Pottery of the ancient Pueblos Part 5

HANDLED VESSELS.--Smaller vessels of nearly all shapes are at times furnished with handles. The origin of certain forms of these has received attention in the introductory pages. They vary in style with the shape of the vessel to which they are attached. Bowls exhibit two well-marked varieties--a cylindrical form and a simple loop. Those of the former often imitate the handle-like neck of a gourd, and archaic specimens from various parts of the Pueblo province are so literally copied that the small curved stem of the gourd is represented. This feature in some cases becomes a loop at the end of the handle, serving to suspend the vessel, like the ring attached to our dipper handles.

Specimens from the headwaters of the Colorado Chiquito have the ends of the handles modeled to represent the head of a serpents or other creatures. A loop sometimes takes the place of the cylindrical handle, and is attached to the side of the bowl in a vertical or a horizontal position. It may be long or short, wide or narrow, simple or compound, and is not always evenly curved. In certain forms of cups the vertically-placed loop occupies the whole length of the vessel, suggesting well-known forms of the beer-mug.

High-necked cups, vases, and bottles have rather long, vertically-placed loops, giving a pitcher-like effect. These may consist of two or more strands placed side by side or twisted together. Rarely an animal form is imitated, the fore feet of the creature resting upon the rim of the vessel and the hind feet upon the shoulder. Perforated k.n.o.bs often take the place of the loops, and unperforated nodes and projections of varied shapes are not unusual. Some of these, placed upon the upper part of the neck, represent the heads of animals.

A novel handle is sometimes seen in the ancient vases of Cibola and Tusayan. While the clay was still soft a deep abrupt indentation was made in the lower part of the vessel, sufficiently large to admit the ends of two or three fingers, thus giving a hold that facilitated the handling of the vessel. I have seen no looped handles arching the aperture of the vessel, as in the modern meal baskets of the Zunis.

ECCENTRIC AND LIFE FORMS.--The simple potter of early Pueblo times seems barely to have reached the period of eccentric and compound forms, and animal and grotesque shapes, so common in the pottery of the mound-builders of the Mississippi valley, the Mexicans, and the Peruvians, are of rather rare occurrence. The last section of this paper is devoted to life and eccentric forms.

For convenience of treatment, the following ill.u.s.trations will be presented by districts, beginning at the northwest.

ILl.u.s.tRATIONS.

DISTRICT OF THE RIO VIRGEN.

Under the head of coiled pottery I have given a detailed description of the remarkable dwelling-site tumulus at Saint George, Utah, which has furnished such a complete set of the fictile works of the cliff-house potter, the first collection of importance known to have been made by exhumation. I will now present the painted ware and point out its very interesting local peculiarities. All the ordinary shapes are present excepting the olla. Vessels of this form are all of the plain or coiled varieties. The paste is gray and the surface color is usually a light gray. A small percentage of the vessels are painted or stained red. The designs are all executed in black, and are for the most part nicely drawn. They differ slightly in a number of ways from those of other districts, their relationships being, with a few exceptions, more intimate with the ware of the Rio San Juan. A characteristic of this pottery is the thinness of the walls and the hardness and tenacity of the paste. In form a striking feature is the occurrence of bowls of oval form, and in one case such a bowl has sides cut down or scalloped and ends prolonged. The oval form is sometimes seen in other districts, and the elongation of portions of the rim is a feature especially characteristic of the Pima and Mojave work of to-day.

BOWLS.--I have already shown in Fig. 244 a small bowl from this locality, in which a coiled exterior is combined with a polished and painted interior. This is an unusual combination, the exterior commonly being plain. The following examples are grouped, as far as possible, according to their painted designs. A usual and very widely distributed decoration consists of a belt of figures encircling the inner margin. In its simplest condition it is only a single broad line, but more frequently it is elaborated into a tasteful border so wide as to leave only a small circle of the plain surface in the bottom of the vessel.

The figures present much variety of effect, but combine only a few elements or ideas, as the following figures will amply show. All are rectilinear, or as nearly so as the conformation of the vessels will permit. No example of exterior decoration occurs. As my ill.u.s.trations are necessarily limited to a few pieces, those having the simpler combinations of lines are omitted, and such only are given as exhibit the decorations of this district to the best advantage.

