The North-Americans of yesterday

ALMOST every tribe the world round seems to have acquired at a very early stage in its progress a knowledge of plaiting rushes, strips of bark, or other simple substances, for use as beds, covering of shelters, etc., and in this knowledge may be discovered the beginnings of several arts of the first importance to man: basketry, weaving, and pottery. Basketry and pottery are mother and daughter. Plaiting together straws or rushes was a simple operation and must have occurred to the most primitive tribes spontaneously as the need for some such thing arose. Having produced a mat and used it for various purposes, the turning up of the sides, or edges, for the purpose of retaining things upon it, thereby producing a shallow basket or tray, was an easy step, and by such stages did basketry grow to perfection.[77] The Amerinds excelled particularly in this art, and there were few tribes without ability to make baskets and other wicker-work, the character and excellence of which depended to a considerable extent on the material available.

Wicker jugs, rendered water-tight by means of pitch, were invented and used for cookery, hot stones being introduced through the wide mouth, to bring the contents to the required temperature, and it was the effort to protect the basketry used in the various culinary operations from the effects of the heat that led to coatings of mud or clay, which being hardened by the fire, disclosed the great secret. There is still in use among some of the more primitive tribes of America a “boiling-basket,” that is, a wicker jug rendered waterproof, and in which food is cooked as indicated. In Zuñi this basket was known as a “coiled cooking basket,” and the corrugated earthen pot used to this day is called a “coiled earthenware cooking basket.” And the Navajos still call earthenware pots, “kle-it-tsa” or mud-basket. In these terms is seen a clear indication of the origin of pottery among the Amerinds in basketry. Cushing found these boiling-baskets in use a few years ago among the Havasupai, who live an isolated life in northern Arizona, and I saw similar jugs among the Amerinds of Utah twenty years ago, and some more recently among the Moki, the latter, however, not using them for boiling purposes, and perhaps not being the makers of them. They are bottle-shaped, but with wide mouths, and provided near their rims with a sort of cord or strap for a handle attached to two loops or eyes. In some of the pots derived from this form these loops are represented by little knobs of clay, or by an ornament.

Cushing describes the Havasupai in Arizona as using a wicker tray lined with clay for the purpose of roasting or parching seeds, and this was probably used by all primitive peoples. The seeds were placed on the clay-lined tray and agitated with live coals. Naturally the clay is hardened by the heat of the coals, and would be sure to suggest the making of utensils from it by means of fire. The turning up of the edges would follow the use of the first trays made of clay, in imitation of wicker bowls, and so would other forms of basketry be imitated, as well as forms in horn, wood or shell. Perhaps the wicker jugs may have been coated with clay on the outside for protection, and eventually the heat not only baked the clay but destroyed the wicker framework that had supported it. Thus jugs of clay may have been made by burning away the framework every time, just as Lamb’s discoverer of roast pig could find no other way of securing his toothsome morsel than that of burning down the house. Or the jar may have been modelled on the inside and then the wicker burned off. When we speak contemptuously of primitive peoples it is well to remember that they were inventors as well as ourselves.

