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The necks and apertures of these earliest forms of the water jar were made very small in proportion to their other dimensions, presumably on account of the necessity of often carrying them full of water over steep and rough mesa paths, coupled perhaps with the imitation of other forms. To render them as light as possible they were also made very thin. One of the consequences of all this was that when large they could not be stroked inside, as the shoulders or uttermost upper peripheries of the vessel could not be reached with the hand or scraper through the small openings. The effect of the pressure exerted in smoothing them on the outside, therefore, naturally caused the upper parts to sink down, generating the spheroidal shape of the jar. (see Fig. 531), one of the most beautiful types of the olla ever known to the Pueblos. At Zuñi, wishing to have an ancient jar of this form which I had seen, reproduced, I showed a drawing of it to a woman expert in the manufacture of pottery. Without any instructions from me beyond a mere statement of my wishes, she proceeded at once to sprinkle the inside of a basket-bowl with sand, managing the clay in a way above described and continuing the vessel-shaping upward by spiral building. She did not at first make the shoulders low or sloping, but rounded or arched them upward and outward (see again Fig. 529). At this I remonstrated, but she gave no heed other than to ejaculate "wá na ni,
Its reproduction would present grave difficulties unless the bottom of the first vessel, thickly coated with sand to prevent cracking, was employed as a mold, instead of the absorbent convex-centered basket-bowl.
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