Mimbres Mystery

This post is in response to Janelle's comment on my last post, which was a question about the meaning of the cricket on the Mimbres pot. Mimbres are well known for the integration of animals and human characters on their pots, and often times even animal-human hybrids also. I could lie to you guys and say this is where Walt Disney really stole his ideas from, but April would beat me. Again.
To be honest, I had to look it up, and I still couldn't find the meaning behind the use of a cricket in the bowl. Rabbits and bats two of the animals I most often see besides humans. Generally, their use of animals and humans is highly suggestive of their religious beliefs. One of the popular ones tended to be that of animorphic beings, suggesting that possibly these are depictions of deities or humans in animal form.



Much of what I have read has also stated that the use of the classic black on white motif is suggestive of a continuing struggle of light forces over dark. I really don't know how much credibility I can lend to that theory, though. I mean, much of that is attributing our modern-day attitudes to a culture that lived over 1000 years ago, a habit that is extremely hard to even become aware of.

I don't claim to know what their beliefs are, but I can see the stark contrast between black and white, and I can see that the use of patterns integrated with characters might make it more noticeable and more vividly expressed even than on colored bowls. Maybe, then, it was intended as a marketing tool to sell more bowl (or conduct more trade for thair bowls).
Any other ideas?