University of Virginia Library

EFFIGIES AND FIGURINES

Effigies doubtless were as indispensable in the religious practices of
the ancient Bonitians as they are in those of present-day Pueblos.
And if they were guarded as carefully from the uninitiated then as
now it explains why so few have been recovered through archeological
exploration.

Mountain-lion (?) heads.—One may only guess at the animal or
animals represented by the two sandstone carvings illustrated in plate
83, B. Facial features are not indicated but both have ears above a
slightly concave "face." They may be Mountain Lion, hunter of the
north. The first still bears a faint trace of red ocher, but its ears have

been battered away. Both carvings were found in Room 272 which
was partly filled with Late Bonitian sweepings. It will be noted also
that the base of each was left roughly spalled, with tool marks still
visible; that neither shows the wear and grime that follow repeated
handling and pushing about on adobe floors.

In Room 64, Pueblo del Arroyo, we found a slightly more realistic
"lion" head (U.S.N.M. No. 334876). It is smaller than the two above
mentioned but, like them, is carved from friable yellow sandstone.
A straight incised line forms the mouth; eyes are not indicated; ears
are rounded knobs. Since marks of the pecking hammer show at the
base of the neck, this head also is obviously complete in itself. Contrasted
with these, two apparent effigies from other Chaco ruins are
provided with tenonlike bodies that suggest horizontal placement in
a wall. One of them, found at Sinklezin ruin by the Griffin children
in 1925, and still in their custody at Pueblo Bonito 4 years later, is

shown in plate 80, A. The second (pl. 80, B), from Kinkletso, has
not been seen by the present writer.

Stone effigies of diverse animals are essentials on certain modern
Pueblo altars, but none known to me even remotely resembles the
sandstone heads from Chaco Canyon. These modern examples are
more nearly comparable to those exhumed on the Zuñi reservation by
Roberts (1932, pp. 147-149).

Hopi, Zuñi, and Navaho, perhaps all Southwestern tribesmen, deposit
in their corrals and grazing lands unfired clay figures of domestic
animals as prayer offerings for the increase of herds and flocks. An
entirely different concept governs the small figures of prey animals

Fig. 92.—Bird carved from
turquoise.

worn as amulets by many living Indians.
As protection against witchcraft
and evil spirits, every one of our
Zuñi workmen during seven summers
at Pueblo Bonito wore a prehistoric
arrowhead on a neck cord or attached
to his hatband.

Without description, Parsons (1939,
p. 304) refers to "the animal figurines
which guard each house" in Hopiland.
These are fed regularly, generally a
pinch of cornmeal or a crumb of bread.
"Places where the fetishes are kept
. . . are disturbed as little as possible
. . . there is always the greatest reluctance
to remove a fetish, which is some-
times left behind, but looked after, in an otherwise abandoned house"
(ibid., p. 480).

Birds.—The turquoise bird represented by figure 92 undoubtedly
had been interred with one of the bodies in Room 329. But, as was
explained on page 99, its weight (49.37 grams), its shape, and the
position of the two holes, drilled to meet half an inch above the keel,
render the figure ill-suited for use as a pendant. Furthermore, the
edge of the drilling is sharp, unworn by a suspension cord. There are
no wear facets on breast or back; the turquoise is of poor quality, pale
green and chalky. For these reasons it seems likely that the effigy
served, not as a personal ornament, but ceremonially, and in some such
manner as the four wooden birds suspended above the altar of the
Hunter Fraternity at Zuñi (Stevenson, 1904, pl. 59) or those on the
Blue Flute and Drab Flute altars at Mishongnovi (Fewkes, 1900c,
pp. 989-992).

The Hopi bird effigies just cited stand on straight sticks thrust into
altar sand, but the holes in our Pueblo Bonito specimen, as may be
seen from the angle of drilling, were never intended for leg sockets.
Rather they were the means by which the effigy was secured to something
else. Hough (1914, pp. 103-104) figures from Bear Creek Cave,
Arizona, wooden staffs with birds carved on one end and, from both
Hopi and Zuñi villages, compound wooden birds drilled through the
body for attachment at the keel.

