678 EXPEDITION TO ARIZONA IN 1895 [ETH. ANN. 17 
pottery where the former method is employed, this fact may be of value 
in the identification of this rude outline as a frog rather than as a true 
reptile. 
BUTTERFLIES OR MOTHS 
One of the most characteristic modern decorations employed by the 
Hopi, especially as a symbol of fecundity, is the butterfly or moth. It 
is a constant device on the beautiful white or cotton blankets woven 
by the men as wedding gifts, where it is embroidered on the margin 
in the forms of triangles or even in more realistic patterns. This 
symbol is a simple triangle, which becomes quite realistic when 
a line is drawn bisecting one of the angles. This double triangle 
is not only a constant symbol on wedding blankets, but also is found 
on the dadoes of houses, resembling in design the arrangement of 
tiles in the Alhambra and other Moorish buildings. This custom of 
decorating the walls of a building with triangles placed at intervals on 
the upper edge of a 
dado is a feature of 
cliff-house kivas, as 
shown in Norden- 
skidld@’s beautiful 
memoir on the cliff 
villages of Mesa 
Verde. While an 
isosceles triangle 
represents the sim- 
Fic. 270—Outline of plate cxxxv, b plest form of the but- 
terfly symbol, and 
is common on ancient pottery, a few vessels from Sikyatki show a 
much more realistic figure. In plate Cxxxtiv, /, is shown a moth 
with extended proboscis and articulated antenne, and in d of the same 
plate another form, with the proboscis inserted in a flower, is given. 
As an associate with summer, the butterfly is regarded as a benefi- 
cent being aside from its fecundity, and one of the ancient Hopi clans 
regarded it as their totem. Perhaps the most striking, and I may say 
the most inexplicable, use of the symbol of the butterfly is the so-called 
Hokona or Butterfly virgin slab used in the Antelope ceremonies of the 
Snake dance at Walpi, where it is associated with the tadpole water 
symbol. 
The most beautiful of all the butterfly designs are the six figures on 
the vase reproduced in plate Cxxxy, b. From the number of these pic- 
tures it would seem that they bore some relationship to the six world- 
quarters—north, west, south, east, zenith, and nadir. The vase has a 
flattened shoulder, and the six butterfly figures are represented as 
flying toward the orifice. These insect figures closely resemble one 
another, and are divided into two groups readily distinguished by the 
symbolism of the heads. Three have each a cross with a single dot in 
