FEWKES] BROKEN LINES IN POTTERY DECORATION 705 
most intricate variations, which depart so widely from the simple forms 
that their resemblances are somewhat difficult to follow. A brief con- 
sideration of these modifications may aid toward an understanding of 
the character of certain geometric ornamental motives. 
If any of the interlocking spirals on bowls or vases are traced, it 
is found that they do not join at the center of the figure. The same 
is true when these spirals become frets. There is always a break in 
the network which they form. This break is comparable with the 
hiatus on encircling bands and probably admits of the same interpreta- 
tion. In a simple form this motive appears as two crescents or two 
key patterns with the ends overlapping. This simple ornament, called 
the friendship sign, is commonly used in the decoration of the bodies 
of katcinas, and has been likened to the interlocking of fingers or 
hands of the participants in certain dances, the fingers half retracted 
with inner surfaces approximated, the palms of the hands facing in 
opposite directions and the wrists at opposite points. If the points be 
extended into an elaborate key pattern or curved into extended spirals, 
a complicated figure is produced in which the separation is less con- 
spicuous although always present. 
The same points may be modified into terraced figures, the separa- 
tion then appearing as a zigzag line drawn across the figure, or they 
may have interlocking dentate or serrate prolongations imparting a 
variety of forms to the interval between them.' In order to trace out 
these modifications it would be necessary to specify each individual 
ease, but I think that is unnecessary. In other words, the broken line 
appears to be a characteristic not only of simple encircling bands, but 
also of all geometric figures in which highly complicated designs extend. 
about the periphery of a utensil. 
DECORATIONS ON THE EXTERIOR OF Foop BOWLS 
The decorations on the exterior of the ancient food bowls are in most 
instances very characteristic and sometimes artistic. Generally they 
reproduce patterns which are found on the outside of vases and jars 
and sometimes have a distant relationship to the designs in the interior 
of the bowl upon which they occur. Usually these external decora- 
tions are found only on one side, and in that respect they differ from the 
modern food bowls, in which nothing similar to them appears. 
The characteristics of the external decorations of food bowls are sym- 
bolic, mostly geometric, square or rectangular, triangular or stepped 
‘Many similarities might be mentioned between the terraced figures used in decoration in Old 
Mexico and in ancient Tusayan pottery, but I will refer to but a single instance, that of the stuccoed 
walls of Mitla, Oaxaca, and Teotitlan del Valle. Many designs from these ruins are gathered together 
for comparative purposes by that eminent Mexicanist, Dr E. Seler, in his beautiful memoir on 
Mitla (Wandmalereien von Mitla, plate x). In this plate exact counterparts of many geometric 
patterns on Sikyatki pottery appear, and even the broken spiral is beautifully represented. There 
are key patterns and terraced figures in stucco on monuments of Central America identical with the 
figures on pottery from Sikyatki. 
17 ETH, PT 2 16 
