DECORATIVE SYMBOLISM. 



On every class of food- and water- vessels, in collections of both ancient 

 and modern Pueblo pottery (except, it is important to note, on pitchers 

 and some sacred receptacles), it may be observed as a singular, yet 

 almost constant feature, that encircling lines, often even ornamental 



Fig. 545.— Food-howl. Fig. 546.— 'Water-jar. 



(Showing open or unjoined space in line near rim.) 



zones, are left open or not as it were closed at the ends. (See Figs. 545, a, 

 546,a.) This is clearly a conventional quality and seemingly of inten- 

 tional significance. An explanation must be sought in various direc- 

 tions, and once found will be useful in guiding to an understanding of 

 the symbolic element in Pueblo ceramic art. I asked the Indian women, 

 when I saw them making these little spaces with great care, why they 

 took so much pains to leave them open. They replied that to close 

 them was a'k tit ni, -'fearful!" — that this little space through the line or 

 zone on a vessel was the "exit trail of life or being", o' neyathl lcwdi 

 7ui, and this was all. How it came to be first left open and why re- 

 garded as the "exit trail," they could not tell. If one studies the my- 

 thology of this people and their ways of thinking, then watches them 

 closely, he will, however, get other clews. When a woman has made 

 a vessel, dried, polished, and painted it, she will tell you with an air of 

 relief that it is a " Made Being." Her statement is confirmed as a sort 

 of article of faith, when you observe that as she places the vessel in the 

 kiln, she also places in and beside it food. Evidently she vaguely gives 

 something about the vessel a personal existence. The question arises 

 how did these people come to regard food-receptacles or water-recepta- 

 cles as possessed of or accompanied by conscious existences. I have 

 found that the Zufii argues actual and essential relationship from simi- 



510 



