Page:The Pima Indians.pdf/129

124

As a tribe the Pimas are not skillful potters. Their work is decidedly inferior to that of the Kwahadkʽs, which in turn appears to be improving as a result of a moderm demand for it. It is probable that the best potters among the Pimas are of Kwahadkʽ descent, or have learned the art from that tribe. A great part of the Pima ceramic ware is plain and undecorated. The cooling ollas in which water is kept about their homes are the only vessels that are generally decorated. The potters aver that the designs are copied from the Hohokam potsherds that bestrew the mesas and that the symbolism is absolutely unknown to them. Furthermore, many of the smaller decorated pieces are traded from both the Kwahadkʽs and the Papagos, the. latter bringing them filled with cactus sirup to exchange for grain. The vessels here illustrated were made by Sala Hina (fig. 51), one of the best potters on the Gila.

The common ware that is intended to be subjected to heat is generally made from clay obtained among the Skâsŏwalĭk hills, which lie on the southern border of the Gila River reservation. The material is a dry granular clay combined with quartz pebbles and feldspathic detritus. The place where it occurs looks much more like a stone quarry than like a clay pit (pl., a). Indeed, a great part of the mass is sharp, angular stone, which must be winnowed out by hand in the shallow baskets.