dianapolis,
Indiana. "Is not the bowl the emblem of the earth, our mother? For
from her we draw both food and drink, as a babe draws nourishment from
the breast of its mother; and round, as is the rim of a bowl, so is
the horizon, terraced with mountains whence rise the clouds." This
alludes to a medicine bowl, not to one of the handled kind, but I will
apply it as far as it goes to the latter. The two terraces on either
side of the handle (Fig. 558, _a a_) are in representation of the
"ancient sacred place of the spaces," the handle being the line of the
sky, and sometimes painted with the rainbow figure. Now the
decorations are a trifle more complex. We may readily perceive that
they represent tadpoles (Fig. 558, _b b_), dragonflies (Fig: 558, _c
c_), with also the frog or toad (Fig. 558); all this is of easy
interpretation. As the tadpole frequents the pools of spring time he
has been adopted as the symbol of spring rains; the dragon-fly hovers
over pools in summer, hence typifies the rains of summer; and the
frog, maturing in them later, symbolizes the rains of the later
seasons; for all these pools are due to rain fall. When, sometimes,
the figure of the sacred butterfly (see Fig. 559, _a b_) replaces that
of the dragon-fly, or alternates with it, it symbolizes the
beneficence of summer; since, by a reverse order of reasoning, the
Zunis think that the butterflies and migratory birds (see Fig. 560)
_bring_ the warm season from the "Land of everlasting summer."

[Illustration: FIG. 558.--Zuni prayer-meal-bowl.]

Upon vessels of special function, like these we have just noticed,
peculiar figures may be regarded as emblematic; on other classes, no
matter how evidently conventional and expressive decorations may seem,
excepting always, totemic designs, it is wise to use great caution in
their interpretation as intentional and not merely imitative.

A general examination, even of the most modern of Pueblo pottery,
shows us that certain types of decoration have once been confined to
certain types of vessels, all which has its due signification but an
examination of which would properly form the subject of another essay.

[Illustration: FIG. 559.--Paintings of sacred butterfly.]

[Illustration: FIG. 560.--Painting of "summer-bird."]

Happily, a work collateral to the one which I have here merely begun,
will, I have reason to hope, be carried to a high degree of perfection
in the forthcoming monographs on the exhaustl