University of Virginia Library

COILED BASKETS

Coiled baskets are sewed, not woven. The sewing element is generally
a tough but flexible splint, thinned and carefully trimmed to
uniform width, that encircles the more or less rigid foundation as it
progresses, stitch by stitch, to form the vessel wall. In our specimens
the foundation usually consists of two rods, side by side, with a bundle
of fibers above and between them. The rods appear to be slender
young willow shoots, smoothed to the diameter of a pencil lead, while
the bundle fibers look like shredded grass. Bundle and rods were
encircled by each successive stitch, the sewing splint piercing the
bundle next below to bind the two coils securely together. That coiled
basketry fragments are more numerous than plaited in our collection
may be due to their greater stability.

By shape, our coiled basketry divides itself into four groups: bowls,
elliptical trays, cylindrical containers, and carrying baskets. Consideration
of a fifth group, the bifurcated or ceremonial carrying basket,
will be deferred until a later chapter.[10]

Bowls.—In Tewa, Zuñi, and Hopi homes I have seen basket bowls
filled with edibles of one sort or another—peaches, in season; broiled
mutton, bread, corn on the cob, shelled corn ready for grinding, and
meal fresh from the milling stones. At Pueblo Bonito, we may assume
that basket bowls were likewise employed chiefly in and about the
kitchen.

Four, possibly five, coiled bowls are represented by fragments in
our collection. One bowl, inverted, had covered the old, banded-neck

cook pot shown as figure e, plate 50, while buried for storage purposes
with its mouth at the floor level in Room 323. The basket itself had
been crushed by the overburden of rubbish and fallen masonry, but
several of the fragments could be preserved. One of these is illustrated
on plate 42, figure c. It has 5 coils, 12 stitches, per inch. On
fragments of other similar vessels coils per inch remain the same, but
stitches run from 13 to 19. With one exception, all our fragments are
close-coiled with noninterlocking stitches on a two-rod-and-bundle
triangular, or bunched, foundation. This is the technique Weltfish
describes as "Basket Maker." It was used not only by the Basket
Makers but also by the later Pueblos whose baskets, in comparison,
are generally more closely and more tightly sewed; and it was employed
in baskets collected in 1881 by Stevenson at Zuñi and the Hopi
villages (Weltfish, 1932, pp. 4-6, 34-36).

Figure b, plate 42, illustrates a bit from near the center of a bowl
sewed in a second technique, one-rod foundation with interlocking
stitches. The widely separated stitches number only seven per inch;
the coils, half again as many. We found the fragment while clearing
Room 6 of its post-Hyde Expedition accumulation of blown sand.
Perhaps it is the same small fragment Pepper noted 25 years earlier
(1920, p. 47).

In addition, we have two cup-sized baskets (pl. 43, a, b) and fragments
of possibly two others. Both cups were sewed with an uninterlocking
stitch on a two-rod-and-bundle, triangular foundation. The
larger has 5 coils and 13 stitches per inch, a normal center, and a false
braid termination for the rim coil. The direction of work is counterclockwise,
and the sewing was apparently done from the inside since
split stitches are more frequent on the convex surface.

The second cup (b), is a child's effort, if I judge correctly from the
inexpertness of its whole makeup. The rods vary in diameter and
finish; the splints are unequal in width, and while stitches circle the
new coil as a rule, every now and then one passes beneath its bundle
to engage the two rods only. Exhausted splint ends are brought to the
outside and there clumsily bound by the next few stitches. Coils are
5½; stitches, 11 per inch. Unlike the other, coiling in this instance is
clockwise. The rim is lacking, but I guess the original height to have
been 2½ or 2¾ inches.

Probabilities are that two other specimens at hand also represent
cups. One (U.S.N.M. No. 335326) consists of small sections of what
appears to be yucca fiber wrapped about by split yucca or rush leaves.
Together the fragments form a circle 1¾ inches in diameter and half

an inch wide with a three-quarter-inch opening at the center, a ring
that could be the second coil of a small basket.