When the art of pottery was discovered basketry remained in use, for pottery could not take its place in many uses then any more than it can to-day. The environment and habits of a tribe controlled the amount, the quality, the character, of both basketry and pottery. A tribe possessing plenty of good clay would make more and better pottery than one finding clay difficult to acquire, provided both had reached the same degree of proficiency in this art, but mere abundance of good clay would not necessarily make skilful potters; that is, the degree of progress in culture of a tribe and other factors of environment than the presence or absence of good clay in quantity had much to do with pottery-making. For example, the Pueblos and the Navajos occupy the same kind of a region, or rather the same region, with plenty of clay and a similar abundance of yucca, willows, etc., for basketry, yet the Pueblos carried pottery-making to a high degree of excellence, while the Navajos produced only a limited amount of inferior ware. Nor is this a matter of intelligence, for the Navajos are as intelligent as any Amerinds living, and besides, as has been mentioned, probably have a strong infusion of Pueblo blood. While the Navajos have gone farther in silver- and iron-smithing, they have lagged behind in pottery and house-building. So it is also with basketry. While the Pueblos no longer make boiling-baskets or jugs, or at least, if they do occasionally make them, they do not use them for cooking purposes, yet they produce some fine trays and bowls.[78] Inclination and fancy, as well as necessity, have much to do with the development of the arts. Tribes might attain a wonderful development politically, like the Iroquois, and yet possess hardly any proficiency in any art, while others, like the Navajos, with scarcely any political development, possess high artistic skill in weaving and metal-working, but none in pottery. Great in war and government the Iroquois certainly were, but they had not reached the border line of artistic development. Neither weavers, potters, nor builders were they (though Bandelier maintains that their long-house was as difficult of construction as any house the Pueblos build), and, outside of the idea of the league, their government was not much superior to that of the Pueblos. Their pottery, limited in quantity, was very inferior to that of many other Amerinds. It is probable that following the line of race development they would eventually have produced excellent ware, but the iron pot made its appearance and progress in pottery was doomed. On the North-west coast little or no pottery is found. Quality and quantity increase as we approach Yucatan.

Tribes with unfavourable environment would find it next to impossible to acquire skill in pottery. The Eskimo, with a temperature for the greater part of the year near or below freezing, and a scarcity of fuel, would find moulding forms out of wet clay about the last occupation to think of. The Eskimo, therefore, made almost nothing of clay except occasionally a lamp.[79] The Kutchins of the Yukon country make pots and cups of clay, but in the main the Far Northern people rely on basketry, soapstone, and on metallic vessels obtained from the whites. Nor is the North land entirely favourable to basketry, yet the Aleut basket-work is exceedingly fine in texture, some of their productions being almost a cloth. This is specially true of baskets made on the island of Attu of the Aleutian chain. These are usually cylindrical, sometimes fitted with a cover of the same material. So soft and pliable are they that they can barely sustain an upright position. This fine texture is a characteristic of all the basketry of the North-west coast, but there is not much variety in form and the artistic shapes so common with the Amerinds southward of the Columbia are absent. The decorations are similar to those of other Amerinds and are woven in with quills, grasses, feathers, bits of silk, or worsteds, appropriately coloured. In the interior of the Northern lands, the Kniks and others make a substitute for baskets out of thin boards steamed and bent around a flat bottom piece which fits into a groove in the board. It is fastened in place with split roots or skin thongs. Among the Eskimo sealskin cups and buckets are used, and some made of whalebone, but they also make a basket out of coiled grasses, which is artistic and has a variety of interesting forms. East of Point Barrow baskets are rare. Birchbark vessels of various kinds were used by many tribes as substitutes for baskets, and doubtless some forms in pottery were derived from these vessels as well as from baskets. Some tribes made pottery and then, as circumstances changed, they abandoned its use and finally forgot how to make it. Dorsey states that “pottery has not been made by the Omaha for more than fifty years. The art of making it has been forgotten by the tribe.”[80]

Various conditions might cause a tribe to cease making pottery, if it were not a sedentary tribe. One constantly on the move would either never learn to make pottery, or if, during some sedentary period, it had acquired this art it would soon drop it, because in primitive travel basketry and gourds are lighter and more serviceable than the crude pottery they could produce. Thus if a tribe living a comparatively quiet life and developing the potter’s art came into possession of the horse, the pottery might be abandoned because it could not readily be transported. This would apply only to tribes making rude pottery, for where a people had attained great proficiency in this direction they would not give it up, except, as in the case of Taos, they could purchase nearby a sufficient supply. Proficiency would only accompany a sedentary life, so that great skill in pottery would be a rather sure index of the character and progress of a people in other directions. While a people might achieve progress without doing much in pottery, if they did excel in pottery it would be an indication of excellence in other lines. Pottery is well-nigh imperishable, and therefore it is often the chief record that a departed people has left behind. Where almost every other distinguishing vestige has completely disappeared, we may frequently still discover scattered on the surface fragments of pottery, or buried in the soil complete specimens, which by their form, texture, or decorative treatment tell what manner of people these were who lived their lives and passed away; tell the limits of their distribution, and also to what other tribes or people they were related. Pottery therefore, next to actual records and inscriptions, is probably the most valuable as well as often the only kind of remains, that a race has left.

