These two vessels, the Ceramic Bowl Reproduction with Geometric Design and the Ceramic Bowl Reproduction with Fish and Geometric Designs, are accurate reproductions of two vessels that were made by the ancient Native American cultures known as the Mimbres, a sub-culture of the Mogollon of the American Southwest.  The Mimbres are well-known for their finely crafted, hemispherical bowls; while some Mimbres vessels were red, yellow, or orange, most are painted white with black designs. Early vessel motifs were simple and geometric, with hatching or cross-hatching that fills the geometric shapes, but later designs became more complex and often incorporate simplified depictions of humans or more elaborate depictions of animals, with a considerable variety of fish motifs.

 

Well-preserved Mimbres vessels with little or no signs of wear are believed to have served exclusively as funerary objects. The Mimbres buried their dead under the floors of their houses, with these vessels placed over or sometimes beside the head of the deceased. The bowls placed over the faces of the deceased were virtually always “killed” by punching a hole through the bottom of the vessel; the vessel is believed to have symbolized the sky or the barrier that separates the physical and the spiritual world, and scholars believe that the punching of a “kill hole” allowed the spirit of the deceased to traverse into the afterlife.

 

 

 

 

For more information, you may contact the researcher(s) noted in the title of this exhibit entry, or Dr. Billie Follensbee, the professor of the course, at BillieFollensbee@MissouriState.edu