The feather may lose all semblance to the preceding forms and become a simple triangle. This is the case in [figures 6 and 7] from a vase and food basin from Sikyatki. If the whole design, of which [figure 6] is one wing, were represented we should have no hesitancy in regarding it a figure of a bird. From their position on this figure, then, we conclude that their triangular designs are wing feathers. If we seek to apply the conclusion that the triangular figure represents a feather to the jar, a portion of which is shown in [figure 7], we find that the seven triangular designs in this figure bear the same relation to the orifice of the jar as the symbols of feathers in [figure 3]. This relationship, as will readily be seen, is confirmatory of the conclusion that the feather symbol is sometimes reduced to a simple triangle, or, looking for corroborative evidence, we approach the subject in another way.
The conception of a serpent with a plumed head is common in modern Tusayan, and we find several serpents represented on ancient food basins from Sikyatki. Two of these figures have triangular appendages on top of the head, and, as there are no other designs on that organ that can be referred to feathers, we conclude that the triangular symbols represent the feathered crest of the Great Plumed Serpent. Evidently not all triangular figures represent feathers, for some may be simply ornamental geometric designs; but that many figures of this shape are symbols of feathers there can hardly be a reasonable doubt, from the evidence adduced above.
From our studies of the triangle as a wing feather we are able to interpret many designs, where all semblance to the feather or wing is lost. Thus in the upper part of [figure 7] we have one of the most common designs on ancient Hopi ceramics. There is nothing in it to suggest a bird's wing, but if we compare it with the wing on the undoubted figure of a bird ([figure 6]) we find a perfect homology.
The presence of eagle feathers on ancient Hopi disks, symbolic of the sun, is frequent, and feathers are still inserted in a cornhusk border on the margin of hoops covered with painted buckskin representing the sun in modern Tusayan ceremonies.[14] In the old forms of sun pictographs the disk is represented by a circle, and the symbolic feathers are arranged in four clusters on the margin. In some instances each of these clusters of feathers is accompanied by a curved horn similar to that near the right-hand cluster of feathers in [figure 5]. The significance of this curved addition is unknown to me, but there are a large number of specimens in which a similar design is associated with two or more feathers.
In [figure 9] we have a symbolic form of feather which is very common in ancient Hopi decorations. The whole design from which this was taken represents a bird in which the part lettered w is the wing and b the body. It will be noticed that this feather is attached to the body directly under the wing, and as feathers found on the breast of birds are at present given an especial signification in ceremonials, it is supposed that the symbol in this design has a similar meaning. This symbol is therefore identified as the breast feather.
In looking over the variety of designs in which this form of the feather symbol occurs, one of the most instructive is shown in figure 8, from a food basin obtained at Sikyatki by Dr Miller, of Prescott, Arizona, after my excavations at that ruin were abandoned. The complete design on this bowl represents a figure with five triangular peripheral extensions from a circular band, and alternating with these are five bundles[15] of feathers of the symbolic form shown in [figure 9]. This design is probably a sun emblem, although in figures of the sun tail-feathers in four clusters are more common.
The symbol of the feather shown in [figure 9] likewise occurs on the head of a snake and that of a bird which is figured on the inside of a ladle found at Sikyatki. It is also represented on the upper surface of several vases in the same relative position to the orifice as those already described and illustrated ([figure 3]).
The symbol of a feather with the markings shown in [figure 10] is likewise a common one in the decoration of ancient Hopi ceramics. The design here reproduced ([figure 10]) is a section of a small, beautiful vase, with the decoration confined to the equatorial region. From this zone hang symbols of feathers, one of which is plainly indicated. These zones are repeated at intervals around the vase. They may be comparable with the feathers tied about modern ceremonial vessels to which I have elsewhere referred.[16]