I-M-188 Pima small tray.
The Pima, who now prefer to be called “Akimal O’odam”(the River People), live in south central Arizona along the Gila and Salt Rivers. They traditionally spoke the Tepiman (formerly the Sonoran) branch of the Uto-Aztecan linguistic family and are believed to be the descendants of the early Hohokam civilization that thrived in ancient times in what are now southern Arizona and the northern part of Mexican Sonora. The Pima were an agricultural people with sedentary villages producing both pottery and baskets and tend to this day to remain an agricultural people although their weaving tradition appears to have seriously diminished over the past fifty years.
This small tray exhibits one of the most popular of Pima designs called a squash blossom. These can have from three petals, such as this one, and up to twenty five (or rarely more) petals in a single tray. This three petal design makes a strong and bold statement on this small tray. Coiling is to the left using cattail leaf (Typha) for the foundation of the coil. The sewing splints are split peeled willow (Salix) for the white and split devils claw (Proboscidea) for the black.
A striking example. 10 3/8"d. by 1" deep. Circa 1920. $1,800.00