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Mohave Pottery
by Kroeber, A. L. (Alfred Louis); Harner, Michael J.
Language: en464 downloads on Project Gutenberg
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In: Art·Archaeology & Anthropology
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #39528.
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Pottery Shapes Recognized by the Mohave
The generic Mohave name for pottery vessels seems to be kwáθki,[1] the word for bowl.
[1] Orthography: θ, ð, like th in thick, this; s, somewhat retroflex; tš, much like English ch; ly, ny, palatalized l, n, like Castilian ll, ñ (y is never a vowel in the transcription used); v, bilabial; t, retroflex; ', glottal stop; q, a back k; h is rather faint initially, but rough, nearly like Spanish j when medial, final (or initial through slurring of an unaccented initial vowel). Unaccented phonemic a is sounded a or e indifferently. Length is not indicated in this paper. The acute accent on vowels indicates a stressed syllable, which is also raised in pitch.
The shapes for which Mohave names were obtained are mainly those which segregate out objectively on examination of a collection:
kwáθki, an open bowl with slightly everted lip, often with a band of mesquite bark--both bean mesquite and screw mesquite are specified in my notes--tied around the neck. The shape is shown in pls. 1, 2, 6,_a_-_c_, 8,_d_-_h_; the name kwáθki was specifically applied to 1,_d_, 2,_b_, 2,_h_, 6,_a_.
kayéθa, a platter, that is, a low round bowl or flat dish without neck or everted lip, was applied to pl. 3,_d_. The shape is shown in pls. 3,_a_-_d_, g, 8,_c_.
kayúka, pl. 3,_c_, or kakápa, also a platter, but oval, and smaller. Pls. 3,_e_, f, _h_-_j_, 6,_d_, e.
kam'óta, a spoon, ladle, dipper, or scoop, more or less triangular. Pls. 4, 7,_a_-_i_, 8,_i_-_k_. Subclasses were not named to me, except for kam'óta ahmá, those with a quail head at the handle.
katéla, bi-pointed tray for parching. Pl. 6,_f_, g.
It will be observed that the last five names all begin with ka-.
The name suyíre was given to pl. 6,_c_, which is intermediate between bowl and platter.
táskyena is a cook pot. Pl. 5,_c_.
tšuváva, a large cook pot, a foot and a half to two feet high. I have seen one of these in use, full to the brim with maize, beans, and fish, being stirred by an old man with three arrow weed sticks tied in the middle; but I did not secure one. It is set on three conical supports of pottery as shown in pl. 7,_n_, o.
A still larger pot, up to a yard in diameter, too big to cook in, was sometimes made to ferry small children across the river, a swimmer pushing the vessel (Handbook, 1925, p. 739). I would imagine it would be least likely to tip over if made in the shape of a giant kwáθki bowl.
hápurui, water jar, as kept around the house, "olla" shaped, pls. 5,_a_, b, 8,_a_. The name contains the stem for water: (a)há.
I happened not to secure the name of the small-mouthed canteen water jar used in traveling, as shown in pl. 6,_h_.
A small-mouthed jar with short side-spout at one end, too large for travel and probably used chiefly for storage of seeds, is called hápurui hanemó, "duck jar," from its resemblance to the floating bird. Pl. 6,_i_.
There are also handled jugs, pl. 5,_d_-_g_, and handled cups, pls. 5,_h_-_i_, 8,_b_, which I suspect of having been devised after contact with Americans, although some specimens show use and the painted designs are in good Mohave style. My doubts are strengthened by my having obtained no specific name for either handled shape: the high jug, 5,_g_, was called a jar, hápurui; the low jug, 5,_e_, kwáθki, bowl; and in 1900 I bought a cup for which the name kwáθki aha-suraitši was given.
In the dreamed Mastamhó myth of the origin of culture (AR 11:1, 1948, see 7:76, p. 63), the culture hero calls some of the principal vessel forms by two sets of names, the first being recondite, twisted, or punning. The list is:
to bring water in (u)más-toyám[2] hápurui to cook in umás-te-to'óro táskyena to cook in umás-te-hamóka[3] tšuváva spoon, ladle umás-uyúla kam'óta food platter han'amé kakápa bowl umás-iáða táskyena parching dish umás-eyavkwa-havík[4] katéla arrow weed stirrer umás-kasára so'óna
[2] Umás- is frequent in ritual names. It may be a form of humar, "child."
[3] Hamók(a) is "three"--because of the three pot rests.
[4] Havík is "two"--because of the two hornlike ends.
It will be noted that handled jugs and handled cups are lacking from this list, though so are canteens and round platters.
Small-and-flaring-necked spheroid jars, holding a gallon or more, are found in the region, and in 1900 I secured two Mohave examples which were destroyed in 1906 with the Academy of Sciences building. They served to store seeds, and seem often to have been hidden in caves and out-of-the-way spots by Shoshonean desert tribes. I secured one near Needles in 1908, now no. 13875 in the Museum of Anthropology, but it belonged to a Chemehuevi woman who was born in Chemehuevi Valley and was in 1908 living in Mohave Valley, married to a Mohave who was himself half-Chemehuevi. She had made the jar many years before: in fact, it was the first and last pottery vessel she attempted, she said. The ware is definitely paler than Mohave pottery: a sort of half-yellow. It bears on its upper half a red pattern, but this is fainter than most Mohave patterns, and most resembles occasional fishnet patterns on the under sides or backs of Mohave bowls, platters, or spoons. It has 42 vertical (radiating) lines and 7 horizontal (encircling) lines, resulting in 252 hollow quadrilaterals. The vessel also has two mends or strengthenings with lumps of black gum. The overall height, 225 mm., is 75 per cent of the maximum body diameter, 300 mm., which comes at about 100 mm., or less than halfway up. The mouth and neck diameters are 69 and 58 mm., or 23 per cent and 19 per cent of the body diameter.
Pottery Objects Other Than Vessels
Two figures idly modeled, or serving as toys--made for sale, it was said--were found in a household: a lizard and a hummingbird, plate 7,_j_,_k_, nos. 1726, 1727. They seem at least partly baked, but have since been washed with yellow ocher, which would turn to red on baking. The bird also has a white-painted beak and spots.
I saw pottery human figures and dolls, both with and without hair of shredded cottonwood bark, cradles, etc., offered for sale by Mohave women to tourists on the station platform--Needles was a scheduled 25-minute meal stop for most trains. I did not purchase any of these, nor any small platters or handled jugs or cups, which were sometimes also offered. This was perhaps a mistake; but I was eager to impress on the Indians generally that my interest was in native, nontourist objects. While material was occasionally brought to me in town, this was uncommon, and I secured most of it from Mohave houses, especially native-style ones across the river in Arizona. Typically, the bows and arrows hawked by a few old men at the trains for twenty-five cents were not the plain long Mohave willow bows, but red- and blue-painted miniature willow imitations of the Chemehuevi retroflex horn or composite bow.
Pipes, short and tubular, are made of pottery. Plate 7,_l_ (no. 4264), was made for a boy, and was unfinished, remaining unbaked. Plate 7,_m_ (no. 13870), is a fragment, 62 mm. long, about 11 through the mouth end, 19 at the break, buff-colored, with gray (overfired) paste at the fracture. I secured at least one other pipe, no. 1719, which cannot at present be found in the Museum.
Pot rests, put under the large tšuváva cookpots, were made of clay, as shown in plate 7,_n_,_o_.
In 1904 I secured an arrow-straightener of pottery, no. 4367, shown in Handbook, plate 49,_f_. It carries a longitudinal ridge, a sort of notched comb; presumably to receive, after being heated, the joints of arrows of cane or reed. However, cane arrows, though known to the Mohave, were only occasionally used. The usual ones of arrow weed, without foreshaft or attached head, were simply warmed and bent by hand.
Clay is tempered with sandstone crushed on the metate, and built up by coiling. The start of a vessel may be spiral, but its body consists of concentric rings. The paste is rolled out into a slim sausage, the length of which is roughly estimated on the vessel. It is then laid on the last [preceding] coil, and any excess pinched off. It is beaten, with a light and rapid patting with a wooden paddle, against a smooth cobble held inside, and its edge finished flat by scraping between the thumbnail and index finger. Then the next coil is added. The maker sits with the growing vessel on the thighs of her stretched legs, or with one leg flat in front of her and the other doubled under. The paint is yellow ocher, which is put on with a little stick and burns dull red. The patterns are carelessly done, and often shaky. (Handbook, pp. 737-738.)
In 1904, I added the following in notebook 60-33:
A "dish" [bowl] is modeled with the rim incurved [or vertical]. Finally, the rim is turned outward with the fingers, a few inches at a time; [to make the slight neck which] after firing is bound with screw-mesquite [a'íse] fiber. A small oval platter seen made was built up circularly with rolls of clay, then additional pieces were added on two sides and paddled even.
I noted that no slip was being used by Mohave potters, nor does examination reveal any.
In 1904, notebook 60-34, I noted: "If dishes crack, they are mended by hair binding, or now a wire, being passed between two perforations." I did not note how the holes were bored, nor whether the hair was human or horse.
No. 4326 is a small piece of rock such as was crushed and metate-ground for temper. It is not sandstone, as I stated in 1923, but granite, according to my colleague Professor Charles Meyer, whose courtesy is acknowledged and whose information is summarized in Appendix III.
No. 4295 consists of several small slabs of yellow oxide of iron, for grinding up as design paint, which on firing makes the red ocher color which is both darker and more saturatedly red than the light reddish-buff ground color of Mohave pottery. Its composition is also given in Appendix III on the basis of Professor Meyer's examination. Both it and no. 4354 were obtained at matekwaθ-kutšyep, "yellow paint wide open," a spot in a wash cutting across the peneplain from Avimota, Mt. Manchester, in Nevada opposite Fort Mohave.
Several samples of material that might help further elucidate the technology of Mohave pottery have unfortunately been misplaced in the Museum since at least several years. Quite possibly they have been put together into one tray, which was then mislaid. They include:
1759, sample of pottery clay.
4326, sample of pottery temper, presumably after grinding.
4295, 4354, sample of yellow ocher for painting designs.
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