Driven to Collect: The Norton Allen Collection of Tohono O'odham Pottery

Driven to Collect: The Norton Allen Collection of Tohono O’odham Pottery Diane Dittemore, Andrew Higgins, and Reuben V. Naranjo Jr. Norton Allen is perhaps best known as the man who—with his wife, Ethel, and father, Ernest—saved hundreds of Hohokam pots and other artifacts originating in the Gila Bend area from destruction by developers or diversion into the hands of private collectors. Less well known is that the Allens’ interest in Southwestern desert cultures also extended into collecting from historic pottery-making tribes including the Tohono O’odham of southern Arizona and the Paipai of Baja California (Griset and Ferg, this issue). After Norton passed away, Ethel gave ASM a collection of Tohono O’odham material, including thirty-two whole vessels, several dozen historic sherds, six wooden implements, and two obsidian points. This article focuses on the intact pottery pieces: what kinds are represented, how they integrate with ASM’s other O’odham pottery, what we can know about them, and what they might tell us about both the makers and the collectors. the ColleCtion The Tohono O’odham pottery in the Norton Allen Collection represents a spectrum of sizes, forms, and clay and pottery types common to utilitarian O’odham pottery. There is only one black-on-red piece; this decorative type is primarily associated with market wares popularized around the turn of the last century (Fontana et al. 1962:107). The nearabsence of such pieces in the collection is not necessarily surprising, as Diane Dittemore has been the ethnological collections curator at the Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, Tucson, for thirty-one years. She received an MA in anthropology from the University of Denver, with a focus on Native American material culture and museum studies in 1978. Andrew Higgins is the assistant ethnological collections curator at the Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, Tucson. Reuben V. Naranjo Jr. is a PhD candidate in the American Indian Studies Program, University of Arizona. He holds a BFA and an MA in American Indian Studies. His passions and interests include American Indian and Mesoamerican ceramics and art. Journal of the Southwest 52, 2 and 3 (Summer-Autumn 2010) : 363–394 364 ✜ Journal of the Southwest the Allens did not for the most part appear interested in collecting tourist art, but instead favored utilitarian pottery. According to Ferg (2009), the Allens did, however, have an assortment of small, polished black-on-red pots that they liked to give away to friends and acquaintances, but they did not keep any for themselves. ASM was extremely pleased to receive this rich collection, but it is surprising that few pieces are well documented, especially given the Allens’ meticulous record-keeping for so much of the archaeological collections. A mere eight out of the thirty-two whole vessels and none of the thirteen decorated pots have any specific proveniences. At the time of the donation, Ethel was unable, with one exception, to remember any specifics regarding where, when, or how she and Norton acquired the pottery, only that they had acquired it mostly through purchase at various locales on the reservation. Where proveniences are known, it is because they were written directly on the bases of the pots. All but two of the documented pots are from the western part of the main Tohono O’odham Reservation: three from a cave cache in the Ajo Mountains, and one each from Gu Vo, Hickiwan, and the Sand Tank Mountains. The last piece, an olla, was a gift or purchase from Thomas Childs, an Anglo-American who lived in Ajo. The seventh documented pot is from Anegam, in the north-central part of the reservation. The eighth is from Ak-Chin on the Ak-Chin Indian Community. We do not know for certain the identities of any of the makers of the pots in the Allen Collection. They do not bear signatures or other identification marks, not surprising given their likely age and utilitarian nature. Norton and Ethel apparently did not ask the people who sold them the pots if they knew who made them, and the sellers may not have known given the apparent age of many of the vessels. The jar from Ak...