The Project Gutenberg eBook of Mohave Pottery
Title: Mohave Pottery
Author: A. L. Kroeber
Michael J. Harner
Release date: April 24, 2012 [eBook #39528]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Chris Curnow, Katie Hernandez, Joseph Cooper and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PUBLICATIONS
ANTHROPOLOGICAL RECORDS
VOLUME XVI
1955-1961
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES
1961
KRAUS REPRINT CO.
Millwood, New York
1976
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles
California
Cambridge University Press
London, England
Reprinted with the permission of the
University of California Press
KRAUS REPRINT CO.
A U.S. Division of Kraus-Thomson Organization Limited
Printed in U.S.A.
CONTENTS
| 1. Mohave Pottery, by A. L. Kroeber and Michael J. Harner | 1 |
| 2. The Aboriginal Population of the San Joaquin Valley, California, by S. F. Cook | 31 |
| 3. The Aboriginal Population of the North Coast of California, by S. F. Cook |
81 |
| 4. The Aboriginal Population of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, California, by S. F. Cook |
131 |
| 5. California Athabascan Groups, by Martin A. Baumhoff | 157 |
| 6. Colonial Expeditions to the Interior of California, Central Valley, 1800-1820, by S. F. Cook |
239 |
| 7. Shoshone-Bannock Subsistence and Society, by Robert F. Murphy and Yolanda Murphy |
293 |
| 8. A Burial Cave in Baja California, The Palmer Collection, 1887, by William C. Massey and Carolyn M. Osborne |
339 |
| 9. Washo Religion, by James F. Downs | 365 |
MOHAVE POTTERY
BY
A. L. KROEBER AND MICHAEL J. HARNER
ANTHROPOLOGICAL RECORDS
Vol. 16, No. 1
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
ANTHROPOLOGICAL RECORDS
Editors (Berkeley): R. L. Olson, R. F. Heizer, T. D. McCown, J. H. Rowe Volume 16, No. 1, pp. 1-30, plates 1-8, 2 figures in text
Submitted by editors August 4, 1954
Issued May 6, 1955
Price, 75 cents
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles
California
Cambridge University Press
London, England
Manufactured in the United States of America
FOREWORD
The pottery here described was collected fifty years ago by Kroeber and is all in the University's Museum of Anthropology.
It is described for ethnological comparability by Kroeber, with emphasis on use, shape, painted design, and names of designs; and for archaeological utilization by Harner, with special attention to ware, temper, firing, hardness, forms, paint and color, and technological considerations generally. The two parts were written independently. They overlap here and there, especially on vessel shapes; but, after a few duplications were excised, it has seemed advantageous, after adding a brief concordance of terms employed by the two authors, to let the independent treatments of shapes stand double.
No comparisons with other native ceramic arts, recent or ancient, are undertaken by us.
A. L. K.
M. J. H.
CONTENTS
PART I. ETHNOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS
By A. L. Kroeber
| Page | |
| Pottery shapes recognized by the Mohave | 1 |
| Pottery objects other than vessels | 2 |
| Technological notes | 2 |
| Description of the pottery | 3 |
| Plate 1: Bowls | 3 |
| Plate 2: Bowls | 3 |
| Plate 3: Platters | 4 |
| Plate 4: Spoons | 5 |
| Plate 5: Jars, pots, jugs, cups | 6 |
| Plate 6: Bowls, platters, parchers, canteens | 7 |
| Plate 7: Spoon backs, toys, pipes, pot rests | 7 |
| Plate 8: Jar, cup, platter, bowls, spoons | 8 |
| Summary of shapes | 8 |
| Summary of painted designs and elements | 9 |
| The Mohave pottery style | 10 |
| Appendix I. Memoranda on the destroyed Academy collection | 12 |
| Appendix II. A small Mohave bowl | 12 |
| Appendix III. Granite temper and limonite pigment examination, by Professor Charles Meyer |
13 |
| Appendix IV. Mohave pottery in other museums | 13 |
| Appendix V. Correlation of Kroeber and Harner shape classes | 13 |
PART II. A DESCRIPTION FOR THE ARCHAEOLOGIST By Michael J. Harner |
|
| Introduction | 15 |
| Introduction | 15 |
| Parker Red-on-Buff, Fort Mohave variant | 16 |
| Parker Buff, Fort Mohave variant | 18 |
| Bibliography | 20 |
| Plates | 23 |
MOHAVE POTTERY
PART I
ETHNOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS
BY
A. L. KROEBER
POTTERY SHAPES RECOGNIZED BY THE MOHAVE
The generic Mohave name for pottery vessels seems to be kwáθki,[1] the word for bowl.
