Willow River Design
By Bill Gallagher
2800 Words
Solar energy animates planetary matter in a slow and intricate reflection outward. Photochemical reactions become reproducing code as the order of light imbues elemental substances: mobility and self awareness manifest as prime aspects inherent to a multi-faceted entirety. Living things erupt from the dirt, nurtured with water, solvent prime, the common blood of our kind, the Alive kind. Change occurs as needed, energy flows amidst genetic memory, a storehouse at the molecular level, everything is recorded, nothing is lost. Patterns recur with certainty, transcendent messages for all who come later.
Scales, feathers, skin, hair -- seemingly infinite survival aspects are employed, defined, then refined by environment. Skeletal metal is the framework for specialty organs dancing together across the electromagnetic spectrum. All Is One.
Many places upon the Earth blatantly exhibit this type of deep reflection outward, sparklings of times past, and the people who lived. Representatives of the sun invariably leave records in one form or another, gifting the future with information, inspiration, realization. Such is one spot on the earth, a river in southern New Mexico called Rio Mimbres by the first Spanish explorers, Mimbres meaning "Willows" in that language. The Mimbres River meanders south and west from the vicinity of Silver City, going underground a little north of Deming, crossing the continental divide, and eventually draining to the Rio Grande on the eastern side of the state. All along this river and its many tributaries are the ruins and other detritus left by a culture that has been studied with great intensity for over a century. Extreme investigation of this area has transpired mainly because of the ornamental art left behind by these people of the Willow River, deposited like wave patterns of light force, expressive material energy, akin to wind compositions in rippling dunes of sand, though of another magnitude, a higher order. Much. Higher. Order.
Even though these people, these individual reflections of the sun, have been studied exhaustively for over a century, there are still gaping holes in the knowledge base concerning them. Modern science does not even know what they called themselves, and the overall perception of them is mostly based on the drawings they made on their pottery, and their other enduring art. Thankfully, some information can be inferred from these renderings of their lives and dreams. There is a lot of evidence pointing to interaction with other cultures too, such as their source of shell for adornment, which was highly valued, and was obtained from the Hohokam culture to the north.
The Mimbres or Mimbrenos people, as the archaeo-anthropologists of today have named them, were a subculture within the larger Mogollon/Ancestral Pueblo cultures. The Mimbres people began as all others, nomadic hunters and gatherers who then adopted a more fixed existence by developing agriculture. For the Mimbres people this took place somewhere around 200 AD. They are also grouped by the type of houses they created, for example the early and late Pithouse periods (c. 200 AD - 1000 AD), and by the types of pottery they made, as in the Classic Period vessels (1000-1130AD).
Some other interesting inferences to be made involve the medicines of the Mimbres people, through their use of plants local to them. Most notable is the willow tree (Salix), a natural analgesic from whence modern aspirin was first derived. It is also possible, if not probable, that the use of grinding stones high in silver content infused the many foods prepared with the mano and metate, an industrial strength mortar and pestle tool set. Silver, being a natural antibiotic, may have caused the people exposed to it to be more healthy in some ways than their counterparts not so endowed, at least making them less susceptible to certain diseases that others were prone to. It is well known throughout the west that fluctuating factors like local water and available plants definitely influenced the overall health of a tribe, some in very positive ways, some not.
Other botanicals known to have been used by the Mimbres people and surrounding cultures include but are not limited to the greasewood/creosote bush (Larrea), Prickly Pear (Opuntia phaeacantha), and Mormon Tea ( Ephedra torreyana). Study of graves and the coprolitic contents therein reveal all this quite graphically. The revelations are ongoing. As well, certain obvious ties with Mesoamerica have been noted. One well known Classic period Mimbres bowl depicts a beheading with heavy Aztec overtones, and it is surmised that other ideas and goods were traded among these people, maybe even the sacramental mushroom of the Aztecs. To modern day initiates of Teonanacatl (Gods Flesh) the geometric designs on some Mimbres pottery elicit special recognition indeed. Another well known tie to the cultures in Mesoamerica is the use of the Scarlet Macaw as a sacred symbol among the Mimbres. Many if not most of the hook beaked birds portrayed on Mimbres pottery are identifiable as Scarlet Macaws, which were native to southern Mexico, and had to be brought north for trade. Macaw feathers have been found in ancient spirit bundles throughout the southwest, also indicating the birds were considered sacred. The perceived cosmology of the Mimbres people shares some similarities with Mesoamerican cultural ideas too, particularly concerning the planet Venus and its traverse.
