IN ANCIENT AMERICAN ART. 159 



With this arrangement of the parts, conventionalism 

 has full play, and in figures 7 and 8 are seen two vessels 

 on which the nose, eye, ear and tail are rudely represented 

 in the same positions as in the preceding. Several other 

 vessels are of the same character, but slightly modified 

 in the more or less realistic representation of the several 

 parts, until, finally, the climax of conventionalism in this 

 direction is reached in the vessel shown in figure 9, where 

 the nose, tail, eyes and ears are represented by six round 

 knobs of equal size, holding the positions assigned to the 

 several features in the preceding figures. 



In this last specimen realistic work has entirely given 

 way to symmetry, and a common cooking pot has become 

 chaste in style as the result of a development of artistic 

 feeling. 



All the examples to which I have referred are from the 

 stone-graves in the burial places of a people who must have 

 lived in towns near together in the Cumberland valley. 

 Unfortunately, we cannot ascertain how long it took for 

 this development, but that these burial places contain the 

 dead of many generations there is no doubt. 2 



OTHER FORMS CONVENTIONALIZED. 



In the case of the fish, particularly in the pottery from 

 the St. Francis valley in Arkansas, the realistic forms are of 

 the same character as the mammal's head in the preced- 

 ing figures 1 and 2; from Tennessee, and the line of conven- 

 tionalism is carried out on similar principles ; that is, the 



a lt is important to state that the study of the art of this ancient people is based 

 upon a collection derived from over six thousand of the singular stone-graves iu 

 the Cumberland valley, which were opened by myself or by assistants work- 

 ing under my direction. I was in particular aided by the faithful labors of the 

 late Mr. Edwin Curtis, of Nashville, who for several years acted as my principal 

 assistant in the Cumberland valley and in Arkansas. It is also important to state 

 that in all these graves there was not a single object found indicating contact with 

 Europeans. 