The bowl shown in Fig. 258 may be regarded as a typical example.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 258.--Bowl: Tumulus at Saint George.--1/3.]

It is a plain hemisphere of gray clay, with roughly finished exterior and whitened and polished interior surface. It is eight inches in diameter and nearly four inches deep. The painted design occupies a band about two inches wide, and consists of two broad bordering lines inclosing meandered lines. The triangular inters.p.a.ces are occupied by serrate figures, giving to the whole ornament an appearance characteristic of textile borders.

Two small bowls have borders in which the meandered lines are in the natural color of the ground, the triangular s.p.a.ces being filled in with black. In one case the effect of the guilloche is given in the same manner.

Few vessels exhibit a more characteristic example of the ornamentation of this ware than that given in Fig. 259. It is identical in surface finish with the last, excepting that the exterior has been painted red.

An exceptional feature may be noticed in the shaping of the rim, which has been brought to a sharp edge.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 259.--Bowl: Tumulus at Saint George.--1/3.]

The design occupies the usual s.p.a.ce, and consists of a very elaborately meandered or fretted line, which is so involved that the eye follows it with difficulty. Four units of the combination complete the circuit of the vessel. In another specimen, which also has the design divided into four parts, the lower line of each part is made straight, by which means the s.p.a.ce left in the bottom of the vessel is square instead of round, as in the other cases.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 260.--Bowl: Tumulus at Saint George.--1/2.]

Another variety of decoration, quite characteristic of this region, consists of a band of fret-work dashed boldly across the inner surface of the bowl, giving a most striking result. These figures appear to be fragments of continuous borders, taken from their proper connections and made to do duty on a surface that had ordinarily been left without decoration. This observation has led to the proper interpretation of many enigmatic combinations at first thought to have especial application and significance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 261.--Painted device.]

The handsome shallow bowl presented in Fig. 260 has been badly broken and carefully mended while still in the hands of its aboriginal owners.

It is ten and one-half inches in diameter, and only three and three-fourths inches in depth. The surface finish is identical with that of the preceding example. The design, which consists of a single segment of a chain of fret-work, is drawn in broad, steady lines. Fig. 261.

Not unlike the last in its leading features is the vessel ill.u.s.trated in Fig. 262. The label indicates that it was collected at Kanab, Utah, a Mormon village ninety miles east of Saint George. The design is carried over the whole inner surface, and is somewhat difficult to a.n.a.lyze.

There is little doubt, however, that it consists of portions of fretted or meandered patterns arbitrarily selected from basketry or other geometrically embellished articles, and applied to this use. The complete device is shown in Fig. 263.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 262.--Bowl from Kanab.--1/4.]

The following examples are unique in their styles of decoration. The first, Fig. 264, resembles the preceding save in its painted device.

Like a few others, it has been badly fractured and carefully mended by its Indian owners. It was obtained also at Kanab, and is nine inches in diameter by four and one-half in height. The design is cruciform in arrangement, the four parts being joined in pairs by connecting lines.

It exhibits some very unusual features (Fig. 265), and we are led to suspect that it may in some way have been significant, or at least that it is a copy of some emblematic device.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 263.--Painted device.]

The almost total absence of life forms in the art of the primitive Pueblos has often been remarked. One example only has been discovered in this region. This occurs in a subject painted on the inner surface of a rather rude, oblong, bowl, from the Saint George tumulus, Fig. 266. A checkered belt in black extends longitudinally across the bowl. At the sides of this, near the middle, are two human figures, executed in the most primitive style, as shown in Fig. 267. Their angular forms are indicative of textile influence. The middle part of the bowl is broken out, so that the feet of one figure and the head of the other are lost.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 264.--Bowl from Kanab.--1/3.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 265.--Painted device.]

These figures resemble those painted upon and picked in the rocks of the pueblo region, and the triangular head is sometimes seen in the ceramic decoration of modern tribes. A bowl with similar figures was brought from Tusayan by Mr. Mindeleff. It is ill.u.s.trated in Fig. 268.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 266.--Bowl with human figures: Tumulus at Saint George.--1/3.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 267.--Painted design.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 268.--Bowl with human figures: Province of Tusayan.--1/3.]

