Ashiwi Polychrome Water Jar

Item number 03.325.4739 from the Brooklyn Museum.

Public

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Description

This water jar was purchased from the trader Vanderwagon in 1903. This is an example of Ashiwi Polychrome, a style that is ancestral to Zuni Polychrome. The upper portion of the vessel is decorated with a diagonal sweep of red and black feathers alternating with geometic designs.

Credit Line

Museum Expedition 1903, Museum Collection Fund

Label

Stewart Culin, the Brooklyn Museum's first ethnological curator, collected this eighteenth-century example of Zuni pottery in 1903. It was one the twelve pots originally deposited in the Zuni Siathosa shrine, but all were removed and the in the hands of various dealers or collectors when Culin visited the Southwest. It is painted in a style known as Ashiwi Polychrome. The diagonal sweeping of red and black feathers alternating with geometric designs is a forerunner of geometric designs that are used by Zuni potters today.