The Mimbres people began making pottery around 200 AD, during the Early Pit House period, also known as the Cumbre Phase. They did not begin painting their vessels until around 600 AD, though they had become masterful at all kinds of corrugated/coil ware, utilizing the coil construction method exclusively in the construction of their pots throughout all of their existence. During later times, c.730 AD and after, white kaolinite slips were developed and designs were painted on with yucca brushes. Though crude, the tendency to naturalistic portrayal was evident even then. Most of the earliest decorated pottery made by the Mimbres people appeared as red or brownish red (Iron oxide) on the white or tan kaolinite slips. The vast majority of the Mimbres decorated pottery is painted on the inside only, though urns, dippers, and jars are sometimes decorated on the exterior.
As time progressed the designs and methodology of the Mimbres people became more refined, finally evolving into the ultra artistic expressions of the Black On White types, beginning slightly before 900 AD, and somewhat coinciding with the advent of Pueblo living in large heavily populated villages, versus the earlier and generally much smaller Pit House neighborhoods. Some anthropologists describe this as a religious transformation of sorts, though greater development and reliance on agriculture certainly had a lot to do with it too. It was after this transformation that the pottery of the Mimbres Valley culture reached the height of its artistic expression, during what is known as The Classic Period, between 1000 and 1150 AD. The entire Mimbres River Valley has been classified as an Ancient Art Province because of this.
Many of the latter day pot types, the so-called Black On White ceramics (Bowls, Jars, Urns/Ollas) have been discovered in graves, and many of the bowls have been ritually "Killed" or vented with a hole before being placed on the head of the cadaver. It is thought this happened so the soul of the dead person would have an outlet to the next world, so the aforementioned intricate and radiating reflection outward could continue unimpeded, as it were. Many Mimbres burials occurred inside their buildings and rooms, in the floors, possibly signifying a form of ancestor worship, and also suggesting that the world of the living and the dead were tightly intertwined, a duality, two parts of a single thing. Even though the burial pots had ritual significance, most of them show heavy use wear, meaning they were not decorative in the strictest sense. Other interesting informations pertaining to Mimbres pottery include the facts that there are surprisingly few of the Black On White decorated pots found outside the Mimbres River Culture areas, suggesting they were not traded, nor was there much foreign pottery found at Mimbres archaeological sites, further indicating that very little if any pottery was imported.
Some Mimbres pottery has been discovered in buildings purposely destroyed by fire in spectacular displays of violent incandescent energy; many of these buildings were communal areas, Kivas. It is quite evident that the buildings themselves were created to eventually be destroyed by fire, as part of their purpose. Offerings made in floors, walls and ceilings speak loudly of forethought and method, even ritual magic. Also the types of offerings, along with their placement, share attributes with modern building customs such as coins in corner stones, or engraved dates and messages. Blessings. A number of scenes on Mimbres pottery depict rainmaking rituals, and some of the quartz crystals so highly valued by the Mimbres people appear in these illustrations of magical inducement. This creates questions among the knowledgeable concerning the observation of natural forest fires by Mimbres people, and the subsequent observation that airborne particulate from such fires could and did create rain on occasion. This of course is one more unknown idea that will probably never be understood. A lot of the intentional firing of these kivas and other buildings took place within a century of each other, and during a time of increasing drought which was causing a major restructuring of the Mimbres agricultural society. Also at this time, and for reasons unknown, relations with the Hohokam culture were cut off, or at least severely restricted.
There is no discernible vertical differentiation in the Mimbres society, meaning there seems to have been no elite, or upper class due to wealth, and this has stymied many anthropologists who seem unable to understand such a thing. Many of them keep trying to assign a hierarchy of wealth to the culture, but none of it fits. It is rather amusing to read about these types trying to make the pieces of the puzzle fit in a predetermined way. It is just one more example of our thought processes being truly alien, not just to this society, but many other ancient realms as well. Through perseverance and hard work perhaps the holes in our understanding will one day become filled with knowledge, or at the very least be less gaping and obvious, less embarrassing.
