High-necked cups, vases, and bottles have rather long, vertically-placed loops, giving a pitcher-like effect. These may consist of two or more strands placed side by side or twisted together. Rarely an animal form is imitated, the fore feet of the creature resting upon the rim of the vessel and the hind feet upon the shoulder. Perforated knobs often take the place of the loops, and unperforated nodes and projections of varied shapes are not unusual. Some of these, placed upon the upper part of the neck, represent the heads of animals.
A novel handle is sometimes seen in the ancient vases of Cibola and Tusayan. While the clay was still soft a deep abrupt indentation was made in the lower part of the vessel, sufficiently large to admit the ends of two or three fingers, thus giving a hold that facilitated the handling of the vessel. I have seen no looped handles arching the aperture of the vessel, as in the modern meal baskets of the Zuñis.
Eccentric and life forms.—The simple potter of early Pueblo times seems barely to have reached the period of eccentric and compound forms, and animal and grotesque shapes, so common in the pottery of the mound-builders of the Mississippi valley, the Mexicans, and the Peruvians, are of rather rare occurrence. The last section of this paper is devoted to life and eccentric forms.
For convenience of treatment, the following illustrations will be presented by districts, beginning at the northwest.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
DISTRICT OF THE RIO VIRGEN.
Under the head of coiled pottery I have given a detailed description of the remarkable dwelling-site tumulus at Saint George, Utah, which has furnished such a complete set of the fictile works of the cliff-house potter, the first collection of importance known to have been made by exhumation. I will now present the painted ware and point out its very interesting local peculiarities. All the ordinary shapes are present excepting the olla. Vessels of this form are all of the plain or coiled varieties. The paste is gray and the surface color is usually a light gray. A small percentage of the vessels are painted or stained red. The designs are all executed in black, and are for the most part nicely drawn. They differ slightly in a number of ways from those of other districts, their relationships being, with a few exceptions, more intimate with the ware of the Rio San Juan. A characteristic of this pottery is the thinness of the walls and the hardness and tenacity of the paste. In form a striking feature is the occurrence of bowls of oval form, and in one case such a bowl has sides cut down or scalloped and ends prolonged. The oval form is sometimes seen in other districts, and the elongation of portions of the rim is a feature especially characteristic of the Pima and Mojave work of to-day.
Bowls.—I have already shown in Fig. 244 a small bowl from this locality, in which a coiled exterior is combined with a polished and painted interior. This is an unusual combination, the exterior commonly being plain. The following examples are grouped, as far as possible, according to their painted designs. A usual and very widely distributed decoration consists of a belt of figures encircling the inner margin. In its simplest condition it is only a single broad line, but more frequently it is elaborated into a tasteful border so wide as to leave only a small circle of the plain surface in the bottom of the vessel. The figures present much variety of effect, but combine only a few elements or ideas, as the following figures will amply show. All are rectilinear, or as nearly so as the conformation of the vessels will permit. No example of exterior decoration occurs. As my illustrations are necessarily limited to a few pieces, those having the simpler combinations of lines are omitted, and such only are given as exhibit the decorations of this district to the best advantage.
The bowl shown in Fig. 258 may be regarded as a typical example.
