DECORATIVE SYMBOLISM.
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.
Fig. 547.—Conical or flat-bellied canteen.