134 BULLETI]Sr 15 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL. MUSEUM 



designs forming V-sliape figures, scrolls, and frets, are but an elabo- 

 ration of what Eoth terms old-time transitional forms of pottery 

 from the Brazilian-Guiana coast with its bold painted scrolled de- 

 signs painted over the entire surface of the vase or bowl. This same 

 type of vessel form, and of painted decorative design, also appears in 

 the pottery from the island of Mara jo, in the delta of the Amazon 

 River. Applied embellishments are rare, a few knobbed conven- 

 tionalized extensions on vessels resembling the Jamaican boat-shaped 

 funerary pottery, and that is all. 



In Plate 27 Roth illustrates forms and designs of the Brazilian 

 Guiana coast ware with its tall wide mouth and straight rim, resting 

 on a friezed extension of the constricted neck. In plate 28 Roth 

 (after Goeldi) shows additional transitional forms from the Brazil- 

 ian-Guiana coast ware representing effigy vessels of a modified cylin- 

 drical form. Flat trays of the same ware show along with the 

 scrolled painted decorative designs a number of figurine heads placed 

 at the ends of rectangular vessels. These zoomorphic figurine heads 

 betray a certain resemblance to those of the Lesser Antilles. Their 

 comparatively rare appearance indicates a receding use of plastic 

 decorative embellishments of this sort. Wide-mouthed jars with 

 fretted and other angular designs painted over the entire outer sur- 

 face resemble in form if not in design the 2-decked forms of the 

 double bowl from Santo Domingo where a frieze resembling a super- 

 imposed bowl rests on the neck of the bowl beneath. This later form 

 is in the museum of Georgetown. It is in what Roth calls the old- 

 time pottery that the resemblance to prehistoric Santo Domingan 

 form and design begins to approach identity. 



The ancient Indians of Pacoval, on the island of Marajo in the 

 delta of the Amazon River, tempered the clay used in making their 

 earthenware with potsherds. In the walls of fractured vessels large 

 fragments still showing their painted surfaces have been found. 



In modern South American Indian pottery the ashes of the bark 

 of several trees are employed for tempering. In Guiana the bark 

 used is that of the Couepi tree {Couepia guianensis). 



In Amazonian pottery ornaments are rarely impressed or stamped. 

 Circles are made with the end of a hollow stick. The Chambioas and 

 Carajiis of the Aragua3'a make wooden dies with which to ornament 

 their potter}^, the Carajas using a sort of Maltese cross. 



The surface of the vessel, after having been smoothed down, is 

 often washed with a thin layer of pure, creamy clay, which appears 

 to be sometimes burnished before firing, producing a beautiful, 

 hard, and almost polished surface. The common ware of the civ- 

 ilized Indians of the Province of Para is usuallj' ver}^ plain and 

 rarely ever painted, but that of the Upper Amazon is often beau- 

 tifully ornamented in several colors, with frets and borders, and 



