NO. 1887. OENSER^^ AND TNCENffE OF MIDDLE AMERICA— HOUGH. 117 



Mexico, and those sliowinp; more realism and complexity of orna- 

 ment from Tlaltelolco. 



It appears that in many cases masks, heads, or other members of ani- 

 mate beings as so-called decorative elements are really vestigial and 

 refer back to vessels of realistic animal form, but ideas of such forms 

 may be taken by the artist at any phase of design mutation from 

 models to mere traces, and even to surface painting, which itself ma}^ 

 undergo both progressive and retrogressive fluctuations at different 

 periods. There is dilPiculty in placing the original forms and build- 

 ing the series. Thus the hourglass-shape brazier appears from ves- 

 tiges to have been an animal form, ])robably human, and could have 

 arizen from the crouched figure with bowl on back, examples of 

 which have been found in various localities, or readily from the 

 human being in seated pose. (PI. 8 a.) Many archeological forms 

 refer back to the human motive, as the sculptured ax and the small 

 jade and other stones tablets of ^Mexico and Central America, whose 

 meaning is made clear by the aid of certain 

 decorative vestiges which they preserve. The 

 most noticeable vestige on the hourglass brazier 

 is the sash, seen on the Copan and Santa Lucia 

 Cozumalhuapa specimens (pi, 4 and pi. 8 a), 

 and conventionalized in the Teotiliuacan and 

 Escalerillas braziers, but with pendants of corn 

 and fruits on the Tlaltelolco specimens. The 

 elaborate laiots and the lappets are very charac- 

 teristic and are made to bear symbolic meaning'in 

 this respect resembling the expressive knot sys- 

 tems of Japan, and perhaps the evanescent cord fiq.4.-brazierorcensee 



n e • 1 rni • i i , • ^'KN, GUATEMALA. 



ngures ol various peoples. 1 he same idea obtains 

 in the Pueblo region of the southwestern United States, where sacred 

 incense cigarettes of reed joints arc bound with cotton cords, the ends 

 hanging free and the knot or other portion of the cord frequently secur- 

 ing shell beads of discoidal or pendent form. (See fig. 10 a-e.) Some- 

 times a small woven cotton sash is secured around the cane joint. In 

 the same category arc the pahos of the Pueblos,* which represent the 

 human form and are supplied with the wrappings or cinctures under 

 discussion. 



Other vestiges represented by knobs or spurs, the former around 

 the rim and foot, and the latter, usually two, on opposite sides near 

 the base, are not so clear, but may be referred to costume and parts 

 of the body. 



Whether the hourglass-shaped pottery braziers may have been used 

 (o deposit the remains of liigh priests, or other important personages, 



• Solberg, Uber dio Bahos der Uopi, Archiv fiir Anthropologie, vol. 4, 1905, pp. 48-74. 



