Decoratively, Pueblo pottery is characterized by two marked features: angular designs predominate and ornamental effect depends as much on the open or undecorated space as on the painted lines and areas in the devices. (See Fig. 542.) While this is true of recent and modern wares, it is more and more notably the case with other specimens in a ratio increasing in proportion to their antiquity.
Amazonian basket decorations.
We cannot explain these characteristics, and the conventional aspect of the higher and symbolic Pueblo ceramic decorations which grew out of them, in a better way than to suppose them, like the forms of this pottery, to be the survivals of the influence of basketry. (See, for comparison, Figs. 543, 544.) 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.
In entire conformity with this, the succession in the methods of the ornamentation of Pueblo pottery seems to have been first by incision or indentation; then by relief; afterward by painting in black on a natural or light surface; finally, by painting in color on a white or colored surface.
As before suggested, the patterns on the coiled, regularly indented pottery (which came to be first known to the world as a type, the "corrugated," through the earlier explorations and reports of Mr. William H. Holmes) were produced simply by emphasized indentation, more rarely by incision, and were almost invariably angular, reproducing exactly the designs on wicker work. 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. One of these modifications, in both method and effect, was in the adoption of the raised or 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. The same kind of investigation indicates that the Pueblos largely owed their textile industries and designs, as well as their potter's art, to the necessity which gave rise to the making of water-tight basketry. The terms connected with the rudimentary processes of weaving and embroidery, and the principal patterns of both (on, for example, blankets, kirtles, sacred girdles, and women's belts), are mostly susceptible of interpretation, like the terms in pottery, as having a meaning connected with the processes of basket plaiting and painting. This renders the conventional character of Pueblo textile ornaments easy of comprehension, as well, as the very early, if not the earliest, origin of loom-weaving among our Indians in the desert regions of America.
Henceforward, then, we have only to consider decoration by painting. The probability is that this began as soon as the smooth surface in pottery was generally made; evidence of which seemingly exists; as eating bowls are, even to the present day, decorated principally on the interior; not, as may be supposed, because the exterior is more hidden from view, but because, as we have seen on a former page, bowls were made plain inside before the corrugated type formed on basket bottoms had been displaced by the smoothed type; and were naturally first decorated there with paint. It must be constantly borne in mind that a style of decoration once coupled with a kind of ware, or even a portion of a vessel, retained its association permanently.
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; the plain, yet rough gray; white decorated with geometric figures in black; and red, either plain or decorated with geometric devices in black and white. The gray or dingy brown, rough variety, resulted when a corrugated or coiled jar had been simply smoothed with the fingers and scraper before it was fired. A step in advance, easily and soon taken, was the additional smoothing of the vessel by slightly wetting and rubbing its outer surface. Even this was productive only of a moderately smooth surface, since, as learned by the Indian potters long before, in their experience with the clay-plastered parching-tray, it was necessary to mix the clay of vessels with a tempering of sand, crushed potsherds, or the like, to prevent it from cracking while drying; this, of course, no amount of rubbing would remove. Hence, by another easy step, clay unmixed with a grit-tempering, made into a thin paste with water, and thickly applied to the half-dried jar with a dab or brash of soft fiber, gave a beautifully smooth surface, especially if polished afterward by rubbing with water-worn pebbles. The vessel thus prepared, when burned, assumed invariably a creamy, pure white, red-brown or, other color, according to the quality or kind of the clay used in making the paste with which it had been smoothed or washed.
Thus was achieved the art of producing at will fictiles of different colors, with which simple suggestion painting also became easy. 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. Take, as an example, the latter. Of course it was a simple mode to employ the red (ocherous) clay for the wash, the blue clay (which burned white) for the white pigment in making lines, and any of the black minerals above mentioned for other marking.
In these earliest kinds of painted pottery the angular decorations of the corrugated ware or of basketry were repeated, or at the farthest only elaborated, although on some specimens the suggestions of the curved ornament already occurred. These resulted, I may not fear to claim, from carelessness or awkwardness in drawing, for instance, the corners of acute angles, which, "cutting across-lot" would, it may be seen, produce the wavy or meandering line from the zigzag, the ellipsoid from the rectangle, and so on.
