On “Two Ethnographic Functions of Bird-Form Pottery in Oaxaca”

Extract

In the October 1974, issue of American Antiquity (39:616–17) Dudley M. Varner contributes a note on “Two Ethnographic Functions of Bird-Form Pottery from Oaxaca, Mexico.” He notes, without citing evidence, the archaeological occurrence of similar forms from the southern half of North America. The example illustrated was purchased in Yalalag, Oaxaca, and he cites two Zapotec informants from the same village about the functions of this form among the neighboring Mixe who made it. One function is that the handle remains cool when the toe of the vessel is pushed into the coals of a fire. The second he cites is that three such vessels provide a support for the comal or ceramic cooking griddle and says that knobs or ridges on the toe-end of many Oaxaca shoe forms were specifically designed for this purpose.