- The mouth is 9.0-inches wide;
- the incurved rim is about 0.75-inches wide.
This bowl is particularly large, a kachina butterfly dancer with a serious mien is its only interior decoration. The image is striking, giving the pot an impressive visual presence. The bowl is unsigned. It has a direct, folk-art appearance which I find enormously attractive.
Form:
The puki-formed bottom of the bowl is only slightly thicker than the sides. The central 2-inch section of the bottom of bowl is flat; the pot sits level on this surface. The sides of the bowl then curve outward for 5.5-inches to its maximum width and then curve inward 2-inches to the mouth.Two 0.5-inch lugs are placed at the 3:00 and 9:00 o’clock positions so the pot could be hung by a cord. The bowl was slipped before polishing; broad striations left by the polishing stone are visible, particularly on the exterior. The bowl fired with an even dark gold blush with the major exception of one large lighter patch on one side below the exterior design.
Design:
Except for two red elements interior to the bowl and two exterior red elements, all of the design on the bowl is black.
Interior Design:
The butterfly dancer is 9.75-inches high with a wingspan of 8.0-inches. The 1.75-inch round face is toped by four feathers with unpainted shafts and black triangular tips. From his left ear (viewer’s perspective) projects an unpainted horn enclosing a wiggly line. His right ear is depicted as a half-inch square filled with a large X. The face is also marked with a large X formed from parallel lines and dividing the face into four wedges. Floating in the center of the left and right segments are small rectangular eyes. A horizontal wiggly line fills the lower segment of the face, creating a mouth.
The core of the body of the butterfly is a fan-shaped with a linear edge. Internally it is divided into four segments delineated by parallel lines forming “highways.” The top segment is largely unpainted but incorporates a black squared-off “U” shape, the residual unpainted center is blade-shaped. The segment below features three additional blades. These are somewhat narrower and more pointed that the blade above them. Intruding from the two-lane highway above, each blade contIns a set of three parallel, short, lines.. This segment features foreground/background reversal, and thus can be seen as a 4-pointed black “W” projecting into an unpainted space. The third segment contains three vertical, unpainted, rectangles, the center rectangle larger than its flanking pair. Internal to the central rectangle are vertical parallel lines forming a 4-lane highway. Floating at the center of the flanking rectangles are sets of four short horizontal lines. The lowest segment of the core consists of four feathers with unpainted blade-shaped shafts and fin-like pointed tips. A one-lane highway separates the feathers into two sets. Within each set the curved edge of the unpainted blades face toward the outer edge of the design.
All of the edges of the wings are curved. Internally the wings are divided into three stacked bands of design. The top band consists of a long black arch that is thin at its ends and thickens towards its middle and runs from the neck to the wing tips. Below is a large, unpainted space in the form of a hill. The central band of design has a more complex set of elements. The segment closest to the body displays a large unpainted blade, edged on three sides by a black U-shaped element. Alternatively this segment can be seen as a black U set into an unpainted space. The next segment is a 4-lane highway, but the first lane is disproportionally-wide compared to the remaining 3 lanes. The last segment is largely unpainted but at its center is an arrow with an unpainted shaft topped with a black triangular head.
The lowest band of design has a simple format consisting of two inverted hills of design. Each hill is edged by black arches that are thin at their edges and thicken towards their middle. The central arch is skewed towards the body core; the arch toward the wing tips is flatter and wider. While this lower band of design is conceptually the same for both wings, the implementation of the design is different. On both wings the area under central arch is painted red, the only non-black element displayed by the butterfly dancer. On both wings the area under the arch toward the wing tips is filled with 11 or 12 parallel lines. On the left wing this space is bell-shaped and symmetrical. However on the right wing the red element so wide that it constrains the trajectory of the second arch. As a result, under this second arch the space filled with parallel lines is not symmetrical; its right tip is truncated.
Exterior Design:
A 1.75-inch-wide exterior band of design encircles the pot above the pot’s waist, leaving just a 0.4375 unpainted space around the rim. This design is interrupted by the two lugs, creating two bands of elements. The upper band has 5 sections of design delineated by four sets of three parallel lines (“two-lane highways”). The lower band incorporates 6 sections of design separated by five two-lane highways. Typically opposing bands of design on pottery from Hopi incorporate the same sequence of design elements. Unusually that is not the case here: the two bands share only one pattern of design; the other 9 sections of design are unique.
As noted above, the band of design above the lugs has 5 sections of elements, but the two sections above the left wing have coordinated frameworks and can be seen as one pattern. An unpainted oval is framed by black residual space. Inside this oval are two pairs of isosceles triangles, the base of each pair set on a two-lane highway so that the pairs face in opposite directions. The interiors of the four triangles are stippled. The third segment of design features a pair of unpainted arrows pointing to the right. The base of each arrow is notched by a black hill looking a bit like a gumdrop. Foreground/background reversal allows this segment to be seen as a “W” of black points, the central point an elongated isosceles triangle flanked by similarly elongated right triangles, their tips linked by those black gumdrops. The fourth segment is substantially black with unpainted design elements. From the upper right to the lower left is an unevenly-formed unpainted diagonal with a single line at its center (a “two-lane highway”). Both the upper and lower quadrants of this segment feature unpainted equilateral triangles, the upper triangle somewhat larger than its twin. The final segment in this band has a somewhat more-complicated form. Based on the two-lane highway is a right triangle with a curved hypotenuse. Set unto this curve is a large red comb forming the base of two feathers with black, rounded, tips. In the gap between the feathers is a parallel black line.
