expressed itself on ancient Hopi ceramics or resuscitate the defunct intimate union of esthetic and religious inspiration. Finally, and this is embraced in the primary reason why I am interested in the archeology of the Southwest or any other region, a study of the religious decorative symbols of ancient pottery is an investigation not alone of the peculiarities of one cluster of men and women in ancient Arizona, but of religion in a characteristic environment.[17] A psychologist devises experiments in which he places individual men or animals under conditions to observe how they are thereby affected. Nature has performed a psychological experiment on a grand scale for the ethnologist in the semi-deserts of Arizona, and has set tribes of men in a special environment for our study. The problem of the ethnologist is to consider the effect on religion as shown in the products or expression of the same. The most important ethnic characteristic of man is his religion. It distinguishes him from other animals and embraces all other mental characteristics, sociology, language, and arts. Man can transmit his religious feelings to posterity by legends and by paleographic records. The former, if not recorded, may suffer changes in transmission, may be colored by successive generations, which have heard them from their elders and passed them along to their children. Paleography does not change. The ancient pictures are the same as when buried in the ancient graves. We may not be able to fully interpret them, but we are sure they have not been materially changed in the years which separate our time from that in which they were drawn. Imperfect as this picture-writing is as a means of transmitting to us the religion of prehistoric Tusayan when compared with written documents, it will in connection with legends yield a rich harvest to the student of the history of the Pueblo beliefs. The investigator who neglects this element in them misses the soul of the study. FOOTNOTES: [1] For a discussion of the antiquity of Sikyatki, see "Prehistoric Culture of Tusayan," _American Anthropologist_, 1896, and _Report of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution_, 1895. [2] A preliminary report will be found in the Smithsonian Report for 1895. [3] The reason for this relatively large number of avian over other zoomorphic deities in the Hopi system is not apparent. [4] Compare the combination of _three_ feathers in Aztec and Maya symbolism. [5] This figure shows the head below, with the eye well drawn. The continuation to the left is the neck, that to the right a beginning of an elaborate snout. [6] A number of these gourds are figured in my accounts of Tusayan ceremony. A vase with attached feathers, called _patne_, is represented on page 43, _Journ. Amer. Eth. and Arch._, vol. IV. [7] _Journ. Amer. Eth. and Arch._, vol. II, pp. 86, 107; _American Anthropologist_, May, 1897, pp. 133, 134.