For an excellent review of this subject, see “Basket-work of the North American Aborigines,” by Otis T. Mason, Report of the U. S. National Museum, Part II of the Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1884.

European pottery has long received close attention from archæologists, but it is only within recent years that it has been thought worth while to study that of the Western continent. Like the other remains of the Amerinds, their pottery was not considered of much importance by archæologists, and while American money and talent were being bestowed upon the well-worked European field, our Amerind pottery was abandoned to the curiosity hunter. The artistic qualities of the Old World pottery fascinated the student, and this, together with a natural deep interest in peoples closely associated with our own past, served to obscure the real value of an investigation of the Amerind field for the information that might be disclosed concerning the character and distribution of Amerind tribes, for its bearing on the history of the ceramic art in general, as well as for its story of primitive effort and invention. Pottery is said to have been invented 2698 years B.C. by the Chinese emperor Hoang-ti, but of course it was made by some tribes long before this. Like every other art, it existed among some tribes, while other tribes had no knowledge of it. There was never a time, and there never will be a time, when all people possess an equal degree of information or skill, so that when something has been invented or discovered by one tribe or people it may have been in use for a long period by another. At the beginning of the Columbian era, most of the Amerinds knew how to make some kind of earthenware. Various methods were used in various places to produce the pottery. Some was modelled in baskets or on basket forms, right side up or up side down as happened to be necessary, some was modelled in a hole in the ground, or in the lap, and still other groups were produced by coiling round and round slender ropes of clay, which were afterwards smoothed off or not as suited the knowledge or desire of the potter. The progression in a general way was probably about this: 1. Made on the inside of a wicker form—confined chiefly to bowls; 2. Made on a netting in a mould hole; 3. Coil-made; 4. Free-hand modelling; 5. Wheel-made, which Amerinds appear never to have attained. There was doubtless no sharp line of separation between these various processes, but they merged into each other. The coil process was about the highest development of the Amerind potter’s skill, and it was in use all over the continent. As Holmes points out in his admirable paper,[81] the Pueblos are the only people who used the coil as a means of decoration as well as construction, so far as now known. All the other potters smoothed the coils off so that no trace eventually was left of them, and this is the practice of the modern Moki potters. They work by no special rule. According to my own observation, the making of pottery is a desultory occupation and is done by the women. Sometimes I saw a woman toiling alone with her ropes of clay, out-of-doors, and again several women would form a gay, laughing party in the sunlight. When the work is dry the painting and decorating are done by means of a little, long, string-like brush made of yucca fibre. This brush is like a piece of coarse twine, about three inches long, without a handle, very limber, and apparently entirely inadequate, yet they easily accomplished all they desired to do with it. In order to turn the work while in process of manufacture, and not injure it or destroy its shape, it is generally built upon a wicker tray. In this way it can be readily swung round and round, as the potter pays out the clay rope and adjusts it in place. This is the nearest approach to the potter’s wheel that seems ever to have been known on the American continent. While many shapes are based on some form in basketry, or wood, or horn, or shell, or bark, a great many are pure inventions, the result of fancy or inclination.

In preparing the clay, sand or pulverised potsherds were mixed with it to temper it and prevent cracking. This was sometimes so coarse and abundant in the old pottery that in the fragments picked up one can frequently see large grains of sand.

All pottery of primitive races belongs to the class known as soft pottery, as distinguished from what we call stoneware or hard pottery in its different forms. The Amerinds were no exception, and all their pottery is soft unglazed ware.[82] The reason for this lies in the fact that the making of hard pottery requires not only an extensive knowledge of the properties of clay, but, what is more, a temperature for firing of about 4000° Fahrenheit,—a temperature which can be obtained only in a furnace or retort, of which Amerinds were apparently ignorant, their pottery being burned, in historic and prehistoric times, in the open air. The common modern method among the Pueblos is to burn with sheep dung, but they are said to have used in ancient times deadwood, common wood, and coal. The method was usually the same in all cases; the ware was piled up and then covered with the fuel in such a manner that there would be as little as possible direct contact. They also sometimes baked the ware in hot ashes with a fire above, and sometimes they dug a pit which they lined with the fuel. A rich shiny black ware was obtained in some localities by allowing the ware to come in contact with the fuel and, at a certain period in the burning, smothering the fire. This produced an apparent glaze as well, an effect obtained also by rubbing and polishing before the firing. But there is no true glazing in any Amerind ware, at least not north of Mexico. Even had they known the process they would have been baffled in attempting to put it in practice, for glazing requires a temperature of at least 1300° Fahrenheit, and they apparently had no means of securing it.[83] All of their ware can be scratched with a knife, which is a test of soft ware, and while some of it seems to have lustre, it is the lustre of polish, not of glaze. Some ware, however, recently found in the Central-American region appears to have a true glaze. Some tribes make a variety of kinds of ware, while others confine themselves to some special kind, and still others, as mentioned in the case of Taos, buy all they use and make none. The Pueblos to-day are extensive potters, especially the Zuñis and the Mokis, and produce large quantities of varied ware, which, while similar in many respects to that of the ancients of the region, is not so fine nor so well formed. At the Chaco ruins Pepper found a number of tube-shaped vases, about four inches diameter and a foot high, with four small perforated handles. In the course of time enormous quantities must have been made in the South-west, for the ground is everywhere strewn with fragments of it. This would indicate either a dense population or a very long occupation by a comparatively sparse one, and thus far the evidence is in favour of the latter hypothesis. In such a dry climate as exists in the South-west, even soft pottery is almost indestructible when not exposed to river or ice action. In such cases it would soon be destroyed. Though the Colorado River runs through the length of the ancient Pueblo country, and receives many branches whose valleys, like its own, reveal myriads of fragments, I never found a specimen in the river gravels. If this is the case, how could we expect to find remains of pottery in glacial drift?

Another kind of pottery has lately been found by Lumholtz at Teuchitlan, State of Jalisco, Mexico. It is a sort of cloisonné, apparently made by firing the plain ware and then applying a thick slip which, when dry, was engraved with a pattern down to the baked surface. The parts cut away were then smoothly filled in with a white paste and with paste of other colours, producing some excellent effects. Another firing then fixed the superimposed paste.

There are numerous specimens in the American Museum.

The valley of the Mississippi is as prolific in its yield of pottery as the South-west, though most of it is found in mounds. It has therefore been attributed to a departed and mysterious race which has been called “Moundbuilder.” These mounds, however, were clearly the work of different tribes and were erected for different purposes, and there is no evidence to show that the builders were not Amerinds, similar to tribes that were encountered by our people. True, some of these tribes or stocks may have become extinct before whites entered the region, for tribes rose to power, dwindled, and disappeared, but that does not prove that they were anything but Amerinds, even though they may have developed qualities and arts not practised by Amerinds we have known. That there are some marked differences between some of the so-called Moundbuilder ware and some other Amerind pottery is freely admitted, but why this should indicate that there was any mystery about the former is not intelligible, for there are many differences in the products of existing tribes and stocks.[84] As has been mentioned, the Pueblos are extremely good potters, while their neighbours the Navajos practically are no potters at all. Had the Pueblos become extinct before the appearance of the European, what a fine chance this would have been to speculate on who these mysterious and departed people were who built superior houses of stone and made splendid pottery! Oh no, they could never have been common “Indians,” they must have been a migration from China, or Japan! Unfortunately for writers of the romantic school, the Pueblo is still there, and he is an ordinary Amerind, in some ways hardly as intelligent as his neighbour who makes no pottery and builds no houses. There is no reason, then, for assuming that there was anything extraordinary about any of the former occupants of the Mississippi valley. They were, at least some of them were, skilful potters, and some had sense enough to dig out copper and hammer it into shapes; but what is there in this that should lead us to exalt them above other Amerinds? Progress in the arts may vary among associated stocks, and also among different branches of the same stock. In the Mississippi-valley pottery there was a tendency toward upright bottle-shaped vessels with long necks, while the tendency of the Pueblo ware is in the direction of the bowl. There are also long tray-like vessels in the Mississippi valley, which do not occur at all amongst the Pueblo ware, and there are more animal shapes, birds, etc. A series of the Mississippi-valley forms suggests a knowledge of the wheel, but it is not likely that they had it, though it is possible. Anyone who has watched the progress of a common jug turning on one of our potter’s wheels, must be struck by the series of fine shapes the lump of clay passes through before assuming its last form. Such a progression appears in the Mississippi valley ware, but these jars were all probably made by the “coil” process, which was still in use in the Mississippi valley after the advent of our people. Holmes states positively: “The wheel or lathe has not been used.”[85] The pottery of Chiriqui, a province near Panama, is remarkable for perfection of finish and execution and a similar suggestion of mechanical aids. In this case Holmes says: “Notwithstanding the fact that only primitive methods were known, The high-necked Moundbuilder bottle is rarely found in other parts of the United States, but it occurs in Mexico and in South America. Ladles, common in Pueblo ware, are of rare occurrence in that of the Moundbuilders, while rectangular box-like vessels are found, which, though rare, are of wide distribution. One remarkable object found in Tennessee is an earthenware burial casket formed of two parts, a body and a lid, and it still bears marks of the baking. It contains the remains of a small child, reduced to dust, except portions of the skull and limbs; and two or three dozen small shell beads. It weighs altogether 12¼ pounds. Another peculiar vessel was shaped like a shallow trough, with a flat lip or projection at each end. While there was undoubtedly in all tribes a certain progression of forms based on those of basketry, etc., as before noted, it must not be forgotten that there is a parallelism with wheel-made ware that cannot but strike the student with amazement. So great is the symmetry and so graceful are the shapes that one is led to suspect the employment of mechanical devices of a high order.”[86]

The high-necked Moundbuilder bottle is rarely found in other parts of the United States, but it occurs in Mexico and in South America. Ladles, common in Pueblo ware, are of rare occurrence in that of the Moundbuilders, while rectangular box-like vessels are found, which, though rare, are of wide distribution. One remarkable object found in Tennessee is an earthenware burial casket formed of two parts, a body and a lid, and it still bears marks of the baking. It contains the remains of a small child, reduced to dust, except portions of the skull and limbs; and two or three dozen small shell beads. It weighs altogether 12¼ pounds. Another peculiar vessel was shaped like a shallow trough, with a flat lip or projection at each end. While there was undoubtedly in all tribes a certain progression of forms based on those of basketry, etc., as before noted, it must not be forgotten that the Amerind, like all other human beings, did some things from pure inspiration or invention and with no previous model of any kind.

The Mississippi valley, according to Holmes, may be divided into three districts as far as the pottery is concerned: the upper, the middle, and the lower districts. This would seem to indicate as many different tribes or stocks, or even different periods of occupancy by either the same stock or by different stocks. The most northerly examples are the rudest and most different from the others. Some of the pottery that is advanced as showing a skill in sculpture not possessed by Amerinds of the North can be explained in another way than by assuming that the makers were different from other Amerinds of the Mississippi valley as we have known them. As I pointed out elsewhere,[87] these head-shaped vases are death-masks.[88] It does not require a second look at the illustration below to see that the features are those of death reproduced in a manner that no aboriginal potter could possibly accomplish by free-hand method. “Here we look on a face perfect in its proportions, accurately modelled, and, above all, depicting death with a master-hand; yes, more, presenting to the spectator death itself as it seized this personage in the long-forgotten past. Here is death present with us as plainly as it is in the well-preserved features of an Egyptian mummy.... Soft clay was pressed upon the dead features, and when sufficiently dry it was removed and other soft clay thinly pressed into the mould obtained. The mask thus made was built upon till the jar before us was completed.... The interior of the wall follows the exterior closely except in projecting features. The potter, finding it difficult as well as unnecessary, to work the clay evenly into the projections of the mould, filled them up more or less solidly.” This vase is five inches in height and five inches wide from ear to ear. It is open at the top, and has a perforated knob over the middle of the forehead, perhaps for attaching a head-dress, and the ears are perforated. These holes also would permit cords to be attached, by which the jar could be hung, probably in a dead-house where the body of the deceased original was laid. It has been stated that the features exhibited in this vase are not “Indian,” but there seems to be no ground for such a statement. The features are apparently those of an Amerind boy fourteen or sixteen years of age.

Of the basketry of the Mississippi valley there are, of course, no ancient specimens. Wicker-work would not last long in that climate; but there must have been baskets and plaited implements of various kinds, because people do not make pottery without passing through the basketry stage. The Amerinds of that region also made good baskets when first met with, and we know that they did some fairly good weaving both in ancient and modern times. Some of the ancient fabrics have been preserved in the mounds by contact with copper, by being charred, and in other ways, and the ingenuity of Holmes has given us fac-similes of some of the old netting.[89] He noticed curious markings on certain fragments of pottery, and took clay casts of them, thus producing positive from negative, and revealing the fact that the peculiar markings were the impressions of fabrics. He believes these fabrics were impressed on the ware for purposes of ornament, and while this may in some instances have been the reason, in my opinion, the chief object of the netting that made the impression was to lift the freshly made jar out of a hole or a wicker form where it had been modelled. Very early pottery was doubtless built on or in wicker-work—that is, early in the practice of any particular tribe. This was specially the case with the Amerinds of the Atlantic coast, as is plainly indicated in the casts made by Holmes from fragments of pottery from that region. “The earlier potters probably used baskets that came up to the curved-in part of the jar, which was continued above the basket by deft handling, or, if a basket of the same form was followed, the basket was destroyed in the firing process. This would seem to the modern mind a great waste of time and material, but it must be remembered that the Indian potter had not learned modern haste, and besides could turn up a coarse basket in a very short time. Therefore it does not seem improbable that he may, in the early stages, have modelled his jar on the inside of a basket frame of similar form and then allowed the basket to be consumed in the baking process when it could not be separated from the vessel. Even when he developed to a point beyond and modelled the upper portions with a free hand, he would find great trouble in separating his jar from its framework. What, therefore, would be the following step? It seems to me it would have been the placing between the clay and the mould of a piece of netting, which would permit him to lift out his jar easily and intact, and transport it to the drying place. He would then speedily discover that his basket was not necessary—was not so serviceable, in fact, as a hole in the ground, for the sides of the hole could be plastered with a layer of very sandy clay, and thus would all sticking of the vessel to its mould be avoided. The netting, or fabric, having been spread as evenly as possible over the inside surface of the mould hole, the upper edges were allowed to lie out upon the ground. The soft clay being now pressed evenly upon the fabric to the required thickness, the sandy surface of the mould hole easily gave it shape, and gave the potter no anxiety about the outside surface. Indeed, he had but one surface to watch till he came to the in-curve, if his vessel was to have a narrow mouth. Then, I surmise, he built up roughly a clay mould, well sanded, pressing what was left of his fabric into the inside of this mould as he built his vessel upward. Frequently, doubtless, the fabric was not sufficient to go to the top, which explains why sometimes only a part of a jar shows the cord markings.... The distorting and overlapping of the meshes observed by Holmes were probably due to the gathering in to fit the interior of the mould, for it must be borne in mind that the fabric was not shaped in any way to fit the mould, but was doubtless a fragment of some squarely woven article. Thus gathering and overlapping were necessary to make it conform to the inside surface of the mould....”

“When coarse basketry was used for a mould that was intended to be removed before firing, the interstices of the basket work were probably rubbed full of a mixture of sand and clay to prevent the finished vessel from sticking or catching, which explains, I think, the peculiarity of design in some cases, for only the more prominent features of the basket work would impress the vessel.... In some kinds of basketry more filling was necessary than in others, which explains the frequent greater separation and irregularity of the markings.”[90]

It seems, then, that the pottery of the Atlantic region was very rude and was modelled chiefly on wicker moulds, and was not abundant[91]; that the lower Mississippi valley and the South-west were the regions within the United States where pottery attained its highest development; that as one proceeds northward pottery diminishes in quantity and in quality till it disappears; and that in a southerly direction it increases in abundance and in excellence of manufacture and artistic design. The pottery area is fan-shaped, with Central America for a handle. This would all appear to indicate that the pottery wave rolled up from the Far South, and that the Moundbuilders and the Pueblos acquired their art from that direction, or brought it north as they came on the retreat of the cold. Attempts have been made to connect the Pueblos with the Moundbuilders, and both with the Aztecs, but there is no good evidence now known which substantiates any such claim. Even if they did come from the South, it does not make a mystery nor does it necessarily prove any direct relationship between these branches of the Amerind race. Those nearest the great culture centre acquired most culture, hence the farther north the less pottery. The homogeneity of the Amerinds was due to causes operating on this continent at a very early period, and the same causes may explain why the Moundbuilder, the Pueblo, and the Southern stocks were good potters, while the Algonquins, the Dakotas, the Athapascans, and other Northern stocks were so inferior in this respect, while not being inferior in others.[92]

The Aztecs, Zapotecs, Mayas, and other people of the Mexican region were expert potters; and it was in this region that working in clay, like everything else, was carried to the highest degree of perfection on this continent, and where evidence is found of seemingly true glaze. Not only ordinary pottery of beautiful shapes and excellent texture was made, but large funeral vases of elaborate form, terra-cotta water-pipes, and terra-cotta figures, some of them of almost or quite life size. Saville recently found some of these funeral jars and terra-cotta figures in the Zapotec country, south of the city of Mexico, in the province of Oaxaca, and there are specimens in the Museum of Natural History in New York. The principal terra-cotta figure he found is thus described by Saville[93]: “Another trench was started at the eastern side of this mound, and after working down to the level of the surrounding fields near the centre of the mound just back of the tomb, there were found the scattered fragments of what will be, when restored, the largest specimen of terra cotta ever found in America, and I do not know of so large a specimen ever having been found elsewhere. It represented a warrior, and the different pieces of the figure were scattered over a space of about fifteen feet. The central fragment was the head, upper torso, and right arm, lying face upward; the open mouth revealed the teeth painted white and filed, as in the case of the funeral urns. The eyes were well modelled and painted white and red; the head was covered with a turban of feathers, somewhat resembling the head-dress of Chac Mol, found by Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan. A closely cropped beard covered the lower portion of the face, the upper part being pitted as though marked by smallpox. The ears had curious circular ornaments pendent by a string passed through holes pierced in the lobes. The nose was ornamented with a long cylindrical bead attached by a string fastened at the top and bottom through the septum. The breast was painted red and white and additionally ornamented with curious designs made by circular indentations. The legs, which lay quite separated from the body, were bare, and the feet were covered with sandals having beautiful heel-pieces. Around each ankle was a line of bells. Both the toe- and the finger-nails were painted white; the right arm, bent at an angle, grasped a pole or staff of which about a foot remained. These fragments are now in the Museo Nacional, City of Mexico. The entire length of the figure, according to measurements made of the detached pieces, was nearly, if not quite, six feet.”