As noted above, the band of design below the lugs has 6 sections of elements. Below the left wing the first segment are three triangles pointing toward the unpainted space beyond the design. The central triangle is an elongated isosceles triangle; those flanking right triangles. Foreground/background reversal creates two unpainted isosceles triangles pointing into the band of design. The second segments is best seen as black interrupted by two large unpainted hills piled vertically. Interior to these hills is a sequence of 4 or 5 black dots. The next segment is a repeat of segment 4 in the upper band: an unpainted diagonal two-lane highway flanked by unpainted equilateral triangles. The fourth segment is the only red design in this band of elements. The right end of the design is square and fills the entire space; extending from the lower quadrant of this square is a black arch to the far lower corner of the space. The space below this arc is also red so the design somewhat looks like a knife blade with a square handle. Two renditions of this design are drawn in this segment, one above the other. The fifth segment in this band has a fairly complex design. A large black right triangle is fit into the upper right corner of the space, its curved hypotenuse running from the upper-left to the lower-right corners of the segment. At the center of this black triangle is a small equilateral triangle. Based on a two-lane highway to the left, and extending into the unpainted space below the curved hypotenuse, are three additional triangles. The top triangle is isosceles, the middle triangle also isosceles but elongated and the bottom triangle a right triangle that extends across the space into the lower right corner. Foreground/background reversal creates an unpainted form with one curved edge parallel to an edge with three triangular points. The sixth and final design segment contains a stippled element in the shape of an elegant “W.” The top and bottom segments of the element are versions of the knife-blade-like form we saw in segment 4 of this band, their curved edges facing each other. Between them rises a tall and thin isosceles triangle, its sides also curved. All three elements are the same height and terminate in unpainted space. Background/foreground reversal creates two, thin, curved and unpainted sword blades pointing back towards the band of design.
Design Analysis:
The dark rectangular eyes and the clenched wiggly mouth create a serious face. The asymmetric headdress adds energy to the design. Notice that the arch forming the top edge of the wings is paired with two similar but shorter archs forming the bottom edge of the wings. I assume that the top edge of the wings was drawn first with the wing elements added below having to conform to this pattern. As noted above, the representation of the set of parallel lines on the left wing is bell-shaped and symmetrical. However, because the artist painted the red element on the right wing a bit wide, its ajoining space with the parallel lines needed to be truncated. This “error” of painting throws the design of the butterfly dancer off-balance and probably inadvertently gives the design additional energy.
While only one design segment is repeated between the upper and lower external bands, the creator of this bowl frequently repeated design motifs. The small “X” forming the dancer’s right ear visually links to the larger “X” on the neighboring face. Lobed blades are the first design on both the body core and the wings, creating a sort of bib around the butterfly’s neck. The second segment of the body repeats this lobed-blade theme, further visually linking the wings to the body. Edged blades (with one edge straight and one curved) appear in the last segment of the butterfly’s body and the fourth and sixth segments of the lower external band of design. The motif of three triangles appears in the first and fifth segments of the lower external band of design. Foreground/background reversal is used 2 times on the internal design and 4 times on the external design to energize the painting. These design strategies integrate the bowl’s design.
The use of color is sparse: two elements of design on the interior and two elements of design on the exterior are painted red. Stippling is used to decorated the joint design that forms the first two segments on the upper exterior band and the last segment of the lower band. The interior black paint is dense and solid; the exterior black paint is substantially worn in places, perhaps from handling.
Fewkes writes that a defining “X” on the head of a butterfly indicates the female gender, but this must be understood as only a suggestion (1973:54-56, 152, and 175). I asked Joseph Day, a friend and an authority on katchinas, to help me identify the butterfly dancer. He replied:
“The face is an unidentifiable katsina face which may be a composite of Wupa Ala/long horn katsina with that long horn on one side and the ear on the other and another katsina.”
—Joseph Day, personal communication 6-24-24
Barton Wright, in his book A Hopi Artist’s Documentary with Cliff Bahnimptewa (1973:116), identifies Wupa-ala with Colton ID number of 96 and writes:
“Very little is known of the Hopi Long-Horned Kachina except that it usually appears in the Mixed Kachina Dance. He seems to appear frequently on First Mesa…Presumably he is pattered after the Zuni Sai-astasana (kachina), which has a similar headdress (Colton ID154).”
The Saiastasana kachina decorates shard tile 2016-04 in this collection.
For a somewhat smaller bowl that was likely made by the same potter, see 2009-09. Both bowls have lugs and share some similar abstract design motifs. Both have katchina-like dancers as their only internal designs. To my eyes the sensibility of these dancing beings is identical. Faintly written on the bottom of the smaller bowl are the words “Hand Made In Arizona” and the date “1941.” Based on this notation, I assume that bowl 2024-06 probably dates from the 1940’s also.
Seeing one bowl instantly brings to mind the other bowl: both are great examples of American folk art.