Light Happens.
It has been considered and even proven to some degree that most of the art done on the pottery during the Classic Mimbres period was done by women, although some designs are thought to have been done by men, due to subject matter, and mistakes made in the art when that subject matter was exclusively female, such as childbirth. This datum, coupled with other indicators, causes many to believe the Mimbres were a matrilineal society, and that is not unique by any means.
One Mimbres pot stolen from a university collection in Minnesota, but later returned, even depicts a Mimbres version of Priapus. Be that as it may, most of the Classic period pots were comprised of geometric or naturalistic designs portraying the environment the people found themselves in. The representations of the local fauna are stark, and easily recognizable. The quail, the rattlesnake; antelopes, turtles, fish, lightning, clouds, people, and more were rendered artistically in a style unique to the Mimbres area and time.
Along with the ornamentation of their pottery, the Mimbres people were very adept with other materials. They possessed a real love of shell, utilizing over ten different types, including some freshwater species. As mentioned above, a lot of their shell was obtained in trade from the Hohokam, and much of it was in finished form. Shell rings, bracelets, pendants and beads were all used among the people of Willow River, and even though the evidence of shell work among the Mimbres themselves is scarce, there are some examples known, suggesting that they traded for whole shell when they could get it, or even collected it themselves on occasion. The three sources for shell in southern New Mexico are the Pacific coast, the Gulf Of California, and the Gulf Of Mexico. All three places are represented in the archaeological record, although so much of the shell was extensively worked it is quite a rare thing to be able to positively identify a species. Some of the fish depicted on the Mimbres pottery are Pacific Ocean types, somewhat a conundrum to be fully explained only in the future, upon the development of a working time machine.
One of the favorite shells of the Mimbres people was Glycymeris gigantea, a large Pacific clam that was used to make the many bracelets found throughout the region. Even the pieces from this shell were salvaged and reworked: some of the more common pendants, like the "Clothes Hanger" types, are reworked pieces of Glycymeris bracelets. Many of the myriad Mimbres shell beads (Disc, bilobed/figure 8s, cones, tabs, and freeforms) no doubt come from this source as well, though Mimbres beads were made from many many types of shell, and other materials, including stone, and seeds. One item that is absent, even in the most well preserved graves, is the bead string itself. It is supposed that yucca and other fibrous plants were woven into string, including parts of the willow tree, and even animal sinew, but of course these type of materials are notoriously biodegradable, and, at present, undiscovered; another knowledge void. Some information can be gleaned with a fair degree of certainty by observing modern people whose memories reach back into recorded history, and some cave finds have revealed bits and pieces of ancient cordage that lead us in the right direction too.
Besides shell as a jewelry medium, the people of the Mimbres River Valley utilized over 40 different types of stone in the ornamental decoration of themselves: it seems stone was their material of choice, and if not their material of choice, at least the most available, therefore the most used. Some of the most common types were turquoise, rhyolite, ricolite, obsidian, chalcedony/agate, basalt, various feldspars, tuff, sandstone, and limestone. Pendants and beads were made in profusion, though many of the turquoise tab "Pendants" have been found in graves either side of the skull, indicating they were worn as ear ornaments. It is noteworthy to mention that many infant graves possessed significant amounts of jewelry.
After the year corresponding to 1130 AD the Mimbres culture began a disappearing act, and though it has been stated that the society collapsed it was actually another restructuring, brought on by environmental pressure due to increasingly dryer conditions. The larger pueblo type arrangements gave way to smaller hamlet style villages. By the later 1200's the Mimbres culture was no more, transitioning into the Casas Grandes/Paquime culture in the south, and the Tularosa tradition in the north. All that is left of the Mimbres are their ruins, and their artifacts. Many artifacts have been casually found by todays land owners, and it is a statement of goodness that a large amount of these casually gathered artifacts have been assembled for public viewing as donations to various museums, like the Deming-Luna Mimbres Museum, in Deming New Mexico.
