Evolution in Art: As Illustrated by the Life-histories of Designs

by Alfred C. Haddon

Mr. Cushing’s long and intimate knowledge of the Zuñi Indians has enabled him to speak with authority on matters which might be merely happy suggestions by other anthropologists. Any one can guess at origins and meanings, but there are few who know at first-hand, and who therefore can act as interpreters to the student at home. The following account of Zuñi pottery is taken from Mr. Cushing’s paper, entitled “A Study of Pueblo Pottery as illustrative of Zuñi Culture Growth.”

So far as language indicates, the earliest Zuñi water vessels were tubes of wood or sections of cane. The latter must speedily have given way to the use of gourds. 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. Of this there is evidence among the Zuñis, in the shape of a series of rudely encased gourd vessels into which the sacred water is said to have been transferred from the tubes.

This crude beginning of the wicker-art in connection with water vessels points towards the development of the wonderful water-tight baskets of the south-west, explaining, too, the resemblance of many of its typical forms to the shapes of gourd vessels. The name for these vessels also supports this view.

Mr. Cushing suggests 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 anywhere at hand. Basket vessels were far stronger and more durable than gourds.

“We may conclude, then,” continues Mr. Cushing, “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 south-west, except in cookery.” Thus the Ha va su paí, or Coçoninos of Cataract Cañon, Arizona, in 1881, “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. 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 thus made is ready for use. The seeds or other substances to be parched are placed inside of it, together with a quantity of glowing wood coals;” these are made to rapidly revolve. “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” (pp. 484, 485). The modern Zuñi name for a parching pan indicates that the shallow vessel of twigs coated with clay for roasting had given birth to the parching pan of earthenware.

In the ancient Zuñi country are found vessels of the same form as the basket-pot or boiling basket, still surviving among the Havasupaí. These baskets are good examples of the spirally-coiled type of basket.

“Seizing the suggestion afforded by the rude tray-moulded parching-bowls, particularly after it was discovered that if well burned they resisted the effects of water as well as of heat, the ancient potter would naturally attempt in time to reproduce the boiling-basket in clay. She would find that to accomplish this she could not use as a mould the inside of the boiling-basket, as she had the inside of the tray, because its neck was smaller than its body. Nor could she form the vase by plastering the clay outside of the vessel, not only for the same reason, but also because the clay in drying would contract so much that it would crack or scale off. Naturally, then, she pursued the process she was accustomed to in the manufacture of the basket-bottle. That is, she formed a thin rope of soft clay, which, like the wisp of the basket, she coiled around and around a centre to form the bottom, then spirally upon itself, now widening the diameter of each coil more and more, then contracting as she progressed upward until the desired height and form were attained. As the clay was adhesive, each coil was attached to the one already formed by pinching or pressing together the connecting edges at short intervals as the widening went on. This produced corrugations or indentations marvellously resembling the stitches of basket-work. Hence accidentally the vessels thus built up appeared so similar to the basket which had served for its model that evidently it did not seem complete until this feature had been heightened by art. At any rate, the majority of specimens belonging to this type of pottery, especially those of the older periods during which it was predominant, are distinguished by an indented or incised decoration exactly reproducing the zigzags, serrations, chevrons, terraces, and other characteristic devices of water-tight basketry. Evidently, with a like intention, two little cone-like projections were attached to the neck near the rim of the vessel, which may hence be regarded as survivals of the loops whereby the ends of the strap-handle were attached to the boiling-basket. Although varied in later times to form scrolls, rosettes, and other ornate figures, they continued ever after quite faithful features of the spiral type of pot, and may even sometimes be seen on the cooking vessels of modern Zuñi.” Corroborative evidence of the connection between the two kinds of receptacles is found in their names, the translation being “coiled cooking-basket” and “coiled earthenware cooking-basket” (pp. 489-491).

Other earthenware vessels had a somewhat different evolutionary history, but they had for their starting-point the food-trencher of coiled wicker-work. When by a perfectly natural sequence of events ornamentation by painting came to be applied to the surface of the bowls a smooth surface was found preferable to a corrugated one, not only because it took paint more readily, but because it formed a far handsomer utensil for household use than if simply decorated by the older methods.

Later the building up of large vessels was no longer accomplished by the spiral method exclusively. “A lump of clay, hollowed out, was shaped how rudely so ever on the bottom of the basket or in the hand, then placed inside of a hemispherical basket-bowl, and stroked until pressed outward to conform with the shape, and to project a little above the edges of its temporary mould, whence it was built up spirally (Fig. [55]) until the desired form had been attained, after which it was smoothed by scraping.”