Among the many fine things from the mound at Saint George are a few red bowls. They were made of a slightly reddish clay, or the paste has reddened uniformly in burning, and a slip or wash of bright red color has been applied to the surface. The designs are painted in black, but differ in style from any of the preceding. This work corresponds very closely indeed with the decorations of similar vessels from the Little Colorado. The marked peculiarities of the ornamentation and color of these bowls give rise to the idea that they may have been intended for some especial service of a ceremonial character. It is not impossible, however, that these vessels reached very distant localities by means of trade. A representative example is shown in Fig. 269. The broad interior band of ornament is divided into four compartments by vertical panels of reticulated lines. The compartments are occupied by groups of disconnected rectangular fret-links on a ground of oblique stripes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 269.--Red bowl: Tumulus at Saint George.--1/3.]

The heart-shaped bowls previously mentioned include medium sized and small vases, with slightly conical bases, distended shoulders, and much constricted, often depressed, apertures. They are of very general distribution, but like the hemispherical red bowls are rarely found in numbers. It is probable that they were devoted to ceremonial rather than to domestic uses. The shapes are generally pleasing to the eye; the finish is exceptionally fine, and the designs, though simple, are applied with more than usual care.

A very good specimen from the tumulus at Saint George is ill.u.s.trated in Fig. 270.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 270.--Heart-shaped bowl of red ware: Tumulus at Saint George.--1/3.]

The bottom in this case is slightly flattened, and the incurved lip but slightly sunken. The paste is a light red and the surface has received a coat of bright red color. The design is in black, is extremely simple, and rather carelessly drawn. The princ.i.p.al figure seems to be a very simple form of the favorite device--the meander.

A large fine bowl much like the preceding, and obtained from the same locality, is owned by the Salt Lake City Museum. The design is of the same cla.s.s, but very much more elaborate. Another example from Saint George is smaller and yellowish-gray in color, with figures in red and black. At Kanab I picked up fragments of a small vessel, highly polished and of a rich, brownish-purple color, the designs being in black.

Another fragment showed designs in bright red and black upon a yellowish ground.

OLLAS.--I have already called attention to the fact, that the Saint George tumulus furnished no example of ollas or large-necked vases of the painted variety, vessels of this cla.s.s being plain or of the coiled ware. In the vicinity, however, I collected fragments of the white painted pottery derived from large vessels of this cla.s.s, very much like the large, handsome vessels of ancient Tusayan. A number of such fragments come from the vicinity of Kanab. Plain vessels of this shape were obtained from the tumulus at Saint George. They are identical in every other respect, save the presence of designs, with the painted pottery. Some have received a wash of red, while it is not improbable that others have lost their color or decorative figures by wear or weather.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 271.--Red pitcher: Tumulus at Saint George.--1/3.]

HANDLED VESSELS.--From the tumulus at Saint George we have a very excellent example of pitcher, which is shown in Fig. 271. The shape is not quite satisfactory, the neck being clumsy, but the workmanship is exceptionally good. The surface is even and well polished and the color is a strong red. The painted design in black, upon the red ground, consists of a number of meandered lines, to which are added at intervals small dentate figures, as seen in the cut.

DISTRICT OF THE RIO SAN JUAN.

In a number of ways the valley of the Rio San Juan possesses unusual interest to the antiquarian. Until within the latter half of the nineteenth century, it remained wholly unknown. The early Spanish expeditions are not known to have penetrated its secluded precincts, and its cliff-houses, its ruined pueblos and curious towers have been so long deserted that it is doubtful whether even a tradition of their occupation has been preserved, either by the nomadic tribes of the district or by the modern pueblos of the south. Certain it is that no foreign hand has influenced the art of this district, and no Spanish adventurer has left traces of his presence.

The ceramic remains are more uniform in character and apparently more archaic in decoration than those of any other district. They belong almost exclusively to two varieties, the coiled ware and the white ware with black figures. The former has already been described, the latter must now pa.s.s under review.