In both form and ornament these bottles exhibit decided resemblances to wicker vessels. The introduction of stepped figures and spiral rays sufficiently demonstrates the textile origin of the painted designs.
Fig. 333.—Painted design.
Fig. 334.—Painted design.
A few bottles are larger than the examples given. One having a high narrow neck is seventeen inches high and sixteen in diameter of body. Generally vases of this shape are below medium size, and they are very often supplied with handles or perforated knobs, either upon the shoulder or the neck. In a few cases only the necks are high and slender like the bottles of the mound-builders of the middle Mississippi region.
The vessel illustrated in Fig. 335 is not properly classified either with the preceding or with the following group, but I place it here on account of its peculiar painted device, which appears in other forms and connections in the two succeeding figures. The ornament as usual occupies two zones, each of which has three groups of vertical lines alternating with as many star-like figures resembling somewhat the Maltese cross. The latter device may possibly have been introduced to represent some idea, and I have no doubt that almost any member of the modern tribes could be induced to give a full explanation of its significance. It would, however, be his idea only and not necessarily that of the ancient potter.
Fig. 335.—Vase: Province of Tusayan.—1/3.
