The zigzag line occupying the position of the tongue and terminating
in a triangle is a lightning symbol, with which the serpent is still
associated. While striving not to strain the symbolism of this figure,
it is suggested that the three curved marks on the lower and upper
jaws represent fangs. It is highly probable that conceptions not
greatly unlike those which cluster about the Great Plumed Serpent were
associated with this mythic snake, the figure of which is devoid of
some of the most essential elements of modern symbolism.
While from the worn character of the middle of the food bowl
illustrated in plate CXXXII, _b_, it is not possible to discover
whether the animal was apodal or not from the crosshatching of the
body and the resemblance of the appendages of the head to those of the
figure last considered, it appears probable that this pictograph
likewise was intended to represent a snake of mystic character. Like
the previous figure, this also is coiled, with the tail near the head,
its body crosshatched, and with two triangular appendages to the head.
There is, however, but one eye, and the two jaws are elongated and
provided with teeth,[137] as in the case of certain reptiles.
The similarity of the head and its appendages to the snake figure last
described would lead me to regard the figure shown in plate CXXXII,
_c_, as representing a like animal, but the latter picture is more
elaborately worked out in details, and one of the legs is well
represented. I have shown in the discussion of a former figure how the
decorator, recognizing the existence of two eyes, represented them
both on one side of the head of a profile figure, although only one is
visible, and we see in this picture (figure 267) a somewhat similar
tendency, which is very common in modern Tusayan figures of animals.
The breath line is drawn from the extremity of the snout halfway down
the length of the body. In modern pictography a representation of the
heart is often depicted at the blind extremity of this line, as if, in
fact, there was a connection with this organ and the tubes through
which the breath passes. In the Sikyatki pottery, however, I find only
this one specimen of drawing in which an attempt to represent internal
organs is made.
The tail of this singular picture of a reptile is highly
conventionalized, bearing appendages of unknown import, but recalling
feathers, while on the back are other appendages which might be
compared with wings. Both of these we might expect, considering the
association of bird and serpent in the Hopi conception of the Plumed
Snake.
Exact identifications of these pictures with the animals by which the
Hopi are or were surrounded, is, of course, impossible, for they are
not realistic representations, but symbolic figures of mythic beings
unknown save to the imagination of the primitive mythologist.
[Illustration: FIG. 267--Unknown reptile]
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY