Frank Hamilton Cushing

“ We may conclude, then, that so long as the Pueblo ancestry were semi-nomadic, basketry supplied the place of pottery, as it still does for the less advanced tribes of the Southwest, except in cookery. Possibly for a time basketry of this kind served in place of pottery even for cookery, as with one of the above-mentioned tribes, the Ha va su paí or Coçoninos, of Cataract Cañon, Arizona. These people, until recently, were cut off from the rest of the world by their almost impenetrable cañon, nearly half a mile in depth at the point where they inhabit it. ”

“ Water contains the source of continued life. The vessel holds the water; the source of life accompanies the water, hence its dwelling place is in the vessel with the water. Finally, the vessel is supposed to contain the treasured source, irrespective of the water—as do wells and springs, or even the places where they have been. If the encircling lines inside of the eating bowl, outside of the water jar, were closed, there would be no exit trail for this invisible source of life or for its influence or breath. ”

“ The operator, quickly squatting, grasps the tray at opposite edges, and, by a rapid spiral motion up and down, succeeds in keeping the coals and seeds constantly shifting places and turning over as they dance after one another around and around the tray, meanwhile blowing or puffing, the embers with every breath to keep them free from ashes and glowing at their hottest. ”

“ Much wonder has been expressed that the Pueblos, so advanced in pottery decoration, have not attempted more representations of natural objects. There is less ground for this wonder than at first appears. It should be remembered that the original angular models which the Pueblo had, out of which to develop his art, bequeathed to him an extremely conventional conception of things. This, added to his peculiar way of interpreting relationship and personifying phenomena and even functions, has resulted in making his depictions obscure. ”

“ The water jar, like the food-bowl, is a conspicuous household article; for which reason the Zuñi woman expends all her ability to render them handsome. Judging by this, the desire to decorate the water-vessel with paint, like its constant companion the food-bowl, would early lead to the attempt to make its surface smooth. ”

“ I have found that the Zuñi argues actual and essential relationship from simi-511-larity in the appearance, function, or other attributes of even generically diverse things. [2]
I here allude to this mental bias because it has both influenced the decoration of pottery and has been itself influenced by it. In the first place, the noise made by a pot when struck or when simmering on the fire is supposed to be the voice of its associated being. The clang of a pot when it breaks or suddenly cracks in burning is the cry of this being as it escapes or separates from the vessel. ”

“ It must have been early observed that clay of one kind, applied even thinly to the exterior of a vessel of another kind, produced, when burned, a different color. With the discovery that clays of different kinds burned in a variety of colors, to some extent irrespective of the methods and the materials used in firing, there must likewise have been hinted, we may safely conclude, the efficacy of clay washes as paint, and of paint as a decorative agent.
Among the ceramic remains from the oldest pueblo sites of the Southwest, pottery occurs, mostly in four varieties: the corrugated or spiral ”

“ Black, aside from clay paste, was almost the first pigment discovered; quite likely because the mineral blacks from iron ores, coal, and the various rocks used universally among Indians for staining splints, etc., would be the earliest tried, and then adopted, as they remained unchanged by firing. Thus it came about, as evidenced by the sequence of early remains in the Southwest, that the white and black varieties of pottery were the first made, then the red and black, and later the red with white and black decoration. ”

“ Yet, why, it maybe asked, must the source of life or its influence be provided with a trail by which to pass out from the vessel? In reply to this I will submit two considerations. It has been stated that on the earliest Southwestern potteries decoration was effected by incised or raised ornamentation. Any one who has often attempted to make vessels according to primitive methods as I have has found how difficult it is to smoothly join a line incised around a still soft clay pot, and that this difficulty is even greater when the ornamental band is laid on in relief. ”

“ Pueblo coiled pottery developed from basketry.—Seizing the suggestion afforded by the rude tray-molded parching-bowls, particularly after it was discovered that if well burned they resisted the effects of water as well as of heat, the ancient potter would naturally attempt in time to reproduce the boiling-basket in clay. She would find that to accomplish this she could not use as a mold the inside of the boiling-basket, as she had the inside of the tray, because its neck was smaller than its body. ”

