FOEM AND DESIGN IN SANTO DOMINGAN POTTERY 49 



In the case of the pUiins tribes, devoid of pottery for the most part, 

 geometrical art was dcA^eloped b}' means of painting and quill 

 working. 



In a genera] way there is a duplication of earthenware patterns 

 of South and of North America. With the centers of highest achieve- 

 ment in pottery production in the liighlands of Central America, 

 Mexico, and in Peru, and with the gradual fading out of the industry 

 toward the nonagricultural areas, there can be no thought of a 

 direct migration of the industry from without, as from the Poly- 

 nesians who did not make pottery, and more particularly from 

 northeastern Asia, where the making of pottery is limited to a 

 few tribes. Pottery making, so far as the Americas are concerned, 

 must, therefore, have developed as an endemic American industry. 

 Just where it began, perhaps at a dozen centers, remains as yet 

 a matter of future chronological study. The whole maize-cassava- 

 pottery culture complex is of native American origin. 



In the extreme northwest of North America the Eskimos have 

 developed a distinct potter^?' in association with Siberian forms and 

 technics. The area of pottery distribution on the North American 

 Arctic coast extends as far east as the northeast cost of Hudson 

 Bay. In Asia, although little is known archeologically of the dis- 

 tribution of the Arctic-Eskimoan form of pottery, we know it to be 

 fashioned by the Yuit just across the Bering Strait, and in the 

 region surrounding Cape Bathurst. Eskimo pottery appears to be 

 distinct as to paste, tempering, and shaping technic from the gen- 

 erally known types of coiled pottery fashioned in the maize and 

 cassava areas of America. Although use of coiling ribbons of clay 

 is not infrequent the usual Eskimo method is to work the vessel 

 from a solid mass of earth previously prepared with a tempering 

 of hair, seal blood, ptarmigan feathers, marsh grass, or similar 

 materials. The w^alls of the vessels are thick; the forms include 

 shallow, hemispherical bowl types, also occasionally tall, wide- 

 necked containers almost cylindrical in form, with flat bottoms. 

 The shallow bowl forms are frequently used as lamps, and in- 

 variably have on the inside etched or applied geometric devices in 

 the form of crosses. Eskimo pottery is never intentionally baked, 

 merely being allowed to dry, later to become saturated wdth oils 

 and fats. It is exceedingly fragile. 



Wissler erroneously notes that the pottery of the Mandan and 

 Hidatsa of the Dakotas is related to the Eskimo pottery type both 

 in technic and in origin. Mandan-Hidatsa pottery-making technic 

 does vary somewhat from the generally employed pottery technic 

 of the eastern Indians. It is, however, more probable that these 

 maize-producing tribes of the northern plains are marginal to the 