When one drives into Deming New Mexico it is evident right away that the artistic ideals of the Mimbres people still permeate the area, as even the overpass abutments for Interstate 10 are decorated with larger than life representations of the naturalistic and geometric designs known worldwide among students of art. Mimbres pottery designs are all over the town of Deming, on walls of restaurants, in grocery stores, even some receptacles for trash have been made to resemble Mimbres pots in various locations. The people of Deming are well aware of the historical heritage of their area, and they have taken the time and effort to preserve and attractively present this invaluable resource to all interested people.
Owned and operated by the Luna County Historical Society, The Deming-Luna Mimbres Museum is housed in the old USO building, right downtown at 301 South Silver, and there are many signs directing seekers to its location. There is no set fee to view this vast resource, although donations are solicited. Photography is welcomed. The Mimbres collection at this museum can only be called world class, and consists of private donations made by local land owners and other collectors who have since left this world, reflecting outward now too. The secondary and tertiary codes of their energies, their many moments here, their Work, resonate and sparkle. Once again light magnifies itself through us. So when you find yourself in the vicinity of Deming New Mexico, do take the time to visit the Deming-Luna Mimbres museum. View the art left behind by The People Of The Willow River. You will not be disappointed. Its probable that you will carry away a bit of it inside yourself, intricate impressions to enrich your reflections, an advancement of order.
A Greater Design.
fin
Photograph Explanations
1-2, The entrance to the Deming-Luna Mimbres Museum, in Deming New Mexico.
3-5, Some of the modern renditions of Classic Mimbres Art underneath the overpasses of I-10 in Deming New Mexico.
6-13, A very large variety of Mimbres pottery is on display at the Deming-Luna Mimbres Museum, in Deming New Mexico.
14-16, Mimbres pottery holed in ritualistic manner.
17-25, An exceptional collection of ancient personal jewelry from the Mimbres culture is also displayed at The Deming-Luna Mimbres Museum, in Deming New Mexico, including many types of beads, pendants, Glycymeris bracelets, and more.
26-27, Some other very interesting artifact types on display at The Deming-Luna Mimbres Museum, in Deming New Mexico.
28, Interior view of one room of the The Deming-Luna Mimbres Museum, in Deming New Mexico.
Bibliography
Archaeology Southwest Magazine
(formerly the Center for Desert Archaeology)
Volume 17, Number 4, Fall 2003
archaeologysouthwest.org
Prehistoric Jewelry of the Nan Ranch Ruin Grant County NM
Maria Shannon Parks-Barrett
A Thesis
Texas A&M University
280 pages
The Role of Venus in the Cosmologies of Mesoamerica, West Mexico, the American Southwest, and Southeast
Polly Schaafsma
Ed Krupp
Susan Milbrath
Mike Mathiowetz
Robert L. Hall
SFI WORKING PAPER:2011-02-007
USE OF POLLEN CONCENTRATION IN PALEOPHARMACOLOGY:COPROLITE EVIDENCE OF MEDICINAL PLANTS
J.Ethnobiol.11(1):117-132
Summer 1991
KARL J. REINHARD, Department of Anthropology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
126 Bessey Hall Lincoln, NE 68588-0368
DONNY L. HAMILTON Department of Anthropology
Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843
RICHARD H. HEVLY
Department of Biological Sciences Northern Arizona University Flagstaff,
AZ 86011
Shell Use in the Mimbres Region: Not so Black and White
text; Electronic Thesis
Author:Heacock, Erikalyn Karen Bassaraba
Publisher
The University of Arizona.
http://hdl.handle.net/10150/560834
Large Mammal Relative Abundance in Pithouse and Pueblo Period
Archaeofaunas from Southwestern New Mexico: Resource
Depression among the Mimbres-Mogollon
Michael D. Cannon
Department of Anthropology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195
Received January 20, 1999; revision received September 8, 1999; accepted February 11, 2000
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 19,
317–347 (2000)
doi:10.1006/jaar.2000.0366
MAKING POTTERY AND LEARNING ABOUT MIMBRES DESIGNS
WESTERN NEW MEXICO UNIVERSITY
PDF
CONTACT CaveP@wnmu.edu
NMNH
DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
Research & Collections
Ancient Art of the Mimbres Culture
INTERNET PDF
MHASD
To touch the past: The painted pottery of the Mimbres people at the
Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota
LYNDEL KING
DECORATIVE ART OF THE SOUTHWESTERN INDIANS, DOROTHY SMITH SIDES, CLARICE MARTIN SMITH, W/FOREWORD BY FREDERIC WEBB HODGE, DIRECTOR SW MUSEUM, 1961
Analysis of the Shift in Entranceway Architecture of the Mogollon Region of the American
Southwest
Amanda Burke
Illinois State University
The Mimbres—a Pre-Columbian Counter-Culture
in the American Southwest?
