POTTERY AFFECTED BY ENVIRONMENT. 



489 



splints; kH'shpai e, tapering (Wish pon we, neck or smaller part of any- 

 thing); and tsi nan, mark ; tbat is, " tapering" or " neck-splint mark." 

 Curiously enough, in a bottle-shaped basket as it approaches comple- 

 tion the splints of the tapering part or neck all lean spirally side by side 

 of one another (see Fig. 515), and a term descriptive of this has come 



VV \ ■ \\ \\ >\ \V / / / /■ '/ ' 



Fig. 515.— Splints at neck of unfinished basket. 



to be used as that applied to lines resembling it, instead of a derivative 

 from a's sel lai e, signifying an oblique or leaning line. Where splints 

 variously arranged, or stitches, have given names to decorations — ap- 

 plied even to painted and embroidered designs — it is not difficult for us 

 to see that these same combinations, at first unintentional, must have 

 suggested the forms to which they gave names as decorations. 



Pueblo coiled pottery developed from basketry. — Seizing the suggestion 

 afforded by the rude tray-molded parching-bowls, particularly after it 

 was discovered that if well burned they resisted the effects of water as 

 well as of heat, the ancient potter would naturally attempt in time to 

 reproduce the boiling-basket in clay. She would find that to accom 

 plish this she could not use as a mold the inside of the boiling-basket, as 

 she had the inside of the tray, because its neck was smaller than its 

 body. Nor could she form the vase by plastering the clay outside of 

 the vessel, not only for the same reason, but also because the clay in 

 drying would contract so much that it would crack or scale off. Nat- 

 urally, then, she pursued the process she was accustomed to in the 

 manufacture of the basket -bottle. That is, she formed a thin rope of 

 soft clay, which, like the wisp of the basket, she coiled around and 

 around a center to form the bottom, then spirally upon itself, now 

 widening the diameter of each coil moi'e and more, then contracting as 

 she progressed upward until the desired height and form were attained. 

 As the clay was adhesive, each coil was attached to the one already 



