Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 Part 32

See the memoir on "Tusayan Katcinas," in the Fifteenth Annual Report.]

[Footnote 138: Figures of the tadpole and frog are often found on modern medicine bowls in Tusayan. The snake, so common on Zuni ceremonial pottery, has not been seen by me on a single object of earthenware in use in modern Hopi ritual.]

[Footnote 139: _Journal of American Ethnology and Archaeology_, vol.

IV.]

[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote 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 So when the prescribed figure of the feather has been replaced by another form it is not surprising to find it incomprehensible to modern shamans.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.]

[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote 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 amulets, 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.]

[Footnote 146: The _paho_ is probably a subst.i.tution of a sacrifice of corn or meal given as homage to the G.o.d addressed.]

[Footnote 147: _Journal of American Ethnology and Archaeology_, vol.

IV. These water gourds figure conspicuously in many ceremonies of the Tusayan ritual. The two girls personating the Corn-maids carry them in the Flute observance, and each of the Antelope priests at Oraibi bears one of these in the Antelope or Corn dance.]

[Footnote 148: "A few Tusayan Pictographs;" _American Anthropologist_, Washington, January, 1892.]

[Footnote 149: A beautiful example of this kind was found at h.o.m.olobi in the summer of 1896.]

[Footnote 150: In this connection the reader is referred to the story, already told in former pages of this memoir, concerning the flogging of the youth by the husband of the two women who brought the Hopi the seeds of corn. It may be mentioned as corroboratory evidence that Calako-taka represents a supernatural sun-bird, that the Tataukyamu priests carry a shield with Tunwup (Calako-taka) upon it in the Soyaluna. These priests, as shown by the etymology of their name, are a.s.sociated with the sun. In the Sun drama, or Calako ceremony, in July, Calako-takas are personated, and at Zuni the Shalako is a great winter sun ceremony.]

[Footnote 151: _American Anthropologist_, April, 1895, p. 133. As these cross-shape pahos which are now made in Tusayan are attributed to the Kawaika or Keres group of Indians, and as they were seen at the Keresan pueblo of Acoma in 1540, it is probable that they are derivative among the Hopi; but simple cross decorations on ancient pottery were probably autochthonous.]

[Footnote 152: In dolls of the Corn-maids this germinative symbol is often found made of wood and mounted on an elaborate tablet representing rain-clouds.]

[Footnote 153: Many similarities might be mentioned between the terraced figures used in decoration in Old Mexico and in ancient Tusayan pottery, but I will refer to but a single instance, that of the stuccoed walls of Mitla, Oaxaca, and Teot.i.tlan del Valle. Many designs from these ruins are gathered together for comparative purposes by that eminent Mexicanist, Dr E. Seler, in his beautiful memoir on Mitla (_Wandmalereien von Mitla_, plate X). In this plate exact counterparts of many geometric patterns on Sikyatki pottery appear, and even the broken spiral is beautifully represented. There are key patterns and terraced figures in stucco on monuments of Central America identical with the figures on pottery from Sikyatki.]

[Footnote 154: This pillar, so conspicuous in all photographs of Walpi, is commonly called the Snake rock.]

[Footnote 155: _American Anthropologist_, April, 1892.]

[Footnote 156: I failed to find out how the Hopi regard fossils.]

[Footnote 157: These objects were eagerly sought by the Hopi women who visited the camps at Awatobi and Sikyatki.]

[Footnote 158: The tubular form of pipe was almost universal in the pueblo area, and I have deposited in the National Museum pipes of this kind from several ruins in the Rio Grande valley.]

[Footnote 159: _Journal of American Ethnology and Archaeology_, vol.

IV, pp. 31, 32, 33.]

[Footnote 160: This form of pipe occurs over the whole pueblo area.]

[Footnote 161: Ancient cigarette reeds, found in sacrificial caves, have a small fragment of woven fabric tied about them.]

[Footnote 162: The so-called "implements of wood" figured by Nordenskiold ("The Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde," plate XLII) are identical with some of the pahos from Sikyatki, and are undoubtedly prayer-sticks.]

[Footnote 163: Primitive Culture, vol. ii, p. 396.]

[Footnote 164: Journal of American Ethnology and Archaeology, Vol.

_ii_, p. 131.]

[Footnote 165: _American Anthropologist_, July, 1892.]

[Footnote 166: As stated in former pages, there is some paleographic evidence looking in that direction.]

[Footnote 167: _Journal of American Folk-Lore_, vol. V, no. xviii, p.

213.]

[Footnote 168: Op. cit., p. 214.]

[Footnote 169: They failed to germinate.]