With our other problematical specimen it is the original height that
is in question. Besides the flat bottom, now broken and ovoid through
external pressure (pl. 42, fig. h), we have four rim segments only one
of which carries as many as five coils. The fragments probably represent
a cup, but they could be from a cylindrical basket about 3½ inches
in diameter. Their stitches are uninterlocked on a three-rod, bunched
foundation—our sole example of this popular Pueblo III technique.
I measure 4 coils and 13 stitches per inch. Coiling is counterclockwise;
work progressed from the concave side.

The rim is bound by regular stitches except for the final 1¼ inches.
Here the three foundation rods are cut away gradually to merge with
the coil below and are enclosed by false braid. At commencement of
this ornamental finish the end of an exhausted splint was cut off close
against the outside wall and a fresh splint introduced from the opposite
side. This substitute pierced the apex rod of the lower coil and was
brought up from the outside, over and again through the apex rod in
the coil below. Then it was brought up once more and carried back
across the previous stitch to be thrust through the wall between coils.
In this maneuver the splint retreated its own width, engaged the
standing elements of the last previous stitch, and then came over
again, forward two widths, and again through the apex rod to begin
another backward loop. Our best example of false braid thus combines
features of both Basket Maker and Pueblo types, as described
by Morris and Burgh (1941, p. 23).

To those who know the Southwest it is impossible to visualize a
Pueblo home without one or more coiled baskets lying about. Baskets
are as much a part of the domestic scene as the ubiquitous, barebottomed
toddlers. Thus when a few basketry fragments survived at
a prehistoric ruin it seems that numerous other pieces, and even whole
vessels, should have been preserved. Such, unfortunately, was not the
case at Pueblo Bonito.

In his published field notes Pepper mentions but does not describe
several baskets and fragments. From Room 2 he removed a tray of
the "two-rod coil type" about 18 inches in diameter and another only
2 inches in diameter by a trifle over one-half inch deep (Pepper, 1920,
p. 36); from Room 25, a twilled yucca ring basket and two fragments
"of the three-rod coil variety" (ibid., p. 107). Two coiled bowls,
apparently about 8 inches in diameter, had been inverted over broken
pottery filling one of the subfloor pits in Room 62 and were in turn

covered by "a large basket" the surviving fragments of which, as
photographed, look like one side of a burden hamper (ibid., fig. 100,
pp. 227, 234). Another coiled bowl may be seen in Pepper's illustration
of pottery in the northeast corner of Room 28—a partially disintegrated
specimen lying in the smaller of two stacked earthenware
bowls, directly in front of the left-hand door jamb (ibid., fig. 44, p.
116). Weltfish (1932, p. 22) interprets Pepper's coiled types as,
respectively, two-rod-and-bundle-triangular and three-rod-triangular
foundation. According to Morris and Burgh (1941, p. 13), the first
of these two foundation types appears at all stages of Anasazi history
and was actually dominant in Basket Maker times; in the Pueblo III
period, the three-rod bunched foundation occurs about twice as often
as that with two-rods-and-bundle.

Elliptical trays.—A shallow, elliptical, coiled basketry tray accompanied
each of four women interred in Room 326. With each tray was
a bone scraper, or flesher, made from the humerus of a deer (see
pp. 148-149). The fleshers are of a type well known throughout the
San Juan Basin (especially from ruins north of the river) but the
baskets are unique in the Southwest, so far as I can learn.

Unfortunately, the condition of the trays was such that we were
able to save only one reasonably intact (pl. 44, b, c). It was sewed
with uninterlocking stitches on a two-rod-and-bundle, bunched foundation.
Coiling began when the bundle and paired rods, closely
wrapped with sewing splints, were extended 7¼ inches before being
doubled back in a counterclockwise direction and stitched to the initial
wrapping. The rim termination has not been preserved. That the tray
was originally a thing of beauty may be judged from the fact that, in
its present condition, I count 6 coils and 22 stitches per inch. It
measures 13¼ by 6½ by 1½ inches deep but its original depth may have
been nearer 2 inches and the other dimensions correspondingly less.

