FEWKES] FEATHER SYMBOLS ON POTTERY 689 
The studies of the conventional bird figures which are developed in 
the preceding pages make it possible to interpret one of the two 
pictures on the food bowl represented in plate CLI, while the realistic 
character of the smaller figure leaves no question that we can rightly 
identify this also as abird. In the larger figure the wings are of une- 
qual size and are tipped with appendages of a more or less decorative 
nature. The posterior part of the body is formed of two triangular 
extensions, to which feathers are suspended, and the tail is composed 
of three large pointed feathers. The head bears the terraced rain- 
cloud designs almost universal in pictographs of birds. 
It is hardly necessary for me to indicate the head, body, wings, and 
legs of the smaller figure, for they are evidently avian, while the char- 
acter of the beak would indicate that a parrot or raptorial genus was 
intended. The same beak is found in the decoration of a vase with a 
bird design, which will later be considered. 
From an examination of the various figures of birds on the Sikyatki 
pottery, and an analysis of the appendages to the wings, body, and 
legs, it is possible to determine the symbolic markings characteristic 
of two different kinds of feathers, the large wing or tail feathers and 
the so-called breath or body feathers. There is therefore no hesitation, 
when we find an object of pottery ornamented with these symbols, in 
interpreting them as feathers. Such a bowl is that shown in plate 
CXLI, ¢, in which we find a curved line to which are appended three 
breast feathers. This curved band from which they hang may take 
the form of a circle with two pendent feathers as in plate CXxLI, d. 
In the design on the bow! figured in plate CXxLI, e, tail-feathers hang 
from a curved band, at each extremity of which is a square design in 
which the cross is represented. It has been suggested that this repre- 
sents the feathered rainbow, a peculiar conception of both the Pueblo 
and the Navaho Indians. The design appearing on the small food bowl 
represented in plate CXLI, /, is no doubt connected in some way with 
that last mentioned, although the likeness between the appendages to 
the ring and feathers is remote. It is one of those conventionalized 
pictures, the interpretation of which, with the scanty data at hand, 
must be largely theoretical. 
Figures of feathers are most important features in the decoration of 
ancient Sikyatki pottery, and their many modifications may readily be 
seen by an examination of the plates. In modern Tusayan ceremonials 
the feather is appended to almost all the different objects used in 
worship; it is essential in the structure of the tiponi or badge of the 
chief, without which no elaborate ceremony can be performed or altar 
erected; it adorns the images on the altars, decorates the heads of 
participants, is prescribed for the prayer-sticks, and is always appended 
to aspergills, rattles, and whistles. 
In the performance of certain ceremonials water from sacred springs 
is used, and this water, sometimes brought from great distances, is 
17 ETH, PT 2 15 
