AFFILIATIONS OF SANTO DOMING AN POTTERY 117 



pear that this famous example of identity in Antillean-Floridian 

 culture is the same design as has been figured by MacCurdy in the 

 American Anthropologist, volume 15, No. 4, October-December, 

 1913, on a vase from Chiriqui. MacCurdy calls this design the octo- 

 pus motif. Holmes had previously designated it as a highly conven- 

 tionalized alligator derivative. The same design of double con- 

 volutes centered about an incised circle appears on potsherds col- 

 lected by the writer both on the north coast and in the interior 

 of Santo Domingo. It appears, then, that this rather complex de- 

 sign has a much wider range than would be the case if it were 

 merely a design such as had infiltrated from the Greater Antilles to 

 the southeastern United States. Along with many other protean 

 ornamental embellishments this octopus motif (we might call it a 

 conventionalized turtle design) had a multiple origin. (PL 4.) 



Three disturbing features in decorative design from that section 

 of the southeastern United States most contiguous to Santo Domingo 

 are also most characteristic of the area, namely, pinching of the 

 plastic clay to form vertical nodes and ridges in lieu of puncta- 

 tions; second, the roulette punctations which appear in curvilinear 

 geometric forms filling in the entire decorative zone on the incurved 

 upper slope of the vessel; third, the promiscuous use of wooden 

 stamps, the faces of which are engraved with various designs em- 

 bracing figures in complex and often pleasing design, but foreign 

 to Santo Domingan decorative motifs. Tlie high development and 

 perfection of these modeling tools is disturbed by the method of 

 their application, which leaves confused impressions scattered rather 

 promiscuously over the surface of the vase in such a way as to 

 destroy the beauty of the original stamp design. 



Doctor Fewkes is of the opinion that the curvilinear roulette 

 punctations appearing throughout the Floridian and Appalachian 

 area, and which he studied intensively in his Weeden Island work, 

 are foreign to the Antillean area. In conclusion he states in regard 

 to the Weeden Island pottery, "When we compare the Floridian 

 pottery with the highest decorated ceramics from the West Indies 

 we find considerable difference between it and that of Cuba, Santo 

 Domingo, and Porto Kico, where ceramic art reached its highest 

 efflorescence, and are unable to refer it to the Antillean, but the 

 crude pottery of the lower stratum resembles that of the lower 

 stratum of the West Indies. * * * There is no likeness between 

 the decorative pottery of Weeden Island and the so-called Tainan 

 ware of the Antilles. Whatever relationship exists between Flo- 

 ridian and Antillean ceramics is found in the ancient forms or those 

 found in the lower strata. In the absence of knowledge as to the 

 relationship of the people who inhabited the Weeden Island and the 

 Indians found on Tampa Bay by the Spaniards we can not say 



