University of Virginia Library

CEREMONIAL BASKETRY

Bonitian baskets reserved for consideration under this heading are
of three kinds: Cylindrical, bifurcated, and shallow elliptical trays.

Cylindrical baskets and oval trays have been described hereinbefore
as household utensils. In the same paragraphs, however, attention was
directed to their associations at time of discovery and the possibility
of a ritual connection. In four instances cylindrical baskets and shallow
elliptical trays accompanied the bodies of women. Six cylindrical
baskets and one bifurcated basket were among the diverse objects in
a one-time storeroom, the improvised tomb for 10 women and girls.
Hence the question: Could these unusual containers have belonged
among the paraphernalia of some women's society?

Like their earthenware counterparts, cylindrical baskets seem lacking
in many respects as utensils for everyday household use. This is
especially true of that illustrated on plate 84. Its flat bottom averages
3¾ inches in diameter; its original height is estimated at 5 inches. Fine
workmanship is indicated by a count of 7 coils and 20 stitches per
inch. The stitches are uninterlocked on a two-rod-and-bundle, bunched
foundation. Coiling is counterclockwise; the rim is wrapped normally
but the terminal tie is missing.

The basket was so fragile we added a lining of plaster for support.
Its painted ornamentation, four rows of diamonds ascending to the
right and repeated three times, is represented by the drawing in figure
98. The first three rows are, respectively, black, orange, and bluegreen;
the fourth row remains the natural splint color.

An even more exquisite example in this same category is the one
Pepper found with Skeleton 14, beneath the floor of Room 33. Not
only its turquoise overlay but its store of beads and pendants mark it
as one entirely removed from the mundane life of the village. In the
same room were the remains of a second cylindrical basket, covered
with a mosaic of shell and turquoise and wrapped about with a necklace
of turquoise and shell beads (Pepper, 1909, pp. 227-228; 1920,
pp. 164-173).

Our elliptical basketry trays are of much finer construction and are

complete in themselves, nevertheless one sees in each the parallel of
that forming the base of a bifurcated basket.

Bifurcated baskets, both in shape and in size, were entirely unsuited
for any conceivable domestic task. Their capacity was too limited for
practical use in gathering foodstuffs and other materials. Therefore

we must conclude that they were developed expressly for religious
purposes, for the support or transportation of unidentified objects
required in unknown rituals. Those from Pueblo Bonito will be better
understood if we first review the distribution of this curious form and
its development.

The earliest published notice of a bifurcated basket known to the
present writer is that by Cummings (1910, p. 4), reporting one from
the Segihatsosi, in the Kayenta district, northeastern Arizona. He also
notes a second example, found in nearby Segi Canyon that same summer

(1909) by a Government surveying party under W. B. Douglass.
A few years later Cummings himself unearthed a third specimen in
Bat-woman House, a Pueblo III cliff dwelling dated A.D. 1275 and
occupying a shallow cave in one of the rincons on the west side of
Dogoszhi Biko, the upper east branch of Laguna Creek (Cummings,
1915, p. 281; McGregor, 1936, p. 37; Hargrave, 1935, p. 32).

The Segi Canyon basket, now in the U. S. National Museum, was
featured by Fewkes (1911a, p. 29) as "a Cliff-dweller's cradle" and
attributed to "Cradle House" on the west side of "East Canyon," the
Dogoszhi Biko of the preceding paragraph.

Weltfish (1932, p. 7) echoes Fewkes's identification and traces
another specimen mentioned by him from Chicago to Philadelphia and
the University of Pennsylvania Museum. From the latter institution
we have Farabee's altogether satisfactory description of this, the
fourth, bifurcated basket—a truly remarkable product that still looks
brand new. It was found prior to 1904 in a cliff house in Moki
Canyon, southeastern Utah; its balanced red-and-black design, on a
background of undyed splints, is of almost pristine freshness (Farabee,
1920, pp. 202-211).

Farabee also cites two unfinished specimens in the Deseret Museum,
Salt Lake City. My own notes on these two, written July 19, 1916,
state that each consists of the uncompleted legs only; that both came
from San Juan County, Utah. No. 526, presented by Platt D. Lyman,
measures about 7 inches high by 7½ inches wide. No. 790 was purchased
from a Mr. Lang and is labeled "from Cave 1."[7]

Specimen 790 admirably illustrates the beginning of a bifurcated
basket for it is no more than a long, narrow, oval tray the ends of
which have been bent down to form a capital A whose bar is a yucca
cord piercing the inner side of the legs halfway between toe and crotch.
The cord clearly was intended to hold the tray in this unnatural
position until the legs and lower body could be completed. That the

Plate 86.—The peculiar construction of the bifurcated basket from Room 320 is clearly
seen in this view.

