] In an examination of many figures of ancient vessels where this peculiar design occurs it will be found that in all instances they represent feathers, although the remainder of the bird is not to be found. The same may also be said of the design which represents the tail-feathers. This way of representing feathers is not without modern survival, for it may still be seen in many dolls of mystic personages who are reputed to have worn feathered garments.
[145] At the present time the circle is the totemic signature of the Earth people, representing the horizon, but it has likewise various other meanings. With certain appendages it is the disk of the sun—and there are ceremonial paraphernalia, as annulets, placed on sand pictures or tied to helmets, which may be represented by a simple ring. The meaning of these circles in the bowl referred to above is not clear to me, nor is my series of pictographs sufficiently extensive to enable a discovery of its significance by comparative methods. A ring of meal sometimes drawn on the floor of a kiva is called a "house," and a little imagination would easily identify these with the mythic houses of the sky-bird, but this interpretation is at present only fanciful.