68 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 51 



Ijainted in black, and one or two specimens in which the basal color 

 is orange, the majority of the specimens belong to the so-called black- 

 and-white ware, which may therefore be called a type of this region. 



The whole pieces of pottery collected were chiefly mortuary ves- 

 sels, and probably contained food offerings, indicating, like the sipa- 

 pus in the kivas, that the cliff-dwellers had a distinct conception of a 

 future life. In addition to the limited number of pieces of unbroken 

 pottery, many of the fragments were decorated with novel patterns. 

 Fragments of corrugated and indented ware are by far the most 

 numerous, but although many of these were obtained, not a whole 

 piece was found, with the exception of a single specimen plastered in 

 a fire-hole and three others similarly fixed in the banquettes of kivas. 

 These were left as they were found. 



The same forms of pottery, as dippers, ladles, vases, canteens, jars, 

 and similar objects, occur at Cliff' Palace as at Spruce-tree House 

 (pi. 23-27). All varieties were repeatedly found, some with old 

 cracks that had been mended, and one is still tied with the yucca 

 cord with w^iich it had been rejDaired. It is evident from the fre- 

 quency Avith which the Cliff Palace people mended their old pot- 

 tery that they prized the old vessels and were very careful to preserve 

 them, being loth to abandon even a cracked jar (pi. 2S,d). None of 

 the Cliff' Palace pottery is glazed.'' Some specimens of smooth pot- 

 tery are coarse in texture and without decoration; others have elabo- 

 rate geometrical figures; but animate objects are confined almost en- 

 tirely to a few pictures of birds or other animals and rudely drawn 

 human figures. The pictography of the pottery affords scant data 

 bearing on the interpretation of the ancient symbolism of the inhabi- 

 tants, as compared with that of Sikyatki, for example, in the Hopi 

 country. 



Food howls. — In form the food bowls ^ from Cliff' Palace (pis. 23- 

 25) are the same as those from other prehistoric sites of the South- 

 west, but as a rule the Cliff Palace bowls are smaller than those of 

 Sikyatki and the ruins on the Little Colorado. They have, as a rule, 

 a thicker lip, which is square across instead of tapering to a thin edge 

 or flaring, as is sometimes the case elsewhere. The surface, inside and 

 out, is commonly very smooth, even glossy. The pottery was built 

 up by coiling the cla}^, and the colors' were made permanent by the 

 firing. 



" The first description of " glazed " pottery in the Tueblo region is given by Castaueda 

 (1540), who says: "Throughout this province [TiguexJ are found glazed pottery and 

 vessels truly remarkable both in shape and execution." This has sometimes been inter- 

 preted to mean the glossy but uuglazed pottery of Santa Clara. Glazed pottery was 

 found by the writer in 189G in ruins on the Little Colorado. It appears to be intrusive 

 in the Arizona ruins. 



* Food bcwls with handles, so common to the ruins of northern Arizona, were not 

 found at Cliff Falace. 



