66 BULLETIN 134, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



two-compartment stove and censer combined : that is, for domestic 

 and ceremonial purposes as well, is 14.8 cm. (5.8 in.) in height and 

 13.9 cm. (5.5. in.) in width. The clay utilized is of a more tenacious 

 quality than that used by the Cunas of the Sucubti valley. It is of a 

 dark brown, and other similar stove censers are of a yellow terra 

 cotta color, due partly to methods of firing, which causes the iron 

 present in the clay to be burned to a red oxide. The mode of con- 

 struction is partly by coiling, partly by modeling. The annular foot 

 is shaped from one piece of clay that has been modeled by hand and 

 smoothed with a wooden paddle or piece of calabash shell. Extend- 

 ing upward from the outer circular edge of the foot are seven short 

 strips, each made from one flattened coil and knuckled with an 

 outward flare at nearly right angles to its compensating incurve. 

 The seven lateral supports are separated from one another by seven 

 orifices of equal dimensions, so that a septuple base or stove com- 

 partment with a constricted top surface 5.3 cm. (2.1 in.) above the 

 bottom piece is the result. 



The top slab of the lower stove compartment serves also as the 

 bottom piece for the compartment above. This part of the vessel 

 is similar in form, size, and mode of construction to the Cuna two- 

 handled cooking pot, The constricted neck orifice, although made 

 by the process of coiling and topped by a flaring margin, is so care- 

 fully finished, tooled, and burnished as to obliterate on the surface 

 all evidence of its mode of construction. Attached at the opposite 

 sides of the vessel are two beautifully modeled handles luted on by 

 finger pressure, but the surfaces of this vessel both inner and outer 

 have been so smoothed as to obliterate all evidence of finger im- 

 prints and juncture seams. 



The lid is composed of a circular slab 12.7 cm. (5 in.) in diameter 

 with a concave under surface fitted to the marginal flare of the 

 vessel and a convex upper surface surmounted with a rectangular 

 handle made of three separate flattened coils. 



Piercing the bottom of the upper compartment just outside the 

 place of juncture of the seven lateral base supports and equidistant 

 are nine draft holes with an average diameter of 1 centimeter. 

 These draft holes are used in connection with the burning of the 

 cacao bean incense, or when the upper compartment is employed 

 as a brasier. 



Similarly placed perforations, eight in number, are found on the 

 four-handled stove-censer employed by the Tule. One of these in 

 the National Museum (Cat, No. 327343, pi. 13. No. 3), is 13.5 cm. 

 (5.3 in.) in height and 11.1 cm. (4.4 in.) in greatest diameter. The 

 two additional handles are luted on at right angles to the pair 

 usually found luted on at opposite sides and are primarily decora- 

 tive in their nature. The supporting legs, which are at the same time 



