544 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 30 



reduce portions of the walls to proper thickness. The thoroughly 

 smoothed walls are now treated with a slip or several coats of a slip 

 consisting of white, yellow, orange, or reddish shades of clay reduced 

 with water to a thin paintlike mixture. The slip serves as a back- 

 ground for the painted designs to be later applied in colors. Some 

 vessels are now burnished with a rounded stone in short rotating 

 movements. Fat of sheep or some other form of grease is applied as 

 lubricant for the process and as an aid in obtaining a luster. 



The painting of symbolic or of merely decorative designs in colors 

 is the most interesting stage in the manufacture of Pueblo pottery. 

 Paint brushes of split yucca leaves from which a portion of the 

 leaf has been removed leaving a straight edge for line work, are 

 commonly used for applying the paint. Most of the colors are ob- 

 tained from mineral ochres in shades of red and yellow, and in black 

 which is obtained by boiling the juice of the bee plant {Peritoma 

 serrulaty/ni) . The ochres are either used raw or are burned. The 

 painting is altogether freehand but must follow definite patterns 

 well known to all the women who make pottery and also to the men 

 who occasionally make pottery vessels. 



After the vessel has been satisfactorily painted the potter piles 

 up several newly fashioned vessels in an inverted position and builds 

 an oven around them. This consists of dried dung or split cedar wood 

 completely covering the vessels to be burned. A hot fire is main- 

 tained for the greater portion of an hour when the firing has satis- 

 fied the potter. 



In certain cases, when an undecorated ware is to be fired and a 

 black color is desired, a smothered fire with plenty of smoke is main- 

 tained throughout the firing. Red slip under such conditions turns 

 a brilliant black. After firing, the vessels are cleaned with a greasy 

 rag. 



The form and design of Pueblo pottery although differing from 

 tribe to tribe and from period to period, yet is distinct from that 

 of Mexican wares and entirely distinct from the pottery of the 

 eastern United States. Perhaps the most distinctive feature about 

 Pueblo pottery is the use of paints in conventional designs pertain- 

 ing to local mythology. To a much lesser degree are life forms 

 molded or luted on to the walls of the vessels or to the handles and 

 lids of earthenware vessels. Rims are sometimes shaped into angular 

 scallops and are never wavy or boat-shaped as in the eastern pottery 

 area. Decorative design often takes the form of eccentric animal 

 and human modelings; birds are modeled in more lifelike patterns. 

 The painted paneling on the earthenware vessels of the Zuiii separates 

 the wall space of earthenware vessels into several divisions on the 

 neck and body. Designs painted on the neck space are repeated 

 to produce a symmetrical balance. Neck designs consist of volutes 



