Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895: Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1895-1896, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1898, pages 519-744Fewkes, Jesse Walter
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Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895: Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1895-1896, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1898, pages 519-744
The body of the conventionalized bird is decorated with terraced
figures, spirals, flowers, and other designs arranged in a highly
complicated manner. From a bar connecting the spiral with the
encircling line there arises a tuft of feathers. Figure _a_ of the
same plate is characterized by a medially placed triangle and a
graceful pendant from which hangs seven feathers. In this instance
these structures take the form of triangles and pairs of lines. The
relation of these structures to feathers would appear highly
speculative, but they have been so interpreted for the following
reason: If we compare them with the appendages represented in the
design on the vase shown in CXLIII, _b_, we find them the same in
number, form, and arrangement; the triangles in the design on this
vase are directly comparable with the figures in plate CXLIII, _b_, in
the same position, which are undoubtedly feathers, as has been shown
in the discussion of this figure. Consequently, although the triangles
on the pendant in plate CLIII, _a_, appear at first glance to have no
relation to the prescribed feather symbol, morphology shows their true
interpretation. The reduction of the wing feather to a simple
triangular figure is likewise shown in several other pictures on food
vessels, notably in the figure, undoubtedly of a bird, represented in
plate CXLVI, _a_.
In the two figures forming plate CLIV are found simple bird symbols
and feather designs very much conventionalized. The same is true of
the two figures given in plate CLV.
The vessels illustrated in plate CLVI, _a_, _b_, are decorated with
designs of unknown meaning, save that the latter recalls the
modification of the feather into long triangular forms. On the outer
surface this bowl has a row of tadpoles encircling it in a sinistral
direction, or with the center of the bowl on the left. The design of
figure _c_ shows a bird's head in profile, with a crest of feathers
and with the two eyes on one side of the head and a necklace. The
triangular figure bears the symbolism of the turkey feather, as at
present designated in Tusayan altar paraphernalia. As with other bird
figures, there is a representation in red of the triple star.
Figure _d_ is the only specimen of a vessel in the conventional form
of a bird which was found at Sikyatki; it evidently formerly had a
handle. The vessel itself is globular, and the form of the bird is
intensified by the designs on its surface. The bird's head is turned
to the observer, and the row of triangles represent wing feathers. The
signification of the designs on _e_ and _f_ is unknown to me.
Figures _e_ and _f_ of plate CLVI are avian decorations, reduced in
the case of the former to geometric forms. The triangular figure is a
marked feature in the latter design.
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