In the lower illustration (c) the imprint of the accompanying
scraper is clearly seen at the lower right and above and to the left the
black thread of our repairs. The second view (b) was taken from a
lower angle after most of the paraffin had been melted off. Our field
photograph, plate 94, right, shows this basket in situ at the head of
Skeleton 6 and, inside, its associated scraper (fig. a, pl. 37) and the
small black-on-white bowl seen to better advantage as figure d, plate 54.

Fragments of two other elliptical trays exhibit the same uninterlocked
stitches on a two-rod-and-bundle, bunched foundation. One of
the two (U.S.N.M. No. 335307), of which only a middle section of
side wall and bottom remains, has 7 coils and 22 stitches per inch. As
preserved the wall stands 2¼ inches, and I believe this was the original

height. With other funeral offerings the basket lay at the right side
of Skeleton 12 and contained the bone scraper illustrated on plate 37
as figure d. The second fragment (No. 335313), a section of side wall
with false braid over the rim termination, boasts 8 coils and 24 stitches
per inch—the finest example of basketry in our collection. Decay has
shrunk its sewing splints and exposed the foundation, but I doubt if
this affects the original number of stitches and coils.

Our fourth elliptical tray was in a sad state of disrepair when first
exposed, and a generous coating of paraffin was applied in an effort to
save it. But the completeness of its disintegration was not realized
until the wax was removed, for then the walls crumbled and only the
skeletonized bottom remained (pl. 44, a). Even this remainder owes
much to the fact that it rests upon a folded textile, perhaps a finely
woven sandal, and on a number of what seem to be yucca leaves
shredded at one end. It was the better preserved of two elliptical trays
included among the offerings buried with Skeletons 8 and 9, Room 326
(pl. 94, left). Beneath the tray, as found, was the inlaid bone scraper
shown as figure b, plate 37.

In contrast to the others, this fourth elliptical basket was built up
with noninterlocking stitches on a two-rod-and-bundle, stacked foundation.
I count 3½ coils and about 20 stitches to the inch, a little finer
work than that of a Mesa Verde basket in the same technique cited by
Weltfish (1932, p. 19). The technique is repeated in fragments of two
cylindrical baskets from Rooms 320 and 326, respectively.

Interest in these elliptical trays is naturally augmented by knowledge
that all four were found in the same room; that each was buried with
the body of a woman; that a bone flesher was placed in three of the
trays at time of interment. In the case of the fourth tray, the flesher
was placed underneath. Our excavations provided no clue to their
intended purpose. Pepper does not describe a comparable basket
among the Hyde Expedition collections and, so far as I know, their
like has not previously been reported from the Southwest.

Cylindrical baskets are closely related to cylindrical vases, but we
do not know which came first. We have no reason to believe either
group was in any way connected with religious practices, yet they
both seem useless for all practical purposes. Of the two, the baskets
have greater diameter but less height. The average diameter and
height of 14 pottery vases in our collection are, respectively, 4.65 and
9.87 inches. Of five cylindrical baskets whose diameter and height are
measurable, the averages are 5.35 and 8.53 inches. Most of the vases
have painted geometric designs and lugs perforated for suspension
cords. Of all our cylindrical baskets, on the other hand, whole and

fragmentary alike, only one had handles, as far as we can see, and this
same vessel carries the only visible, stained-splint decoration. One
other boasts a painted design.

We have no idea what particular purpose cylindrical baskets were
made to serve. That they were fairly common at Pueblo Bonito seems
certain from our data on type frequencies and distribution. For
example, we have fragments of only four or five coiled basket bowls—
everyday utensils in every Pueblo household for 50 generations past.
In contrast, our collection contains 5 cylindrical baskets in which
both height and diameter have been preserved and fragments of 14
others, 19 in all. Three fragments were recovered from rubbish piles
in as many Late Bonitian dwellings; the remainder, from six Old
Bonitian houses of which three had been utilized as burial chambers
and, thereafter, as dumps for kitchen debris.

