[Illustration: FIG. 88.—Circle with triangles.]
The geometrical designs on the pottery from Sikyatki consist of two
well-recognized groups: (1) Purely ornamental or nonsymbolic geometrical
figures, and (2) highly conventional life forms. Some of the figures of
the second group may be geometrical representations of birds or other
animals; but the former are simply embellishments used to beautify the
objects on which they are painted. Purely decorative designs, not being
symbolic, will not be specially considered, as they do not come within
the scope of the present treatise. An interpretation of the significance
of many of the second group of geometrical designs is not possible,
although they probably represent animal forms.
The strictly geometrical figures so frequently found on pottery from
Sikyatki recall the linear decorations almost universal in ancient
southwestern ware.
No one who has carefully compared specimens of decorated pottery from
Sikyatki with examples from any other southwestern region could fail to
be impressed with the differences in some of the geometrical designs from
the two localities. Such designs on the Sikyatki ware are almost always
rectangular, rarely curved. As compared with pottery from cliff-dwellings
there is a paucity or entire absence of terraced designs in the ancient
Hopi ware, while zigzags representing lightning are comparatively rare.
The characteristic geometrical decorations on Sikyatki pottery are found
on the outside of the food bowls, in which respect they are notably
different from those of other ceramic areas. Designs on Sikyatki pottery
show few survivals of preexisting materials or evolution from transfer of
those on textiles of any kind. Such as do exist are so masked that they
shed little light on current theories of art evolution.
The designs on ancient Hopi pottery are in the main mythological, hence
their true interpretation involves a knowledge of the religious ideas
and especially of such psychological elements as sympathetic magic, so
prevalent among the Hopi of to-day. The idea that by the use of symbols
man could influence supernatural beings was no doubt latent in the
mind of the potter and explains the character of the symbols in many
instances. The fact that the bowls on which these designs are painted
were found with the dead, and contained food for the departed, implies a
cult of the dead, or at least a belief in a future life.