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While there are many specimens of Sikyatki pottery of the type decorated with geometric figures, which bear ornamentations of simple and complex terraced forms, the majority placed in this type are not reducible to stepped or terraced designs, but are modified straight lines, bars, crosshatching, and the like.
While from the worn character of the middle of the food bowl illustrated in plate CXXXII, b, it is not possible to discover whether the animal was apodal or not from the crosshatching of the body and the resemblance of the appendages of the head to those of the figure last considered, it appears probable that this pictograph likewise was intended to represent a snake of mystic character.
This style of decoration is only sparingly used on Sikyatki ware. The crosshatching is provisionally interpreted as a mosaic pattern, and reminds one of those beautiful forms of turquois mosaic on shell, bone, or wood found in ancient pueblos, and best known in modern times in the square ear pendants of Hopi women.
The delicacy of the detailed crosshatching on the body is astonishing, considering that it was drawn freehand and without pattern. The coloring is bright and the surface glossy. The curved band from which this strange figure hangs is divided into sections by perpendicular incised lines, which are connected by zigzag diagonals.
It is therefore the most complicated of all the exterior decorations which have thus far been considered. There is no symmetry in the arrangement of figures about a central axis, but rather a repetition of similar designs. The use of crosshatching is very common on the most ancient Pueblo ware, and is very common in designs on cliff-house pottery.
The fragment of a pipe shown in plate CLXXIII, d, is interesting in the same connection. The end of this pipe is broken, but the stem is intact, and on two sides of the bowl there are elevations covered with crosshatching. The pipe is of clay and has a rough external surface.
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