Gary A. David
FEATHER CAVE AND THE ARROW GROTTO
DARK ZONE ROCK ART
JOHN GREER AND MAVIS GREER
JOURNAL OF FIELD ARCHAEOLOGY, VOL.17, NO.4 (wINTER, 1990) 457-469
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND CLASSIC MIMBRES PERIOD BURIALS IN THE SW UNITED STATES
PATRICIA A GILMAN
UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA
NORMAN OKLAHOMA
Plants of Mind and Spirit
Teonanacatl Mushrooms: Flesh of the Gods
United States Department of Agriculture
Forest Service
Wikipedia
Medicinal Plants
Willow
By Bill Gallagher
2800 Words
Solar energy animates planetary matter in a slow and intricate reflection outward. Photochemical reactions become reproducing code as the order of light imbues elemental substances: mobility and self awareness manifest as prime aspects inherent to a multi-faceted entirety. Living things erupt from the dirt, nurtured with water, solvent prime, the common blood of our kind, the Alive kind. Change occurs as needed, energy flows amidst genetic memory, a storehouse at the molecular level, everything is recorded, nothing is lost. Patterns recur with certainty, transcendent messages for all who come later.
Scales, feathers, skin, hair -- seemingly infinite survival aspects are employed, defined, then refined by environment. Skeletal metal is the framework for specialty organs dancing together across the electromagnetic spectrum. All Is One.
Many places upon the Earth blatantly exhibit this type of deep reflection outward, sparklings of times past, and the people who lived. Representatives of the sun invariably leave records in one form or another, gifting the future with information, inspiration, realization. Such is one spot on the earth, a river in southern New Mexico called Rio Mimbres by the first Spanish explorers, Mimbres meaning "Willows" in that language. The Mimbres River meanders south and west from the vicinity of Silver City, going underground a little north of Deming, crossing the continental divide, and eventually draining to the Rio Grande on the eastern side of the state. All along this river and its many tributaries are the ruins and other detritus left by a culture that has been studied with great intensity for over a century. Extreme investigation of this area has transpired mainly because of the ornamental art left behind by these people of the Willow River, deposited like wave patterns of light force, expressive material energy, akin to wind compositions in rippling dunes of sand, though of another magnitude, a higher order. Much. Higher. Order.
Even though these people, these individual reflections of the sun, have been studied exhaustively for over a century, there are still gaping holes in the knowledge base concerning them. Modern science does not even know what they called themselves, and the overall perception of them is mostly based on the drawings they made on their pottery, and their other enduring art. Thankfully, some information can be inferred from these renderings of their lives and dreams. There is a lot of evidence pointing to interaction with other cultures too, such as their source of shell for adornment, which was highly valued, and was obtained from the Hohokam culture to the north.
The Mimbres or Mimbrenos people, as the archaeo-anthropologists of today have named them, were a subculture within the larger Mogollon/Ancestral Pueblo cultures. The Mimbres people began as all others, nomadic hunters and gatherers who then adopted a more fixed existence by developing agriculture. For the Mimbres people this took place somewhere around 200 AD. They are also grouped by the type of houses they created, for example the early and late Pithouse periods (c. 200 AD - 1000 AD), and by the types of pottery they made, as in the Classic Period vessels (1000-1130AD).
