82 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 72 



which are decorated with well-made pictures showing hitherto un- 

 known features of prehistoric life in that valley. Similar pictures 

 have been reproduced in former reports, but several specimens lately 

 discovered are the most instructive yet found. References to a few of 

 these close this account. 



The food bowl (fig. 84a) apparently represents a hunter snaring 

 birds. He carries three nooses in his hand and in three of the snares 

 that are set are birds, while a fourth is empty. On the opposite side 

 of the bowl there are two other birds that possibly have been captured 

 earlier. 



Figure 84/7 represents a prehistoric game of " stick dice." In this 

 design three of the " canes " or dice are represented in a rectangular 

 enclosure around which are seated the players. The stakes are arrows 

 shown in a receptacle deposited above the picture. 



Two fishes shown in figure 84^ call to mind the unusual method of 

 representing certain life figures, men, birds, and other animals, on 

 other pieces of pottery. The background of the two fishes of figure 84/ 

 is black, the bodies white ; a negative picture common on ware from 

 Casas Grandes, Mexico, and peculiar to the inland basin in which the 

 Mimbres lies. The upper beak and eye of the head of the well-drawn 

 parrot is shown in figure 85^. This conventionalized head often 

 occurs without the body of a bird or any realistic likeness to a parrot 

 in the decoration of pottery from Casas Grandes and it is interesting to 

 note in this connection that Mr. Osborn claims to have found a mound 

 a few miles from Deming, New Mexico, in which the pottery is 

 practically the same as the well-known Casas Grandes ware. 



The body of the animal represented in figure 86a is serpentine, but 

 the shape of the head and the possession of fins suggest a water 

 monster. The horn with a cluster of feathers occurs in a similar 

 painting without fins, and may be a representation of the Horned or 

 Plumed Serpent. 



As is true of decorations on prehistoric Hopi ware, the feather 

 is sometimes used as a decorative element. The identification of the 

 use of this motive was made by a comparison of the undoubted bird 

 with outstretched wings and well-marked symbolic wing feathers 

 shown in figure 85a, and the existence of four clusters of a like design 

 in figure 85/?. A study of over a hundred decorations, realistic, con- 

 ventional and geometrical, taken from Mimbres pottery indicates that 

 this lost people of southern New Mexico had reached a very high 

 stage of ceramic decoration. There is evidence that this art was 

 somewhat influenced from outside but mainly developed where it was 



