

THE POTTER'S ART AMONG NATIVE AMERICANS. 649 



prior to the Inca civilization; they are from six to ten inches 

 high. The canopa, an upright bottle, in Fig. 3, is very suggestive, 

 its name calling to mind the canopi, or funeral vases used by an- 

 cient Egyptians, though the word is of Maya origin, as Dr. Le 

 Plongeon has fully explained in one of his books. Traveling 

 south of Peru, we find that in Chile, near Santiago, the capital, 

 there is a fragrant clay called buccari, of fine quality and light 

 weight, its color being brown with yellow spots. The inmates of 

 convents convert this into varions utensils which they paint, gild, 

 and varnish. It is said that water placed in them has an agree- 

 able perfume and flavor. North of Peru, in Ecuador, near Quito 

 the capital, a similar clay is found. 



Chiriqui is an interesting field for students of the ceramic art. 

 Politically Chiriqui is a part of South America, while geograph- 

 ically it belongs to the northern continent. It is between Veragua 

 on the east and Costa Rica on the west. Pottery is most abundant 

 in the lands around the bay of David, though found all along 

 that part of the coast. The Chiriquian modeling shows more 

 symmetry of form than any other on the continent. In graves, 

 from three to twenty pieces are usually found. One explorer ob- 

 tained ten thousand articles of clay from burial places covering 

 an area of fifty square miles. The ware is uniform. The matrix 

 is of fine clay tempered with pulverized sand. Grains of quartz, 

 feldspar, hornblende, iron oxide, etc., can be detected. Argilla- 

 ceous matter was sparingly used except in outer coatings, the 



Fig. 3. 



sand in many instances comprising at least seventy-five per cent 

 of the mass. 



Some of the work is similar to that in Costa Rica and the 

 Colombian States. The Maypures of Colombia form cylinders 

 of clay, and shape even the largest vases by hand, without any 

 wheel. In Nicaragua, too, clay utensils are formed entirely by 



