HOPI INDIAN ARIZONA DECORATED POTTERY FROM SIKYATKI 1897 PRINT

When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

HOPI INDIAN ARIZONA DECORATED POTTERY FROM SIKYATKI 1897 PRINT:
$12.99

PL CXXII HOPI INDIANDECORATED POTTERY FROM SIKYATKIARIZONA1897

118 year old originalprint from Seventeenth Annual Report of theBureau of Ethnologyto the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution,1895-96,Washington Government PrintingOffice 1897 Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 By J. Walter Fewkes.

Each Print is stamp embossed with \" Western Reserve Cleveland Historical Society\" see photos.

Sizeof sheet: 11.5” X 7.5”.

\"EXCAVATED ROOM IN THE WESTERN MOUND OF AWATOBI

About an eighth of a mile west of the great mounds of Awatobi there is a small rectangular ruin, the ground plan of which is well marked, and in which individual houses are easy to trace. Like its larger neighbor, it stands on the very edge of the mesa. None of its walls rise above the surface of the mounds, which, however, are considerably elevated and readily distinguished for some distance. The pueblo was built in the form of a rectangle of single-story houses surrounding a plaza. There was an opening or entrance on the southern side, near which is a mound, possibly the remains of a kiva. A trail now passes directly through the ruin and down the mesa side to Jeditoh valley, probably the pathway by which the ancient inhabitants ascended the cliff. The Hopi Indians employed by me in excavating Awatobi had no name for this ruin and were not familiar with its existence before I pointed it out to them. For want of a better interpretation I have regarded it as a colony of old Awatobi, possibly of later construction.

Excavations in its mounds revealed no objects of interest, although fragments of beautiful pottery, related to that found at Awatobi and Sikyatki, show that it must have been made by people of the older or best epoch of Tusayan ceramics.

MORTUARY REMAINS

Although it is well known that the ancient inhabitants of the great houses of the Gila-Salado drainage buried some of their dead within their dwellings, or in other rooms, and that the same mortuary practice was observed in ancient Zuñi-Cibola, up to the time of my excavations this form of burial had never been found in Tusayan. I am now able to record that the same custom was practiced at Awatobi.

Excavation made in the southEastern declivity of the western mounds led to a burial chamber in which we found the well-preserved skeleton of an old man, apparently a priest. The body was laid on the floor, at full length, and at his head, which pointed southward, had been placed, not mortuary offerings of food in bowls, but insignia of his priestly office. Eight small objects of pottery were found on his left side (plate cxii, a, b, d, e). Among these was a symmetrical vase of beautiful red ware (plate cxi,.\"

Condition:Very clean sheet. See photos.