Precisely in accordance with this theory were the studies of my preceptor, the lamented Prof. Charles Fred. Hartt. In a paper "On Evolution in Ornament," published in several periodicals, among them the Popular Science Monthly of January, 1875, this gifted naturalist illustrated his studies by actual examples found on decorated burial urns from Marajó Island. I must take the liberty of suggesting, however, that upon some antecedent kind of vessel, the eyes of the Amazonian Islanders may have been, to give Professor Hartt's idea, "trained to take physiological and æsthetic delight in regularly recurring lines and dots"; not on the pottery itself, as he seemed to think, for decoration was old in basketry and the textiles when pottery was first made.
On every class of food- and water-vessels, in collections of both ancient and modern Pueblo pottery (except, it is important to note, on pitchers and some sacred receptacles), it may be observed as a singular, yet almost constant feature, that encircling lines, often even ornamental zones, are left open or not as it were closed at the ends. (See Figs. 545, a, 546, a.) This is clearly a conventional quality and seemingly of intentional significance. An explanation must be sought in various directions, and once found will be useful in guiding to an understanding of the symbolic element in Pueblo ceramic art. I asked the Indian women, when I saw them making these little spaces with great care, why they took so much pains to leave them open. 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." Her statement is confirmed as a sort of article of faith, when you observe that as she places the vessel in the kiln, she also places in and beside it food. Evidently she vaguely gives something about the vessel a personal existence. The question arises how did these people come to regard food-receptacles or water-receptacles as possessed of or accompanied by conscious existences. I have found that the Zuñi argues actual and essential relationship from similarity 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. That it has departed is argued from the fact that the vase when cracked or fragmentary never resounds as it did when whole. This vague existence never cries out violently unprovoked; but it is supposed to acquire the power of doing so by imitation; hence, no one sings, whistles, or makes other strange or musical sounds resembling those of earthenware under the circumstances above described during the smoothing, polishing, painting, or other processes of finishing. The being thus incited, they think, would surely strive to come out, and would break the vessel in so doing. In this we find a partial explanation of the native belief that a pot is accompanied by a conscious existence. The rest of the solution of this problem in belief is involved in the native philosophy and worship of water. 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. 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. It would be a natural outgrowth of this predicament to leave the ends unjoined, which indeed the savage often did. When paint instead of incision or relief came to be the decorative agent, the lines or bands would be left unjoined in imitation. As those acquainted with Tylor's "Early History" will realize, and myth of observation like the above would come to be assigned in after ages. This may or may not be true of the case in question; for, as before observed, some classes of sacred receptacles, as well as the most ancient painted bowls, are not characterized by the unjoined lines. Whether true or not, it is an insufficient solution of the problem.
