Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895: Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1895-1896, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1898, pages 519-744Fewkes, Jesse Walter
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Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895: Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1895-1896, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1898, pages 519-744
Several of the food bowls had evidently cracked during their firing or
while in use, and had been mended before they were buried in the
graves. This repairing was accomplished either by filling the crack
with gum or by boring a hole on each side of the fracture for tying.
In one specimen of black-and-white ware a perfectly round hole was
made in the bottom, as if purposely to destroy the usefulness of the
bowl before burial. This hole had been covered inside with a rounded
disk of old pottery, neatly ground on the edge. It was not observed
that any considerable number of mortuary pottery objects were "killed"
before burial, although a large number were chipped on the edges. It
is a great wonder that any of these fragile objects were found entire,
the stones and soil covering the corpse evidently having been thrown
into the grave without regard to care.
The majority of the ancient symbols are incomprehensible to the
present Hopi priests whom I have been able to consult, although they
are ready to suggest many interpretations, sometimes widely divergent.
The only reasonable method that can be pursued in determining the
meaning of the conventional signs with which the modern Tusayan
Indians are unfamiliar seems, therefore, to be a comparative one. This
method I have attempted to follow so far as possible.
There is a closer similarity between the symbolism of the Sikyatki
pottery and that of the Awatobi ware than there is between the
ceramics of either of these two pueblos and that of Walpi, and the
same likewise may be said of the other Tusayan ruins so far as known.
It is desirable, however, that excavations be made at the site of Old
Walpi in order to determine, if possible, how widely different the
ceramics of that village are from the towns whose ruins were studied
in 1895. There are certain practical difficulties in regard to work at
Old Walpi, one of the greatest of which is its proximity to modern
burial places and shrines still used. Moreover, it is
probable--indeed, quite certain--that most of the portable objects
were carried from the abandoned pueblo to the present village when the
latter was founded; but the old cemeteries of Walpi contain many
ancient mortuary bowls which, when exhumed, will doubtless contribute
a most interesting chapter to the history of modern Tusayan decorative
art.
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