Our best specimens, shown on plate 45, all came from Room 320,
wherein the bodies of 10 women and girls had been interred. Presumably
the baskets were present as mortuary offerings, but of this
we cannot be positive since prehistoric treasure hunters had rifled the
place with obvious contempt for the dead and all their possessions
except jewelry. Specimens a and b, partially emptied of their sandy
contents and paraffined in preparation for removal, are shown in situ
on plates 91, lower, and 96, right. Specimen e will be recognized in our
field photograph (pl. 92, lower) lying on the floor south of the east
doorstep and a couple of inches in front of the ceremonial carrying
basket to be described in a subsequent chapter. Beyond these two,
near, but not positively with, the only undisturbed burials in Room
320, were baskets d and f.

Basket d is in good condition despite disintegration of its lower rear
wall and some crushing in front. With 5 coils and 13 stitches per inch
its structure is a bit coarser than average. Split stitches are numerous
both inside and out; splint ends are cut off flush with the vessel wall.
Part of the rim is missing but the remainder includes over 3 inches of
false braid looped forward three, back two. In our effort toward
preservation, a supporting rattan has been sewed inside the rim and
the entire vessel coated with dilute ambroid.

A number of sandstone spalls had somehow gotten into basket e
causing the irregularities visible in the illustration. Nevertheless, the
specimen is of more than usual interest. It is the only one in our series
bearing a design produced with dyed splints, and it is also the only
one with a handle. The latter (only a vestige remains of its opposite)
is a horizontal loop consisting of two stacked rods with bundle between,
attached five-eighths of an inch below the rim. Some weeks

after our photograph was made the handle was inadvertently pulled
off, and although it has since been replaced, several small pieces were
lost. Study of the broken parts shows that the loop was bound to the
outside after the underlying body coils had been completed, but while
they were still pliable enough to bend sharply with tightening of the
sewing splint. Because of the weights carried in the basket, the lower
of its two handle coils has been bent out and up; stitches on coils
immediately beneath the handle have been worn by friction of a carrying
thong.

No other cylindrical basket in our collection equals this one in
excellence of construction. Stitches average 20 per inch, while coils
run 5½. Unlike the others, the foundation does not show between
stitches. The latter are uninterlocked; coiling is counterclockwise with
a remnant of Pueblo-style false braid (forward 4, back 3 ?) at the
termination. A design in black, red, and natural splint color, now
faded and indistinct, covers the entire surface.

In our illustration two coils near the bottom are quite conspicuous
on basket f, plate 45. They owe their prominence, however, to the accident
of slightly larger foundation rods and are less noticeable on the
opposite side of the vessel. This is one of two specimens whose coils
run 7 per inch; stitches, 18. In numerous places the stitches have disintegrated
and separated, revealing the foundation rods. A fragment
of false braid remains on the otherwise normally wrapped rim.

The foregoing were all coiled counterclockwise with uninterlocking
stitches on a two-rod-and-bundle, bunched foundation. This technique,
a local favorite, is present in 16 of our 19 cylindrical baskets
and fragments. The other three include one example of three-rod,
bunched (U.S.N.M. No. 335330) and two examples of two-rod-andbundle,
stacked foundation.

This latter technique is clearly seen in figure c, plate 45. But here
the last two and a half coils were sewed on a one-rod-and-bundle foundation.
Coincident with this change the worker apparently shifted
from the concave to the convex surface, for the number of outside
stitches split by the sewing awl suddenly diminishes shortly before a
single, larger rod replaced the two smaller ones. The broken rim lacks
its terminal tie. Another example of two-rod-and-bundle, stacked, is
the scrap shown as figure a, plate 42.

