Note 47 — PAINTING

Stevenson gives no details of the painting at Zuñi; “When the pigment is properly reduced, and mixed with water so as to form a thin solution, it is applied with brushes made of the leaves of the yucca. These brushes are made of flat pieces of the leaf, which are stripped off and bruised at one end, and are of different sizes adapted to the coarse or fine lines the artist may wish to draw. In this manner all the decorations on the pottery are produced” (1883, p. 330). Mrs. Stevenson is just as brief: “After a thorough drying of this foundation, the slip, the designs are painted with brushes made of yucca needles, the pigments having been ground in stone mortars and made into a paste with water to which a syrup of yucca fruit is added” (1904, p. 375). The stone mortar for pigment grinding may be seen in pl. 31, a.