The bird and the feather far exceed all other motives in the
decoration of ancient Tusayan pottery, and the former design was
probably the first animal figure employed for that purpose when the
art passed out of the stage where simple geometric designs were used
exclusively. A somewhat similar predominance is found in the part
which the bird and the feather play in the modern Hopi ceremonial
system. As one of the oldest elements in the decoration of Tusayan
ceramics, figures of birds have in many instances become highly
conventionalized; so much so, in fact, that their avian form has been
lost, and it is one of the most instructive problems in the study of
Hopi decoration to trace the modifications of these designs from the
realistic to the more conventionalized. The large series of food bowls
from Sikyatki afford abundant material for that purpose, and it may
incidentally be said that by this study I have been able to interpret
the meaning of certain decorations on Sikyatki bowls of which the best
Hopi traditionalists are ignorant.[143] In order to show the method of
reasoning in this case I have taken a series illustrating the general
form of an unknown bird.
There can be no reasonable doubt that the decoration of the food basin
shown in plate CXXXVII, _a_, represents a bird, and analogy would
indicate that it is the picture of some mythologic personage. It has a
round head (figure 272), to which is attached a headdress, which we
shall later show is a highly modified feather ornament. On each side
of the body from the region of the neck there arise organs which are
undoubtedly wings, with feathers continued into arrowpoints. The
details of these wings are very carefully and, I may add,
prescriptively worked out, so that almost every line, curve, or zigzag
is important. The tail is composed of three large feathers, which
project beyond two triangular extensions, marking the end of the body.
The technic of this figure is exceedingly complicated and the colors
very beautiful. Although this bowl was quite badly broken when
exhumed, it has been so cleverly mended by Mr Henry Walther that no
part of the symbolism is lost.
While it is quite apparent that this figure represents a bird, and
while this identification is confirmed by Hopi testimony, it is far
from a realistic picture of any known bird with which the ancients
could have been familiar. It is highly conventionalized and idealized
with significant symbolism, which is highly suggestive.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY