1!^%.] *^"< [Cusliing. 



to the spot, and had the good fortune to rescue it before attempt had 

 been made to wash it out. For although, as has since been ascertained, 

 the paint employed in its delineation was made from a quite permanent, 

 gummy substance (probably rubber), yet when first found it was almost 

 fluid, like that on many others of the paintings. 



When I exhibited this specimen and the drawing of the open hand to 

 Mr. Clarence Moore, whose interest in these finds has been from first to 

 last so gratifying, he kindly called my attention to a concavo-con- 

 vex or shell-like plaque of stone, found in a mound in southern Illinois, 

 in which an almost identical figure of an open hand was incised. In a 

 shell disc discovered in Georgia, there is, I have also recentlj'' learned, 

 an etched delineation of an open hand containing an eye-like figure ; 

 and I am therefore the more inclined to regard the sort of shell paint- 

 ings we found as not only in a high degree symbolic and sacred, but also 

 as typical, and I also incline to believe that they were, moreover, the 

 earlier forms of the etched or graven figures of the kind just descilbed 

 as found in the more northerly mounds. 



As evidenced by the exquisite finish and ornamental designs of so 

 many of the implements weapons and utensils I have described, the 

 ancient key dwellers excelled especially in the art of wood-carving. 

 While their arts in painting were also of an unusually highly developed 

 character, — as the work of a primitive people — their artistic ability in 

 relief-work was preeminently so. This was further illustrated in a lit 

 tie wooden doll, representing a round-faced woman wearing a sort of 

 cloak or square tunic, that was found near the southernmost shell-bench 

 along the western side of the court, in Section 15. Near this little figure 

 was a superbly carved and finished statuette in dark-colored, close-grained 

 wood, of a mountain-lion or panther god — an outline sketch of which is 

 given in Fig. 1, PI. XXXV. Nothing thus far found in America so 

 vividly calls to mind the best art of the ancient Egyptians or Assyrians, 

 as does this little statuette of the Lion-God, in which it was evidently 

 intended to represent a manlike being in the guise of a panther. 

 Although it IS barely six inches in height, its dignity of pose may fairlj^ 

 be termed "heroic," and its conventional lines are to the last degree 

 masterly. While the head and features — ears, ej^es, nostrils and mouth — 

 are most realistically treated, it is observable that not onlj' the legs and 

 feet, but also even the paws, which rest so stoutly upon the thiglis or 

 knees of the sitting or squatting figure, are cut oflT, unfinished ; bereft, as 

 it were, of their talons. And this, I would note, is quite in accordance 

 with the spirit of primitive sacerdotal art generally — in which it was ever 

 sought CO fashion the form of a God or Powerful Being in such wise that 

 while its aspect or spirit might be startlingly shown forth, the powers 

 associated with its living form might be so far curtailed, by the in- 

 completion of some of its more harmful or destructive members, as to 

 render its use for the ceremonial incarnation of the God at times, safe, 

 no matter what his mood might chance, at such times, to be. 



PROC. AMER. PHILOS. SOC. XXXV. 153 2 W PRINTED AUGUST 3, 1807. 



