Zuni Terrace Rim Bowl [SOLD]

It is known that all ceremonial vessels are fabricated and decorated with intentional emblematic characteristics. Both form and ornamentation are significant. In explaining how the form of this vessel is held to be symbolic, it is best to quote from a passage published in the Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, in 1882: “Is not the bowl the emblem of the earth, our mother? For from her we draw both food and drink, as a babe draws nourishment from the breast of its mother; and round, as is the rim of a bowl, so is the horizon, terraced with mountains whence rise the clouds.”

The terraces on the four sides of the bowl are in representation of the ancient sacred place of the spaces and of the clouds hovering over the mountains.

To continue the quotation from the BAE, “Now the decorations are a trifle more complex. We may readily perceive that they represent tadpoles, dragonflies, with also the frog or toad; all this is of easy interpretation. As the tadpole frequents the pools of spring time he has been adopted as the symbol of spring rains; the dragonfly hovers over pools in summer, hence typifies the rains of summer; and the frog, maturing in them later, symbolizes the rains of the later seasons; for all these pools are due to rain fall.”

This terrace-rim bowl has a hemispherical lower body entering into a rim that is somewhat concave and slightly inset from the lower body. The rim is comprised of four sections each of which is comprised of three rounded protrusions representing clouds. Between these four areas are flat rim sections representing the horizon.

The exterior decoration consists of a frog, two dragonflies, and two tadpoles at each of the terrace rims. Rain clouds are pendant from the flat rim sections. The interior decoration is similar, except that tadpoles are pendant from the flat rim sections.

The bowl is in excellent condition, evidencing standard wear for a bowl of this style. Three of the finger-like pendants have been professionally repaired, with no other repair or restoration evidenced.

Provenance: Purchased by Alexander E. Anthony, Jr. on November 6, 1993 and has been in his personal collection ever since.