Hopi Large Humpback Pottery Canteen [SOLD]

Special Value Offer: We have been authorized to offer this at a 1/3rd price reduction from $3000 to $2000.

Photographs taken in the 19^th century, inside a kiva during preparation for the Snake Dance, clearly show large humpback canteens on the floor of the kiva.  It is not clear if such canteens had any relation to the writhing snakes on the floor of the kiva or not.  Perhaps the canteen was used to store water for bathing the snakes.  Those canteens appear to have been undecorated plain earth-color clay.

This black-on-red Hopi Large Humpback Pottery Canteen is of the same shape as those seen in kivas a century ago, but it is beautifully decorated.  The upper half is decorated and the lower half is not.  There are two loop handles and a spout just below the decorated section.  The spout has a slight upturn in shape.  The bottom of the canteen is rounded, not flat, most likely to facilitate embedding it into the dirt floor. 

The temptation, of course, is to contemplate that it was made by Annie Healing Nampeyo, because of the black-on-red style, however, there is no indication that it comes from any member of the Nampeyo family.  Garnet Pavatea, Sadie Adams and other potters also worked in black-on-red pottery.  There is no attempt to made an attribution on this, only to state that it is probably circa 1920s.

Condition: very good condition

Provenance: from a gentleman in Illinois

Recommended Reading: Contemporary Hopi Pottery by Laura Graves Allen