114 BULLETIN 156, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Mammiform projections with incised decorative bands similar to 

 the bulbous extension on heart-shaped water bottles from Santo 

 Domingo are characteristic of the Florida Gulf coast. A form of 

 vase or water bottle entirely different from that of the middle 

 Mississippi Valley resembles similar exceptional forms from Monte 

 Cristi (pi. 17) on the northern coast of Santo Domingo. In this, 

 as well as in other areas of southeastern United States, the incised 

 lines are more protean on the one hand and more conventionalized 

 on the other than are the applied forms. Realistic incised forms 

 on the Florida coast include such animal forms as the eagle and the 

 snake. 



Certain primary forms of realism appear in sequence in the two 

 areas under comparison, one end of the sequence being a realistic 

 version, the other highly conventionalized or distorted, or appearing 

 only in part. A bird figure representing, say, a bat, might form a 

 series with a clearly recognizable bat head, either incised or in 

 relief, with flanking symbols clearly recognizable as wings or bird 

 claws. At the other end of the series we have merely a geometrical 

 border or incised band filled in with triangular figures representing 

 bat heads, also with characters representing perhaps either bird 

 claws or tracks of bird feet. In the decorative embellishment on 

 earthenware from Santo Domingo, occasionally a beak, two eyes, 

 perhaps a foot or claw, stands for the entire figure. A head sharply 

 defined, either etched or in relief, flanked by applied ribbons of clay 

 with clearly modeled terminal hands, feet, or claws rei^resents the 

 entire animal. Many series from realism at one end to conventional- 

 ized shorthand in art, so to speak, at the other may be recognized 

 both in the Gulf coast and Dominican areas, the bat, frog, monkey, 

 lizard, snake, many forms of the owl, parrot, and other animal 

 concepts being clearly recognizable. 



Globose vessels with extended rim frieze resembling a 2-vessel com- 

 bination, with one placed on top of the other, the constricted bottom 

 sector of the upper being removed and the walls joined with the 

 lower vessel to form a constricted neck, as mentioned before, appear 

 alike in vessels from the Dominican southeast coast, from the north- 

 west coast of Florida, and from Iroquoian sites. These examples 

 have diagonal line etchings and figurine head modelings appearing 

 at the sides near the lip and above the constricted neck sector. 



Effigy bowls representing the owl with head and tail oppositely 

 placed near the margin, but with incised paneled designs represent- 

 ing wings appearing at the sides above the pole of the bowl, occur 

 alike as Santo Domingan and Floridian cemetery finds. 



Two-compartment, hemispherical bowls, joined with a diaphragm, 

 occur in Florida and Santo Domingo, but are dissimilar in such de- 