The shapes for which Mohave names were obtained are mainly those which segregate out objectively on examination of a collection:
kwáθki, an open bowl with slightly everted lip, often with a band of mesquite bark—both bean mesquite and screw mesquite are specified in my notes—tied around the neck. The shape is shown in pls. 1, 2, 6,a-c, 8,d-h; the name kwáθki was specifically applied to 1,d, 2,b, 2,h, 6,a.
kayéθa, a platter, that is, a low round bowl or flat dish without neck or everted lip, was applied to pl. 3,d. The shape is shown in pls. 3,a-d, g, 8,c.
kayúka, pl. 3,c, or kakápa, also a platter, but oval, and smaller. Pls. 3,e, f, h-j, 6,d, e.
kam'óta, a spoon, ladle, dipper, or scoop, more or less triangular. Pls. 4, 7,a-i, 8,i-k. Subclasses were not named to me, except for kam'óta ahmá, those with a quail head at the handle.
katéla, bi-pointed tray for parching. Pl. 6,f, g.
It will be observed that the last five names all begin with ka-.
The name suyíre was given to pl. 6,c, which is intermediate between bowl and platter.
táskyena is a cook pot. Pl. 5,c.
tšuváva, a large cook pot, a foot and a half to two feet high. I have seen one of these in use, full to the brim with maize, beans, and fish, being stirred by an old man with three arrow weed sticks tied in the middle; but I did not secure one. It is set on three conical supports of pottery as shown in pl. 7,n, o.
A still larger pot, up to a yard in diameter, too big to cook in, was sometimes made to ferry small children across the river, a swimmer pushing the vessel (Handbook, 1925, p. 739). I would imagine it would be least likely to tip over if made in the shape of a giant kwáθki bowl.
hápurui, water jar, as kept around the house, "olla" shaped, pls. 5,a, b, 8,a. The name contains the stem for water: (a)há.
I happened not to secure the name of the small-mouthed canteen water jar used in traveling, as shown in pl. 6,h.
A small-mouthed jar with short side-spout at one end, too large for travel and probably used chiefly for storage of seeds, is called hápurui hanemó, "duck jar," from its resemblance to the floating bird. Pl. 6,i.
There are also handled jugs, pl. 5,d-g, and handled cups, pls. 5,h-i, 8,b, which I suspect of having been devised after contact with Americans, although some specimens show use and the painted designs are in good Mohave style. My doubts are strengthened by my having obtained no specific name for either handled shape: the high jug, 5,g, was called a jar, hápurui; the low jug, 5,e, kwáθki, bowl; and in 1900 I bought a cup for which the name kwáθki aha-suraitši was given.
In the dreamed Mastamhó myth of the origin of culture (AR 11:1, 1948, see 7:76, p. 63), the culture hero calls some of the principal vessel forms by two sets of names, the first being recondite, twisted, or punning. The list is:
| to bring water in | (u)más-toyám[2] | hápurui |
| to cook in | umás-te-to'óro | táskyena |
| to cook in | umás-te-hamóka[3] | tšuváva |
| spoon, ladle | umás-uyúla | kam'óta |
| food platter | han'amé | kakápa |
| bowl | umás-iáða | táskyena |
| parching dish | umás-eyavkwa-havík[4] | katéla |
| arrow weed stirrer | umás-kasára | so'óna |
It will be noted that handled jugs and handled cups are lacking from this list, though so are canteens and round platters.
