90 DANIEL WILSON ON THE AETISTIC 



is in mauy cases rendered altog-ether subsidiary to the sports of fancy. Miisical instru- 

 ments are made in the form of animals ; and vases and earthenware vessels of every kind 

 are modelled in imitation of vegetables, fruits and shells, or decorated with familiar 

 natural objects. This is still more apparent in PeruA'ian pottery, where an unrestrained 

 exuberance of fancy sports with the pliant clay. Animal and vegetable forms are com- 

 bined. Men and women are represented in their daily avocations, as jiorters, water-caiTiers, 

 etc. Portrait-vases, represent the human head, characterized at times by gTace and 

 beauty ; but more frec[uently grotesquely caricatured. The human head surmotints the 

 lithe body of the monkey, sporting in ape-like antics ; melons and gourds have animal 

 heads for spouts ; while the duck, parrot, toucan, pelican, turkey, crane, land-turtle, lynx, 

 otter, deer, llama, cayman, shark, toad, etc., are ingeniously reproduced, singly or in groups, 

 as models for bottles, jars or pitchers. The double or triple goblets, and two-necked bottles 

 or jugs, acquire a fresh interest from resemblances traceable between some of them and 

 others belonging to distant localities and remote ages. The Fijiaus, on the extreme western 

 verge of the Polynesian archipelago, have already been referred to for their skill in 

 the finished workmanship of their implements, and of their pottery, some of which 

 suggest curious analogies to Peruvian types. But it is more interesting to note the 

 apparent reprodirction of Egyptian, Etruscan, and other antique forms in Peruvian 

 fictile ware ; and to recognize on the latter the Yitruvian scroll, the Crrecian fret and 

 other ancient classic and Assyrian patterns— not as evidence of common origin, but as 

 originating independently from the ornamentation naturally produced in the work of the 

 straw-plaiter and weaA'er. Still more curious are their analogies to ancient Asiatic art, as 

 disclosed in a comparison with many of the objects recovered by Dr. Schliemauu on 

 Homeric sites. Among the relics which rewarded his exploration of the site of the classic 

 Ilios, are examples of double-necked jugs, terra-cotta groups of goblets united as single 

 vessels, along with others terminating with mouthpieces in the forms of human or animal 

 heads ; or modelled with such quaint ingenuity to represent the hippopotamus, horse, pig, 

 hedgehog, mole and other animals, that were it not for the strange fauna selected for 

 imitation, they would seem little out of place in any collection of Peruvian pottery. 



The same exiiberant sportiveness of the imitative faculty, so characteristic of the 

 races of the New World, reappears in productions of the native metallurgists of Mexico 

 and Central America. Casting, engraving, chasing and carving in metal, were all prac- 

 tised by the Mexicans with a lavish expenditure of misspent labour. Ingenious toys, birds 

 and beasts with moveable wings and limbs, fish with alternate scales of gold and silver, 

 and personal ornaments in many fanciful forms, were wrought by the Mexican gold- 

 smiths with such skill, that the Spaniards acknowledged the superiority of the native work- 

 manship over any product of European art. The ancient graves of the Isthmus of Panama 

 have yielded immense numbers of g-old relics of the same class, though inferior to the 

 finest examples described aboA^e. They include beasts, birds and fishes, frogs and other 

 natural objects, wrought in gold with much skill and ingenuity. The frog is made with 

 sockets for the eyes, an oval slit in front, and within each a detached ball of gold, executed 

 apparently in a single casting. Balls of clay are also frequently found enclosed in 

 detached chambers in the pottery of the Isthmus. Human figures wrought in gold, and 

 monstrous or grotesCj[ue hybrids, with the head of the cayman, eagle, vulture, and other 

 animals, attached to the human form, are also of frequent occurrence ; though in this 



