658 EXPEDITION TO ARIZONA IN 1895 [ETH. ANN. 17 
the picture decoration of modern Tusayan pottery, made within a league 
of Sikyatki, is so different from the ancient that it indicates a modifica- 
tion of the culture of the Hopi in historic times, and implies how 
deceptive it may be to present modern beliefs and practices as fae- 
similes of ancient culture. 
The main subjects chosen by the native women for the decoration of 
their pottery are symbolic, and the most abundant objects which bear 
these decorations are food bowls and water vases. Many mythic con- 
cepts are depicted, among which may be mentioned the Plumed Snake, 
various birds, reptiles, frogs, tadpoles. and insects. Plants or leaves 
are seldom employed as decorative motives, but the flower is some- 
times used. The feather was perhaps the most common object utilized, 
and it may likewise be said the most highly conventionalized. 
An examination of the decorations of modern food basins used in the 
villages of East Mesa shows that the mythologic personages most com- 
monly chosen for the ornamentation of their interiors are the Corn or 
Germ goddesses.! These assuine a number of forms, yet all are reduci- 
ble to one type, although known by very different names, as Hewiiqti, 
“Old Woman,” Kokle, and the like. 
Figures of reptiles, birds, the antelope, and like animals do not occur 
on any of the food bowls from the large collection of modern Tusayan 
pottery which I have studied, and as these figures are well represented 
in the decorations on Sikyatki food bowls, we may suppose their use 
has been abandoned or replaced by figures of the Corn-maids.? This 
fact, like so many others drawn from a study of the Tusayan ritual, indi- 
cates that the cult of the Corn-maids is more vigorous today than it 
was when Sikyatki was in its prime. 
Many pictures of masks on modern Tusayan bowls are identified as 
Tacab or Navaho katcinas.’ Their symbolism is well characterized by 
chevrons on the cheeks or curved markings for eyes. None of these 
figures, however, have yet been found on aucient Tusayan ceramics. 
Taken in connection with facts adduced by Hodge indicative of a recent 
advent of this vigorous Athapascan tribe into Tusayan, it would seem 
that the use of the Tacab katcina pictures was of recent date, and is 
therefore not to be expected on the prehistoric pottery of the age of that 
found in Sikyatki. 
‘Certainly no more appropriate design could be chosen for the decoration of the inside of a food 
vessel than the head of the Corn maid, and from our ideas of taste none less so than that of a lizard 
or bird. The freshness and absence of wear of many of the specimens of Sikyatki mortuary pottery 
raises the question whether they were ever in domestic use. Many evidently were thus employed, as 
the evidences of wear plainly indicate, but possibly some of the vessels were made for mortuary 
purposes, either at the time of the decease of a relative or at an earlier period. 
2The figure shown in plate CXXIX, a, was probably intended to represent the Corn-maid, or an 
Earth goddess of the Sikyatki pantheon. Although it differs widely in drawing from figures of 
Calako-mana on modern bowls, it bears a startling resemblance to the figure of the Germ goddess 
which appears on certain Tusayan altars. 
3 Hopi legends recount how certain clans, especially those of Tanoan origin, lived in Tségi canyon 
and intermarried with the Navaho so extensively that it is said they temporarily forgot their own 
language. From this source may have sprung the numerous so-called Navaho katcinas, and the 
reciprocal influence on the Navaho cults was even greater. 
