The feather symbol in ancient Hopi designs

by Jesse Walter Fewkes

In modern Hopi ceremonials the priests use a small gourd receptacle for sacred water, specimens of which have been figured elsewhere.[6] It sometimes happens that an earthen vase is used for the same purpose. This water gourd is covered by a cotton net, and feathers are tied to that part of the net which surrounds the orifice. When an earthen vase is used a cotton string is tied around the neck of the vase, and to this string feathers are attached. Apparently we have a deep-seated and significant connection between the ancient vase and the modern ceremonial counterpart with appended feathers. The ancient form had symbols of feathers painted on the upper surface about the orifice, the modern has the feather itself tied in the same position.

In the design represented in [figure 3] we have, therefore, symbols of feathers represented as tied around the neck of an ancient Sikyatki vase. The figure represents only a portion of the top of this vessel, but gives enough to show the general character of this form of feather symbol. If we compare this symbol with those on the head of the picture of Tuñwup[7] on the upright slats of the Katcina altars of modern times we will find an exact correspondence. They are also the same in shape and markings as the painted wooden sticks representing feathers on the heads of several dolls.[8]

The symbolic picture of the feather has still other modifications in its markings from the preceding, although preserving the same shape.

One of the most highly conventionalized symbolic figures of the feather is a triangle in which there are two parallel lines on one side. This form of the feather symbol is said to be the feather of the wild turkey, and the double marking recalls that of a tail feather.

We find this symbol on the angles of the lightning snakes of the sand-picture of the Antelope altar at Cuñopavi,[9] on wooden slats of the Flute altars,[10] and elsewhere. I have ceramic objects from the ruins of Homolobi and Chevlon which bear this form of feather symbol, and it appears to have been used as far south as Pinedale, on the northern edge of the Apache reservation.

One of the most beautiful vessels from the cemetery of Sikyatki is the "butterfly vase," the complicated design on which I have figured in plate LX of the Smithsonian Report for 1895. I have represented a sector of this design in [figure 5] in order to point out the feather decorations which form an important element in the ornamentation. The other sectors closely resemble that figured, with the exception that the butterflies in alternating sections have different markings on their heads, indicative of the sex. The butterfly here represented is female, and it is interesting to note the fact that the symbol of the female was the same when this vase was made as that now used in Hopi ceremonials.[11] There are three clusters of feathers (f) in this section, and each cluster is composed of three members. One of these clusters corresponds with those from the head of the reptile, [figure 2].

The three feathers shown in the cut below the butterfly, and peripherally placed on the surface of the vase, are likewise feather symbols, but as they have different markings from the others are probably from a different genera of birds. This form of feather symbol is a common one on ancient Sikyatki ware. One of the best illustrations may be seen in the wing of the bird which is figured on plate LX of my preliminary report on Sikyatki (op. cit.). That portion of the wing which reproduces the wing feathers is shown in [figure 4], and its resemblance to the feathers on [figure 5] will, I think, be evident at a glance.[12]

On several of the food basins from Sikyatki we find two or more feathers of this kind represented as hanging from a ring-shape or crescentic figure. One of the former is represented in plate LXI of the Smithsonian Report for 1895. The latter symbol has come down to modern times, and the figure painted on a shield of the Soyaluña ceremony, represented in color on plate CIV of my article on Tusayan Katcinas,[13] is almost an exact reproduction of the design on a Sikyatki food basin. This is one of several symbols on modern ceremonial paraphernalia which we can trace back over three hundred years by the aid of archaeology.