The angled-and-forking overall pattern so characteristic of bowls occurs in spoons, but is rare: b is an example. The area of a scoop is generally hardly wide and large enough for this design. In b it reduces in effect to a sort of cramped swastika.
One of the two most frequent patterns of spoons is that of g,h,i,j,m—the last in negative effect and unsprinkled with dots. The central feature is a column of three (or two and a half) rhomboids. These are flanked and meshed by four (or three) triangles. The rhomboids and the triangles are separated by three lines, making, with their own boundaries, five parallel lines in all (though this number is sometimes reduced); and where points of triangles meet (and sometimes of rhomboids also) the corners are solid. It is obvious that this pattern is related in several features to the commonest pattern of bowls, but with adaptation to a more cramped field—chiefly by omission of forking and back-angled elements. The only name obtained—once—was kyauelkyau, which is said to mean zigzag or angled.
Another spoon pattern has two or three tiers of light rhomboids separated by pairs of dark triangles, apex to apex (hourglass): see a,d. There is no thin-line bordering or separating in this pattern. For d, the design names cited were ta-hlame-hlame, "patches," and "butterfly inside"; but I do not know which of these names refers to the hollow rhomboids and which to the paired solid triangles.
Another tiered design arrangement is shown in l and q. Both were called coyote teeth, which speaks for itself. It will be seen that the teeth are in opposite rows, geared into diastemas—which does not hold for plate 2,d. In one of these spoons the solid-color teeth have a line border, in the other a row of dots. In both there are two longer double-toothed bands across the middle, two shorter one-way-facing bands of teeth at the ends. "Coyote teeth" appears as a face paint—a cross-barred line—in Handbook, figure 61,b.
A second design of outstanding frequency in spoons is represented by e,f,k,o, (s). It was twice designated as fish backbone (with adhering ribs). The backbone itself appears only twice in the five examples in plate 4 (e,o), and is by no means dominant then. The sets of parallel ribs or chevrons number from 10 to nearly 20, and make either 3 or 5 bends (i.e., are formed by 4 or 6 lines). The bends are filled in with small solid triangles in f,k,s. Rows of dots show in e and s.
Other designs each occur only once in the collection.
c, polka dots only.
n, a fishnetlike design, no name obtained, vertical corners filled in solidly.
p, raccoon hand (first mistranslated "otter," but the otter is "water-raccoon" in Mohave), with five hollow-line toes, background of fine dots. There is some reminiscence of the forking bowl design, but without angling back or hooks.
s, perhaps a simplified version of the pattern of g-j,m?