Hopi Decorated Piki Bowl [SOLD]

Generally, Hopi *piki bowls are not decorated, either on the interior or exterior.  They are strictly utilitarian and used to hold the liquid blue corn mixture from which piki bread is made.  This one, however, was decorated on the interior with a design that is faint but looks like it might have been an eagle.  Most of the design is worn off so it is difficult to determine what it might have been. This is an excellent historic example of a true ethnological item of Hopi material culture.

Condition:  this pottery bowl has been used extensively, probably for making piki bread.  There is a vertical crack from the rim down one section of the wall, which has been professionally stabilized but not concealed.  Significant wear on the inside of the bowl from constant use.

Provenance: from the estate of Hilda Street of former The Streets of Taos Gallery in Santa Fe

*Note: Piki (or piki bread) is rolled bread made by the Hopi with nixtamalized corn meal. Blue corn and culinary ash give it a dark grayish-blue color. The light, thin sheets are dry to the point of brittleness and have a delicate corn flavor. It is considered the Hopi version of the tortilla.