AFFILIATIONS OF SANTO DOMINGAN POTTERY 109 



quately described from the several native Provinces of Seibo, Samana, 

 Monte Cristi, and Macoris. 



The earthenware tobacco bowl pipe occurs in no form in Santo 

 Domingo, although generally present in Florida and in the south- 

 eastern Gulf States. A bifurcated bone snuffing tube was employed 

 instead of the tobacco pipe. This is one of the strongest links showing 

 Chibchan rather than Muskhogean or Timucuan influence. 



The use of a basket in modeling apparently was unknown to the 

 aboriginal potter in Santo Domingo; in fact the use of molds gen- 

 erally as practiced by Mexican artisans and Pueblo Indians of a 

 later period is unknown. Impressions resulting from the use of 

 pliable wrappings of material sustaining the vessel while plastic 

 have been found in the grass or matting impressions on the under- 

 side of circular earthenware cassava bread griddles and roasting 

 dishes. The many earthenware forms from the mounds of the 

 Carolinas showing impressions of cord-wrapped potter's paddle or 

 malleating tool is not paralleled in Santo Domingan finds. The 

 presence of a notched wheel or of a roulette design, clearly estab- 

 lished in Florida and neighboring States, is lacking in the numerous 

 banded punctate designs from Monte Cristi Province. Finger-nail 

 markings used to obtain a certain decorative effect as in the corru- 

 gated ware from the Southwest are practically unknown in Santo 

 Domingan ware. This does not exclude thumb and finger-nail 

 prints of the potter accidentally remaining on the unsmoothed 

 surface. 



The classification of Indian pottery from eastern and central 

 United States presented by Holmes in the Twentieth Annual Ke- 

 port of the Bureau of American Ethnolog}'- defines the pottery of 

 eastern United States, inclusive of the Mississippi Valley, as readily 

 falling into five groups. The group nearest the Bahamas and the 

 Greater Antilles he designates as the South Appalachian group; 

 while the aboriginal pottery from North Carolina and adjoining 

 States of the Atlantic coast are classified as the Middle and Northern 

 Atlantic Slope group. The Northwest group, the Iroquois group, 

 and the Middle Mississippi Valley group are the more remote pot- 

 tery subareas in this regional classification and differ markedly 

 from the forms known to us from Santo Domingo, although many 

 of the forms figured by Holmes in Plates 5, 9, 12, 14, 23, 26, 27, 28, 

 35, 44, and 45, belonging to the Middle Mississippi Valley group, 

 might well have been derived from Santo Domingo, while the cur- 

 vilinear etched designs from the Lower Mississippi Valley group are 

 still more striking in their resemblance to Santo Domingan forms. 

 The resemblances in the vessel forms are particularly worthy of 

 note. 



54291—31 8 