Reviewing these 19 cylindrical baskets and fragments, we note that
the popular two-rod-and-bundle bunched foundation is the dominant
type. In each instance stitches are uninterlocked. The concave side
was the preferred work surface, although sometimes, to judge from
the proportion of split stitches, sewing apparently progressed from the
opposite side or from both sides, with irregular alternation. Coils vary

Plate 42.—Fragments of coiled basketry vessels.

Plate 43.—a, b, Coiled basket cups; c, fragments of birch bark vessels.

Plate 44.—Remains of elliptical basketry trays found with burials of women in Room 326.

Plate 45.—Cylindrical baskets among mortuary offerings in Room 320.

from 5 to 7 per inch; stitches, from 12 to 20. At the center, where the
coiling begins, double and wrapping stitches invariably occur; where
the coil first rises from the flat bottom to start the vertical wall the
inner foundation rod often lies a trifle higher than its companion in
consequence of tightening the sewing splints. In every specimen where
direction can be determined, coiling is counterclockwise, and in at least
four it terminates in false braid of the variety described as "Pueblo"
by Morris and Burgh (1941, fig. 7, h). However, as the splints loop
forward and back to weave their terminal tie, they do not always
gather in a fixed number of standing elements; the number may vary
from two to five even in the same specimen. One fragment boasts
added fancywork, a bit of beading. One and one-half inches of false
braid remain, and for 2 inches immediately preceding this the customary
fiber bundle of the coil is replaced by a strip of splint running
alternately over and under the otherwise normal rim stitches.

Perhaps because their flatness gave them greater durability, bottoms
are conspicuous among our cylindrical basket fragments. There are
eight in the series. That shown on plate 42, figure i, never passed the
stage represented, for the splint wrapping of the outermost coil has
not been punctured by the sewing awl. Figure g is one of three compressed
by weight of the accumulation above it.

In describing the six cylindrical baskets from Room 320 the possibility
of their being burial offerings was mentioned. It is equally
possible, of course, that they were among the paraphernalia of some
secret society and were merely stored in the room at the time it was
pressed into service as a tomb.

Of all our cylindrical baskets only two were undeniably associated
with interments, the double burial in Room 326 (pl. 95, upper). Another
(U.S.N.M. No. 335305) accompanied the sizable fragment of a
bifurcated basket (No. 335313, orig. No. 1680) as it lay above an infant's
skeleton (No. 10) in the southeast corner of the same room.
Since it was not customary at Pueblo Bonito to place grave furniture
on top of a body it is quite likely that both these baskets really belonged
to one or more of three disturbed adult burials near the child's.

Coiled baskets of the type we have just considered are, so far as I
can learn, peculiar to Pueblo Bonito. Weltfish (1932) refers several
times to "cylindrical" baskets, but in each instance where I made
further inquiry the specimen cited proved in shape to be a deep, inverted,
truncated cone.[11] From Aztec Ruin, however, Morris (1919a,

p. 56) recovered a single fragment that may represent a basket of our
Pueblo Bonito type. Pepper mentions only one cylindrical basket, his
justly famous turquoise-covered specimen from Room 33 (Pepper,
1909, pp. 227-228; 1920, pp. 164-173).

We know neither when nor why the Bonitians first made a cylindrical
basket. The Basket Makers produced nothing comparable; one
searches the literature in vain for its precursor among Early Pueblo
remains. The flat-bottomed basket bowls of the Marsh Pass region
(Guernsey and Kidder, 1921, p. 61) may be direct ancestors of Mesa
Verde's deep, inverted, truncated-cone type, but the latter is a far cry
from the one under discussion and, at the earliest, no more than
contemporary with it. The earthenware bowl molded in a conical
basket, which we recovered from Kiva 2 E, bore a pseudo-Mesa Verde
design (pl. 52, C). Late Mesa Verde pottery occurred on the most
recent Bonitian trash heaps. Thus all the data on which I can put a
finger indicate that the truly cylindrical basket herein described was
a product solely of Pueblo Bonito. Since only 3 of our 19 specimens
were found in the newer sections of the village, and then only in
household rubbish, it is barely possible all were made by the Old
Bonitians. If this point could be established we should know that the
cylindrical basket foreshadowed the vase, examples of which, although
dominantly Late Bonitian in ornamentation, were most numerous in
Old Bonitian houses.

