Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 Part 24

The modification of the multiple bands in figure 283 has produced a very different decorative form. This design is composed of five bands, the marginal on each side serrate, and the middle band relatively very broad, with diagonals, each containing four round dots regularly arranged. In figure 284 there are many parallel, noncontinuous bands of different breadth, arranged in groups separated by triangles with sides parallel, and the whole united by bounding lines. This is the most complicated form of design where straight lines only are used.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 285--Line with alternate triangles]

We have thus far considered modifications brought about by fusion and other changes in simple parallel lines. They may be confined to one side of the food bowl, may repeat each other at intervals, or surround the whole vessel. Ordinarily, however, they are confined to one side of the bowls from Sikyatki.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 286--Single line with alternate spurs]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 287--Single line with hourgla.s.s figures]

Returning to the single encircling band, it is found, in figure 285, broken up into alternating equilateral triangles, each pair united at their right angles. This modification is carried still further in figure 286, where the triangles on each side of the single line are prolonged into oblique spurs, the pairs separated a short distance from each other. In figure 287 there is shown still another arrangement of these triangular decorations, the pairs forming hourgla.s.s-shape figures connected by an encircling line pa.s.sing through their points of junction.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLXIII

FOOD BOWLS WITH GEOMETRIC ORNAMENTATION FROM SIKYATKI]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 288--Single line with triangles]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 289--Single line with alternate triangles and ovals]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 290--Triangles and quadrilaterals]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 291--Triangle with spurs]

In figure 288 the double triangles, one on each side of the encircling band, are so placed that their line of separation is lost, and a single triangle replaces the pair. These are connected by the line surrounding the bowl and there is a dot at the smallest angle. In figure 289 there is a similar design, except that alternating with each triangle, which bears more decoration than that shown in figure 288, there are hourgla.s.s figures composed of ovals and triangles. The dots at the apex of that design are replaced by short parallel lines of varying width. The triangles and ovals last considered are arranged symmetrically in relation to a simple band. By a reduction in the intervening s.p.a.ces these triangles may be brought together and the line disappears. I have found no specimen of design ill.u.s.trating the simplest form of the resultant motive, but that shown in figure 290 is a new combination comparable with it.

The simple triangular decorative design reaches a high degree of complication in figure 290, where a connecting line is absent, and two triangles having their smallest angles facing each other are separated by a lozenge shape figure made up of many parallel lines placed obliquely to the axis of the design. The central part is composed of seven parallel lines, the marginal of which, on two opposite sides, is minutely dentate. The median band is very broad and is relieved by two wavy white lines. The axis of the design on each side is continued into two triangular spurs, rising from a rectangle in the middle of each triangle. This complicated design is the highest development reached by the use of simple triangles. In figure 291, however, we have a simpler form of triangular decoration, in which no element other than the rectangle is employed. In the chaste decoration seen in figure 292 the use of the rectangle is shown combined with the triangle on a simple encircling band. This design is reducible to that shown in figure 290, but is simpler, yet not less effective. In figure 293 there is an aberrant form of design in which the triangle is used in combination with parallel and oblique bands. This form, while one of the simplest in its elements, is effective and characteristic. The triangle predominates in figure 294, but the details are worked out in rectangular patterns, producing the terraced designs so common in all Pueblo decorations. Rectangular figures are more commonly used than the triangular in the decoration of the exterior of the bowls, and their many combinations are often very perplexing to a.n.a.lyze.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 292--Rectangle with single line]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 293--Double triangle; multiple lines]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 294--Double triangle; terraced edges]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 295--Single line; closed fret]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLXIV

FOOD BOWLS WITH GEOMETRIC ORNAMENTATION FROM SIKYATKI]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 296--Single line; open fret]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 297--Single line; broken fret]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 298--Single line; parts displaced]

In figure 295, starting with the simple encircling band, it is found divided into alternating rectangles. The line is continuous, and hence one side of each rectangle is not complete. Both this design and its modification in figure 296 consist of an unbroken line of equal breadth throughout. In the latter figure, however, the openings in the sides are larger or the approach to a straight line closer. The forms are strictly rectangular, with no additional elements. Figure 297 introduces an important modification of the rectangular motive, consisting of a succession of lines broken at intervals, but when joined are always arranged at right angles.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 299--Open fret; attachment displaced]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 300--Simple rectangular design]