Plate 87

A, Part of a bifurcated basket from Room 326, mounted on wire screen
for preservation.

B, The miniature bifurcated basket buried with
Skeleton 8, Room 326, was partially preserved.

Plate 88.—Earthenware effigies of bifurcated baskets, obverse (upper) and reverse.

Plate 89.—A cockleshell and its contents, found in a masonry box beneath the floor of
Kiva D.

position was forced is further evidenced by the outward spread of the
fabric, front and back, at the fold.

Now these two, and the four completed baskets above mentioned,
are the only ones of their kind known to the present writer prior to
our Pueblo Bonito explorations. That from Segihatsosi was found by
old Hoskininni about 1884. Afraid of the Anasazis, he promptly
reburied the piece but disinterred it in June 1909 for presentation
to Mrs. John Wetherill. A few weeks later Mrs. Wetherill gave
the basket to Prof. Byron Cummings, leader of a University of
Utah exploring party. In 1915 it was borrowed for exhibition at the
Panama-California Exposition, San Diego, and there it remained
until 1938 when Professor Cummings finally regained possession and
donated it to the Arizona State Museum, Tucson. At the time she
examined this specimen in San Diego, Miss Weltfish apparently was
not informed of its ownership.

Farabee observed the close resemblance between his Moki Canyon
basket and those from the Segi and Segihatsosi. As Weltfish (1932,
p. 7) remarks, they are so nearly alike they "might have been made
by the same woman." That from Bat-woman House, now in the
University of Utah Museum, presumably has never been published.

Two of those from northeastern Arizona came from the eastern
branch of upper Laguna Canyon; the third, from nearby Segihatsosi.
In this picturesque district all the more conspicuous cliff dwellings
were still inhabited in the third quarter of the thirteenth century.
Moki Canyon empties into the Rio Colorado approximately 50 air
miles to the north. The Deseret Museum's unfinished baskets No. 526
and No. 790 may be ascribed to the wild country between Grand Gulch
and upper Cottonwood Creek. Thus the six specimens under consideration
were all found within a 40-mile radius of the point where the
San Juan River crosses the 110th meridian.[8]

From this same circumscribed area come also the oval, relatively
shallow, Basket Maker II hamper illustrated by Guernsey and Kidder
(1921, pl. 23, k, l) and a larger, deeper carrying basket of Pueblo I
age. This latter, the lone representative of its period, has outward
sloping sides that flare sharply above the middle and an over-all zoned
decoration in red and black (Guernsey, 1931, p. 95, pl. 13, b). Of
even greater interest to our present discussion is the fact that the
middle rim, front and back, rises a couple of inches above the sides

in consequence of a dip to right and left as coiling followed the line
initially fixed by a slight basal arch.

This basal arch is lacking on what looks like the lower third of an
unfinished basket of the same type, photographed among Grand Gulch
specimens by Pepper (1902, p. 8, middle; p. 23, second row, middle).
It is lacking, too, on an oval-bodied, wide-shouldered carrying basket
figured by Cummings (1910, p. 34, bottom), although the upper coils
are undulating. This latter specimen, purchased by Professor Cummings
in Moab, Utah, in 1907 for the University Museum, was found
on Salt Creek, at the eastern margin of Beef Basin, in 1894 or 1895.
With it was a bowl-and-hollow-handle ladle of P. III design and
decoration.

In the Teocentli of December 1939 (No. 28, p. 4), Haury describes
from northeastern Arizona "an excellent bifurcated burden basket
with a painted decoration in red, green, and yellow . . . found in a
vault grave of unusual type dating from about the middle of the 13th
century."

From information and photographs kindly furnished by W. S.
Fulton, director of the Amerind Foundation, Dragoon, Ariz., we learn
that the shoulders of this fine specimen are less pronounced than in
the Moab basket; that the lower portion is about 20 percent longer;
that tumpline attachments are present; that its painted decoration overlies
an unusual design in dyed splints; that the arching of the basal
coils is less marked than in Guernsey's Pueblo I example. This arching
does not force the body coils out of a horizontal position; certainly it
is not of a degree to justify placing the specimen in the "bifurcated"
classification.[9]

Natural History in 1927 (vol. 27, No. 6, p. 637) announced Earl
Morris's recovery of four Basket Maker III miniature carrying baskets
from the Mummy Cave talus. They are exquisite little pieces,
clean and fresh as though newly made. Accompaniments of a child
burial, they are decorated with dyed-splint designs in red and black;
the lower half of each, like Guernsey's Pueblo I prize, is more or less
wedge-shaped, front to back, but not forked. In the same lot is a fifth,
unornamented specimen (A.M.N.H. 29.1-8640).

