This installment in the Easy Field Guide series takes a look at the paintings on the insides of ceramic bowls by the Mimbres Indians, a tribe of the ancient Mogollon culture that lived in the Southwest around a century ago. These bowl paintings, a staple of the Mimbres, is the best evidence of the mythology and culture of the tribe. Each painting is representative of a god or other figure in the Mimbres belief system. The bowls were buried with the dead, and each painting is accompanied by a "kill hole", a small hole chipped into the bottom of the bowl to allow the spirit depicted to join the spirit of the deceased in its journey to the afterlife