Possibly the least complex form of rectangular ornamentation, next to a simple bar or square, is the combination shown in figure 298, a type in which many changes are made in interior as well as in exterior decorations of Pueblo ware. One of these is shown in figure 299, where the figure about the vessel is continuous. An a.n.a.lysis of the elements in figure 300 shows squares united at their angles, like the last, but that in addition to parallel bands connecting adjacent figures there are two marginal lines uniting the series. Each of the inner parallel lines is bound to a marginal on the opposite side by a band at right angles to it. The marginal lines are unbroken through the length of the figure. Like the last, this motive also may be regarded as developed from a single line.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 301--Rectangular reversed S-form]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 302--Rectangular S-form with crooks]

Figures 301 and 302 are even simpler than the design shown in figure 300, with appended square key patterns, all preserving rectangular forms and dest.i.tute of all others. They are of S-form, and differ more especially in the character of their appendages.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 303--Rectangular S-form with triangles]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 304--Rectangular S-form with terraced triangles]

While the same rectangular idea predominates in figure 303, it is worked out with the introduction of triangles and quadrilateral designs. This fairly compound pattern, however, is still cla.s.sified among rectangular forms. A combination of rectangular and triangular geometric designs, in which, however, the former predominate, is shown in figure 304, which can readily be reduced to certain of those forms already mentioned. The triangles appear to be subordinated to the rectangles, and even they are fringed on their longer sides with terraced forms. It may be said that there are but two elements involved, the rectangle and the triangle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 305--S-form with interdigitating spurs]

The decoration in figure 305 consists of rectangular and triangular figures, the latter so closely approximated as to leave zigzag lines in white. These lines are simply highly modified breaks in bands which join in other designs, and lead by comparison to the so-called "line of life" which many of these figures ill.u.s.trate.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 306--Square with rectangles and parallel lines]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 307--Rectangles, triangles, stars, and feathers]

The distinctive feature of figure 306 is the square, with rectangular designs appended to diagonally opposite angles and small triangles at intermediate corners. These designs have a distant resemblance to figures later referred to as highly conventionalized birds, although they may be merely simple geometrical patterns which have lost their symbolic meaning.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 308--Crook, feathers, and parallel lines]

Figure 307 shows a complicated design, introducing at least two elements in addition to rectangles and triangles. One of these is a curved crook etched on a black ground. In no other exterior decoration have curved lines been found except in the form of circles, and it is worthy of note how large a proportion of the figures are drawn in straight lines. The circular figures with three parallel lines extending from them are found so constantly in exterior decorations, and are so strikingly like some of the figures elsewhere discussed, that I have ventured a suggestion in regard to their meaning. I believe they represent feathers, because the tail-feathers of certain birds are symbolized in that manner, and their number corresponds with those generally depicted in the highly conventionalized tails of birds. With this thought in mind, it may be interesting to compare the two projections, one on each side of the three tail-feathers of this figure, with the extremity of the body of a bird shown in plate CXLI, _e_. On the supposition that a bird figure was intended in this design, it is interesting also to note the rectangular decorations of the body and the a.s.sociation with stars made of three blocks in several bird figures, as already described. It is instructive also to note the fact that the figure of a maid represented in plate CXXIX, _a_, has two of the round designs with appended parallel lines hanging to her garment, and four parallel marks drawn from her blanket. It is still customary in Hopi ceremonials to tie feathers to the garments of those who personate certain mythic beings, and it is possible that such was also the custom at Sikyatki. If so, it affords additional evidence that the parallel lines are representations of feathers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 309--Crooks and feathers]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 310--Rectangle, triangles, and feathers]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 311--Terraced crook, triangle, and feathers]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLXV

FOOD BOWLS WITH GEOMETRIC ORNAMENTATION FROM SIKYATKI]

In figure 308 a number of these parallel lines are represented, and the general character of the design is rectangular. In figure 309 is shown a combination of rectangular and triangular figures with three tapering points and circles with lines at their tips radiating instead of parallel. Another modification is shown in figure 310 in which the triangle predominates, and figure 311 evidently represents one-half of a similar device with modifications.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 312--Double key]