The Sikyatki people buried their dead adorned with necklaces and other
ornaments as when living. The materials most highly prized for
necklaces were turquois and shell which were fashioned into beads,
some of which were finely made. These necklaces did not differ from
those now worn, and the shells employed were mostly marine varieties
of the genus _Pectunculus_. The turquois beads are often as finely cut
as any now worn, and their presence in the graves led to the only
serious trouble which I had with my native workmen, as they
undoubtedly appropriated many which were found. Some of these turquois
beads are simply flat fragments, perforated at one end, others are
well formed. Many skeletons had a single turquois near the mastoid
process of the skull, showing that they had been worn as ear pendants.
On the neck of one skeleton we found a necklace of many strands,
composed of segments of the leg bones of the turkey, stained green.
There were other specimens of necklaces made of turkey bones, which
were smoothly finished and apparently had not been stained.
Necklaces of perforated cedar berries were likewise found, some of
them still hanging about the necks of the dead, and in one instance, a
small saucer like vessel (plate CXX, _d_) was filled with beads of
this kind, as if the necklace had thus been deposited in the grave as
a votive offering.
For gorgets the Sikyatki people apparently prized slabs of lignite
(plate CLXXII, _d_) and plates of selenite. It was likewise customary
to make small clay imitations of birds and shells for this and for
other ornamental purposes; these, for the most part, however, were not
found in the graves, but were picked up on the surface or in the
débris within the rooms.
The three forms imitating birds shown in plate CLXXIII, _g_, _h_, _i_,
are rude in character, and one of them is crossed by a black line from
which depend parallel lines, representing falling rain; all of these
specimens have a perforated knot on the under side for suspension, as
shown in the figure between them.
The forms of imitations of shells, in clay, of which examples are
shown in plate CLXXIII, _j_, _k_, _l_, are rude in character; they are
often painted with longitudinal or vertical black lines, and have a
single or double perforation for suspension. The shell imitated is
probably the young _Pectunculus_, a Pacific-coast mollusk, with which
the ancient Hopi were familiar.