Page:The Pima Indians.pdf/142

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RUSSELL]
ARTIFACTS
137

would have suggested the swastika. The large basket, b, has three parallel lines, a larger number of folds, and an unusually large center of unrelieved black. Baskets c, d, and e exhibit slight modifications of the fret, in c the parts of the inner circle being four in number and in e five. The design in f is a fret of four folds, and the fret is the principal motive also in some of the upright baskets shown in plates XXIX and XXX. Basket g shows an equal-armed cross in white and a series of four broken lines that pass, in the form of a whorl, from near the center to the margin after each taking one and a half turns around the basket. Basket h combines the fret and whorl, there being seven radiating lines that reach the margin after half a turn each.

In plate XXIII, a, is shown a rare form—a flat disk, ornamented with a whorl of six broken lines, an intermediate form between the fret and the whorl. In b there is an unusual treatment of the dark center, elsewhere invariably a solid disk of black. It looks as if the maker had changed the design after starting the six rather irregular bars of black from the center. In c the six radiating lines advance toward the periphery by the interpolation of an independent motive that will be seen later in upright shapes. Baskets d and e are ornamented with five pairs of whorled lines that contain squares of black, which may also be regarded as an independent motive. In f the number 5 again reappears and also the simple motive of e, but this time in white on a black ground. This is called by some the "coyote track." It is well shown in plates XXIX and XXX.

Plate XXIV, a, illustrates a combination of the broken whorled lines of the preceding plate with a pattern obtained by the children at school in an early stage of their instruction in drawing. At the margin is the diamond pattern that has the effect of netting. In b, although the lines do not radiate from the center, they have something of the whorled effect, and they unite with the fret of the preceding illustrations a new element—the terrace—which is so common on the ancient pottery of Arizona. The parts are in five, there being two reduplications of the unit in the outer row to one in the inner. In e the parts are again in six. The central portion is difficult to analyze, but the outer repeats the terrace, together with a fret that by its breadth of line at the center suggests the form of the cross known as the swastika. Basket d has the fret combined with the terrace, being similar to the first basket in the last figure. The parts of the design in this plate are in four, five, and six.

Plate XXV, a, depicts a form of equal-armed cross that we shall later see passes into another type of design that is complicated, yet pleasing, namely, the flower pattern. Baskets with the design shown in a are quite common. In b the attenuated arms may be likened to the limbs of some giant spider. They will seem to be nearly the reverse of the white arms of the design in basket c. Basket d represents a