Assuming that these miniatures faithfully portray an adult form,
that Guernsey's Pueblo I specimen is typical of its period, and that
Cumming's Moab purchase and Fulton's northeastern Arizona acquisition
belong to Pueblo II or later, two parallel lines of Anasazi carrying
baskets seem indicated.

First is the strictly utilitarian variety in which increased capacity
remained ever the prime desideratum. Next, and contemporaneously,
there was evolved a form deliberately sacrificing cubic content to an
eccentricity, the arched base.

Guernsey's Pueblo I basket is the earliest example with basal arching
known to me. Latest, are the deeply forked specimens enumerated
above, including three from thirteenth-century cliff villages in the Segi
and Segihatsosi. Between these three and their progenitor is a time
interval of at least 300 years. During that interval the type changed
from a capacious, wide-mouthed, purposeful hamper to one of less
than half its capacity, with straight walls and a basal fork approximately
one-third the total height.

Pueblo Bonito is two centuries older than the Segi cliff dwellings
and, as one might have anticipated, its basketry differs in several
respects.

Bifurcated baskets from Pueblo Bonito include one well-preserved
example and portions of at least five others.

First and foremost is that from Room 320. When found, it lay on
the floor, leaning against the east wall (pl. 92, lower). Near its rim
was the cylindrical basket shown as figure e, plate 45, and beyond its
feet two more (figs. d and f).

From front or side the basket is noticeably V-shaped—wide at top,
narrow and pointed at bottom (pls. 85 and 86). Maximum width and
thickness at rim, 12 inches and 8 inches; height, 15⅝ inches. The left
leg is a trifle shorter than the right; their average length, 4¼ inches.
Front and back, walls above the crotch have been pressed in until they
are only 1¼ to 1⅜ inches apart. The resultant folds, sharpest in the
upper half and especially on the front side, divide the basket cavity
into two triangular compartments roughly 5½ inches on a side and 15
inches deep. Missing stitches let it be seen that many of the foundation
rods are cracked or broken at the folds. Were it not for this distortion,
thickness at rim would be increased to 15 inches; rim circumference
would measure 41 inches.

The basket had its beginning in a single willow rod, a full quarter
inch in diameter and more or less encompassed by barklike fibers. For
8 inches rod and fibers were closely wrapped with sewing splints then
doubled back, around the other end, and again down the opposite side.
As the doubling progressed, rod and bundle were firmly stitched to the
first 8-inch section.

The second coil was built on a slightly smaller rod; the third introduced
a foundation of two still smaller rods with fiber bundle above
and between them. It is probably pure accident that inception of the

first coil lies under the left foot; that the two subsequent reductions in
foundation rods occur halfway down the right leg and in front. The
stitches of these first three coils are larger and less compact than those
that follow. A majority are split on the outside, suggesting a concave
work surface. Viewed from that angle, coiling is counterclockwise.

With the third complete encirclement of its initial 8-inch section, the
narrow mat was bent into an A form and presumably anchored in that
position. I detect no trace of the holding cord itself but note that at the
apex rods are cracked and stitches crowded by the sharp bending.
Thereafter the sewing followed up one leg and down the other. To
shorten the coils and bring them the sooner to regularity, a filler was
inserted on the outside of the legs where each coil dropped lowest.
Filler for the fourth and part of the fifth coils was only a little additional
fiber, but for the next few an extra foundation rod was broken
into pieces or doubled three or four times to bridge the downcurve.
Stitches three-eighths to three-fourths of an inch long were required
to bind foundation rods, bundle, and filler together; not until the
twenty-fifth coil did these end stitches assume normal length.

There are 59 coils in the basket; the last was self-wrapped but its
terminal tie is missing. In the upper 4 inches 22 coils appear in front
and 23 at the back. Body stitches average 16 per inch.

With black-dyed splints the maker provided a sparse, all-over design
of thin lines and half terraces. Horizontal lines are one coil wide;
vertical lines, two stitches in width. Subsequently, that portion of the
decoration visible on the front and sides was painted black, and with
greenish-blue paint balancing lines and terraces were introduced (fig.
99). No effort was made to illuminate continuation of the same dyedsplint
elements across the rear wall.

A few additional notes.—A slight sheen on the lower half of the
back, above the crotch, may be the result of friction. No provision was
made for tumpline attachments, an omission almost unique. With the
possible exception of their upper rear, both legs are coated with a
membranous substance as far as the lower framing line of the decoration.
Some cracking of foundation rods vertically down the right front
shoulder and down the rear left shoulder is due to pressure from the
overburden of blown sand, rubbish, and fallen masonry during the
years prior to exhumation. Two small stones on the floor left imprints
on the left front shoulder.