Small-and-flaring-necked spheroid jars, holding a gallon or more, are found in the region, and in 1900 I secured two Mohave examples which were destroyed in 1906 with the Academy of Sciences building. They served to store seeds, and seem often to have been hidden in caves and out-of-the-way spots by Shoshonean desert tribes. I secured one near Needles in 1908, now no. 13875 in the Museum of Anthropology, but it belonged to a Chemehuevi woman who was born in Chemehuevi Valley and was in 1908 living in Mohave Valley, married to a Mohave who was himself half-Chemehuevi. She had made the jar many years before: in fact, it was the first and last pottery vessel she attempted, she said. The ware is definitely paler than Mohave pottery: a sort of half-yellow. It bears on its upper half a red pattern, but this is fainter than most Mohave patterns, and most resembles occasional fishnet patterns on the under sides or backs of Mohave bowls, platters, or spoons. It has 42 vertical (radiating) lines and 7 horizontal (encircling) lines, resulting in 252 hollow quadrilaterals. The vessel also has two mends or strengthenings with lumps of black gum. The overall height, 225 mm., is 75 per cent of the maximum body diameter, 300 mm., which comes at about 100 mm., or less than halfway up. The mouth and neck diameters are 69 and 58 mm., or 23 per cent and 19 per cent of the body diameter.
POTTERY OBJECTS OTHER THAN VESSELS
Two figures idly modeled, or serving as toys—made for sale, it was said—were found in a household: a lizard and a hummingbird, plate 7,j,k, nos. 1726, 1727. They seem at least partly baked, but have since been washed with yellow ocher, which would turn to red on baking. The bird also has a white-painted beak and spots.
I saw pottery human figures and dolls, both with and without hair of shredded cottonwood bark, cradles, etc., offered for sale by Mohave women to tourists on the station platform—Needles was a scheduled 25-minute meal stop for most trains. I did not purchase any of these, nor any small platters or handled jugs or cups, which were sometimes also offered. This was perhaps a mistake; but I was eager to impress on the Indians generally that my interest was in native, nontourist objects. While material was occasionally brought to me in town, this was uncommon, and I secured most of it from Mohave houses, especially native-style ones across the river in Arizona. Typically, the bows and arrows hawked by a few old men at the trains for twenty-five cents were not the plain long Mohave willow bows, but red- and blue-painted miniature willow imitations of the Chemehuevi retroflex horn or composite bow.
Pipes, short and tubular, are made of pottery. Plate 7,l (no. 4264), was made for a boy, and was unfinished, remaining unbaked. Plate 7,m (no. 13870), is a fragment, 62 mm. long, about 11 through the mouth end, 19 at the break, buff-colored, with gray (overfired) paste at the fracture. I secured at least one other pipe, no. 1719, which cannot at present be found in the Museum.
Pot rests, put under the large tšuváva cookpots, were made of clay, as shown in plate 7,n,o.
In 1904 I secured an arrow-straightener of pottery, no. 4367, shown in Handbook, plate 49,f. It carries a longitudinal ridge, a sort of notched comb; presumably to receive, after being heated, the joints of arrows of cane or reed. However, cane arrows, though known to the Mohave, were only occasionally used. The usual ones of arrow weed, without foreshaft or attached head, were simply warmed and bent by hand.
TECHNOLOGICAL NOTES
I saw pottery made about 1902-1904, and have little to add to the record.
Clay is tempered with sandstone crushed on the metate, and built up by coiling. The start of a vessel may be spiral, but its body consists of concentric rings. The paste is rolled out into a slim sausage, the length of which is roughly estimated on the vessel. It is then laid on the last [preceding] coil, and any excess pinched off. It is beaten, with a light and rapid patting with a wooden paddle, against a smooth cobble held inside, and its edge finished flat by scraping between the thumbnail and index finger. Then the next coil is added. The maker sits with the growing vessel on the thighs of her stretched legs, or with one leg flat in front of her and the other doubled under. The paint is yellow ocher, which is put on with a little stick and burns dull red. The patterns are carelessly done, and often shaky. (Handbook, pp. 737-738.)