It is natural for the Pueblo to consider water as the prime source of life, or as accompanied by it, for without the presence of living water very few things grow in his desert land. During many a drought chronicled in his oral annals, plants, animals, and men have died as of a contagious scourge. Naturally, therefore, he has come to regard water as the milk of adults, to speak of it as such, and as the all-sufficient nourishment which the earth (in his conception of it as the mother of men) yields. In the times when his was a race of cliff and mesa dwellers, the most common vessel appertaining to his daily life was the flat-bellied canteen or water-carrier. (See Fig. 547.) This was suspended by a band across the forehead, so as to hang against the back, thus leaving the hands as well as the feet free for assistance in climbing. It now survives only for use on long journeys or at camps distant from water. The original suggestion of its form seems to have been that of the human mammary gland, or perhaps its peculiar form may have suggested a relationship between the two. (Compare Figs. 548, 549.) At any rate, its name in Zuñi is me' he ton ne, while me' ha na is the name of the human mammary gland. Me' he ton ne is from me' ha na, mamma, e' ton nai e, containing within, and to'm me. From me' ha na comes wo' ha na, hanging or placed against anything, obviously because the mammaries hang or are placed against the breast; or, possibly, mé ha na may be derived from wó ha na by a reversal of reasoning, which view does not affect the argument in question. It is probable that the me' he ton was at first left open at the apex (Fig. 549a) instead of at the top (Fig. 549b); but, being found liable to leak when furnished with the aperture so low, this was closed. A surviving superstition inclines me to this view. When a Zuñi woman has completed the me' he ton nearly to the apex, by the coiling-process, and before she has inserted the nozzle (Fig. 549b), she prepares a little wedge of clay, and, as she closes the apex with it, she turns her eyes away. If you ask her why she does this, she will tell you that it is a'k ta ni (fearful) to look at the vessel while closing it at this point; that, if she look at it during this operation, she will be liable to become barren; or that, if children be born to her, they will die during infancy; or that she maybe stricken with blindness; or those who drink from the vessel will be afflicted with disease and wasting away! My impression is that, reasoning from analogy (which with these people means actual relationship or connection, it will be remembered), the Zuñi woman supposes that by closing the apex of this artificial mamma she closes the exit-way for the "source of life;" further, that the woman who closes this exit-way knowingly (in her own sight, that is) voluntarily closes the exit-way for the source of life in her own mammæ; further still, that for this reason the privilege of bearing infants may be taken away from her, or at any rate (experience showing the fallacy of this philosophy) she deserves the loss of the sense (sight) which enabled her to "knowingly" close the exit-way of the source of life.
By that tenacity of conservative reasoning which is a marked mental characteristic of the sedentary Pueblo, other types of the canteen, of later origin, not only retained the name-root of this primeval form, but also its attributed functions. For example, the me' wi k`i lik ton ne (See Fig. 550) is named thus from me we, mammaries, i kí lïk toì e', joined together by a neck, and to'm me.
Now, when closing the ends (Fig. 550, c, c) of this curious vessel in molding it, the women are as careful to turn the eyes away as in closing the apex of the older form. As the resemblance of either of the ends of this vessel to the mamma is not striking, they place on either side of the nozzle a pair of little conical projections, resembling the teats, and so called. (Fig. 550, b.) There are four of these, instead of, as we might reasonably expect, two. The reason for this seems to be that the me' wi k´i lik ton ne is the canteen designed for use by the hunter in preference to all other vessels, because it may be easily wrapped in a blanket and tied to the back. Other forms would not do, as the hunter must have the free use not only of his hands but also of his head, that he may turn quickly this way or that in looking for or watching game. 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. A feature in these canteens dependent upon all this brings us nearer to an understanding of the question under discussion. When ornamental bands are painted around either end of the neck of one of them (Fig. 550, b), they are interrupted at the little projections (Fig. 550, b,). Indeed, I have observed specimens on which these lines, if placed farther out, were interrupted at the top (Fig. 550, a a) opposite the little projections. So, by analogy, it would seem the Pueblos came to regard paint, like clay, a barrier to the exit of the source of life. This idea of the source of life once associated with the canteen would readily become connected with the water-jar, which, if not the offspring of the canteen, at least usurped its place in the household economy of these people. From the water-jar it would pass naturally to drinking-vessels and eating-bowls, explaining the absence of the interrupted lines on the oldest of these and their constant occurrence on recent and modern examples; for the painted lines being left open at the apexes, or near the projections on the canteens, they should also be unjoined on other vessels with which the same ideas were associated.
So, also, it will be observed that in paintings of animals there is not only a line drawn from the mouth to the plainly depicted heart, but a little space is left down the center or either side of this line (see Figs. 551, 552), which is called the o ne yäthl kwa' to na, or the "entrance trail" (of the source or breath of life).
By this long and involved examination of one element in the symbolism of Pueblo ceramic decoration, we gain some idea how many others not quite so striking, yet equally curious, grew up; how, also, they might be explained. Their investigation, however, would be attended with such intricate studies, involving so many subjects not at sight related to the one in hand, that I must hasten to present two other points.
