Part 2
While the gourd was large and convenient in form, it was difficult of transportation owing to its fragility. To overcome this it was encased in a coarse sort of wicker-work, composed of fibrous yucca leaves or of flexible splints. Of this we have evidence in a series of gourd-vessels among the Zuñis, into which the sacred water is said to have been transferred from the tubes, and a pair of which one of the priests, who came east with me two years ago, brought from New Mexico to Boston in his hands--so precious were they considered as relics--for the purpose of replenishing them with water from the Atlantic. These vessels are encased rudely but strongly in a meshing of splints (see Fig. 500), and while I do not positively claim that they have been piously preserved since the time of the universal use of gourds as water-vessels by the ancestry of this people, they are nevertheless of considerable antiquity. Their origin is attributed to the priest-gods, and they show that it must have once been a common practice to encase gourds, as above described, in osiery.
POTTERY ANTICIPATED BY BASKETRY.
This crude beginning of the wicker-art in connection with water-vessels points toward the development of the wonderful water-tight basketry of the southwest, explaining, too, the resemblance of many of its typical forms to the shapes of gourd-vessels. Were we uncertain of 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. While the growth of the gourd was restricted to limited areas, the materials for basketry were everywhere at hand. Not only so, but basket-vessels were far stronger and more durable, hence more readily transported full of water, to any distance. By virtue of their rough surfaces, any leakage in such vessels was instantly stopped by a daubing of pitch or mineral asphaltum, coated externally with sand or coarse clay to harden it and overcome its adhesiveness.
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. For example, when I visited them in 1881, they still hafted sharpened bits of iron, like celts, in wood. They had not yet forgotten how to boil food in water-tight basketry, by means of hot stones, and continued to roast seeds, crickets, and bits of meat in wicker-trays, coated inside with gritty clay. (See Fig. 501.) The method of preparing and using these roasting-trays has an important bearing on several questions to which reference will be made further on. A round basket-tray, either loosely or closely woven, is evenly coated inside with clay, into which has been kneaded a very large proportion of sand, to prevent contraction and consequent cracking from drying. This lining of clay is pressed, while still soft, into the basket as closely as possible with the hands and then allowed to dry. The tray is thus made ready for use. The seeds or other substances to be parched are placed inside of it, together with a quantity of glowing wood-coals. 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.
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 former etymologically interpreted, although of earthenware, is a hemispherical vessel of the same kind and _material_. All this would indicate that the _thlä´ lin ne_, coated with clay for roasting, had given birth to the _thlé mon ne_, or parching-pan of earthenware. (See Fig. 502.)
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. In the manufacture of one of these vessels, which are good examples of the helix or spirally-coiled type of basket, the beginning was made at the center of the bottom. A small wisp of fine, flexible grass stems or osiers softened in water was first spirally wrapped a little at one end with a flat, limber splint of tough wood, usually willow (see Fig. 504). This wrapped portion was then wound upon itself; the outer coil thus formed (see Fig. 505) being firmly fastened as it progressed to the one already made by passing the splint wrapping of the wisp each time it was wound around the latter through some strands of the contiguous inner coil, with the aid of a bodkin. (See Fig. 506.) The bottom was rounded upward and the sides were made by coiling the wisp higher and higher, first outward, to produce the bulge of the vessel, then inward, to form the tapering upper part and neck, into which, the two little twigs or splint loop-eyes were firmly woven. (See again Fig. 503 _a_.)
These and especially kindred forms of basket-vessels were often quite elaborately ornamented, either by the insertion at proper points of dyed wrapping-splints, singly, in pairs, or in sets, or by the alternate painting of pairs, sets, or series of stitches. Thus were produced angular devices, like serrated bands, diagonal or zigzag lines, chevrons, even terraces and frets. (See Figs. 507, 508, 509.) 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. The probability of this view of the accidental origin of basket-ornamentation may be enhanced by a consideration of the etymology of a few Zuñi decorative terms, more of which might be given did space admit. A terraced lozenge (see Figs. 510, 511), instead of being named after the abstract word _a wi thlui ap í pä tchi na_, which signifies a double terrace or two terraces joined together at the base, is designated _shu k‘u tu li a tsi´ nan_, from _shu e_, splints or fibers; _k‘u tsu_, a double fold, space, or stitch (see Figs. 512, 513); _li a_, an interpolation referring to form; and _tsi´ nan_, mark; in other words, the "double splint-stitch-form mark." Likewise, a pattern, composed principally of a series of diagonal or oblique parallel lines _en masse_ (see Fig. 514), is called _shu´ k‘ish pa tsí nan_, from _shú e_, splints; _k‘i´sh pai e_, tapering (_k‘ish pon ne_, neck or smaller part of anything); and _tsí nan_, mark; that is, "tapering" or "neck-splint mark." Curiously enough, in a bottle-shaped basket as it approaches completion the splints of the tapering part or neck all lean spirally side by side of one another (see Fig. 515), and a term descriptive of this has come to be used as that applied to lines resembling it, instead of a derivative from _ä´s sël lai e_, signifying an oblique or leaning line. Where splints variously arranged, or stitches, have given names to decorations--applied even to painted and embroidered designs--it is not difficult for us to see that these same combinations, at first unintentional, must have suggested the forms to which they gave names as decorations.
