26 S.MlTilSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 76 



accompanied with geometrical figures. Negative pictures, so common 

 on the Mimhres ware, are not found on ancient Hopi (Sikyatki) 

 ceramics. The great difiPerence between ancient Mimbres and Hopi 

 designs is that the former are reaHstic ^ ; the latter conventional and 

 limited to a few forms ; no fishes, turtles, or deer appear on Sikyatki 

 ware because aquatic animals were absent from their water course. 

 Among the cliff houses we find mountain sheep represented realis- 

 tically as pictographs. The ceramic art of Sikyatki reflects a water- 

 less desert, but the Mimbrenos lived in a valley where water, although 

 small in quantity, was perennial. 



The " killing " of mortuary bowls before they were buried is 

 almost universal in Mimbres ware. The bowls were almost without 

 exception perforated artificially. Sometimes several perforations were 

 made and in one instance three of these holes were arranged in such 

 a way as to suggest a mask with the mouth and eyes of a human face. 

 Sikyatki pottery was never perforated and " killing " mortuary 

 objects was almost wholly unknown. There are no reliable evidences 

 that the San Juan cliff dwellers killed their mortuary pottery. The 

 potters of the Gila killed their mortuary vessels as did also certain 

 of their descendants. 



The Mimbres pottery is distinguished from that of Casas Grandes 

 by significant conventionalized designs. The " club-like " ornament, 

 so conspicuous a negative design on Casas Grandes decoration, is 

 practically absent in the Mimbres area. This ornament can generally, 

 be reduced to bird heads, feathers, or even bird bodies, and is generally 

 introduced to fill in triangles where the background is solid black. 

 Whereas bird figures on Casas Grandes ceramics like the " club-like " 

 figures are almost invariably negative or white on black background, 

 only a few negative pictures of birds are found on Mimbres ware, but 

 instead birds are black or red painted on a white ground ; we have no 

 human beings, fishes, rabbits and other animals in white on black in 

 Mimbres ware. This is one of the several differences between the 

 pictured pottery of the two culture areas. Although bird figures 

 differ there is a similarity in the form of feathers when used as an 

 individual decorative element in the two regions. 



We can say that the remarkable development of realistic designs 

 in the Mimbres area is local, but that the designs are related to the 

 pueblo and have affinities on one side to the Gila and on the other 

 to the Casas Grandes, but on the whole the culture was self centered 



^At Sikyatki we find few realistic and many symbolic and geometric designs ; 

 in the Mimbres many realistic, few symbolic and many geometric. 