Some other interesting inferences to be made involve the medicines of the Mimbres people, through their use of plants local to them. Most notable is the willow tree (Salix), a natural analgesic from whence modern aspirin was first derived. It is also possible, if not probable, that the use of grinding stones high in silver content infused the many foods prepared with the mano and metate, an industrial strength mortar and pestle tool set. Silver, being a natural antibiotic, may have caused the people exposed to it to be more healthy in some ways than their counterparts not so endowed, at least making them less susceptible to certain diseases that others were prone to. It is well known throughout the west that fluctuating factors like local water and available plants definitely influenced the overall health of a tribe, some in very positive ways, some not.
Other botanicals known to have been used by the Mimbres people and surrounding cultures include but are not limited to the greasewood/creosote bush (Larrea), Prickly Pear (Opuntia phaeacantha), and Mormon Tea ( Ephedra torreyana). Study of graves and the coprolitic contents therein reveal all this quite graphically. The revelations are ongoing. As well, certain obvious ties with Mesoamerica have been noted. One well known Classic period Mimbres bowl depicts a beheading with heavy Aztec overtones, and it is surmised that other ideas and goods were traded among these people, maybe even the sacramental mushroom of the Aztecs. To modern day initiates of Teonanacatl (Gods Flesh) the geometric designs on some Mimbres pottery elicit special recognition indeed. Another well known tie to the cultures in Mesoamerica is the use of the Scarlet Macaw as a sacred symbol among the Mimbres. Many if not most of the hook beaked birds portrayed on Mimbres pottery are identifiable as Scarlet Macaws, which were native to southern Mexico, and had to be brought north for trade. Macaw feathers have been found in ancient spirit bundles throughout the southwest, also indicating the birds were considered sacred. The perceived cosmology of the Mimbres people shares some similarities with Mesoamerican cultural ideas too, particularly concerning the planet Venus and its traverse.
The Mimbres people began making pottery around 200 AD, during the Early Pit House period, also known as the Cumbre Phase. They did not begin painting their vessels until around 600 AD, though they had become masterful at all kinds of corrugated/coil ware, utilizing the coil construction method exclusively in the construction of their pots throughout all of their existence. During later times, c.730 AD and after, white kaolinite slips were developed and designs were painted on with yucca brushes. Though crude, the tendency to naturalistic portrayal was evident even then. Most of the earliest decorated pottery made by the Mimbres people appeared as red or brownish red (Iron oxide) on the white or tan kaolinite slips. The vast majority of the Mimbres decorated pottery is painted on the inside only, though urns, dippers, and jars are sometimes decorated on the exterior.
As time progressed the designs and methodology of the Mimbres people became more refined, finally evolving into the ultra artistic expressions of the Black On White types, beginning slightly before 900 AD, and somewhat coinciding with the advent of Pueblo living in large heavily populated villages, versus the earlier and generally much smaller Pit House neighborhoods. Some anthropologists describe this as a religious transformation of sorts, though greater development and reliance on agriculture certainly had a lot to do with it too. It was after this transformation that the pottery of the Mimbres Valley culture reached the height of its artistic expression, during what is known as The Classic Period, between 1000 and 1150 AD. The entire Mimbres River Valley has been classified as an Ancient Art Province because of this.
Many of the latter day pot types, the so-called Black On White ceramics (Bowls, Jars, Urns/Ollas) have been discovered in graves, and many of the bowls have been ritually "Killed" or vented with a hole before being placed on the head of the cadaver. It is thought this happened so the soul of the dead person would have an outlet to the next world, so the aforementioned intricate and radiating reflection outward could continue unimpeded, as it were. Many Mimbres burials occurred inside their buildings and rooms, in the floors, possibly signifying a form of ancestor worship, and also suggesting that the world of the living and the dead were tightly intertwined, a duality, two parts of a single thing. Even though the burial pots had ritual significance, most of them show heavy use wear, meaning they were not decorative in the strictest sense. Other interesting informations pertaining to Mimbres pottery include the facts that there are surprisingly few of the Black On White decorated pots found outside the Mimbres River Culture areas, suggesting they were not traded, nor was there much foreign pottery found at Mimbres archaeological sites, further indicating that very little if any pottery was imported.
