MEMORANDA ON THE DESTROYED ACADEMY COLLECTION

The Mohave ethnological collection which was destroyed by fire at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco in 1906 consisted of 67 items, according to a record preserved in my notebook 7. Of these 67, 32 were pottery vessels and 12 were ceramic ancillaries. The latter consisted of four paddles, three pebbles used as anvils, yellow pigment, two samples of potter's clay, one of clay pounded small, and a sample of fine-crushed rock for tempering.

The vessels comprised:

11 bowls, one of them of kwÁ?ki shape; mostly listed by me as "dishes"; they may include some platters

3 bowllike vessels, listed as: "kwÁ?ki, small pot"; "suyÍre, round dish"; "tŠemÁtŠive, pot with designs inside and out"

1 "dish, corrugated outside"

9 spoons

1 fire-blackened pot

1 cup, named as "kwÁ?ki aha-suraitŠi"

1 jar, "hÁpurui, water jug"

2 seed jars, described as: "25, water jug, wheat jar, aha-tŠe-kemauvitŠe, in halves, rejoined with mesquite gum"; and "39, jar, top sealed with mesquite gum; contains melon seeds for roasting and pounding; to take them out, the mouth of the jar is set on hot coals"

2 parchers, double-ended

1 jar with rope handle (canteen like pl. 6, h? or a water jar carried by a rope around its neck?)

I do not know whether in 1900 I meant the same by jar, jug, pot as now. My "dish" of then may have included some platters as well as bowls. I was not using the term "bowl"; and "pot" seems to have designated sometimes a cook pot or olla, sometimes simply any open pottery vessel, including bowls. Nor can I imagine now what I may have meant by the "corrugation" on a dish. A cup is mentioned, but called a special kind of kwÁ?ki. If the "hÁpurui, water jug" was handled, it would show that handled jugs were called by the same name as widemouthed jars, hÁpurui. The two seed jars were evidently of the small-necked and small-mouthed type discussed in connection with the Chemehuevi seed jar no. 13875.

The design names obtained in 1900 were:

Fish bones, fish back, usually written atci?tatr (= atŠita?): on four spoons and one "dish."

Spider, haldÂda (for halytÔ?a), on one "pot." I sketched the core of the pattern: an hourglass figure (meeting angles) with double lines from the corners.

Cottonwood leaf, on three spoons and the jar with rope handle

MatitŠiav leaf (a bush growing away from river), on one spoon

Turtle (viz., carapace markings), on one spoon

Hotaxpam, on the tŠemÁtŠive "pot," also on one spoon; described as a red X painted below the eyes by women; hotaxpave, halter, the cross-strap being near the horse's eye

Kari hanyÓra, "basket pattern," on the outside of a dish

Rain, kovau, on two dish-pots; on the outside in at least one

Rainbow, kwalisei, on the outside of two "dishes" and one spoon. I think these are simply stripes or parallel lines on the under side. Rainbow occurs also as a design on women's wooden dice, and as a face paint.

Fishnet, once on the outside of a "dish"

Melon markings, kamÍto hanyÓra, on one of the seed-water jars

Clouds were given as the name of the "corrugations" on dish no. 46. I evidently asked a foolish question.

Handbook of California Indians (fig. 64, p. 738) shows a typical bowl and spoon from this Academy collection, which I had drawn before their destruction. The bowl pattern is outside, consists of heavy stripes and thin lines, and was called "rain." The spoon pattern was probably on the inside, was called "fish backbone," and is similar to that of plate 4,f, k, s.