704 EXPEDITION TO ARIZONA IN 1895 [RTH. ANN. 17 
object is carried by important personages. While it is not entirely 
clear to me that in all instances this crook is a badge of authority, in 
some cases it undoubtedly represents the standing of the bearer. 
There are, likewise, prayer offerings in the form of crooks, and even 
common forms of prayer-sticks have miniature curved sticks attached 
to them. 
Some of the warrior societies are said to make offerings in the form 
of a crook, and a stick of similar form is associated with the gods of 
war. There is little doubt that some of the crook-form decorations on 
ancient vessels may have been used as symbols with the same intent as 
the sticks referred to above. The majority of the figures of this shape 
elude interpretation. Many of them have probably no definite mean- 
ing, but are simply an effective motive of decoration. 
In some instances the figure of the crook on old pottery is a symbol 
of a prayer offering of a warrior society, made in the form of an 
ancient weapon, allied to a bow. 
THE GERMINATIVE SYMBOL 
The ordinary symbol of germination, a median projection with lateral 
extensions at the base (plate CXLIX, e), occurs among the figures on this 
ancient pottery. In its simplest form, a median line with a triangle on 
each side attached to one end, itis a phallic emblem. When this median 
line becomes oval, and the triangles elongated and curved at the ends, 
it represents the ordinary squash symbol,' also used as an emblem of 
fertility. 
The triangle is also an emblem of germination and of fecundity—the 
female, as the previously mentioned principle represents the male. The 
geometric designs on the ancient Sikyatki ware abundantly illustrate 
both these forms. 
BROKEN LINES 
In examining the simple encircling bands of many of the food bowls, 
jars, and other ceramic objects, it will be noticed that they are not 
continuous, but that there is a break at one point, and this break is 
usually limited to one point in all the specimens. Various explana- 
tions of the meaning of this failure to complete the band have been 
suggested, and it is a remarkable fact that it is one of the most widely 
extended characteristics of ancient pottery decoration in the whole 
Pueblo area, including the Salado and Gila basins. While in the 
specimens from Sikyatki the break is simple and confined to one 
point, in those from other regions we find two or three similar failures 
in the continuity of encircling lines, and in some instances the lines at 
the point of separation are modified into spirals, terraces, and other 
forms of geometric figures. In the more complex figures we find the 
1 In dolls of the Corn-maids this germinative symbol is often found made of wood and mounted on 
an elaborate tablet representing rain-clouds, 
