The serpent with a horn on the head is pretty generally regarded as a
supernatural being, and its pictures and effigies occur on modern Hopi,
Zuñi, and other Pueblo paraphernalia. It is an ancient conception, for
it is figured on prehistoric pottery from all parts of the Pueblo area,
having been found as far south as Casas Grandes in Chihuahua. It is to
be expected that a people like the ancient Mimbreños who adorned their
pottery with so many well drawn zoic figures would have included the
horned serpent, provided this reptile was a member of their pantheon.
The nearest approach to a figure of such a monster is found on a large
pottery fragment found by Mr. Osborn twelve miles south of Deming.
This fragment covered the cranium of a skeleton and was perforated or
“killed” like a whole bowl.
A very large number of pictures of the horned snake from localities all
over the Southwest might be mentioned, but a few examples are adequate
to show how widespread the conception was in ancient times. They occur
among the Tewa, Keres, Zuñi, Hopi and other Pueblos and vary greatly in
details, but in all instances preserve the essential symbolic feature—a
horn on the head and a serpentine body.
The horned serpent is known to the Hopi as the plumed serpent, and
when represented by them has a bundle of hawk feathers as well as a
horn attached to the head. Effigies of this being, also with horn and
feathers, are used in several ceremonies, as the Winter Solstice,[46]
and a dramatic festival[47] which occurs yearly in March. Wooden
representations of the same horned snake are carried as insignia by a
warrior society called the Kwakwantu,[48] in the New Fire Ceremony. The
priests of the Tewan pueblo, Hano, among the Hopi also have effigies
of the horned snake, the worship of which their ancestors brought to
Arizona from New Mexico. These effigies are yearly made of clay and
form conspicuous objects on the December altars of that pueblo.
[Illustration: FIG. 28.—Serpent. Osborn Ruin. (Osborn collection. E. D.
O. Jr. del.)]
The head shown in figure 28 has a horn curving forward almost identical
with that on the head of a horned serpent on a bowl from Casas Grandes
in the Heye collection. Its gracefully sinuous body is decorated
with alternating geometric figures, curves and straight lines.[49]
Accompanying the figure of a serpent is a well-drawn picture of a
turtle which is decorated on the carapace with a rectangular area on
which is painted a geometric figure recalling that on bodies of birds
and some other animals.