cdshikg.] DECORATIVE SYMBOLISM. 511 



larity in the appearance, function, or otber attributes of even generic- 

 ally diverse things. 2 



I here allude to this mental bias because it has both influenced the 

 decoration of pottery and has been itself influenced by it. In the first 

 place, the noise made by a pot when struck or when simmering on the 

 fire is supposed to be the voice of its associated being. The clang of a 

 pot when it breaks or suddenly cracks in burning is the cry of this 

 being as it escapes or separates from the vessel. That it has departed 

 is argued from the fact that the vase when cracked or fragmentary never 

 resounds as it did when whole. This vague existence never cries out 

 violently unprovoked; but it is supposed to acquire the power of doing 

 so by imitation; hence, no one sings, whistles, or makes other strange 

 or musical sounds resembling those of earthenware under the circum- 

 stances above described during the smoothing, polishing, painting, or 

 other processes of finishing. The being thus incited, they think, would 

 surely strive to come out, and would break the vessel in so doing. In 

 this we find a partial explanation of the native belief that a pot is 

 accompanied by a conscious existence. The rest of the solution of this 

 problem in belief is involved in the native philosophy and worship of 

 water. Water contains the source of continued life. The vessel holds 

 the water; the source of life accompanies the water, hence its dwelling 

 place is in the vessel with the water. Finally, the vessel is supposed 

 to contain the treasured source, irrespective of the water — as do wells 

 and springs, or even the places where they have been. If the encir- 

 cling lines inside of the eating bowl, outside ol the water jar, were closed, 

 there would be no exit trail for this invisible source of life or for its in- 

 fluence or breath. Yet, why, it may be asked, must the source of life or 

 its influence be provided with a trail by which to pass out from the 

 vessel? In reply to this I will submit two considerations. It has 

 been stated that on the earliest Southwestern potteries decoration was 

 effected by incised or raised ornamentation. Any one who has ofteu 

 attempted to make vessels according to primitive methods as I have 

 has found how difficult it is to smoothly join a line incised around a still 

 soft clay pot, and that this difficulty is even greater when the ornamen- 

 tal band is laid on in relief. It would be a natural outgrowth of this 

 predicament to leave the ends unjoined, which indeed the savage often 

 did. When paint instead of incision or relief came to be the decora- 

 tive agent, the lines or bands would be left unjoined in imitation. As 

 those acquainted with Tylor's " Early History" will realize, a "myth of 

 observation " like the above would come to be assigned in after ages. 



-I would refer those who may wish to find this characteristic more fully set forth, 

 to the introductory pages of my essay ou Zuni Fetiches, published in the second vol- 

 ume of Contributions to North American Ethnology by the Bureau of Ethnology ; also 

 to a paper read before the American Academy of Sciences on the Relations to one an- 

 other of the Zuni Mythologic and Sociologic Systems, published, I regret to say, with- 

 out my revision, in the Popular Science Monthly, for July, 1882. 



