Page:The Pima Indians.pdf/141

136 the patterns long ago from the Hohokam pottery." While these statements are true in the main, some of the elements will be seen to be of wide distribution and some are peculiar to the Pacific coast. There are three common designs: Those embodying the fret, the equal-armed cross, and the spiral. Nearly all that do not represent these directly are more or less evident modifications of them. The fret, which the Pimas probably with truth called the oldest motive, leads almost directly into the swastika and suavastika pattern, as shown in the illustrations. The flower design based upon the cross is apparently the same as that on the necks of water jars made by the Hohokam, and such vessels are similarly decorated to the present day by both Pimas and Papagos. On the pottery the design is laid upon a convex surface, while in the baskets it is worked upon the interior, or concave, side. The elements of the design are, first, a series of four radiating arms of black separating the petal-like areas which are usually in the shape of spherical triangles. The second element is a series of encircling lines that lie parallel to the radiating bars and follow their outline entirely around the basket, having also rectangular enlargements where they change direction to cross the ends of the bars or to follow along their sides. It is just such a design as might easily originate in pottery decoration where a complete line may be traced continuously, but it is not one that can be easily explained if it is assumed that it originated in basketry, especially when it is remembered that these people prepare no pattern whatever beforehand, but develop the designs upon the baskets as previously conceived in the mind.

The volute, or whorl, is a common motive in primitive art, and is especially frequent in Southwestern basketry. As the angular weaving necessitates irregularities in the lines of curvature, they are not infrequently modified by terrace-like enlargements. Terraces are used in combination with nearly all the other elements known to the basket maker.

It will be observed that the decoration of Pima baskets is in black on a white ground for the most part, yet the proportions vary greatly. Brown, and more rarely some other color, may be seen in perhaps one basket in a thousand. Occasionally a basket is made with a dozen or more blue glass beads fastened on the border at equal intervals by weft splints passing through them. Rarely, work or trinket baskets are made to sell that have open spaces in their sides.

The fret is a common motive in Pima basketry. In the small—and usually badly made—baskets it is commonly single and of uniform width. In the first of our series (pl., a) it appears as a double line with five folds. Had there been but four the effect of the whole