A Portfolio of Hohokam Life Forms in the Norton Allen Collection

Abstract

A Portfolio of Hohokam Life Forms in the Norton Allen Collection Mike Jacobs The vast majority of Hohokam painted pottery is decorated with a profusion of geometric designs, both curvilinear and rectilinear. Less common are depictions of humans and animals, with recognizable depictions of plants being almost unknown. Presented here are most of the whole vessels from the Norton Allen Collection showing life forms, and a selection of sherds that show other variations. Many closely resemble the depictions found at Snaketown, and it is quite possible that some of the pots found in Gila Bend sites were traded into the area from Snaketown or other sites in the Phoenix Basin. Mike Jacobs is archaeological collections curator at the Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, Tucson. Journal of the Southwest 52, 2 and 3 (Summer-Autumn 2010) : 255–276 256 ✜ Journal of the Southwest Figure 1. Santa Cruz Red-on-buff flare-rim bowl with human forms, c. ad 850–950. This large flare-rim bowl has an offset quartered layout where the quadrants depict lines of four or five hand-in-hand figures, the end figures each holding a wandlike device. The central motif depicts a line of five handin -hand figures, the end figures likewise holding wandlike devices. About 60 percent of this bowl was restored by Norton Allen, but the original fabric conforms to typical Middle Gila Buff Ware paste and temper. Documentation in the Norton Allen Collection archives indicates that Allen obtained it through trade with another collector. That the decoration on this bowl depicts a moment in a Hohokam ceremony surely cannot be doubted. The decoration probably depicts lines of choristers holding batons or wands, perhaps tipped with feathers, not unlike those described by Julian D. Hayden for the vikita of the Tohono O’odham (Hayden 1987). The vikita has been described as a harvest or world-renewal ceremony, once conducted at yearly intervals by the southern Tohono O’odham and at four-year intervals by the northern Tohono O’odham (Fontana 1987:259). But the antiquity of the vikita is unclear. No account of it is known from the Hispanic period; the earliest references are from the mid-nineteenth century from calendar sticks kept by the Tohono O’odham (Fontana 1987:260). That it could be an evolved version of a prehistoric Hohokam ceremony is possible but probably not susceptible of proof. ASM cat. no. 97-194-152, Cashion Site, height 12.2 cm, diameter 28.5 cm. (Photograph by Jannelle Weakly, ASM 2010-50-image11) Published