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. In point of fact, in the decoration of certain classes of his pottery he has attempted the reproduction of almost everything and of every phenomenon in nature held as sacred or mysterious by him. On certain other classes he has developed, imitatively, many typical decorations which now have no special symbolism, but which once had definite significance; and, finally, he has sometimes relegated definite meanings to designs which at first had no significance, except as decorative agents, after ward using them according to this interpretation in his attempts to delineate natural objects, their phenomena, and functions. I will illustrate by examples, the last point first.
Going back to basketry, we find already the fully developed fret. (See Fig. 553.) I doubt not that from this was evolved, in accordance with Professor Hartt's theory, the scroll or volute as it appears later on pottery. (See Figs. 554, 555.) To both of these designs, and modifications of them ages later, the Pueblo has attached meanings. 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. 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 volutes are formed by the stems of red-top grass and of a round-topped variety of the chenopodium, drifted onward by the whirlwind yet around and around their bushy adhesive tops. 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. They have naturally, therefore, explained the analogy above noted by the inference that their ancestors, in painting the volute, had intended to symbolize the whirlwind by representing his tracks. Thenceforward the scroll was drawn on certain classes of pottery to represent the whirlwind, modifications of it (for instance, by the color-sign belonging to any one of the "six regions") to signify other personified winds. So, also, the semicircle is classed as emblematic of the rainbow (a' mi to lan ne); the obtuse angle, as of the sky (a' po yan ne); the zigzag line as lightning (wi' lo lo an ne); terraces as the sky horizons (a'wi thlui a we), and modifications of the latter as the mythic "ancient sacred place of the spaces" (Te' thlä shi na kwïn), and so on.
By combining several of these elementary symbols in a single device, sometimes a mythic idea was beautifully expressed. Take, as an example, the rain totem adopted by the late Lewis H. Morgan as a title illumination, from Maj. J.W. Powell, who received it from the Moki. Pueblos of Arizona as a token of his induction into the rain gens of that people. (See Fig. 557, a.) An earlier and simpler form of this occurs on a very ancient "sacred medicine jar" which I found in the Southwest. (See Fig. 556.) By reference to an enlarged drawing of the chief decoration of this jar (see Fig. 557), it may be seen that the sky, a, the ancient place of the spaces (region of the sky gods), b, the cloud lines, c, and the falling rain, d, are combined and depicted to symbolize the storm, which was the objective of the exhortations, rituals, and ceremonials to which the jar was an appurtenance.
Fig. 557.—Decoration of ancient medicine-jar compared with rain symbol of modern Moki totem.
Thus, upon all sacred vessels, from the drums of the esoteric medicine societies of the priesthood and all vases pertaining to them to the keramic appurtenances of the sacred dance or Kâ' kâ, all decorations were intentionally emblematic. Of this numerous class of vessels, I will choose but one for illustration—the prayer-meal-bowl of the Kâ' kâ. In this, both form and ornamentation are significant. (See Fig. 558.) In explaining how the form of this vessel is held to be symbolic I will quote a passage from the "creation myth" as I rendered it in an article on the origin of corn, belonging to a series on "Zuñi Breadstuff," published this year in the "Millstone" of Indianapolis, Indiana. "Is not the bowl the emblem of the earth, our mother? For from her we draw both food and drink, as a babe draws nourishment from the breast of its mother; and round, as is the rim of a bowl, so is the horizon, terraced with mountains whence rise the clouds." This alludes to a medicine bowl, not to one of the handled kind, but I will apply it as far as it goes to the latter. The two terraces on either side of the handle (Fig. 558, a a) are in representation of the "ancient sacred place of the spaces," the handle being the line of the sky, and sometimes painted with the rainbow figure. Now the decorations are a trifle more complex. We may readily perceive that they represent tadpoles (Fig. 558, b b), dragonflies (Fig 558, c c), with also the frog or toad (Fig. 558); all this is of easy interpretation. As the tadpole frequents the pools of spring time he has been adopted as the symbol of spring rains; the dragon-fly hovers over pools in summer, hence typifies the rains of summer; and the frog, maturing in them later, symbolizes the rains of the later seasons; for all these pools are due to rain fall. When, sometimes, the figure of the sacred butterfly (see Fig. 559, a b) replaces that of the dragon-fly, or alternates with it, it symbolizes the beneficence of summer; since, by a reverse order of reasoning, the Zuñis think that the butterflies and migratory birds (see Fig. 560) bring the warm season from the "Land of everlasting summer."