In 1904, I added the following in notebook 60-33:
A "dish" [bowl] is modeled with the rim incurved [or vertical]. Finally, the rim is turned outward with the fingers, a few inches at a time; [to make the slight neck which] after firing is bound with screw-mesquite [a'íse] fiber. A small oval platter seen made was built up circularly with rolls of clay, then additional pieces were added on two sides and paddled even.
I noted that no slip was being used by Mohave potters, nor does examination reveal any.
In 1904, notebook 60-34, I noted: "If dishes crack, they are mended by hair binding, or now a wire, being passed between two perforations." I did not note how the holes were bored, nor whether the hair was human or horse.
No. 4326 is a small piece of rock such as was crushed and metate-ground for temper. It is not sandstone, as I stated in 1923, but granite, according to my colleague Professor Charles Meyer, whose courtesy is acknowledged and whose information is summarized in Appendix III.
No. 4295 consists of several small slabs of yellow oxide of iron, for grinding up as design paint, which on firing makes the red ocher color which is both darker and more saturatedly red than the light reddish-buff ground color of Mohave pottery. Its composition is also given in Appendix III on the basis of Professor Meyer's examination. Both it and no. 4354 were obtained at matekwaθ-kutšyep, "yellow paint wide open," a spot in a wash cutting across the peneplain from Avimota, Mt. Manchester, in Nevada opposite Fort Mohave.
Several samples of material that might help further elucidate the technology of Mohave pottery have unfortunately been misplaced in the Museum since at least several years. Quite possibly they have been put together into one tray, which was then mislaid. They include:
1759, sample of pottery clay.
4326, sample of pottery temper, presumably after grinding.
4295, 4354, sample of yellow ocher for painting designs.
4277, piece of broken pot.
13871, two sherds.
1719, pottery pipe.
Another lot of similar accessories was once included in a collection belonging to the California Academy of Sciences and is listed in Appendix I.
I secured half a dozen paddles, kanóθki, for smoothing the fresh coils of pottery vessels. All of these prove to have been cut from white oak staves of whiskey barrels, whose two-way curvature perhaps suggested to the Mohave their adaptability for the purpose. Four of the six pieces still show staining by iron barrel hoops. Three, however, had had their concavity partly whittled flat. I presume that in the old days paddles were made of cottonwood or mesquite. The length and width dimensions of the "blades," that is, exclusive of handles, are:
4276.......117...90
4311.......113..100
4346.......118..100 flattened
4347.......100...80 flattened
4348.........70...50 with 2 last makes a 3-size nest
13839......140...75 flat, almost biconvex
The second and last of these paddles are accompanied by their "anvils"—waterworn stones. No. 4312 is somewhat three-cornered, 90-95 mm. in length, 43 mm. thick, has one flattish side, one convex, and weighs 18 oz. No. 13840, though got four years later, is quite similar: 85-90 mm., 48 mm. thick, one side flattish, weight also 18 oz.
DESCRIPTION OF THE POTTERY
All pieces are actually inscribed with and cataloged under a number beginning with the prefix 1-, which denotes provenience from native California. This prefix, being unvarying, is omitted in the present treatise.
The objects described were collected by myself in three lots, in Mohave Valley, on both sides of the Colorado River, as follows:
| In 1902 | Accession 40 | Specimens 1-1710-1760 | ||
| In 1904 | Acc. 135-138 | Specs. 1-4259-4381 | ||
| In 1908 | Acc. 325 | Specs. 1-13771-13775 |
Of these nearly 300 objects, some 70 are of pottery.
An earlier collection, made in 1900 for the California Academy of Sciences, was destroyed by fire on the day of the San Francisco earthquake, April 18, 1906. Some notations on it were preserved and are summarized in Appendix I.
