Diné (Navajo) Pottery Drum Jar [SOLD]

Rose Williams, born in 1915, is a living treasure of the Shonto/Cow Springs area of the Navajo Reservation who has taught successive generations the Navajo tradition of pottery making—among them Faye Tso, Silas Claw, Louise Goodman, and Lorena Bartlett.  Her children, Alice Cling, Sue Ann Williams, and Susie Williams Crank, and her daughter-in-law, Lorraine Williams, are all recognized potters.

The Navajo Way is one of close-knit extended families sharing common Clan relationships based on matrilineal descent.  Some clans have become known for particular skills.  The Lók'aa'dine'é Clan (Reed People) in the Shonto/Cow Springs area has long been recognized for its pottery making, and many of the present-day potters or their spouses—Silas Claw, Faye Tso, Rose Williams, and Alice Cling—are members of this clan.

This pottery jar is typical of the vessel shape made for use as a drum.  A skin will be placed over the top and secured below the rim.  When wet, the skin tightens and is suitable for use as a drum.  The semicircular bead of design below the rim, called a biuó, has a break in its continuity.  The break, similar to the break in a Navajo basket, is called atiin (the way out). 

This break in the pottery design (see example below) and in the basket design is based on a Diné taboo.  As explained by Mae Adson, a relative of Rose Williams, “The coils shouldn’t come together.  That opening is for life.  If you make it come together it might shorten your life.”

Rose Williams has been known as one of the finest of the older generation of Navajo potters.  If she is still living, and we have not been able to make that determination, she would be 98 years old and probably no longer making pottery.

Condition: original condition.

Provenance: from the personal collection of Chuck and Jan Rosenak, collectors and authors of books on Navajo folk art.

Reference:  "Navajo Pottery: Potters and their Work" by H. Diane Wright and Jan Bell, in PLATEAU, magazine of the Museum of Northern Arizona.  Volume 58, Number 2. 1987.

Recommended Reading: The People Speak: Navajo Folk Art by Chuck and Jan Rosenak