Some Mimbres pottery has been discovered in buildings purposely destroyed by fire in spectacular displays of violent incandescent energy; many of these buildings were communal areas, Kivas. It is quite evident that the buildings themselves were created to eventually be destroyed by fire, as part of their purpose. Offerings made in floors, walls and ceilings speak loudly of forethought and method, even ritual magic. Also the types of offerings, along with their placement, share attributes with modern building customs such as coins in corner stones, or engraved dates and messages. Blessings. A number of scenes on Mimbres pottery depict rainmaking rituals, and some of the quartz crystals so highly valued by the Mimbres people appear in these illustrations of magical inducement. This creates questions among the knowledgeable concerning the observation of natural forest fires by Mimbres people, and the subsequent observation that airborne particulate from such fires could and did create rain on occasion. This of course is one more unknown idea that will probably never be understood. A lot of the intentional firing of these kivas and other buildings took place within a century of each other, and during a time of increasing drought which was causing a major restructuring of the Mimbres agricultural society. Also at this time, and for reasons unknown, relations with the Hohokam culture were cut off, or at least severely restricted.
There is no discernible vertical differentiation in the Mimbres society, meaning there seems to have been no elite, or upper class due to wealth, and this has stymied many anthropologists who seem unable to understand such a thing. Many of them keep trying to assign a hierarchy of wealth to the culture, but none of it fits. It is rather amusing to read about these types trying to make the pieces of the puzzle fit in a predetermined way. It is just one more example of our thought processes being truly alien, not just to this society, but many other ancient realms as well. Through perseverance and hard work perhaps the holes in our understanding will one day become filled with knowledge, or at the very least be less gaping and obvious, less embarrassing.
Light Happens.
It has been considered and even proven to some degree that most of the art done on the pottery during the Classic Mimbres period was done by women, although some designs are thought to have been done by men, due to subject matter, and mistakes made in the art when that subject matter was exclusively female, such as childbirth. This datum, coupled with other indicators, causes many to believe the Mimbres were a matrilineal society, and that is not unique by any means.
One Mimbres pot stolen from a university collection in Minnesota, but later returned, even depicts a Mimbres version of Priapus. Be that as it may, most of the Classic period pots were comprised of geometric or naturalistic designs portraying the environment the people found themselves in. The representations of the local fauna are stark, and easily recognizable. The quail, the rattlesnake; antelopes, turtles, fish, lightning, clouds, people, and more were rendered artistically in a style unique to the Mimbres area and time.
Along with the ornamentation of their pottery, the Mimbres people were very adept with other materials. They possessed a real love of shell, utilizing over ten different types, including some freshwater species. As mentioned above, a lot of their shell was obtained in trade from the Hohokam, and much of it was in finished form. Shell rings, bracelets, pendants and beads were all used among the people of Willow River, and even though the evidence of shell work among the Mimbres themselves is scarce, there are some examples known, suggesting that they traded for whole shell when they could get it, or even collected it themselves on occasion. The three sources for shell in southern New Mexico are the Pacific coast, the Gulf Of California, and the Gulf Of Mexico. All three places are represented in the archaeological record, although so much of the shell was extensively worked it is quite a rare thing to be able to positively identify a species. Some of the fish depicted on the Mimbres pottery are Pacific Ocean types, somewhat a conundrum to be fully explained only in the future, upon the development of a working time machine.
One of the favorite shells of the Mimbres people was Glycymeris gigantea, a large Pacific clam that was used to make the many bracelets found throughout the region. Even the pieces from this shell were salvaged and reworked: some of the more common pendants, like the "Clothes Hanger" types, are reworked pieces of Glycymeris bracelets. Many of the myriad Mimbres shell beads (Disc, bilobed/figure 8s, cones, tabs, and freeforms) no doubt come from this source as well, though Mimbres beads were made from many many types of shell, and other materials, including stone, and seeds. One item that is absent, even in the most well preserved graves, is the bead string itself. It is supposed that yucca and other fibrous plants were woven into string, including parts of the willow tree, and even animal sinew, but of course these type of materials are notoriously biodegradable, and, at present, undiscovered; another knowledge void. Some information can be gleaned with a fair degree of certainty by observing modern people whose memories reach back into recorded history, and some cave finds have revealed bits and pieces of ancient cordage that lead us in the right direction too.
Besides shell as a jewelry medium, the people of the Mimbres River Valley utilized over 40 different types of stone in the ornamental decoration of themselves: it seems stone was their material of choice, and if not their material of choice, at least the most available, therefore the most used. Some of the most common types were turquoise, rhyolite, ricolite, obsidian, chalcedony/agate, basalt, various feldspars, tuff, sandstone, and limestone. Pendants and beads were made in profusion, though many of the turquoise tab "Pendants" have been found in graves either side of the skull, indicating they were worn as ear ornaments. It is noteworthy to mention that many infant graves possessed significant amounts of jewelry.
After the year corresponding to 1130 AD the Mimbres culture began a disappearing act, and though it has been stated that the society collapsed it was actually another restructuring, brought on by environmental pressure due to increasingly dryer conditions. The larger pueblo type arrangements gave way to smaller hamlet style villages. By the later 1200's the Mimbres culture was no more, transitioning into the Casas Grandes/Paquime culture in the south, and the Tularosa tradition in the north. All that is left of the Mimbres are their ruins, and their artifacts. Many artifacts have been casually found by todays land owners, and it is a statement of goodness that a large amount of these casually gathered artifacts have been assembled for public viewing as donations to various museums, like the Deming-Luna Mimbres Museum, in Deming New Mexico.
When one drives into Deming New Mexico it is evident right away that the artistic ideals of the Mimbres people still permeate the area, as even the overpass abutments for Interstate 10 are decorated with larger than life representations of the naturalistic and geometric designs known worldwide among students of art. Mimbres pottery designs are all over the town of Deming, on walls of restaurants, in grocery stores, even some receptacles for trash have been made to resemble Mimbres pots in various locations. The people of Deming are well aware of the historical heritage of their area, and they have taken the time and effort to preserve and attractively present this invaluable resource to all interested people.
Owned and operated by the Luna County Historical Society, The Deming-Luna Mimbres Museum is housed in the old USO building, right downtown at 301 South Silver, and there are many signs directing seekers to its location. There is no set fee to view this vast resource, although donations are solicited. Photography is welcomed. The Mimbres collection at this museum can only be called world class, and consists of private donations made by local land owners and other collectors who have since left this world, reflecting outward now too. The secondary and tertiary codes of their energies, their many moments here, their Work, resonate and sparkle. Once again light magnifies itself through us. So when you find yourself in the vicinity of Deming New Mexico, do take the time to visit the Deming-Luna Mimbres museum. View the art left behind by The People Of The Willow River. You will not be disappointed. Its probable that you will carry away a bit of it inside yourself, intricate impressions to enrich your reflections, an advancement of order.
A Greater Design.
fin
Photograph Explanations
1-2, The entrance to the Deming-Luna Mimbres Museum, in Deming New Mexico.
3-5, Some of the modern renditions of Classic Mimbres Art underneath the overpasses of I-10 in Deming New Mexico.
6-13, A very large variety of Mimbres pottery is on display at the Deming-Luna Mimbres Museum, in Deming New Mexico.
14-16, Mimbres pottery holed in ritualistic manner.
17-25, An exceptional collection of ancient personal jewelry from the Mimbres culture is also displayed at The Deming-Luna Mimbres Museum, in Deming New Mexico, including many types of beads, pendants, Glycymeris bracelets, and more.
26-27, Some other very interesting artifact types on display at The Deming-Luna Mimbres Museum, in Deming New Mexico.
28, Interior view of one room of the The Deming-Luna Mimbres Museum, in Deming New Mexico.
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Willow
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This article was published in and is courtesy of Lost Treasure Magazine, www.losttreasure.com
Writers comment: I wrote this story for Ornament Magazine, after meeting Robert and Patrick at Tucson, but it did not fit their format. I offered it to Lost Treasure and they bought it. I am still learning about this subject matter, but as a first time effort I am pretty sure it is OK, perhaps even groundbreaking in some ways.
This article was published in and is courtesy of Lost Treasure Magazine, www.losttreasure.com
Writers comment: I wrote this story for Ornament Magazine, after meeting Robert and Patrick at Tucson, but it did not fit their format. I offered it to Lost Treasure and they bought it. I am still learning about this subject matter, but as a first time effort I am pretty sure it is OK, perhaps even groundbreaking in some ways.
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