50 BULLETIN 15G, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



maize-pottery area of the Mississippi Valley. To this group belong 

 the Pawnee and other southern plains groups. 



In the West Indies pottery differs little from that of continental 

 North or South America with regard to the usual shaping technic, 

 w^iich consists principally in the horizontal joining of ribbons or 

 coils of clay of such diameters as are necessary in shaping the walls 

 of the vessel proper. Free-hand molding of applied symbolic and 

 decorative embellishments is likewise an elementary potter's technic. 

 In Santo Domingo, as in the Southeastern or Gulf States, these were 

 usually luted onto the side walls of the vessel as handle lugs, appar- 

 ently for ornamental purposes. Applied decorative embellishments, 

 together with free-hand incised decorative designs etched on the 

 upper portion of the outer walls according to distinctive patterns, 

 constitute the characteristic elements of the aboriginal pottery design 

 of the southeastern and Greater Antillean pottery areas. 



It has frequently been stated that in the aboriginal embellishments 

 of Santo Domingan pottery vessels applied figurines are for the most 

 part anthropomorphic, while those from the Lesser Antilles are 

 zoomorphic. This distinction vanishes as we become better ac- 

 quainted with the limited f aunal species native to that island. What 

 had formerly been supposed to represent a symbolic or mythological 

 human character is nothing more than a somewhat rude but faith- 

 fully executed copy of what the primitive potter saw when he chose 

 the native rodentlike mammal, bats, or birds as models for his 

 decorative designs. A distinction, however, that is clear-cut and 

 far-reaching is in the use of painted geometric designs applied on 

 pottery of the Lesser Antilles. Characteristic of the Lesser Antilles 

 also are certain details of modeling of the vessel itself, as thickness 

 of walls, rim, or peculiarities of form; also details of applied 

 decorative devices, as the massiveness of modeled life forms, and 

 detail in features, as bloated faces and bulbous excrescence on nose. 



In Santo Domingo variation was obtained in surface coloring 

 through the application of slips, or by afterwards washing with 

 white clay (kaolin). In the Virgin Islands we have, apparently, two 

 types of aboriginal pottery, one favoring the Porto Eican-Santo 

 Domingan type, and another resembling the forms and surface 

 finish of the Lesser Antilles. Fewkes and De Booy do not agree 

 in the interpretation of their respective finds from the Virgin 

 Islands. 



In the Santo Domingan wares the paints and slips applied before 

 firing are fixed, while the white of the kaolin is readily removed by 

 washing the vessel in water. Many of the color distinctions are 

 accompanied with difference in the paste, in the degrees of thor- 

 oughness of its pulverization, in the thiclmess of walls, smoothness 



