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.