Other very important types of vessels were made in a similar way. I refer especially to canteens and water-bottles. The water-bottle of wicker differed little from the boiling-basket. It was generally rounder-bodied, longer and narrower necked, and provided at one side near the shoulders or rim with two loops of hair or strong fiber, usually braided. (See Fig. 520.) The ends of the burden-strap passed through these loops made suspension of the vessel easy, or when the latter was used simply as a receptacle, the pair of loops served as a handle. Sometimes these basket-bottles were strengthened at the bottom with rawhide or buckskin, stuck on with gum. When, in the evolution of the pitcher, this type of basket was reproduced in clay, not only was the general form preserved, but also the details above described. That is, without reference to usefulness--in fact at no small expense of trouble--the handles were almost always made double (see Fig. 521); indeed, often braided, although of clay. Frequently, especially as time went on, the bottoms were left plain, as if to simulate the smooth skin-bottoming of the basket-bottles. (See Fig. 522.) At first it seems odd that with all these points of similarity the two kinds of water-vessel should have totally dissimilar names; the basket-bottle being known as the _k‘iá pu k‘ia tom me_, from _k‘iá pu kĭa_, "for carrying or placing water in," and _tóm me_; the handled earthen receptacle, as the _í mush ton ne_. Yet when we consider that the latter was designed not for transporting water, for which it was less suited than the former, but for holding it, for which it was even preferable, the discrepancy is explained, since the name _í mush ton ne_ is from _i´ mu_, to sit, and _tóm me_, a tube. This indicates, too, why the basket-bottle was not displaced by the earthen bottle. While the former continued in use for bringing water from a distance, the latter was employed for storing it. As the fragile earthen vessels were much more readily made and less liable to become tainted, they were exclusively used as receptacles, removing the necessity of the tedious manufacture of a large number of the basket-bottles. Again, as the pitcher was thus used exclusively as a receptacle, to be set aside in household or camp, the name _í´ mush ton ne_ sufficed without the interpolation _te_--"earthenware"--to distinguish it as of _terra cotta_, instead of osiery.
POTTERY INFLUENCED BY LOCAL MINERALS.
Before discussing the origin of other forms, it may be well to consider briefly some influences, more or less local, which, in addition to the general effect of gourd-forms in suggesting basket-types and of the latter in shaping earthenware, had considerable bearing on the development of ceramic art in the Southwest, pushing it to higher degrees of perfection and diversity in some parts than in others.
Perhaps first in importance among these influences was the mineral character of a locality. 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.
An example in point is the ruined pueblo of _A´ wat u i_ or _Aguatóbi_, as it was known to the Spaniards at the time of the conquest, when it was the leading "city of the Province of Tusayan," now Moki. Over the entire extent of this ruin, and to a considerable distance around it, fragments of the greatest variety in color, shape, size, and finish of ware occur in abundance. In the immediate neighborhood, however, are extensive, readily accessible formations producing several kinds of clay and nearly all the color minerals used in the Pueblo potter's art. Yet at the greatest ruin on the upper Colorado Chiquito (in an arm of the valley of which river _A´ wat ú i_ itself occurs), where the fallen walls betoken equal advancement in the status of the ancient builders and indicate by their vast extent many times the population of _A´ wat u i_, the potsherds are coarse, irregular in curvature, badly decayed, and exceptionally scarce. In the immediate neighborhood of this ruin, I need not add, clay is of rare occurrence and poor in quality.
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.
In quality of art quite as much as in that of material this local influence was great. In the neighborhood of ruined pueblos which occur near mineral deposits furnishing a great variety of pigment-material, the decoration of the ceramic remains is so surprisingly and universally elaborate, beautiful, and varied as to lead the observer to regard the people who dwelt there as different from the people who had inhabited towns about the sites of which the sherds show not only meager skill and less profuse decorative variety, but almost typical dissimilarity. Yet tradition and analogy, even history in rare instances, may declare that the inhabitants of both sections were of common derivation, if not closely related and contemporaneous. 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. I refer again to the Zuñis. The manufactures of Pescado probably surpass in decorative excellence all other modern Pueblo pottery, while both in their lack of variety and in delicacy of execution of their painted patterns the fictiles of Ojo Caliente are so inferior and diverse from the other Zuñi work that the future archæologist will have need to beware, or (judging alone from the ceramic remains which he finds at the two pueblos) he will attribute them at least to distinct periods, perhaps to diverse peoples.
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. The principal agent seems, however, to have been dead-wood or spunk, pulverized and moistened with some adhesive mixture so that flat cakes could be formed of it. I infer this not alone from Zuñi tradition, which is not ample, but from the fact that the sheep-dung now used is called, in the condition of fuel, _kú ne a_, while its name in the abstract or as sheep-dung simply is _má he_. Dry-rot wood or spunk is known as _kú me_. In the shape of flat cakes it would be termed _kú mo we_ or _kú me a_, whence I doubt not the modern word _kú ne a_ is derived.
Of methods, four were in vogue. The simplest and worst consisted in burying the vessel to be burned under hot ashes and building a fire around it, or inverting it over a bed of embers and encircling it with a blazing fire of brush-wood, as is still the practice of the Maricopas and other sedentary tribes of the Gila. The most common was building a little cone or dome of fuel over the articles to be baked and firing; the most perfect was to dig or construct under ground a little cist or kiln, line it evenly with fuel, leaving a central space for the green ware, and slowly fire the whole mass.