First posted by C. Dean Wilson 2013

Hawikuh Polychrome was defined by Mera (1939). This type refers to forms that reflect a return to decorations in glaze paint on pottery produced in the Zuni area sometime during the early to the end of the seventeenth century (Lammon and Harlow 2008; Woodbury and Woodbury 1966). Some of the vessels originally used to define Hawikuh Polychrome are actually from Acoma Pueblo (Mera 1939), and it is quite possible that vessels from Acoma assigned to this type were imported from the Zuni area (Lammon and Harlow 2013).

Decorations are applied in glaze paint over a white, buff or red surface. The glaze is thick and relatively runny, although exceptions include forms exhibiting fairly controlled glaze paint particularly as compared to glaze painted vessels produced in other Pueblo regions during the seventeenth century. Designs are often outlined in black glaze paint and filled with a red slip. This contrast between colors is used to produce stylized images which include birds, feathers, fringes and masks. Jars are often squat and wide in the middle narrowing to the rim and base. Jars have red slipped bases and a white slip from the rim down to the mid-point. Motifs are combined to form bands or doubles bands that encircle the vessel. Bowls often exhibit a red slip on the interior surfaces. Some bowls display a wide white slipped band on the upper exteriors. Other bowls have a total white slipped interior with or without the white exterior band. Exterior designs on bowls are often organized into banded designs similar to those noted on jars. Interiors are often organized into allover designs.

References:
Lammon, Dwight P. and Francis H. Harlow
2008 The Pottery of Zuni Pueblo. Museum of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe.

2013 The Pottery of Acoma Pueblo. Museum of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe.

Mera H. P.
1939 Style Trends of Pueblo Pottery in the Rio Grande and Little Colorado Cultural Areas from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century. Laboratory of Anthropology Memoirs 3, Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe.

Woodbury, Richard, and Nathalie F.S. Woodbury
1966 Appendix II: Decorated Pottery of the Zuni Area. In The Excavations of Hawikuh by Fredrick Webb Hodge: Report o the Hedricks-Hodge Expedition 1917-1923, edited by W Smith, R. B. Woodbury, and N.F. S. Woodbury, pp. 302-336. Contributions from the Museum of American Indian Heye Foundation Vol, 20, New York.