Upon vessels of special function, like these we have just noticed, peculiar figures may be regarded as emblematic; on other classes, no matter how evidently conventional and expressive decorations may seem, excepting always, totemic designs, it is wise to use great caution in their interpretation as intentional and not merely imitative.
A general examination, even of the most modern of Pueblo pottery, shows us that certain types of decoration have once been confined to certain types of vessels, all which has its due signification but an examination of which would properly form the subject of another essay.
Happily, a work collateral to the one which I have here merely begun, will, I have reason to hope, be carried to a high degree of perfection in the forthcoming monographs on the exhaustless ceramic collections of the United States National Museum by Mr. William H. Holmes. This author and artist will approach his task from a standpoint differing from mine, reaching thereby, it may be, conclusions at variance with the foregoing; but by means of his wealth of material and illustration students will have opportunity of passing a judgment upon the merits of not only his work, but of my own.
In conclusion, let me very briefly refer to two distinctive American types of pottery, unconnected with the Southwestern, which, considered in conjunction with those of the latter region, seem to me to indicate that the ceramic art has had independent centers of origin in America. For the sake of convenience, I may name these types the rectangular (see Fig. 561) or Iroquois, and the bisymmetrical or kidney-shaped (see Fig. 562), of Nicaragua. The one is almost constant in the lake regions of the United States, the other equally constant in sections of Central America. In collections gathered from any tribe of our Algonquin or Iroquois Indians, one may observe vessels of the tough birch- or linden-bark, some of which are spherical or hemispherical. To produce this form of utensil from a single piece of bark, it is necessary to cut pieces out of the margin and fold it. Each fold, when stitched together in the shaping of the vessel, forms a corner at the upper part. (See Fig. 563.) These corners and the borders which they form are decorated with short lines and combinations of lines, composed of coarse embroideries with dyed porcupine quills. (See Fig. 564) May not the bark vessel have given rise to the rectangular type of pottery and its quill ornamentation to the incised straight-line decorations? (Compare Fig. 561.)
So, too, in the unsymmetrical urns of Central and Isthmean America, which are characterized by the location of the aperture at the upper part of one of the extremities and by streak-like decorations, we have a decided suggestion of the animal paunch or bladder and of the visible veins on its surface when distended.
If these conjectures be accepted as approximately correct, even in tendency, we may hope by a patient study of the ceramic remains of a people, no matter where situated, to discover what was the type of their pre-ceramic vessels, and thereby we might also learn whether, at the time of the origin of the potter's art or during its development, they had, like the Pueblos, been indigenous to the areas in which they were found, or whether they had, like some of the Central Americans, (to make a concrete example and judge it by this method) apparently immigrated in part from desert North America, in part from the wilderness of an equatorial region in South America.
Footnotes
[1] See for confirmation the last Annual Report to the Archæological Institute of America, by Adolph F. Bandelier, one of the most indefatigable explorers and careful students of early Spanish history in America.
[2] I would refer those, who may wish to find this characteristic more fully set forth, to the introductory pages of my essay on Zuñi Fetiches, published in the second volume of Contributions to North American Ethnology by the Bureau of Ethnology; also to a paper read before the American Academy of Sciences on the Relations to one another of the Zuñi Mythologic and Sociologic Systems, published, I regret to say, without my revision, in the Popular Science Monthly, for July, 1882.