GEOGKAPHY 11 



is the black loamy soil of creek bottom lands naturally tempered 

 with sand and pebbles. This paste is used in the aboriginal Domin- 

 ican pottery as it occurs, without the addition of a tempering mate- 

 rial. When fired it burns to a salmon color. It is often impossible 

 to determine whether the vessel presents a surface coloring due to 

 burnishing, tooling, application of a thin slip, or whether it is a 

 natural color produced by firing. The presence of a thick slip 

 is much more readily detected, but is of rare occurrence even in the 

 centers of diversified pottery forms in southeastern Santo Domingo. 



The development of molds in shaping the walls of the vessel 

 apparently never was arrived at by the Santo Domingan potter, 

 although use of clay molds was a common practice in the highland 

 cultures of Central and South America, even the applied decorative 

 figurine heads being made by free-hand in the postarchaic Antillean 

 pottery as were practically all of the incised decorative elements. 

 An occasional regularity of applied or incised decoration resembling 

 trailing shows that etching tools of complex design were employed 

 by the Santo Domingan potter, but not nearly so frequently as in 

 the southern Gulf States. A few examples of fragmentary ves- 

 sels showing the use of a Crosshatch paddle stamp were recovered 

 in 1928 in Samana Peninsula. It is possible that more such ex- 

 amples exist, as the practice is rather widespread and of sporadic 

 occurrence throughout America. 



The last step in the production of aboriginal earthenware forms, 

 the firing, is important in determining hardness of walls and color 

 of unpainted surfaces. Black ware was produced by smothering 

 the fire with leaves or green twigs and then covering the kiln with 

 ashes. This ware is found chiefly in Monte Cristi and in the moun- 

 tainous interior, less in the eastern Provinces of Samana and Santo 

 Domingo. Normally earthenware vessels were burned in the open, 

 a fire built around the vessel sufficing. Slow cooling was effected 

 by means of smothering the fire gradually with earth. Pits and 

 kilns were used by the aborigines in Colombia, but aside from a 

 few pits of unknown use in isolated sections of Santo Domingo, 

 nothing in the aboriginal ceramics of Santo Domingo indicates the 

 use of kilns in that pottery-making area. 



GEOGRAPHY 



The West Indian Archipelago extends from Florida Peninsula, 

 a consolidated limestone formation devoid of relief features, to the 

 continental area of South America, a distance of 1,600 miles. The 

 Bahama Islands, anciently known to the aboriginal Arawak popu- 

 lation as the Lucayas, are likewise of a low-lying coralline forma- 

 tion like that of Florida, which is but 60 miles distant from the 

 nearest island of the group. 



