304 ART IN SHELL OF THE ANCIENT AMERICANS. 



precedent, there was extant nothing that could serve as a model for such 

 a work. 



In Plato LXXV I have arranged a number of figures for convenience 

 of comparison, Figs. 1, 3, 5, and 0, being outlines of the four examples 

 just described. In regard to the restored i>art of the outline in Fig. 1, 

 I wish to say that my only object in filling out the figure on the right 

 was to secure as far as possible the full effect of the com[)lete original. 

 Observing that all that remains of the right hand figure — the arm, the 

 body, the leg and foot, is a duplicate of the left, it is safe to conclude 

 that the design has been approximately bi-symmetrical, slight discrep- 

 ancies probably occurring in the details of head and arm, in the ex- 

 pression of face, or in the character of the weapon. It is much to be re- 

 gretted that the faces are totally destroyed. 



In Fig. 3 I present a group of two figures from the so-called "sacri- 

 ficial stone" found in the Plaza Mayor, city of Mexico. It seems to 

 represent the submission of one warrior or ruler to his victorious oppo- 

 nent, and is one of many designs that might be presented to illustrate 

 the analogies of the Tennessee relic with the interesting works of the 

 far South. There is what might be called a family resemblance, a 

 similarity in idea and action, but little analogy of detail. The northern 

 work is by far the more spirited, and is apiiareutly superior in all the 

 essentials of artistic excellence. 



In the comi)osite character of the personages represented this jiicture 

 finds no parallel. Composite figures are of frequent occurrence in Pe 

 ruviau art, as in the running figures sculptured on the great monolith 

 at Tiahuanuco, or the mythical combats of the gods of the earth and 

 sea painted on the pottery of Chimu. They are also found in the manu- 

 scripts of the ancient Mexicans, as well as in the paintings of the 

 modern Pueblos of New Mexico (Fig. 1, Plate LXXVI), and in the 

 totemic art of the Haidahs (Fig. 2, Plate LXXVI). The most frequent 

 combinations are of birds witli men, the ins])iration of the work in all 

 cases being derived from the mythology of the peojile. The wearing 

 of masks has doubtless given rise to many such conceptions, and where 

 the head alone of the human creature has undergone metamorphosis, 

 we may suspect that a mask has originated the conception : but the 

 Tennessee example appears to be the only one in which wings are added 

 independently of the arms or in which bird's feet are attached to the 

 othei'wise perfect human creature. 



And now we come to the question of the origin of these objects, and 

 especially of the example most closelj' resembling Mexican work. The 

 Missouri gorget is in many respects quite isolated from known woi-ks of 

 the Mississippi Valley. Must it be regarded as an exotic, as an impor- 

 tation from the South, or does it belong to the soil from which it was 

 exhumed 1 In order to answer this question we must not only deter- 

 mine its relations to the art of Mexico, but we must kuowjust what affin- 

 ities it has to the art of the mound-builders. 



