The designs shown in figure 74 represent the simplest forms of birds
attached lengthwise to the sky-band. The parallel lines on the left hand
of the observer are supposed to represent tail feathers and the curve on
the right, the heads, or possibly the wings.
[Illustration: FIG. 71.—Conventionalized bird form hanging from sky-band;
top view.]
[Illustration: FIG. 72.—Conventionalized bird form hanging from sky-band;
top view.]
One of the best designs representing a bird attached to a sky-band is
shown in figure 75, taken from a bowl in the Wattron collection now owned
by the Field Columbian Museum, of Chicago. The interior surface of this
bowl is considerably worn by use, and the figure a little indistinct,
but the extremities of a band appear. There is a fairly realistic
figure on each side of a bird with head and wings above and tail below
a diametrical band. There are zigzag markings, supposed to represent
lightning, on the under side of the wing. The tail is spread out amply
enough to show the different feathers which compose it; and at the bases
or on its under side corresponding in position with like symbols on the
wing there appear two zigzag figures. The significance of two curved
bodies hanging from the sky-band, one on each side of the tail of this
figure, can not be satisfactorily interpreted, but the bird design shown
in figure 76 has four tail feathers, a prolongation on the opposite side
representing a head, and a curved extension comparable with a wing in
other figures. The so-called wing terminates in a triangular feather.
[Illustration: FIG. 73.—Conventionalized bird form hanging from sky-band;
top view.]
[Illustration: FIG. 74.—Lateral view of bird hanging from sky-band.]
The two designs, figures 76 and 77, have parts which evidently
correspond, the latter being one of the most beautiful in the collection.
Both represent from the side an unknown bird hanging from a band
extending across the middle of the bowls. Although the details of organs
are more carefully depicted in the latter, there can hardly be a doubt
that similar animals were intended in both designs.
It requires some imagination to discover a conventionalized bird in
figure 78, but we may regard it as such. We have in this figure a good
example of a change in outline that may be produced by duplication or by
representing both sides of the body or its organs and appendages in the
same place. Three tail feathers are here apparent; the body is square,
with zigzag white lines, and the head, here twisted into a vertical
position, has a triangular form. The two crescentic appendages, one on
the right side, the other on the left, represent halves of wings which
are theoretically supposed to have been slit longitudinally and folded
backward[27] in order that both sides may be shown on the same plane; the
two bodies arising from the concave edges of these crescents—one to the
left, the other to the right of the square body—represent legs. Their
unusual form is brought about by a twisting of body and tail, by which
feathers of the latter are brought to longitudinal position, and one of
the legs is twisted to the right side and the other to the left. If the
two appendages supposed to represent the legs or the two parts shaped
like crescentlike knives were brought together, the two crescents would
likewise merge into one, and we would then have a highly conventionalized
bird with three tail feathers and a triangular head, the body being
represented by a square design crossed diagonally by zigzag figures each
in its own rectangular inclosed field.
[Illustration: FIG. 75.—Lateral view of bird hanging from sky-band.]
[Illustration: FIG. 76.—Lateral view of bird with extended wing.]