“ A more reliable example is furnished by the farming pueblos of Zuñi. At Hé sho ta tsí nan or Ojo del Pescado, fifteen miles east of Zuñi, clays of several varieties and color minerals are abundant. The finest pottery of the tribe is made there in great quantity, while, notwithstanding the facilities for transportation which the Zuñis now possess, at the opposite farming town of K`iáp kwai na kwin, or Los Ojos Calientes, where clay is scarce and of poor texture, the pottery, although somewhat abundant, is of miserable quality and of bad shape. ”

“ I shall be pardoned, therefore, for elaborating suggestions already made in this direction, in the paragraphs which treated of the ornamentation of spiral ware, and of the derivation of basket decorations from stitch- and splint-suggested figures. All students of early man understand his tendency to reproduce habitual forms in accustomed association. This feeling, exaggerated with savages by a belief in the actual relationship of resemblance, is shown in the reproduction of the decorations of basket vessels on the clay vessels made from them or in imitation of them. ”

“ The Pueblos, observing these marks, especially that they are abundant after a wind storm, have wondered at their similarity to the painted scrolls on the pottery of their ancestors. Even to-day they believe the sand marks to be the tracks of the whirlwind, which is a God in their mythology of such distinctive personality that the circling eagle is supposed to be related to him. ”

“ POTTERY INFLUENCED BY MATERIALS AND METHODS USED IN BURNING.
Other influences, to a less extent local, had no inconsiderable effect on primitive Pueblo pottery: materials employed and methods resorted to in burning.
Only one kind of fuel, except for a single class of vessels, is now used in pottery-firing; namely, dried cakes or slabs of sheep-dung. Anciently, several varieties, such as extremely dry sage-brush or grease-wood, piñon and other resinous woods, dung of herbivora when obtainable, charcoal, and also bituminous or cannel-coal were employed. ”

“ They replied that to close them was a'k ta ni, "fearful!"—that this little space through the line or zone on a vessel was the "exit trail of life or being", o' ne yäthl kwái na, and this was all. How it came to be first left open and why regarded as the "exit trail," they could not tell. If one studies the mythology of this people and their ways of thinking, then watches them closely, he will, however, get other clews. When a woman has made a vessel, dried, polished, and painted it, she will tell you with an air of relief that it is a "Made Being." ”

“ One of these modifications, in both method and effect, was in the adoption of the raised or-508- relief style of ornamentation found, with rare exceptions in the Southwest, only on corrugated ware, and on the class which in modern times has replaced it there, vessels used in cookery. Although never universal, this style deserves passing attention as the outgrowth of an effort to attain the effect of contrast produced by dyed or painted splints on wicked work before the use of paint was known in connection with pottery. ”

“ Those who have visited the Southwest and ridden over the wide, barren plains, during late autumn or early spring, have been astonished to find traced on the sand by no visible agency, perfect concentric circles and scrolls or volutes yards long and as regular as though drawn by a skilled artist.-516- The circles are made by the wind driving partly broken weed-stalks around and around their places of attachment, until the fibers by which they are anchored sever and the stalks are blown away. ”

“ The line of gradual development in ceramic decorations, especially of the symbolic element, treated as a subject, is wider in its applicability to the study of primitive man, because more clearly illustrative of the growth of culture. ”

“ The proper nourishment of the hunter is the game he kills; hence, the source of his life, like that of the young of this game, is symbolized in the canteen by the mammaries, not of human beings, but of game-animals. ”

“ Where clay occurred of a fine tough texture, easily mined and manipulated, the work in terra cotta became proportionately more elaborate in variety and finer in quality. There are to be found about the sites of some ancient pueblos, potsherds incredibly abundant and indicating great advancement in decorative art, while near others, architecturally similar, even where evidence of ethnic connection is not wanting, only coarse, crudely-molded, and painted fragments are discoverable, and these in limited quantity. ”

“ A STUDY OF PUEBLO POTTERY AS ILLUSTRATIVE OF ZUÑI CULTURE-GROWTH. BY FRANK H. CUSHING. HABITATIONS AFFECTED BY ENVIRONMENT.
It is conceded that the peculiarities of a culture-status are due chiefly to the necessities encountered during its development. In this sense the Pueblo phase of life was, like the Egyptian, the product of a desert environment. Given that a tribe or stock of people is weak, they will be encroached upon by neighboring stronger tribes, and driven to new surroundings if not subdued. ”

“ Probably, at no one point in the Southwest was ceramic decoration carried to a higher degree of development than at A' wat u i, yet the Oraibes, by descent the modern representatives of the A' wat u i ans are the poorest potters and painters among the Mokis. Near their pueblo the clay and other mineral deposits mentioned as abundant at A' wat u i are meager and inaccessible. Still, it may be urged that time may have introduced other than natural causes for change; this could not be said of another example pertaining to one period and a single tribe. ”

“ Naturally, then, she pursued the process she was accustomed to in the manufacture of the basket-bottle. That is, she formed a thin rope of soft clay, which, like the wisp of the basket, she coiled around and around a center to form the bottom, then spirally upon itself, now widening the diameter of each coil more and more, then contracting as she progressed upward until the desired height and form were attained. As the clay was adhesive, each coil was attached to the one already-490- formed by pinching or pressing together the connecting edges at short intervals as the winding went on. ”

“ That this clay lining should grow hard from continual heating, and in some instances separate from its matrix of osiers, is apparent. The clay form thus detached would itself be a perfect roasting-vessel.
POTTERY SUGGESTED BY CLAY-LINED BASKETRY.
This would suggest the agency of gradual heat in rendering clay fit for use in cookery and preferable to any previous makeshift. The modern Zuñi name for a parching-pan, which is a shallow bowl of black-ware, is thlé mon ne, the name for a basket-tray being thlä' lin ne. The latter name signifies a shallow vessel of twigs, or thlá we ”

“ The skins and paunches of animals could be used in the effort to meet this want with but small success, as the heat and aridity of the atmosphere would in a short time render water thus kept unfit for use, and the membranes once empty would be liable to destruction by drying. ”

“ There can be no doubt that these styles and ways of decoration were developed, along with the weaving of baskets, simply by elaborating on suggestions of the lines and figures unavoidably produced in wicker-work of any kind when strands of different colors happened to be employed together. Even slight discolorations in occasional splints would result in such suggestions, for the stitches would here show, there disappear. ”

“ Were we uncertain of-484- this, we might again turn to language, which designates the impervious wicker water-receptacle of whatever outline as tóm ma, an evident derivation from the restricted use of the word tóm me in connection with gourd or cane vessels, since a basket of any other kind is called tsí ì le.
It is readily conceivable that water-tight osiery, once known, however difficult of manufacture, would displace the general use of gourd-vessels. ”

“ ADDED STORIES FOR CLIFF DWELLINGS DEVELOPED FROM LIMITATIONS OF CLIFF-HOUSE SITES.
Fig. 498.—A typical cliff-dwelling.
This condition of things would drive the people to seek security in the neighboring cliffs of fertile cañons, where not only might they build their dwelling places in the numerous rock-shelters, but they could also cultivate their crops in comparative safety along the limited tracts which these eyries overlooked. The narrow foothold afforded by many of these elevated cliff-shelves or shelters would force the fugitives to construct house over house ”

“ From these considerations inferring that the name hé sho ta pon ne derivatively signifies something like "a gum-rock shelter with roof supports of wood," we may also infer that the Pueblos on their coming into the desert regions dispossessed earlier inhabitants or that they chose the lava-wastes the better to secure-475- themselves from invasion; moreover that the oldest form of building known to them was therefore an inclosure of lava-stones, whence the application of the contraction hé sho ta, and its restriction to mean a walled inclosure.
Fig. 492.—Plan of Pueblo structure of lava. ”

“ Fig. 502.—Zuñi earthenware roasting tray.
Among the Havasupaí, still surviving as a sort of bucket, is the basket-pot or boiling-basket, for use with hot stones, which form I have also found in some of the cave deposits throughout the ancient Zuñi country. These vessels (see Fig. 503) were bottle-shaped and provided near the rims of their rather narrow mouths with a sort of cord or strap-handle, attached to two loops or eyes (Fig. 503 a) woven into the basket, to facilitate handling when the vessel was filled with hot water. ”

“ Even in comparatively recent examples of the corrugated ware this is true; for, once connected with a type, a style of decoration, both seem to have been ever after inseparable, with at most but slight modification of the latter. ”

“ Bearing these statements in mind, the discussion of the evolution as well as of the distribution of form, and later of the evolution of decoration, in pottery will become easier. By lingering steps there was early developed a method of building up vessels by a process differing in part from the spiral. ”