PLATE 1: BOWLS
a, 13773, diameter 258 mm., height 127 mm.
b, 1733, d. 233, h. 177. Design: ta-lame-θlame, "patches" (?). The painting is very uneven.
c, 13772, d. 281, h. 140.
d, 1715, d. 269, h. 151. Design, linear: ta-tsir-qa-(t)sirqa face paint; dots: belly of yellow-hammer (red-shafted flicker, kukhó). The outside is striped. The execution is experienced, sure, light, and effective.
e, 13774, d. 240, h. 142. The designs inside are similar to those of d, and are repeated on the outside of the vessel.
f, 13778, d. 195, h. 97.
g, 13780, d. 181, h. 89.
h, 13779, d. 185, h. 87.
Of these 8 bowls, 3 (f, g, h, evidently from one household) run from 181 to 195 mm. in diameter; the other 5, from 233 to 281 mm. Proportions of height to diameter are, seriated: 47, 49, 49, 50, 50, 50, 56, 59.
The pattern is fundamentally the same on the inside of all 8 bowls, except that spotting is omitted in f. It consists of triple-line bars that branch at an acute angle; one fork soon ends, the second goes on and merges with a branch from another bar, and so on in a complex pattern extending over the entire inside. The forks—which are also junctions—each contain a small solid-filled triangle, into which the thin middle line of each bar runs. Or, the middle lines might be said to emerge from the points of the solid triangles. The two remaining lines of the bars are therefore mere borders or shadows: they never touch a solid triangle. The dead ends of the forking branches point at each other, or inward toward the center, in most cases: a, b, d, f, g, h. In c they point parallel; e is unskillfully painted and lacks the dead or free ends.
This pattern is complex and calls for skill in execution. e is a botch, a irregularly crowded, g, h simplified and open; the rest show successful control, especially b, c, d. Only b differs in that the dead or free branches each end in a solid circle. The solid triangles tend to vary somewhat in shape, from equilateral to narrow isosceles, even in well painted bowls: cf. b, c; this variation is perhaps unavoidable.
This pattern is the most ambitious of Mohave design treatments.
The outer side of these bowls is painted with vertical stripes down from the rim 6 times. Usually they are thinnish lines, in c wider stripes. Bowls e and f partly repeat the inside pattern on their outside.
PLATE 2: BOWLS
a, 13771, diameter 246-260 mm. slightly oval, height 115-118 mm., thickness 7.5 mm. toward bottom. Weight 38 oz. There is a neck band of mesquite bark.
b, 4321, d. 282, h. 150. Design: kan'ú, (Maricopa) basketry pattern.
c, 13775, d. 260, h. 100. Almost as flat as the platters of pl. 3, but there is a neck, and it is bound.
d, 1740, d. 210, h. 104. Design: coyote teeth.
e, 13776, d. 266 (260-272), h. 140, thickness toward bottom 9, at neck 4-4.5, at lip 5. Both paste and surface are unusually yellowish. A neck-binding has been lost, leaving a 20-mm. wide yellowish strip paler than the darkened general surface. Wt. 37 oz.
f., 1732, d. 227, h. 130. Wt. 35 oz. Design, inside: humanape, butterfly; outside, hotahpave face paint.
g, 1714, d. 177, h. 121. The H/D proportion, 68 per cent, is, with pl. 8,h, the highest of all bowls. I called it a "deep pot" when I acquired it. Wt. 23 oz. Design, outside: (i)yamtšupeṭ(a) face paint.
h, 4292, "model," i.e., made for sale, d. 149, h. 77. Design, inside, halytôṭa, spider; outside, atcí'ara, fish tail. This vessel, as well as the platter 4294, pl. 3,j, was secured from the wife of Tokwaθa, "Muskmelon"; he gave the account of Olive Oatman's return published in 1951 in No. 4 of the Publications of the Kroeber Anthropological Society, also dictated a myth about the origin of war, and was accorded a running or mourning ceremony on his death. He is a historic character, having been encountered by the Ives party in 1858 and mentioned in Möllhausen. He was one of the nine hostages imprisoned at Fort Yuma and escaped from there—a disturbance that ended in the defeat of the Mohave in battle by Armistead later in 1859.