Pepper (1905b; 1909) found a number of bird effigies made of
"decomposed turquoise" in Rooms 33 and 38. From his illustration
and description, they are smaller than our lone example and their
beaks thrust forward instead of hanging drowsily upon the breast.

"Frogs."—Pepper's jet frog from Room 38 (Pepper, 1905b, p.
190) and ours, from Room 336, likewise may have been objects of
religious import. However, and solely as regards our own find (fig.
20, o), placement of the suspension holes seems rather to identify the
piece as an ornament. Paired on the underside of the shoulders, these
drillings allow the figure to hang almost perpendicularly, the hind legs
a little inside of plumb. On the other hand, the four drilled holes are
not cord-worn; the back of the effigy is more highly polished than the
belly; jet is exceedingly brittle and outjutting legs such as ours possesses
were bound to be broken if the piece hung free from a neck
cord.

Human figures.—When earthenware utensils were under consideration
we included those modeled in the form of men and beasts. We
had no reason to place them in any other category. However, human
effigies in clay or stone are different. They occur sporadically in
Pueblo shrines and on Pueblo altars today although less frequently,
perhaps, than concretions with some fancied resemblance to mythological
beings or parts thereof.

At Pueblo Bonito we found only one human effigy, rudely modeled
in clay (fig. 93). Its mouth and eyes are casually gouged; nose and
breasts pinched-up. At midlength the body is 1⅞ inches wide by 1[fraction 1 by 16]
inches thick. The clay, sun-dried and readily scratched by a thumbnail,
is rather sandy and contains particles of charcoal but no visible
temper.

Clay figurines, usually female, were made by primitive peoples the
world around as a religious expression. In general they were offered
to some potent god with a prayer for bountiful crops, for increase of
family and flocks. In the Aztec-Toltec domain of Mexico, figurines
represent a fertility cult of long standing.

Throughout the old Pueblo area, modeled figurines likewise evidence

the former presence of such a cult. It had become firmly established
at least as early as the Basket Maker III period and it persisted
until Pueblo IV or later. Figurines have been reported from sites
widely separated by time and distance; their local characteristics have
been noted, in part, but the only comparative study of which the
present writer is aware is that essayed by Haury (in Gladwin et al.,
1937, vol. 1, pp. 233-242) and published just as Steward made known
his observations in northern and western Utah (Steward, 1936).

Our lone Pueblo Bonito example lacks the sophistication of Haury's
Snaketown figurines; it lacks the basal cleft and the punctate embel-

Fig. 93.—Clay figurine.

lishment of Basket Maker specimens
figured by Morris (1927, p. 153)
and Guernsey (1931, pl. 51); it
lacks the applique dress and anatomical
features to be seen on many
of the central Utah examples described
by Morss (1931, pp. 46-50)
and Steward (1936, pp. 22-28) and
it is quite unlike the Pecos figurines
illustrated by Kidder (1932, pp.
112-125). In its limblessness, its
pinched-up nose and breasts, our
Pueblo Bonito specimen resembles
some of those from Utah but it
is more rectangular, thicker and
heavier.

The basal fragment of another
possible figurine (U.S.N.M. No.
336084), oval in cross section and
rather smooth-surfaced, came from Room 288.

"A number of small crude objects of unbaked clay" found by
Pepper in the rubbish fill of Room 25, and which Cushing called "seed
offerings," included at least two figurines comparable to ours from
Room 308. Both had mouth and eyes indicated by fingernail indentations;
both had modeled breasts, and the larger, a modeled nose. The
upper face of this latter was painted red, while chin, neck, and chest
were black (Pepper, 1920, pp. 101-103).

From Pueblo del Arroyo we recovered two additional clay figurines
(Nos. 334683-4). One, a discoidal face on a necklike body, is surprisingly
like that figured by Kidder and Guernsey (1919, p. 143,
fig. 62, b) from Marsh Pass. The second is a somewhat cylindrical
lump of clay with squared bits of charcoal inset to represent eyes and

mouth. These two and a third from a nearby structure, added to those
from Pueblo Bonito, prove the existence of a figurine cult in Chaco
Canyon at the height of Pueblo III. Our available specimens are too
few, however, to permit at this time selection of the dominant type.