One of the bowls (fig. 30) from the Oldtown ruin has two fishes
depicted on opposite sides of the inner surface. These fishes resemble
trout and are of different colors, black and reddish brown figures
painted on a white ground. They are represented as hanging from two
parallel lines surrounding the rim of the bowl. These fishes are so
well drawn that there is no doubt what animal was intended to be here
represented. On the interior of another bowl excavated by the author
at Oldtown there is a picture of a fish which recalls the two just
mentioned.[50] It may be mentioned that fishes are not represented
in the beautiful specimens of pottery from Sikyatki,[51] possibly
for the simple reason that there are no streams containing fish in
the neighborhood of Hopi ruins. In the Mimbres, however, fish are
still found and were no doubt formerly abundant and well known to the
prehistoric inhabitants,[52] being looked upon by them as water symbols
in much the same way as the frog is at present regarded by Zuñi and
Hopi.
[Illustration: FIG. 30.—Fish. Oldtown Ruin. Diam. 9″.]
Another fish figured on a bowl from Oldtown, is unfortunately broken
near the tail. The accompanying decoration has apparently another
figure behind this fish, but its complete form is obscured by the
perforation made in killing the vessel.
The most problematical of all the life figures on the Mimbres pottery
is shown in plate 7, figure 2. This figure occurs on a black and white
food bowl, eleven inches in diameter, four and one-half inches in
depth. In support of the theory that the two figures here depicted
represent fishes, we have the pointed head without neck, the operculum
as a white crescentic design, two fins (pectoral, ventral, and anal),
the median (adipose?) dorsal fin unpaired, and a long tail bifurcated
at the extremity. The resemblance of these figures to the undoubted
fishes on bowls previously mentioned is conclusive evidence that they
represent the same animal.