[Illustration: FIG. 337--Double triangle and feathers]
The design in figure 336 is likewise unsymmetrical, but it has two
lateral triangles with incurved terrace and dentate patterns. The same
general form is exhibited in figure 337, with the introduction of two
pointed appendages facing the hypothetical middle line. From the
general form of these pointed designs, each of which is double, they
have been interpreted as feathers. They closely resemble the
tail-feathers of bird figures on several bowls in the collection, as
will be seen in several of the illustrations.
[Illustration: FIG. 338--Twin triangles]
[Illustration: FIG. 339--Triangle with terraced appendages]
[Illustration: FIG. 340--Mosaic pattern]
Figure 338 is composed of two triangular designs fused at the greatest
angles. The regularity of these triangles is broken by a square space
at the fusion. At each of the acute angles of the two triangles there
are circular designs with radiating lines, a common motive on the
exterior of food bowls. Although no new elements appear in figure 338,
with the exception of bracket marks, one on each side of a circle, the
arrangement of the two parts symmetrically about a line parallel with
the rim of the bowl imparts to the design a unique form. The motive in
figure 339 is reducible to triangular and rectangular forms, and while
exceptional as to their arrangement, no new decorative feature is
introduced.
The specimen represented in figure 340 has as its decorative elements,
rectangles, triangles, parallel lines, and birds' tails, to which may
be added star and crosshatch motives. It is therefore the most
complicated of all the exterior decorations which have thus far been
considered. There is no symmetry in the arrangement of figures about a
central axis, but rather a repetition of similar designs.
[Illustration: FIG. 341--Rectangles, stars, crooks, and parallel
lines]
The use of crosshatching is very common on the most ancient Pueblo
ware, and is very common in designs on cliff-house pottery. This style
of decoration is only sparingly used on Sikyatki ware. The
crosshatching is provisionally interpreted as a mosaic pattern, and
reminds one of those beautiful forms of turquois mosaic on shell,
bone, or wood found in ancient pueblos, and best known in modern times
in the square ear pendants of Hopi women. Figure 340 is one of the few
designs having terraced figures with short parallel lines depending
from them. These figures vividly recall the rain-cloud symbol with
falling rain represented by the parallel lines. Figure 341 is a
perfectly symmetrical design with figures of stars, rectangles, and
parallel lines. It may be compared with that shown in figure 340 in
order to demonstrate how wide the difference in design may become by
the absence of symmetrical relationship. It has been shown in some of
the previous motives that the crook sometimes represents a bird's
head, and parallel lines appended to it the tail-feathers. Possibly
the same interpretation may be given to these designs in the following
figures, and the presence of stars adjacent to them lends weight to
this hypothesis.
[Illustration: FIG. 342--Continuous crooks]
[Illustration: FIG. 343--Rectangular terrace pattern]
An indefinite repetition of the same pattern of rectangular design is
shown in figure 342. This highly decorative motive may be varied
indefinitely by extension or concentration, and while it is modified
in that manner in many of the decorations of vases, it is not so
changed on the exterior of food bowls.
There are a number of forms which I am unable to classify with the
foregoing, none of which show any new decorative design. All possible
changes have been made in them without abandoning the elemental
ornamental motives already considered. The tendency to step or terrace
patterns predominates, as exemplified in simple form in figure 343. In
figure 344 there is a different arrangement of the same terrace
pattern, and the design is helped out with parallel bands of different
length at the ends of a rectangular figure. A variation in the depth
of color of these lines adds to the effectiveness of the design. This
style of ornamentation is successfully used in the designs represented
in figures 345 and 346, in the body of which a crescentic figure in
the black serves to add variety to a design otherwise monotonous. The
two appendages to the right of figure 346 are interpreted as feathers,
although their depart forms widely from that usually assumed by these
designs. The terraced patterns are replaced by dentate margins in this
figure, and there is a successful use of most of the rectangular and
triangular designs.
[Illustration: FIG. 344--Terrace pattern with parallel lines]
[Illustration: FIG. 345--Terrace pattern]
[Illustration: FIG. 346--Triangular pattern with feathers]
In the specimens represented in figures 347 and 348 marginal
dentations are used. I have called the design referred to an S-form,
which, however, owing to its elongation is somewhat masked. The
oblique bar in the middle of the figure represents the body of the
letter, the two extremities taking the forms of triangles.
[Illustration: FIG. 347--S-pattern]
[Illustration: FIG. 348--Triangular and terrace figures]
So far as decorative elements are concerned the design in figure 349
can be compared with some of those preceding, but it differs from them
in combination. The motive in figure 350 is not unlike the
ornamentation of certain oriental vases, except from the presence of
the terraced figures. In figure 351 there are two designs separated by
an inclined break the edge of which is dentate. This figure is
introduced to show the method of treatment of alternating triangles of
varying depth of color and the breaks in the marginal bands or "lines
of life." One of the simplest combinations of triangular and
rectangular figures is shown in figure 353, proving how effectually
the original design may be obscured by concentration.
[Illustration: FIG. 349--Crook, terrace, and parallel lines]
[Illustration: FIG. 350--Triangles, squares, and terraces]
In the foregoing descriptions I have endeavored to demonstrate that,
notwithstanding the great variety of designs considered, the types
used are very limited in number. The geometrical forms are rarely
curved lines, and it may be said that spirals, which appear so
constantly on pottery from other (and possibly equally ancient or
older) pueblos than Sikyatki, are absent in the external decorations
of specimens found in the ruins of the latter village.
Every student of ancient and modern Pueblo pottery has been impressed
by the predominance of terraced figures in its ornamentation, and the
meaning of these terraces has elsewhere been spoken of at some length.
It would, I believe, be going too far to say that these step designs
always represent clouds, as in some instances they are produced by
such an arrangement of rectangular figures that no other forms could
result.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY