58 BULLETIN 15 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



crab, turtle, parrot, owl, alligator, snake, and aviform, mammalian, 

 and life forms generally. The monkey and jaguar and other South 

 American mammal forms give way in Antillean designs to the bat,, 

 the jutia, the solenodon, and the sea cow. Such details as coiled rib- 

 bons with centrally cleft buttons, eye symbols, paired handles, 

 parallel line punctations, tail symbols, series of triangular or con- 

 centric circle incised arm and leg representations, indications of 

 hand and foot, these are identical alike in prehistoric Panama, 

 Colombia, and Santo Domingo. 



A study of the decorative designs on shell, wood, terra cotta, and 

 other objects of aboriginal provenience from Santo Domingo and 

 elsewhere in the West Indies reveals many similar circle and dot, 

 also angular spur, and concentric circle and dot, either in raised 

 ribbons of clay or in incised or etched lines. V-shaped incised fig- 

 ures appear frequently on pottery vessels from the island Arawak. 

 The inference is that the relief effect obtained by the alternate bilat- 

 eral incised or etched lines and the raised wen or button with its 

 circle and dot or the nucleated circle are but crude attempts at ob- 

 taining perspective and relief, unique but elementary to the designs 

 incised or applied in characteristic manner on the more developed 

 Antillean ceramics of a chronologically later period. 



Disregarding surface finish and paints, earthenware vessels from 

 Santo Domingo may roughly be grouped under three wares: Gray 

 ware, terra-cotta ware ranging from brown to buff, and black ware. 

 Each ware again apparently has an island-wide distribution, with 

 certain centers of intensive development. Thus a sand-tempered 

 terra-cotta ware is common to Samana and other soutlueastern. 

 provinces, gray ware and black ware to Monte Cristi and the central 

 uplands. 



If we include a consideration of the surface finish, the number 

 of wares is increased and we may add as belonging to a separate 

 ware those vessels revealing clear traces of having been treated with 

 mineral clay wash or vegetable slip and those showing traces or 

 panels of paint. The slipped ware occurs in salmon, white, red,, 

 cream, and maroon evenly applied to the entire outer and usually 

 inner surface as well. Painted ware, on the other hand, is of two 

 types, a characteristically marked red ware similar to that of south- 

 western Porto Rico, and polychrome, very rare in Santo Domingo,, 

 but appearing as a typical ware on the southern and western coasts 

 of Porto Rico in the vicinitj'^ of Ponce. Polychrome designs on 

 earthenware vessels from Porto Rico are geometric. So far as is 

 known no examples of painted designs representing life forms have 

 been found either in Porto Rico or in the Dominican Republic, or 

 in other islands of the Greater Antilles. Not only is the painted^ 



