[Illustration: FIG. 268--Unknown reptile]
A similar reptile is pictured on the food bowl shown in plate CXXXII,
_d_, in which design, however, there are important modifications, the
most striking of which are: (1) The animal (figure 268) has both fore
and hind legs represented; (2) the head is round; (3) the mouth is
provided with teeth; and (4) there are four instead of two feather
appendages on the head, two of which are much longer than the others.
Were it not that ears are not represented in reptiles, one would be
tempted to regard the smaller appendages as representations of these
organs. Their similarity to the row of spines on the back and the
existence of spines on the head of the "horned toad" suggests this
reptile, with which both ancient and modern Hopi are very familiar. On
a fragment of a vessel found at Awatobi there is depicted the head of
a reptile evidently identical with this, since the drawing is an
almost perfect reproduction. There is a like figure, also from
Sikyatki, in the collection of pottery made at that ruin by Dr
Miller, of Prescott, the year following my work there. The most
elaborate of all the pictures of reptiles found on ancient Tusayan
pottery is shown in plate CXXXII, _e_, in which the symbolism is
complicated and the details carefully worked out. A few of these
symbols I am able to decipher; others elude present analysis. There is
no doubt as to the meaning of the appendage to the head (figure 269),
for it well portrays an elaborate feathered headdress on which the
markings that distinguish tail-feathers, three in number, are
prominent. The extension of the snout is without homologue elsewhere
in Hopi pictography, and, while decorative in part, is likewise highly
conventionalized. On the body semicircular rain cloud symbols and
markings similar to those of the bodies of certain birds are
distinguishable. The feet likewise are more avian than reptilian, but
of a form quite unusual in structure. It is interesting to note the
similarity in the carved line with six sets of parallel bars to the
band surrounding the figure of the human hand shown in plate CXXXVII,
_c_. In attempting to identify the pictograph on the bowl reproduced
in plate CXXXIV, _a_, there is little to guide me, and the nearest I
can come to its significance is to ascribe it to a reptile of some
kind. Highly symbolic, greatly conventionalized as this figure is,
there is practically nothing on which to base the absolute
identification of the figure save the serrated appendage to the body
and the leg, which resembles that of the lizard as it is sometimes
drawn. The two eyes indicate that the enlargement in which these were
placed is the head, and the extended curved snout a beak. All else is
incomprehensible to me, and my identification is therefore provisional
and largely speculative.
[Illustration: FIG. 269--Unknown reptile]
I wish, however, in leaving the description of this beautiful bowl, to
invite attention to the brilliancy and the characteristics of the
coloring, which differ from the majority of the decorated ware from
Sikyatki.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY