_e_, tail-feathers
hang from a curved band, at each extremity of which is a square design
in which the cross is represented. It has been suggested that this
represents the feathered rainbow, a peculiar conception of both the
Pueblo and the Navaho Indians. The design appearing on the small food
bowl represented in plate CXLI, _f_, is no doubt connected in some way
with that last mentioned, although the likeness between the appendages
to the ring and feathers is remote. It is one of those
conventionalized pictures, the interpretation of which, with the
scanty data at hand, must be largely theoretical.

Figures of feathers are most important features in the decoration of
ancient Sikyatki pottery, and their many modifications may readily be
seen by an examination of the plates. In modern Tusayan ceremonials
the feather is appended to almost all the different objects used in
worship; it is essential in the structure of the _tiponi_ or badge of
the chief, without which no elaborate ceremony can be performed or
altar erected; it adorns the images on the altars, decorates the heads
of participants, is prescribed for the prayer-sticks, and is always
appended to aspergills, rattles, and whistles.

In the performance of certain ceremonials water from sacred springs is
used, and this water, sometimes brought from great distances, is kept
in small gourd or clay vases, around the necks of which a string with
attached feathers is tied. Such a vase is the so-called _patne_ which
has been described in a memoir on the Snake ceremonies at Walpi.[147]
The artistic tendency of the ancient people of Sikyatki apparently
exhibited itself in painting these feathers on the outside of similar
small vases. Plate CXLII, _a_, shows one of these vessels, decorated
with an elaborate design with four breath-feathers suspended from the
equator. (See also figure 273.) On the vases shown in plate CXLII,
_b_, _c_, are found figures of tail-feathers arranged in two groups on
opposite sides of the rim or orifice. One of these groups has eight,
the other seven, figures of these feathers, and on the two remaining
quadrants are the star emblems so constantly seen in pottery decorated
with bird figures. The upper surface of the vase (figure 274) shows a
similar arrangement, although the feathers here are conventionalized
into triangular dentations, seven on one side and three on the other,
individual dentations alternating with rectangular designs which
sugges