Besides that above mentioned, we have fragments of eight other
earthenware bowls molded in deep, conical baskets (U.S.N.M. No.
336071). Two only are unslipped, unpolished inside. Of two rim
sherds, one is flat and tapered from the inside; the other, rounded and
slightly outflaring. This latter is part of a deep bowl whose inner wall
to within 1 inch of the bottom is covered with inclined bands of negative
rectangles alternating with parallel lines—a typical Mesa Verde
design. The basket imprint on this specimen shows 5 coils and 16
stitches per inch. Finest sewing is represented on two sherds where I
count 8 coils and 22 stitches to the inch. Two other sherds bear blackpaint
decoration over the basket imprint.

These fragments of cylindrical baskets, bowls, and elliptical trays
may be entirely characteristic of local basketry, but it is extremely
doubtful whether they illustrate all the coiling techniques known at
Pueblo Bonito. Certainly they provide no index to the number of
baskets actually produced there. Of the 30-odd Anasazi coiling processes

recognized by Morris and Burgh (1941, p. 8), only four are
represented in our collection.

Carrying baskets.—Subfloor pocket 2, Room 62, was filled with
broken pottery over which two basket bowls had been inverted and
the whole covered by "a large basket," the major portion of which had
decayed (Pepper, 1920, p. 234). The remainder, as seen in Pepper's
figure 100 (p. 227), appears to be about 2 feet long by 14 or 15 inches
wide. A fragment of such size, with over 80 coils visible, can only
represent a burden basket. Pocket 5 likewise contained the remains
of "a large basket"; fragments of at least one "very large basket"
were found in Room 32 (ibid., pp. 162, 235). Repetition of the
adjective in connection with these three separate cases seems convincing,
if only circumstantial, evidence the Bonitians used carrying
baskets. And here, as elsewhere throughout the Western Hemisphere,

burdens borne on human backs were supported by means of a tumpline
across chest or forehead.

Tumplines at Pueblo Bonito are represented by three fragmentary
examples in our collection. Found among the wreckage in Room 320,
two of these (pl. 46, figs. a and b) are of yucca-fiber cord. The third,
and best preserved, consists of 13 or 14 flat three-strand braids, oneeighth
inch wide, bunched and wrapped with 2-ply string at each end
to form loops for attachment of ropes. The drawing above, figure 46,
provides a clearer conception of how this particular specimen looked
when in use.

Our two smaller fragments differed from the third in one detail
only: instead of being braided, the component cords are of a coarse,
2-strand twist; at least 11 are present, looped and wrapped as in the
first case.

Part of a twined-woven headband (U.S.N.M. No. 335344) was recovered
in Room 325. It is 1⅛ inches wide and has 13 warps. Tightly
coiled upon itself when found, the strap has since broken into half a
dozen pieces of which one is the outer curve of an eyelet. This latter
embraces four warps only and thus suggests that the middle five were
cut short as weaving progressed down one side, around the end, and

back to complete the loop. Pepper (1920, p. 108) mentions a like
specimen, woven of cotton and yucca, from Room 25.

From Aztec Ruin, Morris (1919a, p. 52) reports a woven headband
in which the two middle warps were shortened at each end to provide
for eyes. In a kiva at Ruin 12, Mesa Verde National Park, Nordenskiöld
found a fourth example, woven of cotton on yucca warps. As
I read his illustration (Nordenskiöld, 1893, pl. 49, fig. 2), there are 23
warps in the fabric and of these the middle 7 were cut short at each
end in order to create a triangular opening 1 inch or more in length as
the 8 warps on either side were divided into two bunches of 4 each
and woven into the double-ribbed loop that closed the opening and
terminated each end of the band.