These 8 bowls vary more in proportion than those of plate 1. H/D ratio runs, seriated: 38, 45, 50, 52, 53, 57, 68 per cent, average 52, as against 51 per cent average for plate 1. The lowest bowl in the present lot is c, with a next; the highest is g. These three are outside the limits of plate 1.
The interior designs are less uniform than in plate 1.
a and b show an overall interior pattern of solid rhomboidal quadrilaterals or hexagons reduced to triangles in the interstices and toward the rim; each such figure being surrounded by 3 thin parallel lines. Where the outermost of these enclosing lines intersect, two of the four angles are solidified, producing secondary hourglass figures. The effect is a bit like a tortoise carapace; but the design was named only for b, and then as recalling an overall pattern of basketry, which the Mohave do not themselves weave or coil though they know and use it. In a, there are four large hexagons filling most of the field (actually one is more pentagonal, one heptagonal); along the edges are four lenticular areas, each enclosing two triangles; two of these lenses show in the photograph. In b, the figures are grouped in four parallel tiers extending across the bowl. In b, the outside carries vertical stripes; in a, eight right-slanting and eight left-slanting lines enclosing as many diamonds and hourglass figures, with solid filling of the upper and lower corners of the diamonds and meeting corners of the hourglasses.
c and d are crossed by rows of solid triangles touching at the corners. These aim at being equilateral in c (the flattest of the bowls), so that the intervening background spaces are also roughly equilateral, and there is an overall dark-light effect. But in d the triangles are narrower-based, or isosceles, and their points meet the bases instead of the corners of triangles in the tier above, so that the effect is one of pattern in rows rather than overall. This is the design that was called "coyote teeth"; which fairly agrees with plate 4,l,q.
f also has solid triangles, but they meet point to point, leaving light rhomboids between their two rows. The center is a lightly quartered circle; toward the rim, there is a row of smaller, double, point-to-point (hourglass) triangles, each set over the outer point of a rhomboid. These outer triangles are each crossed by a bar of light background—a feature not repeated in the collection, and seeming strange to me; but it does yield a pair of miniature solid triangles—that favorite Mohave design device—in the waist of each outer hourglass. The miniature solid angle also recurs in the central quartering. The solid middle triangles as well as the medium-sized ones toward the rim are followed outside their edge (or inside the light rhomboids) by a row of dots. These rows of dots, with faint lines, further extend to the actual rim of the vessel, completing skewed hexagonal shapes of their own (one is heptagonal). The design name given, "butterfly," probably applies to the point-to-point large solid triangles, possibly to the rhomboids. On the outside, to which the design name "halter face paint" applies, there are eight double-outlined hourglass triangle pairs, meeting tips solid, the rest of their interiors and the intervening hexagons being stippled with oval, streakish dots. Cf. the outside of a.
e has been much rubbed in the middle, but the design toward the rim is allied to those of the bowls in plate 1—triple lines turning back or forking at acute angles. Only the solid small triangles at junctures and ends seem to be lacking. The outside carries 58 vertical stripes averaging about 4 mm. wide.
g is the tallest bowl, with a height-diameter ratio of more than 2/3, due in part to a semiconical bottom. It is considerably worn inside, and food has spilled over and crusted part of the outside. The discernible interior design is in a band below the rim. This is crossed by a series of diagonals sloping downward to the right, with a little solid filling triangle in the acute angle made by the diagonal with the border of the band. In addition, a left-sloping diagonal extends down from the rim to the middle of the right-sloping one, with a filling triangle at the juncture. The outside is continuously covered by what in other vessels was usually called "fish bones"—but here was named (i)yam-tšuperta, a face paint—19 columns of downward and 19 of upward pointing zigzags, all points filled in red. Eight such horizontally progressing zigzag lines are still perceptible; there may have been one or two more, but not over ten altogether. This pattern is most effective in a fairly high field (it is common in spoons), such as this tall bowl affords on its exterior.
h has free-standing eight-legged spider figures interspersed with dots. A spider design recurs in plate 3,i; and in 3,j a similar figure is called tortoise. The stripes and lines of the outside were called "fish tail"—it is not quite apparent why.
