Squash-Blossom Headdress in Basket Maker III

Extract

Notations on the discovery of a figure of Kokopelli, the hunch-backed flute player, on a Pueblo I sherd in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, and speculations on the place of this figure in the prehistoric pantheon, brought forth a series of items of hitherto unpublished and illuminating data. It is hoped that this note on a second find of a human figure on a sherd in Chaco Canyon may likewise lead to some controversy and new information.

This new figure, discovered during the 1937 field season of the University of New Mexico, was that of a woman with squash-blossom headdress, the old fertility symbol of the Hopi maidens. The potsherd was of La Plata Black-on-white, a typical Basket Maker III type, dating probably some time before 700 A.D. Similar figures with the squash-blossom headdress have been noted from time to time as petroglyphs on boulders or on cliff walls in the northern part of the Southwest; but the Chaco sherd provides the best opportunity that I know of for dating this interesting coiffure.