FOKM AND DESIGN IN SANTO DOMINGAN POTTEKY 59 



ware very limited in its distribution, but the number of specimens 

 revealing painted surfaces is much smaller than are those that have 

 been slipped or that appear in the natural colors produced in 

 burning. 



Unpainted pottery always appears in the natural terra cotta or 

 brick, white, gray, buff, or brown colors which may or may not have 

 been burnished or covered with some mineral clay or vegetable 

 slip. The terra cotta unpainted ware, also sometimes known as the 

 brown ware, is the most characteristic type of pottery both in Santo 

 Domingo and in Porto Rico. The paste is less homogeneous, more 

 porous, and shows rougher and cruder tempering than is true of 

 the slipped or painted wares. The great abundance of the brown or 

 terra cotta brick-colored ware is explained by the presence through- 

 out the island of black loamy clays which are full of a natural tem- 

 pering material, such as small bits of decomposed steatite, mica, chert 

 or other stone pebbles, and grains of sand. Sometimes bits of broken 

 rock or shell are added as an artificial temper. This terra cotta 

 or brown ware varies but little in the dimension of the cross section 

 of the walls, namely, 0.5 to 0.8 centimeter, the greatest cross-sectional 

 dimension known in the examples recovered by the writer, 1% centi- 

 meters, being in the basal section of shallow flat bowls and large 

 urnlike containers from Andres on the Caribbean coast. 



The earthenware forms from Santo Domingo are mostly for cu- 

 linary purposes and for domestic use, ceremonial or ritual forms not. 

 being readily recognized except that sucli vessels bear no evidence of 

 hard usage. Grave offerings so far as earthenware forms are con- 

 cerned are of the regular food-dish and water-bottle type, and are not 

 " killed." Distinct forms of the funerary urn, like the Jamaican ob- 

 long, thin-walled terra-cotta bowl, or the east coast Floridian grave 

 figurine pottery, are not found. Several forms of vessels occur in 

 practically the same frequency throughout the island, the most nu- 

 merous perhaps being shallow food bowls with straight incurved or 

 outcurved rims, with or without marginal figurine heads, convex 

 walls with no clearly defined shoulder ridge or rudimentary foot, and 

 the basal section flat or rounded. 



Next in order perhaps are the circular, flat earthenware griddles, 

 which vary in frequency of diameter from 12 to 24 inches and in 

 sectional thickness from one-half to nearlj^ 2 inches. These objects 

 are porous and are usuallj^ burned to a brick-red color. A few 

 are burnished and slipped and are of firmer structure. 



Oblong boat-shaped vessels with raised ends are frequently sur- 

 mounted at the raised prow and stern with vertical figurine heads.. 

 This type of vessel appears as slipped or unslipped terra cotta.. 

 Deep globular vessels, usually brown or buff, have thick walls and 



