MATERIAL CULTURE OP THE INDIANS OF SAMANA 81 



Wafer bottles. — Earthenware water bottles with regularly formed 

 necks occur only in Haiti and have not been recovered from any 

 other of the islands of the West Indian Archipelago. Water bottles 

 of earthenware are found in several culture areas of North and South 

 America, but not in middle America. The huastekan type of water 

 canteen with its long oblique neck section is dissimilar to the Samana 

 types, of which apparently there are two. The simpler of these, of 

 which a large number were found at San Juan, has a plain, short, 

 cylindrical, constricted neck section. The other more artistic and 

 highly specialized type has a long neck with a knobbed or bulbous 

 rim. An anthropomorphic or zoomorphic face is molded as a deco- 

 rative embellishment of the lower neck section; the upper portion 

 of the neck area has a circular spherical enlargement. This type 

 of water bottle does not occur anywhere in North America, but does 

 reappear in the Andean region of South America. A third charac- 

 teristic, that of arched mammae on the body of the water vase or 

 bottle appears alike in Ciguayan and Panaman water bottles.-^ 

 "A human effigy vase (Tule Indians of the San Bias coast, Panama) 

 for storing chicha is made of black ware, heavily stained with chicha 

 and uniformly blackened from smoke. The general form of the 

 vase is spherical, with a constricted, tubular neck orifice elongated 

 to one-third the total height of the vessel. A combination of coiling 

 with modeling by the potter's hand, aided with a calabash shell 

 and a knife, was the method employed in its production. The 

 human facial features stand out in low relief filleted on the surface 

 of the neck piece, as are also the arm representations on the walls 

 of the body of the vessel, an ornamentation technique reminiscent 

 of ancient Chibcha ware from Colombia." 



The description of an effigy canteen from Panama is similar to 

 that of Cat. No. 341038, U.S.N.M. (No. 3, pi. 16) from San Juan. 

 This type of canteen differs from the other Ciguayan forms in that 

 the features representing the anthropomorphic design are luted on 

 the spherical body of the vessel rather than to the constricted neck 

 section. The eye appears as a circular raised coil or ribbon of clay 

 with a central shallow pit ; the nose is straight and prominent, form- 

 ing a clear-cut wedge ; the mouth area is an oval strip of luted-on clay, 

 across the center of which is a deep incision. The ear likewise ap- 

 pears as a raised and slightly curved strip of clay luted vertically 

 on the sloping shoulder of the vessel. 



Similar canteens, without the narrow necks of the Antillean ware, 

 have been found on the Gulf coast of northwest Florida. Water 

 bottles also have been recovered from the mounds of middle Missis- 



" Culture of the Peopl^ of Southeastern ranaina, Bull. 134, U.S.N.M. 



