The Pima Indians/Esthetic arts/Ornamentation
ESTHETIC ARTS
Ornamentation
We have seen that the Pimas, by means of paint, tattooing, and ornaments, had developed the art of personal decoration to a considerable extent. When we examine their implements and weapons it soon becomes evident that their taste for ornamentation was more rudimentary. Indeed, their desire for embellishment seldom reached expression in carving: it was confined chiefly to painting, as in the ease of shields, or to the smooth finish given to their bows. Painting upon shields, cradle hoods, kiâhâs, and tobacco pouches was of a crude sort and manifestly inferior to that upon the person. The moderately smooth finish given to all weapons, to trays, ladles, pottery paddles, fire-drills, awls, pestles, axes, basketry, and some pottery was of course based upon utilitarian motives, though the gratification of esthetic needs must have been subsidiary thereto and concomitantly developed. That the desire for embellishment was less consciously felt is evident from the fact that the other articles made by the Pimas that may be equally effective, when smoothness and symmetry are lacking are coarse and rough. The metate, for example, is unhewn and angular except upon the grinding surface and presents a striking contrast to the symmetrical metates of the Hohokam. Not only do the Pimas not give a pleasing finish to all artifacts, but they exhibit so dull an esthetic sense in their treatment of the beautiful polished axes that they find about the ruins that we are moved alike by pity and indignation. There are tons of stones within easy reach of the villages suitable for roughening the grinding surfaces of metates, yet the Pimas take the axes that are almost perfect in symmetry and polish and batter them into shapeless masses for the purpose. To the writer this affords an argument stronger than all the surmises of the early Spanish writers to the contrary that the Pimas are not the descendants of the Hohokam. Furthermore, the poverty of design and the absence of symbolism are a very strong indication of relationship with the California tribes rather than with the Pueblos.
One of the most striking examples of the poverty of esthetic resource among the Pimas is seen in their textiles. The wonderful possibilities of this art were almost unknown. True, after the whites brought bayeta to them their weavers produced a very creditable belt by closely copying the ornamentation from the Hohokam relics and from their southern congeners. But the principal pieces, the blankets, the weaving of which kept the art of making textile fabrics alive, were ornamented with nothing more elaborate than a dingy border of doubled selvage threads. After the red thread was imported we find scant trace of it in the blankets. However, we must credit the Pimas with the rudimentary esthetic sense that found expression in the smoothness and evenness of weaving in these plain white blankets.
The arts of basketry and pottery making do not furnish much evidence of a well-developed esthetic sense in the Pimas. The former art is recent and borrowed; at best it is in a mediocre state. If the baskets of the Pimas are compared with those of the Yavapais (pl. XXXIII, a, b, c, d), who have also begun to use similar motives very recently, we see that the latter tribe manifests superior taste. The Yavapai baskets were the only ones at the Fort McDowell camps at the time of the writer's visit, so that they were certainly not selected specimens, whereas the Pima baskets, and particularly the upright forms, which the writer did not collect himself, were better than the average Pima product. The Yavapai baskets command just double the price in the open market that is paid for Pima baskets of equal size. The principle of rhythm is well understood by the Pima basket makers, as the illustrations show. Both the simple elements, such as the so-called coyote tracks, or plain triangles, and the more complex, such as the flower pattern, or the scroll fret, are frequently repeated. But the principle of symmetry is not so well developed and it is rare that a basket exhibits it. The specimen in figure 62 shows that its maker possessed this faculty.
It is rare that the descent of pottery making from basketry is reversed, but among the Pimas this is true to some extent; that is, the basketry designs are in part copied from the pottery of the Hohokam. In part they were adopted from the Maricopas. The pottery designs likewise are copied, so that the credit due to the Pima decorators is reduced to a minimum. Their wares are mostly unornamented, as we have seen, and the decorations that are used are applied with indifferent taste. Though they have abundant examples of fictile ware scattered over their fields, much of which is embellished by indented coils, they seem never to have conceived the idea of utilizing this simple though effective form of ornamentation. The pottery illustrated in this memoir is rather better than the average Pima ware. The Kwahadkʼ pottery, while superior to the Piman, is yet lacking in symmetry. It is pleasing by reason of the rich brown color and the polish that almost equals a glaze, but the ornamentation is crude and vastly inferior to that of the ancient Hohokam.
We can not explain the inferiority of Piman ornamentation by saying that the Pimas had degenerated because they were harried by the Apaches and Yumas until they had no energy or inclination left for indulging their esthetic tastes, for this is not true. They whipped the Yumas until the latter were ready to accept peace upon any terms, as appears from the calendar records, which are well authenticated by white testimony. They kept the Apaches in wholesome fear of their clubs and arrows and made frequent raids into the enemy's territory. They never hesitated to attack the Apaches in equal numbers and fight hand to hand. In short, they were not the degenerates that some have considered them, an error that the records of Pima scouts accompanying the United States army in Apache campaigns would do much to dispel.[1] Their backwardness can not be explained by their environment, because the same surroundings produced the superior culture of the Hohokam, which there is no reason to believe was not indigenous. It may be surmised that the Pimas would have accomplished more in recent years in the art of ornamentation if they had adopted the curved knife that has become so widespread among other American Indians since the advent of the whites. A full discussion of the factors that have influenced their culture would better be deferred until after an examination of the evidence furnished by social organization (which through the absence of totemism has not directly influenced their art), by history, and by religion.
- ↑ Early accounts of the Pimas uniformly testify to their ability to fight their enemies. They "have ever been numerous and brave." wrote Garcés a century and a quarter ago (Schoolcraft, III, 299), and in 1859 Mowry declared, "The Pimas and Apaches wage hereditary and fierce war, in which the Pimas are generally the victors." Arizona and Sonora, third edition, p. 30.