Fewkes (1909, p. 45, fig. 22; 1911b, p. 76, fig. 4) shows two more
Mesa Verde woven headbands with the middle warps shortened to
leave triangular eyelets, and the remaining warps bunched to serve as
foundations for the thicker, compressed weaving at the two extremities.
Apparently this variety of headband loop is a Mesa Verde trait;
if so, our lone Pueblo Bonito fragment and that unearthed by Pepper
provide two more ties to the homeland.

Miscellaneous containers.—This seems as good a place as any to
record the following items:

First, a section of heavy fabric that looks like part of a headband or
belt (U.S.N.M. No. 335328). It is 3½ inches wide and [fraction 3 by 16] inch thick;
the warps run lengthwise, and both edges are selvaged. The material
appears to be loosely twisted cotton cord twined on warps that were
smaller and of stiffer fiber, undoubtedly yucca. Folded upon itself
without visible sign of stitching, the fabric forms an oval cup or bag
2¼ inches deep and bulging to a width of 2 inches with its granular
contents. The latter have not been analyzed but may be no more than
pulverized sandstone overlaid with bits of vegetal remains and charcoal.
The specimen was found in the passageway connecting Rooms
251 and 256, both of which contained quantities of household rubbish.
We saturated the piece with paraffin and thus preserved it as found.

Something of an enigma is presented by six pieces of birch bark
perforated along one or two edges as though parts of a box or handbag.[12]
Indeed, one fragment is still selvaged with half a willow rod

bearing traces of the close-lying splint stitches that formerly bound
it in place. The longest fragment, the grain running longitudinally,
measures 11½ inches; both ends are perforated one-quarter inch from
the straight-cut edge. All six were exposed in an exploratory trench
just outside the south wall of Room 154 but my field notes failed to
give the depth. They are not decayed, and they look very un-Puebloan
—but there they are (pl. 43, c).

A half dozen scraps of another bark, each having one or more cut
edges, were recovered from the rubbish in Room 255 (U.S.N.M.
No. 335384). The bark is three-sixteenths inch thick and remains
unidentified.

Jar rests, or pot rings, were simple contrivances devised especially
for large, round-bottomed vessels. They afforded comfort to the
carrier and they provided necessary support for standing bowls and
jars while used for storage.

Pot rings are of almost worldwide distribution. They are employed
today wherever it is woman's task to fetch water from well or pool.
Those seen during his first few days in Hawikuh reminded Coronado
of home and Spain so he sent a couple to the Viceroy along with his
letter of August 3, 1540, and boasted "One of these Indian women,
with one of these rolls on her head, will carry a jar of water up a
ladder without touching it with her hands" (Winship, 1896, p. 563).

The four examples we found at Pueblo Bonito differ from one
another (pl. 46, figs. d-g). Figures d and f were made of cedar bark,
but the latter was wrapped with both shredded bark and yucca cord;
the former, with bark alone. Both are charred. Figure g is merely a
handful of cedar bark, hastily rolled and bound to meet the need of
the moment, while e, made up entirely of cornhusks, required more
time for preparation. In Room 24 (N.G.S. Room 229B) Pepper
unearthed a jar rest of braided yucca and another made from the
feather-wrapped cords of a discarded blanket (Pepper, 1920, p. 96).
These are all comparatively crude, but we may be certain that the
Bonitians were capable of weaving pot rings quite as attractive and
as durable as any produced by their contemporaries of the cliff villages.

On plate 53, figures a and b, we have illustrated the neck portions of
two cooking pots as probable floor rests for water jars or other vessels.

Earthenware vessels are rightfully described as household utensils,
but owing both to their diversity and to their peculiar interest as culture
indices in the Southwest we shall consider them alone in the next
chapter.