680 EXPEDITION TO ARIZONA IN 1895 [EDH. ANN. 17 
The elaborate decoration of the zone outside the six butterflies is 
made up of feathers arranged in three clusters of three each, alter- 
nating with key patterns, crosshatched crooks, triangles, and frets. 
The wealth of ornament on this part of the vase is noteworthy, and 
its interpretation very baffling. This vase may well be considered the 
most elaborately decorated in the whole collection from Sikyatki. 
There are several figures of butterflies, like those shown in plate 
OXXXI, a, in which the modifications of wings and body have proceeded 
still further, and the only features which refer them to insects are the 
jointed autenne. The passage from this highly conventionalized 
design into a triangular figure is not very great. There are still others 
where the head, with attached appendages, arises not from an angle of a 
triangle, but from the middle of one side. This gives us a very com- 
mon form of butterfly symbol, which is found, variously modified, on 
many ancient vessels. In such designs there is commonly a row of 
dots on each side, which may be represented by a sinuous line, a series 
of triangles, bars, or parallel bars. 
The design reproduced in plate Cxxxtv, d, represents a moth or 
butterfly associated with a flower, and several star symbols. It is 
evidently similar to that figured in a of the same plate, and has 
representations of antennz and extended proboscis, the latter organ 
placed as if extracting honey from the flower. The conventional flower 
is likewise shown in ¢ of this plate. The two crescentic designs in plate 
CXXXV, a, are regarded as butterflies. 
The jar illustrated in plate CXLV, b, is ornamented with highly con- 
ventionalized figures on four sides, and is the only one taken from the 
Sikyatki cemeteries in which the designs are limited to the equatorial 
surface. The most striking figure, which is likewise found on the base 
of the paint saucer shown in plate CXLVI, /, is a diamond-shape design 
with a triangle at each corner (figure 276). The pictures drawn on 
alternating quadrants have very different forms, which are difficult to 
classify, and I have therefore provisionally associated this beautiful 
vessel with those bearing the butterfly and the triangle. The form of 
this vessel closely approaches that of the graceful cooking pots made 
of coiled and coarse indented ware, but the vessel was evidently not 
used for cooking purposes, as it bears no marks of soot.! 
DRAGON-FLIES 
Among the most constant designs used in the decoration of Sikyatki 
pottery are figures of the dragon-fly. These decorations consist of a 
line, sometimes enlarged into a bulb at one end, with two parallel 
bars drawn at right angles across the end, below the enlargement. 
Like the tadpole, the dragon-fly is a symbol of water, and with it are 
associated many legends connected with the miraculous sprouting of 
corn in early times. It is a constant symbol on modern ceremonial 
1 Although made of beautiful yellow ware, it shows at one point marks of having been overheated 
in firing, as is often the case with larger vases and jars. 
