FACULTY IN ABOEIGINAL EACKS. 89 



human head iu its jaws, now in my possession, was dug- up, along with numerous other 

 clay-pipes, bone pins, and other relies, in Norfolk County, on the north shore of Lake Erie. 

 I also possess casts of some ingeniously modelled clay-pipes found a few years since iu an 

 ossuary at Lake Medad, near "Watertown, about ten miles west from Hamilton, Ontario. 

 This no dcubt marks the site of an ancient town of the Attiwendaronks, or Neuter 

 Natioji, who were iinally conquered and driven out by the Iro([uois in l(Jo5, when the little 

 remnant that survived was adopted into the Seneca nation. Mr. B. E. Charlton, who ex- 

 plored the Lake Medad ossuaries, after describing the human remains, along with large 

 tropical shells, shell-beads and other relics, adds : " "With these were found antique pipes 

 of stone and clay, many of them bearing extraordinary devices, figures of animals, and 

 of human heads wearing the conical cap noticed on similar relics in Mexico and Peru." ' 

 Similar discoveries rewarded the researches of Dr. Taché in the Huron ossuaries on the 

 Georgian Bay, examples of which are now in the museum of Laval University. 



On the site of the famous Indian town of Hochelaga, the precirrsor of the city of 

 Montreal, detached fragments, iu well-burnt clay, including modellings of the human 

 head and neck, had been repeatedly found, before the recovery of larger portions of the 

 Hochelaga pottery showed that projections modelled in this form within the mouths of their 

 earthern pots or kettles were designed to admit of their suspension over the fire. Any 

 projection within the mouth of the pot, would have answered the purpose of protecting 

 the cord or withe from the risk of burning ; so that the moulding of it into the human 

 form furnishes an illustration of the play of the imitative faculty under circumstances 

 little calculated to call it forth. 



The decoration of domestic pottery by the American Indian workers in clay is greatly 

 developed among the more southern tribes. The ornamentation of a few prominent points, 

 moulded more or less rudely into human or animal heads, gives place with them to the 

 modelling of the vessel itself into animal fonus, or to its decoration, chiefly with human 

 or animal figures. Among the examples of native art iu the National Museum at Wash- 

 ington are two large vases, remarkable for their elaborate workmanship, which were 

 brought from Mexico, by General Alfred Gibbs. They are figured, along with other 

 specimens of Mexican pottery and terra-cottas, in Mr. Charles Rau's account of the Archceo- 

 ological Collection of the United States National Museum. They are there spoken of as 

 " two large vases of exquisite workmanship," and one of them is not only described as an 

 admirable specimen of Mexican pottery, but it is added : " As far as the general outline is 

 concerned, it might readily be taken for a vessel of Etruscan or Greek origin. The pecu- 

 liar ornamentation, however, stamps it at once as a Mexican product of art ; " - and, it 

 may be added, in doing so, places it in very marked contrast to any example of Etruscan 

 or Greek workmanship. Its modelling, both in general form and in all its curious 

 zoomorphic details, is essentially barbarous, yet manifesting ingenious skill in the 

 workmanship, and exuberent fancy iu design. The influence of Mexican art extended 

 northward ; and its characteristics may be traced in much of the native pottery 

 of the Southern States. But throughout Mexico, Central America, and the Isthmus, the 

 modeller iu clay appears to have rcA^elled in feats of skill. Clay masks and caricatures, 

 and heads of men and animals, in endless variety of dress and fashioning, abound. Utility 



' Proceedings of Hamilton Association, i. 5-1. ' Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, xxii. 82- 



Sec. II., 1S85. 12. 



