124 



THE PIMA INDIANS 



[ETH. ANN. 26 



POTTERY 



As a tribe the Piraas are 



Fig. 60. b. Living horned toad. 



sirup to exchange for grain. 



not skillful potters. Their work is 

 decidedly inferior to that of the 

 Kwahadk's, which in turn appears 

 to be impro^■ing as a result of a mod- 

 ern demand for it. It is probable 

 that the l)est potters among the Pi- 

 mas are of Kwahadk descent, or have 

 learned tiie art from that tribe. A 

 great i)art of the Pima ceramic ware 

 is plain and undecorated. The cool- 

 ing ollas in which water is kept about 

 their homes are the only vessels that 

 are generally decorated. The pot- 

 ters aver that the designs are copied 

 from the Iltjhokam potsherds that 

 bestrew the mesas and that the sym- 

 bolism is absolutely unknown to them. 

 Furthermore, many of the smaller 

 decorated pieces are traded from both 

 the Kwahadk's and the Papagos, the 

 latter bringing them fdled with cactus 

 The vessels here illustrated were made 



by Sala Hina (fig. 51), one of the best pottc-s on the Gila. 



M.\TERI.\L 



The common ware that 

 is intended to be subjected 

 to heat is generally made 

 from clay obtained among 

 the Skasowalik hills, which 

 lie on the southern border 

 of the Gila River reserva- 

 tion. The material is a dry 

 granular clay combined 

 with quartz pebbles and 

 feldspathic detritus. The 

 ])lace where it occurs looks 

 much more like a stone 

 Cjuarry than like a clay pit 

 (pi. XVI, a). Indeed, a 

 great part of the mass is sharp, angular stone, which must be win- 

 nowed out by hand in the shallow baskets. 



Fig. si. Sala Hina. 



