AUT. 5 



EXCAVATION" AND EEPAIR OF BETATAKIN" JUDD 



67 



POTTERY 



The half dozen specimens we recovered afford no adequate concep- 

 tion of the variety of earthenware vessels employed in Betatakin nor 

 of the skill that went into their making. From shards gathered on 

 debris heaps, something could be written of local technique; of 

 different wares and their characteristic types of paste, surface treat- 

 ment and decoration. But this has already been done by those 

 diligent, painstaking observers, Kidder and Guernsey.^^ 



Let us briefly consider the few pieces in hand since they are the 

 only ones in the National Museum collections known to have come 

 from Betatakin.-^ Our two whole vessels (pi. 46, 1, 3) are both poly- 

 chrome. The flat-topped col- 

 ander (1) was finished with a 

 red slip, except for a narrow, 

 cream-colored band around the 

 shoulder; on this smooth red 

 surface black geometric deco- 

 rations were painted and out- 

 lined in white. Ornamenta- 

 tion is confined to the body 

 and to the slightly depressed 

 rim. The flat bottom is per- 

 forated by 41 holes, one-eighth 

 inch in diameter, punched 

 through from the outside. 

 This is the strainer previously 

 noted as having been found in 

 the hole pecked in the stone 

 floor of room 121. 



To the gray paste of the small handled jar (3), a brown paint was 

 applied from the rim to just below the maximum diameter; over 

 this, black designs were drawn and bordered with white. The 

 larger jar (5) likewise was rubbed to a near-polish with waterworn 

 pebbles then ornamented directly with broad, brown bands, outlined 

 with a darker paint that may be regarded as an impure black. The 

 same pigment was employed in tracing the coarse, parallel lines 

 that occupy the interspaces. Bits of wood, gourd rind, and frag- 

 ments of broken pottery (fig. 22) were employed as scrapers in the 

 manufacture of earthenware vessels. 



Figure 21.- 



-FlUGMENT OF GOURD VESSEL^ CUT 

 IN TWO 



~ See Kidder-Guernsey, 1919, pp. 129-143 ; Kidder, 1924, pp. 68-74. 



-' Accession 52301, transferred from the Bureau of American Ethnology, includes a 

 number of vessels perhaps erroneously credited to Betatakin by the collector. Dr. J. W. 

 Fewkeg. Certainly they display none of the distinguishing features of Kayenta, or even 

 proto-Kayenta, v^ares. In the report on his preliminary visit, Fewkes implies (1911, 

 p. 26) that fragments only were gathered at this site. 



