542 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 30 



other Rocky Mountain States and on earthenware vessels from 

 Arizona and New Mexico. This is readily ascribable to the use of 

 checkered and angular devices in the designs of both classes of 

 aboriginal objects. To be sure, there is a greater freedom in the 

 use of curved and symbolic or realistic designs on Pueblo earthen- 

 ware, but fundamentally the designs belong to one area. Even the 

 designs woven into the famous blankets of the Navajo fit into the 

 type of design, which is fundamentally geometrical. It is interesting 

 to note that the pottery technic under discussion is limited in its 

 distribution, while the basketry technic is both ancient and more 

 widely extended, reaching from one end of the western plateau 

 country to the other. It is also interesting to note that the weaving 

 technic of the Navajo is a comparatively recent acquisition, reputedly 

 having been borrowed from the Pueblo Indians whose weaving tech- 

 nic apparently belongs with that of northern Mexico. In Navajo 

 and in Pueblo weavings there is embodied a style of geometric art 

 design such as might have been borrowed from basketrj'^, but which 

 might also have been developed independently. This design, as in 

 basketry, is characterized by series of stepped rectangles and by 

 diagonal series of small squares and transverse stripes. In the older 

 fragments of Pueblo weavings, rescued from cliff dwellings, the 

 designs are marginal or consist merely of stripes, the entire field 

 being plain. 



Pueblo symholism. — As is well known, the representative as also 

 the simply decorative patterns of the Pueblo Indians of Arizona and 

 New Mexico are best expressed in painted designs on earthenware 

 vessels. These are in part conventionalized and symbolize myth- 

 ological and religious motives. The purely decorative earthenware 

 designs are in part realistic and in part conventional. Repetition of 

 a motive either geometrical, as a spiral meander, or realistic, as birds 

 facing each other in inverted form, and with interlocking beaks are 

 painted on the inner or outer walls of pottery bowls. The repeated 

 use of the eye design in decorative or in symbolic representative art 

 is reminiscent of other, unrelated areas. Boas calls attention to a 

 Pueblo decorative design consisting of a triangle with rectangles 

 attached or inclosed. This pattern occurs on the western plains 

 among the Arapaho and other tribes each attaching a distinct mean- 

 ing to the design. The Hopi Indians of Arizona substitute the 

 semicircle for the triangle, and instead of spurs attach long lines in 

 parallel to the base of the design. The semicircles according to the 

 Pueblo Indians represent clouds, while the vertical lines represent 

 rain. The Shoshoni, Arapaho, and other Plains tribes call the 

 angle design a mountain or a mountain pass. The Pueblo apply 

 the rain cloud design on earthenware as a painted figure or on wood 

 as an altar painting. 



