FEWKES] STONE SLABS FROM LITTLE COLORADO RUINS 105 



on both sides with higlily suggestive designs of a symbolic nature. 

 The decoration on one side is almost wholly obliterated, but on one 

 corner we detect clearly the modern sj^mbols of the dragon flj-. The 

 pigments with which this stone is painted were easily washed off, 

 and this accounts for the loss of the decoration on the surface 

 which was iippermost as it lay in the grave over the bodj^ The 

 design on the other face, however, is more distinct. It consists 

 of three triangular figures inclosed in a border, recalling a sand 

 nicsaic such as is used in modern presentations of the Ilopi ritual. 

 Two colors, black and white, are readily detected in the border — 

 the black outside the white. The field inclosed b}^ this border is yel- 

 low, and the three triangular figures are black, with inclosed rec- 

 tangles, which are white. At the apex of each triangle there is a rude 

 figure of a bird painted red, in which the head, body, and two tail 

 feathers are well differentiated. 



The whole character of the design on this stone calls to mind the 

 decorations on the walls of a kiva of a cliff dwelling of the Mesa 

 Verde, described by Xordenskiold, and figured in his beautiful 

 memoir. In the designs on the kiva wall of ''ruin 9" we find groups 

 of three triangles arranged around the whole estufa at intervals 

 on the upper margin of a dado, and each of these triangles is sur- 

 rounded by a row of dots. The field on which thej' are painted is 

 yellow, and the triangles and dots are red or reddish brown. On a wall 

 of Spruce Tree house Nordenskidld found a similar dado with tri- 

 angular designs, and it is interesting to note that in the figure of this 

 ornamentation which he gives rude drawings of birds appear in 

 close proximity to the triangles. 



The interpretation of these figures must be more or less liyiDothet- 

 ical. The custom of ornamenting house walls with a series of trian- 

 gles on the iipper margin of a dado is still observed in the modern 

 Hopi villages, where, however, the position of the triangular designs 

 is reversed as compared with that of those on this stone slab. 



The triangle is a symbol of tlie moth or butterfly, which, while 

 appropriate on women's blankets or house walls, would hardly appear 

 to have special significance on the slab in question. Still, as has been 

 pointed out, one of the most venerated objects on the Anteloije altar 

 has the figure of a butterfly ujion it. 



Much more likely is it that these three triangular flgvires sur- 

 mounted by birds are rain-cloud symbols, and that this slab of 

 stone was formerly used in a ceremonial which had for its object 

 rain making, and to this conclusion the dragon-flj- symbols on the 

 reverse side also point. This stone is an altar slab with rain-cloud 

 symbols. 



In the Chevlon ruin the author found several flat stones, one of 

 considerable size, which were marked with blackened circles. The 

 largest of these, fully 3 feet S(iuare, was not brought to Wash- 

 ington, and the photograph which was made of it soon after it was 