The specimen now in the New York Museum, page 113, is about five feet in height, and while, artistically, it is crude, it exhibits great skill in the potter’s art. The walls are thin and it must have taken much labour to build the figure and successfully file it. It is in three parts. There are also in the Museum several of the funeral urns found in this locality. They are about fifteen or twenty inches high and skilfully made. These urns were found “in series of five in front of tombs, on the roof, or fastened into the façade.” They are usually of grotesque design like most of the Amerind figures, and evidently represent personages arrayed in the regalia of certain orders or societies, or possibly the same personage in his various offices, or attended by representations of other officers of some society to which he belonged. Saville says of one group: “Resting directly on the cement floor at the centre of the mound were five large funeral urns, page 115, representing seated figures, placed in a row facing west. The urn in the centre has a remarkably well-modelled face, undoubtedly a portrait of some ancient Zapotecan personage. The two on either side are of the same general size and character, with the exception of the face, which is covered with a mask in the form of a grotesque face, possibly the conventionalised serpent, as the bifurcated tongue is one of the most prominent characteristics.”[94] These are some of the most important terra-cotta productions ever found on this continent. Some terra-cotta tubing also found at this place is unique. Saville says: “No such terra-cotta tubing has ever been discovered elsewhere in Mexico, and a new problem is therefore presented.” One end of this tubing was three feet below the surface in a field, while the other was in the mound excavated. “It was laid in short sections, of varying length, one end being smaller than the other, the small end of one tube being fitted into the large end of the next, page 117. Several of the joints still preserved the cement with which they were made tight. The exploration did not reveal the use of the pipe.” The fact, however, that the tubes were so carefully fitted into each other with, apparently, the joinings all on the down slope, that is, connected in such a way that water would flow continuously without waste, and that the joints were made tight with cement, is good evidence that these pipes were laid for conducting water. It seems probable that this tubing was a part of some water-supply or irrigating scheme, which had been abandoned before the mound covering a part of it was constructed. As the valley where these interesting finds were made, as well as neighbouring valleys, contain many more mounds, it is probable that the future exploration of them will produce much more material of value. If the terra-cotta tubing had a mythological significance it will be found in other mounds, and if it belonged to an irrigating scheme, or water-works, it will be explained by other finds. Effigy jars were not confined to Mexico, for they are found in various parts of the United States, especially in Tennessee, but they are nowhere anything like those described from the Zapotec country. The Tennessee specimens artistically and mechanically are exceedingly crude, as are all attempts to delineate the human figure by the northerly Amerinds. Some of the most elaborate and at the same time artistic forms in Amerind pottery are found in Chiriqui,[95] a province just below Costa Rica. The old occupants of this region seem to have excelled in metal-working, stone-carving, and pottery, and probably in other arts the products of which are of a more destructible nature. As the line of demarkation between the North- and South-American cultures runs along the southern side of Nicaragua, practically on the line of the proposed Nicaragua Canal, the consideration of the Chiriqui products should belong perhaps with the South-American division, but being above the isthmus, they may be mentioned here for the sake of comparison. “The casual observer,” says Holmes, “would at once arrive at the conclusion that the wheel or moulds had been used, but it is impossible to detect the use of any such appliances.” And further: “On the exposed surfaces of certain groups of ware the polish is in many cases so perfect that casual observers and inexperienced persons take it for a glaze.”[96] There was extraordinary variety in this ware. There are whistles, drums, rattles, round vases with necks and without necks; vases of simple and vases of complex form; vases and jars with elaborate handles; vases with annular bases or feet; and vases with short or long legs, three in number generally. This field is so rich that it is practicable to give here only a suggestion of what it affords, and the reader is referred to the admirable paper by Holmes.[96]