TRINIDAD AND SOUTH AMERICAN EARTHENWARE 133 



generally was felt in the West Indies principally through native agri- 

 cultural practices. Maize, cotton, and perhaps other crops cultivated 

 in Santo Domingo were first introduced from Mexico through the 

 Maya traders. 



Stone collars somewhat analogous within both Maya and Arawak 

 areas, stools of stone with sculptured figurines depicting life forms, 

 the axially drilled tubular stone bead, weaving of cotton cloth, the 

 molding of clay figures in anthropomorphic and zoomorphic forms — 

 all these features of analogous design within both areas indicate a 

 close cultural influence from Mexico and Central America entirely 

 distinct from a more direct influence from the Maya of Yucatan, 

 which apparently did not occur among the southern United States 

 tribes occupying the wide expanse of territory bordering the Gulf on 

 the north. 



Samuel K. Lothrop ^^ writes that it is his belief that Antillean 

 "culture " had a distinct connection with southern Central America. 

 This belief is founded upon the fact that the red-line ware patterns 

 and also some of the small modeled figures in stone cist ware of 

 Costa Eica have a distinct Antillean flavor. In addition, pictographs 

 from the two regions are surprisingly alike, while the chairs of the 

 present tribes in South America resemble those of the Guetar (Costa 

 Rica). For geographical reasons direct contact between these areas 

 was impossible and those features which are common to both were 

 doubtless passed along by the natives of Colombia. 



Connection with the Andean region is evident in pottery shapes as 

 well as in the styles of decoration. A development over a long period 

 of time doubtless took place here with a succession of somewhat 

 different types. 



It would seem that throughout the whole of tropical lowland 

 northern South America development in pottery manufacture among 

 aboriginal tribes proceeded along somewhat analogous lines. This, 

 so far as pertains to design, included the transition from incised and 

 plastic designs to painted forms of great variety, including effigy ves- 

 sels replacing effigy forms in miniature which have come to be 

 considered as characteristic of the archaic earthenware, but at a 

 later date were luted on to the walls of vessels as handle lugs. In a 

 thorough discussion of modern pottery of the Guiana Indians.^^ Roth 

 notes transitions from prehistoric to modern forms and designs that 

 correspond to the observation just made. Modern pottery of the 

 Surinam Carib is painted and covered with a glazelike surface finish 

 on which appear geometric line paintings in black on a purple back- 

 ground. Effigy figurines, either in black or in purple, with black line 



«> Pottery of Costa Rica and Nicaragua, Contr. Mus. Amer. Indian, Heye Foundation, 

 vol. 8 (2), p. 410, 1926. 



"Roth, Walter E., An Introductory Study of the Arts, Crafts, and Customs of tbe 

 Guiana Indians, Thirty-eighth Ann. Kept. Bur. Amer. Etim., p. 130, 1924. 