Our next example is a body fragment from Room 326 (pl. 87, A).
Although damp when exposed, most of it was saved by prompt and
liberal application of melted paraffin. In the laboratory, when we
sought to remove this wax, the fragment collapsed and we lost its

Fig. 99.—Design painted on bifurcated basket from Room 320.

vertical median constrictions. The technique is again two-rod-andbundle,
bunched foundation with uninterlocking stitches. There are
5 coils and 15 stitches to the inch. Portions of the self rim remain but
its termination is missing.

Two, possibly three, like baskets are represented in miscellaneous
fragments from the same room. One lot, gathered from among scattered
human bones, sweepings, and debris of reconstruction on a few
square feet in the middle floor, includes three large pieces from a basket
about the size of that first described. These three exhibit 8 coils and
22 stitches per inch. Other fragments, presumably from bifurcated
baskets, show from 4½ to 6 coils per inch and from 16 to 20 stitches;
three scraps bear traces of green and blue paint.

Another fragment, poorly preserved at best, has been cleaned and
freed from surplus paraffin but unsuccessfully mounted. In its present
condition it suggests a basket 12 or 14 inches high with rim width and
depth of about 8 and 5 inches, respectively. Coils run 5½ to the inch;
stitches, 16. Between coils in several places are what appear to be
flakes of orange paint. This is the fragment elsewhere cited as having
been found, together with part of a cylindrical basket, above an infant
burial (No. 10) in the southeast corner of Room 326.

Smallest of our series is that illustrated on plate 87, B. It was one
of the burial offerings with Skeletons 8 and 9. In the photograph,
plate 94, left, it may be seen resting against a sandstone slab (fig. d,
pl. 27) with a cylindrical basket, an ellipitical basket tray, and several
earthenware bowls and pitchers close by.

Here again we were unable to preserve the rim and median constrictions
of the partially decayed specimen. Although the body is now
somewhat distorted, it is obvious the legs were originally disproportionately
short. In its present imperfect condition the specimen measures
8 inches high; its legs average only 1¼ inches. With 8 coils and
22 stitches to the inch, this smallest of the series equals in fineness of
stitching one of the largest, the one represented by three of the fragments
described above.

Our Pueblo Bonito bifurcated baskets and fragments all illustrate
the same coiling technique: uninterlocking stitches on a two-rod-andbundle,
bunched foundation. All were provided with relatively short,
pointed legs; all were constricted vertically through the middle, a distinctive
feature; all exhibit undulating coils and a fullness of fabric at
the brim. In execution, therefore, and apparently in concept, we have
here what seems to be a distinct variety, an eastern type.

In contrast, comparable baskets from western cliff dwellings are
from 5 to 6 inches taller than our best eastern example; they have

straighter-walled, more-columnar bodies and sturdier legs that measure
about one-third the total height. Their workmanship is coarser; coils
and stitching, larger. In either case, eastern and western varieties, as
we now know them, only remotely resemble the Pueblo I carrying
basket that, presumably, furnished the idea of a basal notch.

The use to which these bifurcated baskets were put is purely conjectural.
They were ill-suited and entirely inadequate for transporting
fuel or foodstuffs. They certainly were not cradles, as Farabee (1920,
p. 211) pointed out so clearly. The only alternative then is to believe
them a specialized carrying basket, an accessory in the ritual of some
long-dead cult.

Describing the Moki Canyon specimen, Farabee (1920, p. 206) observes:
"The back of the basket where the [tumpline] thongs are
attached shows some polish from use and the bottoms of the legs show
considerable wear. On the inside there is some polish for four inches
down from the top but lower down the surface is very rough and
shows no wear except on the crotch where apparently the burden,
whatever it was, rested."

Repairs made with coarser splints and triple-length stitches are
conspicuous on the backs of the Segihatsosi basket (Cummings, 1910,
p. 34) and that figured by Fewkes (1911a, pl. 20). On each, vertically
paired holes for attachment of a carrying band are to be seen at either
side and just above the mended area. The extent of these repairs and,
indeed, the very necessity for them evidences repeated use of the baskets
for transporting fairly heavy burdens. A light weight, no matter
how often carried, would not have induced equal wear.

And this again raises the question: What kind of objects were
moved in bifurcated baskets and for what distances? The only suggestion
that has come to my attention is that offered by the old Navaho
shaman who explained that the bifurcated basket was a container for
the arrows and sacred medicines of the Slayer God and that its two
legs represented the ears of the Bat-woman (Cummings, 1915, p. 281).

There are no holes for tumpline attachments at the back of our
painted Pueblo Bonito basket, no handles, and no mark such as might
have been caused by a netted cord or other suspension device. If this
basket was moved from place to place, it was carried in the arms of its
bearer. There is no certain indication of wear on its back; no frictionrubbed
area inside. The vertical grooves press in from front and back
until they practically divide the basket. This structural feature further
limited the character and bulk of objects placed within. Nevertheless,
the constrictions were considered essential, for they are clearly indicated

both on our bifurcated baskets and on the earthenware models
next to be considered.[10]

Earthenware effigies of bifurcated baskets.—We have for consideration
under this heading six specimens from Pueblo Bonito and two
from Pueblo del Arroyo. The latter (pl. 88, figs. b, b′, c, c′), with
several other unusual objects, had fallen with collapse of the secondstory
floor of Room 27. Their respective designs differ but both have
black-painted rims, flattened lugs at the back punched through horizontally,
and surmounting loops attached to the rear rim. After the
modeling was completed, both front and back were pressed in vertically
along the median line but not enough to bring the inner walls
together. On the larger of the two specimens, this pressure caused
the inner front wall to crack throughout its upper half. The legs of
this specimen are hollow; those of the smaller one, solid.

The third specimen (a, a′) lay among disarticulated skeletons in the
middle north half of Room 329, Pueblo Bonito (pl. 97, lower). It has
much in common with the other two and yet differs from them in
several respects. After the lower part had been completed its walls
were pressed in until they actually met vertically through the middle.
This left on either side the junction cavities no more than an inch in
depth. Thereafter the four uprights and the ring they support were
casually attached inside the brim. The right rear and left front legs
presumably were positioned last because less effort was made to obliterate
their union with the inner wall.

The superimposed jar likewise was made separately and positioned
while the clay was still moist. Subsequent modeling fixed it so firmly
in place on the ring that a bit of tooling was necessary to emphasize
the point of separation. Finally, two pairs of holes to symbolize
tumpline attachments were provided. But while the upper holes were
punched all the way through—in one case the punch tip actually dented
the opposite wall—the lower two were merely quarter-inch deep indentations.
It is the miniature jar in this instance rather than the basket
effigy that bears the black rim line characteristic of Chaco pottery.
Like the two from Pueblo del Arroyo, this composite is externally
slipped, hand-smoothed while plastic, and partially stone-polished.

Four other effigies of bifurcated baskets, each with a superincumbent
jar, have come to my attention. One is in the Southwest Museum
at Los Angeles (P. G. Gates collection, G-268.105), provenience unknown.
Another, in the San Diego Museum (No. 5177), belongs to

the Rio Puerco collection purchased in 1912 and believed to have been
gathered within a radius of 40 miles of Houck, Ariz. In both cases the
jar stands upon four legs attached to the basket rim, as in our Pueblo
Bonito specimen, but without the latter's supporting ring. My notes
do not indicate the nature of the symbolic tumpline attachments, if
any.

A third example, also from the Houck area, is illustrated by a sketch
received at the National Museum some years ago from a Dr. Regnier,
of Regnier, Okla. Its painted design consists of solid triangles, ticked
along their opposed hypotenuses; two vertical lugs, transversely perforated,
lie on the back. Instead of four vertical posts, rolls of clay
rise from the rim to loop across the median grooves, front and back,
as supports for the miniature jar.[11]

The fourth specimen of the kind known to me is in the Museum of
the American Indian, Heye Foundation (No. 5-2632), and is recorded
as from Chaco Canyon. The lower part portrays an oval carrying
basket with wide-flaring rim and vertical loop handles at the sides
rather than on the back. Both front and back are slightly indented
along the median line but there is no basal cleft. Within the rim and
rising well above it is a hollow, globular mass representing an Early
Pueblo neckless olla. Over a heavy white slip, three squiggled black
lines encircle the shoulder of the miniature olla; three more lie just
below the rim of the basket effigy, and three shorter lines hang vertically
at either side of the median groove. As in the case of the other
three cited, the decoration on this example is more suggestive of
Pueblo II than Pueblo III.

Of our five remaining earthenware effigies of bifurcated baskets
from Pueblo Bonito, four evidence some sort of superstructure. That
illustrated by figure 100, b, is sherd-tempered, heavily slipped, stonepolished,
and ornamented with a black pigment that fired reddish
brown. It was found with late hachured sherds in Room 350, one of
two adjoining subterranean chambers at the south end of the West
Court. The rim is rounded and unpainted; front and back are slightly
indented; the back is undecorated and lacking in tumpline attachments
of any sort; the maximum curvature, front and back, is flattened by
attrition, indicating long use and repeated placement in a recumbent
position.

Within the vessel cavity, paired quarter-inch ropes of clay were
dropped to the very bottom and pressed firmly against the rear wall.

Fig. 100.—Earthenware effigies of bifurcated baskets.

The inner roll of each pair rises halfway up the middle and then, flattened
by a finger, turns outward at approximately right angles to join
its companion. At the front, single clay ropes were brought up in the
same manner, meeting in the middle and continuing thence gradually
outward respectively to reach the rim opposite the two inner rolls of
the rear pairs. Those in front were positioned last; all were more or
less flattened as far down as the potter could reach with her finger.

In temper, surface treatment, paint color, and absence of tumpline
attachments, our next specimen (fig. 100, d), agrees with that last
described. But the body is not as well balanced, being thicker at its
left shoulder. The highest point here preserves a bit of the rim. Fire
clouds remain on the upper right and lower left front. Within, a single
clay rod [fraction 3 by 16] of an inch in diameter rises vertically through the middle
(front and back were compressed just enough to hold this rod in
place) to where it was broken off two-thirds of the distance above the
crotch. A discard, the fragment was retrieved from the east refuse
mound.

Our third example indicates a different sort of superstructure but,
again, there is not enough left for reconstruction (fig. 100, a, a′). Restored
from fragments recovered in Room 330, the effigy is sherdtempered
with a stone-polished slip. Double-roll, vertical-loop line
attachments were fastened on the back by the riveting process. The
slip does not extend beneath these loops but lines of the decoration do.
With its stubby legs the lower inch and a half of the body appears
to have been made solid; above the crotch, pressure front and back
brought the vessel walls almost in contact. The resulting external
grooves broaden at the top in keeping with the outflare of the basket.
It will be noted, also, that the brim rises in the middle; sweeps low on
either side.

Enough of the brim is present to show that it was somewhat thinned
at the edge, rounded, and unpainted. Within is all that remains of the
secondary feature—modeled walls ⅛ inch thick that curved up and
inward. Marks of an edged, spatulalike tool and fingernail imprints
appear where the added clay was pressed and shaped to the wall of
the effigy.

Finally, we have the miniature illustrated by figure 100, c, our smallest
example. It is unslipped and undecorated; the only one of the series
that is sand-tempered. The body, from feet to cavity, is solid. We
found the fragment among debris of occupation underlying the terrace
designated Room 347, fronting Room 324.

Thus, of our eight complete or fragmentary earthenware models of

bifurcated baskets, five came from household rubbish; one was recovered
in Room 330, a burial chamber; two only, those from Pueblo del
Arroyo, apparently had been stored away. In no instance did the
position of the object as found, or its associations, provide a clue to its
purpose. Since they cannot have been utilitarian, we may conclude that
these effigies, like the baskets they represent, were entirely ceremonial.

Less sophisticated models have been found farther west, in the same
culture horizons that produced the early varieties of carrying baskets.
As "funnel-shaped objects," Guernsey (1931, fig. 26, a-b, p. 86) figures
two unfired clay effigies of Basket Maker III panniers. There
can be no doubt as to the concept portrayed. The elongate body with
reduced base, the outflaring rim, the punched holes simulating tumpline
attachments, all unite in identifying the model with contemporary
burden baskets.

From Mummy Cave, Canyon del Muerto, Morris recovered the clay
model of a wider, deeper basket with zoned decoration indicated by
punctations (Morris, 1927, p. 154, fig. 6, f). If his figure 6, e, be
reversed, Morris has another such model but this time with punched
holes at the back and a more pronounced basal cleft. Likewise, if the
drawings of them be turned about, a group described as "nipple-shaped
objects" unquestionably picture the Early Basket Maker hamper, as
Morris himself observed (ibid., figs. 10-12, pp. 156-158).

In the Fremont district, west of the Rio Colorado in Utah, Morss
(1931, p. 50) found fragments of six undecorated "nipple-shaped
objects, similar to those described by Morris." Roberts (1929, p. 125)
unearthed several fragments bearing punctate decoration at a Basket
Maker III site 9 miles east of Pueblo Bonito. And Morris (1939,
p. 166) recovered parts of two at Site 33, a Pueblo I ruin in the La
Plata district. The smaller of these has just the suggestion of a basal
notch and thus accords with its utilitarian contemporaries but, from
the description, one seems justified in placing the larger somewhat
later. Although undecorated, its upsweep of rim, front and back, its
exaggerated rim flare at either side, its narrow body with short,
pointed legs and vertical, median grooves are features more in harmony
with the basket effigies of Pueblo Bonito than with those from older
ruins.

Our Chaco Canyon observations, combined with those of coworkers
in other areas, thus warrant the conclusion that miniature earthenware
models of carrying baskets, fired and unfired, were among the paraphernalia
of some cult that came into being in Basket Maker times and
persisted at least until Pueblo III.

Clay-coated basketry.—Another specimen thought to have been
made for ceremonial use is that represented by the fragment shown
in figure 101. Coiled on a one-rod foundation with uninterlocking
stitches, the fabric is covered inside and out with red clay to a minimum
thickness of one-sixteenth inch. The clay is very fine-grained
and doubtless gets its color from a high iron oxide content; it is hard
and brittle as though fired, but this may be accidental since the two
shortest rods are charred at the end.

Both surfaces were carefully
smoothed and one was then embellished
with a design that included stepped triangles
or rectangles. Thick black paint
was employed on the fragment before
us. Our fragment, recovered from
Room 300, lacks perceptible curvature
but it probably belonged to the same
vessel as the rim sherd Pepper (1920,
p. 69) found in Old Bonitian Room 13,
next on the south.

Morris describes three fragments of
red-paste-covered baskets from Chaco

Fig. 101.—Basket fragment,
clay-coated and painted.

rubbish in Aztec Ruin (Morris and Burgh, 1941, p. 26).

"Ring-bottomed vase."—This term is adopted from Morris (1919b,
p. 198), and with equal hesitation, to describe the queer little vessel
illustrated on plate 9, C. What special purpose, if any, it was designed
to serve, remains unknown. It is included with objects supposedly
ceremonial only because it had fallen, with collapse of the upper floors,
into the lowermost chamber of Room 249, where macaws were imprisoned,
and because we assume the attendant priests stored their
paraphernalia in those upper rooms.

Morris's example came from a Basket Maker III or Pueblo I ruin
in southwestern Colorado. It is undecorated and has a tubular handle.
Jeancon (1923, pp. 46-47) describes two others, of biscuit ware and
without handles, from the ruin of Po-shu-ouinge in Chama Valley,
N. Mex.

The basal ring of our Pueblo Bonito specimen is hollow and connects
on either side with the cylindrical neck. The strap handle is
solid and was attached by riveting. Opposite the handle a miniature
jar rests on the body of the vessel and opens into it. A black rim line
on this jar has been partially worn off; a similar line circled the
principal orifice, with a "spirit path" above the handle. The vessel,

smoothed but not polished, originally bore a chalky-white slip; firing
clouds largely obscure the painted ornamentation on the neck. The
solid design, which dates the specimen about midway in the history of
Pueblo Bonito, covers all but the bottom and inner face of the ring.

Sacrificial deposits.—Earlier in this chapter we remarked the finding
of "ceremonial sticks" embedded in house walls, and elongated repositories
designed, presumably, for like offerings. The deposits now to be
considered are of somewhat different character. One was sealed in a
kiva wall; another lay in a masonry box beneath a kiva floor; still
others had been hidden among roofing timbers.

Between decayed ceiling poles about 3 feet above the bench in both
the southeast and southwest quarters of Kiva R, we found sacrificial
offerings of bone, shell, and turquoise beads, shell-bracelet fragments,
broken pendants, etc., and part of the upper bill of a redhead duck
(Nyroca americana). Although these materials (U.S.N.M. Nos.
336004-336010) were removed in seven lots, it is believed that they
originally formed but two deposits, each of which had been broken up
through settling of the domed ceiling. In one lot the number of
olivellas would have sufficed for a necklace.

The character and diversity of these two offerings are reminiscent
of those concealed in pilaster logs. The latter, however, in even larger
measure were made up of scraps from the lapidary's workbench although
whole beads and pendants were included and, occasionally,
brightly colored feathers, or twigs from unidentified plants. Sacrificial
deposits in kiva pilasters will be discussed at greater length in a subsequent
report.

Whenever they occur in an offering, unbroken turquoise pendants
are likely to be off-color—too pale or too green for the fastidious
Bonitian. They are of a quality that reminds one of Zuñi sacrifices at
springs and shrines in the days of the Conquest. For instance, the
anonymous author of the Relacion del Suceso observed that, in addition
to prayer sticks, the Zuñi offered "such turquoises as they have,
although poor ones" (Winship, 1896, p. 573). So, too, in pre-Spanish
times—when the devout Pueblo sacrificed turquoise to his gods he
oftentimes used that of least value.

