Figures of quadrupeds are sparingly used in the decoration of food
bowls or basins, but the collection shows several fine specimens on
which appear some of the mammalia with which the Hopi are familiar.
Most of these are so well drawn that there appears to be no question
as to their identification.
One of the most instructive of these figures is shown in plate CXXX,
_a_, which is much worn, and indistinct in detail, although from what
can be traced it was probably intended to represent a mythic creature
known as the Giant Elk. The head bears two branched horns, drawn
without perspective, and the neck has a number of short parallel marks
similar to those occurring on the figure of an antelope on the walls
of one of the kivas at Walpi. The hoofs are bifid, and from a short
stunted tail there arises a curved line which encircles the whole
figure, connecting a series of round spots and terminating in a
triangular figure with three parallel lines representing feathers.
Perhaps the strangest of all appendages to this animal is at the tail,
which is forked, recalling the tail of certain birds. Its meaning is
unknown to me.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY