[Illustration: FIG. 7.—Decorated handled cup, Black Diamond Ranch. 5½
by 4 inches.]
Brief mention of ceramic objects found in the area considered in this
review is here introduced because they substantiate the evidences of
the buildings concerning the relationship of prehistoric people in
this neighborhood. Moreover, they add to our limited knowledge of the
arts in a little-known area. Very little has been recorded concerning
pottery from the ruins near Gallup, but the few known specimens do not
bear a sufficiently specialized symbolism to separate them from others
found in different geographical areas. Evidently no distinctive ceramic
area was developed in this region. Attention, however, may be called
to the fact that the symbols on pottery (fig. 7) represent the oldest
types, and that geometrical designs rather than conventional animal
figures predominate. The pottery suggests Zuñi ware, but is radically
different from modern Zuñi and has different symbols, showing, as far
as it goes, that settlements in which it occurs were made prior to the
development of modern Zuñi ceramic decorations which were influenced by
them. It has a likeness to old Zuñi ware, but has a closer resemblance
to fragments from the Crown Point Ruin, and the Chaco settlements,
which is significant.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.—Cooking pot, Black Diamond Ranch. 7½ by 6
inches.]
Perhaps the most exceptional specimens obtained during the author’s
trip are two large, black jars (fig. 8), their color recalling Santa
Clara ware. The decoration on these jars takes the form of designs on
a raised zigzag band meandering about their necks, similar to pottery
used by the Navaho Indians. The informant, a reliable white man, claims
they are not Navaho work, and showed the locality near a ruined ancient
wall where he excavated them. He also reports a portion of a human
skeleton found in the same neighborhood which affords good indication
that they were mortuary, while the position of the grave would show
that they were deposited by the same people who inhabited the room
near by. The question is pertinent, however, whether they were not a
modern secondary burial; but if we accept this theory it indicates an
unusual condition, for the Navaho seldom bury their pottery as mortuary
offerings.[13]
The author noticed, especially in his examination of the mounds near
Kit Carson Spring, certain foundation walls indicating small, circular,
buildings strung along in a row on the tops of ridges. One or two of
these suggest a round ruin near Zuñi, and seem to afford the missing
link in the prehistoric chain of settlements connecting the great
Chaco ruins[14] with some of those in Zuñi valley. These important
similarities are supported by the traditions of the Zuñi that some of
their ancestors once inhabited the buildings on the Chaco; and the fact
that certain ruins, among them Kintiel, north of Navaho Springs, are
definitely claimed by the Zuñi to have been inhabited by their Corn
clan.
[Illustration: FIG. 9.—Decorative food bowl, Black Diamond Ranch. 7 by
3 inches.]
The black and white pottery, found about Gallup, is identical with
that of the latter ruin, and very similar to that generally found in
the earliest epoch of pueblo occupancy. As pointed out in an article
on Zuñi pottery, in the “Putnam Anniversary Volume,” modern Zuñi
pottery is so different from the ancient that we can hardly regard
it as evolved from it. The same is true among the Hopi; the modern
pottery decoration is not like the old, but is Tewa. Hopi-Tewa pottery
is largely the work of Nampeo, who once decorated her pottery solely
with Tewa symbols instead of old Hopi. In 1895 she abandoned the Tewa
symbols of her people to meet a demand for old pottery and substituted
for Tewa designs copies of ancient Hopi pottery from Sikyatki. Thus
there have been two radical changes in the style of Hopi pottery since
1710; one the substitution of Tewa designs for old Hopi, the other
a return to Sikyatki motifs within the last 20 years. This modern
innovation, however, has not been derived from the ancient by any
evolution, but by acculturation. Possibly a similar change has taken
place at Zuñi, calling for caution in supposing that pottery found in
the refuse heaps is necessarily evolved from that preexisting or found
in strata below it.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.—Decorated handled cup, Black Diamond Ranch. 6⅜
by 5¼ inches.]
The author has seen no evidence that would lead him to abandon the
theory, that the Zuñi valley was once peopled by clans related to those
on Little Colorado derived from the Gila, and that other clans drifted
into the valley from the north at a later date. These later additions
were from the circular ruin belt. Later came Tewa clans as the Asa of
the Hopi, and others. The author finds more evidences of acculturation
than autochthonous evolution in modern Zuñi, as in modern Hopi ceramic
symbols. Pottery (figs. 9, 10) found in ruins about Gallup belongs
to the same type as that from Kintiel which Cushing, from legendary
evidences, found to have been settled by Zuñi clans.[15]