Three inlaid scrapers from Room 244 are illustrated in plate 36,
figures a-c. Each was made from the left humerus of a deer. The fact
that they lay side by side on the middle floor of an otherwise empty
room suggests another offering.

Half a handful of turquoise bits, both worked and unworked
(U.S.N.M. No. 340007), was enclosed in a small block of masonry

built against a partially razed older wall underlying the southwest
foundation in Room 186. The Zuñi workman who made the find said
it had been put there "to hold up the wall."

Under the floor of Kiva D we chanced upon a crude masonry box
built against the concave wall of an older, abandoned kiva. In that box
was one of the most colorful offerings recovered by the expedition
(pl. 89).

First of all was a creamy-white cockleshell (Laevicardium elatum),
from somewhere along the Pacific coast between San Pedro and
Panama. It served as a receptacle for the following:

• a. 3 bracelet pendants and 1 fragment (Glycymeris giganteus).

• b. 1 dark brown hematite cylinder.

• c. 3 olivellas (Olivella sp.).

• d. 1 blue azurite pellet and 15 tiny bits not shown.

• e. 20 figure-8 shell beads.

• f. 3 fragments of nacreous Haliotis sp.

• g. 3 worked pieces of turquoise matrix.

• h. 1 shell fragment, unidentified.

• i. 3 purple disks of Spondylus princeps.

A larger, more diversified offering was concealed in the north wall
of Kiva Q and accidentally exposed during our work of repair. It
included the following, partly shown in plate 90:

• a. Shreds, apparently, of juniper and rush; 3 scraps of abalone shell; 1 bit
  of twined fabric, perhaps a sandal.

• b. 1 flint and 2 obsidian arrowheads; 1 red claystone and 4 turquoise
  tesserae.

• c. 9 pendants of abalone shell.

• d. 1 quartz crystal; 3 azurite pellets.

• e. 3 bone awls.

• f. 2 brown chert blades and 1 of quartzite.

• g. 1 flint knife blade.

• h. 2 flint, 2 fine quartzite spalls.

• i. 2 quartz, 2 quartzite pebbles, unworked.

• j. 2 sandstone jar covers.

• k. Base of indented corrugated cooking pot.

• l. Bowl of cloud blower.

• m. Fragments of 2 B/W jars with middle and late hatching.

• n. 1 B/W bowl sherd, squiggled decoration.

• o. Sandstone concretionary cup with slight pecking inside.

• p. 3 quartzite hammers.

• q. Part of sandstone muller.

• r. Sandstone pallet, slightly concave on middle face.

• s. Not shown: Claws and phalanges, of the black bear, dog, and mountain
  lion. Also not shown, the following turquoise: 1 small, undrilled pendant,
  2 small discoidal beads; 6 blanks for beads; 7 fragments more or
  less worked, and 6 bits of matrix.

In addition:

2 bone and 1 slate discoidal beads; 2 olivellas, spires removed; 1 squash seed;
4 wild-grape seeds (Vitis arizonica); 1 unidentified seed fragment; and 1
spine of western locust (Robinia neomexicana).

Of more than passing interest in this assemblage are the digital
bones of the bear, dog, and mountain lion. As identified by H. Harold
Shamel, of the division of mammals, U. S. National Museum, the lot
includes:

• Black bear (Euarctos americanus):

  • 33 proximal phalanges.

  • 76 middle phalanges.

  • 4 claws.

  • 1 metacarpal.

  • 4 metatarsals.

  • 26 disunited digital extremities.

  • 7 carpal bones.

  • 27 sesamoids (a few possibly dog).

• Dog (Canis familiaris):

  • 3 proximal phalanges.

  • 4 middle phalanges.

  • 21 claws.

• Puma (Felis concolor):

  • 2 claws.

No distal phalanges are present and only four bear claws. Furthermore,
7 proximal and 26 middle phalanges are scored by flint knives.
In every case these marks lie on the body, somewhere between its
articular surfaces; in nearly every instance the cuts are approximately
at right angles to the long axis of the bone. Like scoring occurs on
one middle phalanx of the dog. No knife mark at all appears on five
bear middle phalanges with pronounced arthritic (?) accretions.

Among historic Pueblos, east and west, bears are prey animals and
thus associated with war. They are also associated with the west,
where dwell the dead. Bears are considered humans in animal form;
hence the universal Pueblo taboo against killing them for food. In
most villages bears are closely connected with curing societies (Parsons,
1939). Stevenson (1904, pls. 108, 127) shows bear paws on
altars of the Sword Swallower and Little Fire fraternities at Zuñi.
But these observations do not explain the presence of digital bones of
the bear in a sealed sacrificial offering.