SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXI DECORATED POTTERY FROM SIKYATKI] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXII DECORATED POTTERY FROM SIKYATKI] Small and large ladles, with long handles, occurred in large numbers in Sikyatki graves, but there was little variation among them except in the forms of their handles. Many of these utensils were much worn by use, especially on the rim opposite the attachment of the handle, and in some specimens the handle itself had evidently been broken and the end rounded off by rubbing long before it was placed in the grave. From the comparatively solid character of the bowls of these dippers they were rarely fractured, and were commonly found to contain smaller mortuary objects, such as paint, arrowheads, or polishing stones. The ladles, unlike most of the cups, are generally decorated on the interior as well as on the exterior. Their handles vary in size and shape, are usually hollow, and sometimes are perforated at the end. In certain specimens the extremity is prolonged into a pointed, recurved tip, and sometimes is coiled in a spiral. A groove in the upper surface of one example is an unusual variation, and a right-angle bend of the tip is a unique feature of another specimen. The Sikyatki potters, like their modern descendants,[113] sometimes ornamented the tip of a single handle with the head of an animal and painted the upper surface of the shaft with alternate parallel bars, zigzags, terraces, and frets. Several spoons or scoops of earthenware, which evidently had been used in much the same way as similar objects in the modern pueblos, were found. Some of these have the shape of a half gourd--a natural object which no doubt furnished the pattern. These spoons, as a rule, were not decorated, but on a single specimen bars and parallel lines may be detected. In the innovations of modern times pewter spoons serve the same purpose, and their form is sometimes imitated in earthenware. More often, in modern and probably also in ancient usage, a roll of paper-bread or _piki_ served the same purpose, being dipped into the stew and then eaten with the fingers. Possibly the Sikyatkian drank from the hollow handle of a gourd ladle, as is frequently done in Walpi today, but he generally slaked his thirst by means of a clay substitute.[114] Several box-like articles of pottery of both cream and red ware were found in the Sikyatki graves, some of them having handles, others being without them (plate CXXV). They are ornamented on the exterior and on the rim, and the handle, when not lacking, is attached to the longer side of the rectangular vessel. Not a single bowl was found with a terraced rim, a feature so common in the medicine bowls of Tusayan at the present time.[115]