In summary for exterior designs, a and f have hourglasses, g the zigzag fish bones, the others in this plate "radial" or vertical lines, wholly or partly widened in e, h to stripes.
PLATE 3: PLATTERS
Plate 3 shows flat bowls, dishes, or plates, more or less platterlike, sometimes round and sometimes oval. They differ from the bowls of plates 1 and 2 in being lower, in having no neck, and no outcurved rim.
| Pl. | No. (per cent) |
D(L) (per cent) |
W | W/L | H | H/D | Th. | Curv. |
| 3,a | 13784 | 272 | ... | 79 | 29 | 5.0 | 330 | |
| 3,b | 13783 | 283 | ... | 88 | 31 | 5.0 | 348 | |
| 3,c | 1713 | 262 | ... | 77 | 29 | 5.5 | 320 | |
| 3,d | 1722 | 202 | ... | 71 | 35 | 5.5 | 270 | |
| 3,e,f | 13785 | 266 | 215 | 81 | 66 | 28+ | 6.5 | 303 |
| 3,g | 1751 | 145* | ... | 48 | 33 | 6.0 | 195 | |
| 3,h | 13786 | 166 | 147 | 89 | 59 | 38+ | 5.5 | 217 |
| 3,i | 1738 | 157 | 135 | 86 | 43 | 29.5+ | 5.0 | 191 |
| 3,j | 4294 | 155 | 121 | 78 | 44 | 32+ | 5.5 | 178 |
Note: D(L), diameter or greatest length; Th., thickness; Curv., length of tape laid curving along diam. or max. length of under side; *147 long, 143 wide, but round in intent; +Mean of H/L and W/L. All dimensions in mm.
It will be seen that the H/D ratio is from 28 to 38 per cent; whereas that for bowls is from 38 to 68 per cent, with 21 out of 24 between 45 and 61.
Platters i and j were described when collected as "dish-like spoons" or scoops; j, like plate 2,h, is from Tokwaθa's household.
Designs
As regards painted design, a and b revert to the all-over regular forking of plate 1, but with dark background instead of light or spot-studded, so that the pattern really is negative in effect. It is probably significant that the only two platelike bowls carrying this design should be the only ones to present it negatively. The pattern is well executed in both. It is of course somewhat easier to carry out regularly on a flattish plate than in an up-curving bowl.
d was called "himáka lameθlame, its back leaves" (or "patches"?—cf. pl. 4,d). This presumably refers to the large dot-studded hexagonal areas—hexagonal at least in intent. My notes also name a "tšitθôk face-paint" design, which would then be the name of the interconnected hourglass figures which constitute the primary or positive element of the patterning. The combination of these two design elements recurs on the exterior of the jar of plate 8,a. The back or under side of d in the present plate is boldly checkered, as shown in plate 8,c. It is possible that the leaf name refers to this checker.
c and g were both designated as fish backbone, which as a pattern we have already encountered on bowl 2,g, though there on the outer side and named after a face paint: parallel zigzags with solid-filled angles. The idea seems to be that of a fish backbone as it might be drawn out with ribs attached—"herringbone" in our own nomenclature. Then 3,g would be the more representational form with the vertebral column left in—though it is also partway transitional to the triple-line angle-and-forking pattern of plate 1 and of 3,a,b above. The simpler, merely parallel-chevron form of the design—with the vertebrae omitted—is perhaps more usual, and is shown recurring in e and in plate 4,f,k. The under side of c has 67 vertical (radiating) lines.—Plate 3,g, no. 1751, was obtained from Nyavarup along with no. 1749, plate 4,o, which see. Nyavarup, like Tokwaθa, was a historic character, having been encountered by the Ives party in 1858 and mentioned in Möllhausen. In 1902 he told me the creation, which will be published as myth no. 9.
f is the under or convex side of e, but its spots (12-14 mm. diameter) reappear as the sole inside pattern in h, and between the tortoises of j. The inside dots of h and the outside ones of f were however put on differently: in h in rows across the oval, in f irregularly or perhaps spirally. The under side of h also has dots, fainter than on the front. In j the dots seem inserted with reference to the larger figures of tortoises.
These tortoises of j are definitely similar to the halytôṭa spiders of plate 2,h, but are also distinctive, with enclosed-line quadrilateral body, 3-toed legs at corners, and head and tail. Both 3,j and 2,h however were made to sell, are more representational than most Mohave pottery paintings, and should be viewed with a degree of reserve, though I believe that their designs have basis in native usage.
3,i as halytôṭa, spider, is puzzling as to why its name, and is also abnormal formally.
PLATE 4: SPOONS
These are ladles, dippers, scoops, as one will, but I retain the "spoon" which the Mohave most often gave as their English term for native kam'óta. They are of course not taken into the mouth, but held to it while gruel flows out; or perhaps more often they serve as a convenient holder of an individual or temporary portion which is scooped into the mouth with two or three fingers which are then sucked off. They also serve to ladle boiled food from large cook pots into bowls or platters.
I give, first, identifications, sizes, and design names; then shapes; and finally a discussion of painted patterns.
Identifications
a, 13800, length 174 mm.
b, 1731, l. 201. Called kas'uyule. Design doubtfully recorded as hotahpave face paint.
c, 13802, l. 182.
d, 4320, l. 175. Design name: ta-hlame-hlame, "patches," and "butterfly inside," humanape iyaly ("in the mouth"?).
e, 1736, l. 123; handle hollow, rattling, "tšíwitši-witš."
f, 7098, from older University collections (pre-1901), Mohave provenience assumed, not recorded; l. 194; handle hollow, rattling.
g, 1737, l. 175. Design name: kyauelkyau, "angled, zigzag."
h, 13803, l. 225.
i, 13805, l. 178.
j, 13804, l. 190.
k, 1747, l. 186.
l, 1730, l. 198. Design name: coyote teeth.
m, 13809, l. 207.
n, 13810, l. 156.
o, 1749, l. 113. Design name: fish backbone. This piece was obtained from Nyavarup: see pl. 3,g.
p, 1712, l. 155. Design name: raccoon hand.
q, 4319, l. 225. Design name: coyote teeth.
r, 4356, l. 177.
s, 13807, l. 210.
Shapes
Hollow, rattling handles, consisting of a three-cornered box, are found on e,f,r. In each case, the end is modeled into a rude quail's head, showing eyes and beak (or topknot?).
Some rudiments of a quail head, but without hollow compartment, appear also in a-d,q; possibly in i,k.
The foregoing have the outer edges, toward the top, somewhat raised and a bit incurved. This sort of an edge shows also in g,h,j, which however possess no rudiments of the quail's head. The edge faces forward (if the hollow of the spoon is regarded as its front).
Another group of spoons have their edge rather turned outward—that is, away from the hollow. This group includes l-p and s. These average somewhat flatter, and the apex is generally rounder, than in those with forward-turned edge: see especially n,o,p,s; also m; only l comes to a point. Also, the total width ratio is greater in this group.
The classification thus is:
A. Edge raised, turned forward; apex pointed
1. Quail head apex, hollow rattling compartment
2. Quail head or rudiment
3. Plain apex
B. Edge facing outward, top usually rounder, total
shape shallow, broad.
Additional spoons are shown in plates 7,i and 8,i-k; and in 7,a-h appear the back patterns of eight spoons whose fronts are reproduced in plate 4. This comes to a total of 23 pieces; which seriate in size, and group as to subclass, as follows: