holmes] ORNAMENTATION OF POTTERY. 303 



the wheel or of the influence of wheel-made decoration; but there is 

 probably a pre-ceramic reason for this peculiarity, to be sought in the 

 decoration of antecedent vessels of more pronounced surface or con- 

 structional characters, such as basketry. This arrangement may also 

 be attributed in a measure to the conformation of the vessel decorated. 

 It will be observed that generally the neck furnishes the space for one 

 zone of devices and the body that for another, while the shoulder, where 

 wide or particularly accentuated, suggests the introduction of a third. 

 In vessels of irregular form the figures take such positions as happen 

 to have been suggested to the decorator by the available spaces, by the 

 demands of superstition, or the dictates of fancy pure and simple. 



It appears that the artist never worked in a haphazard manner, yet 

 never by rule or by pattern. The conception of the intended design 

 was well formed in the mind, and the decoration commenced with a thor- 

 ough understanding of the requirements of the vessel under treatment 

 and of the effect of each added line upon the complete result. The ves- 

 sels, being for the most part free-hand products, are necessarily varied 

 in form and proportion, and the mobility of method in decoration is 

 therefore a necessary as well as a natural condition. In accommodating 

 the ordinary geometric figures to the variously curved and uneven sur- 

 faces, there were no erasures and, apparently, no embarrassments. This 

 feature of the art shows it to be a native and spontaneous growth — the 

 untrammeled working out of traditional conceptions by native gifts. 



Stages of ornament. — In the transmission of a nation's art inher- 

 itance from generation to generation, all the original forms of orna- 

 ment undergo changes by .alterations, eliminations, or additions. At 

 the end of a long period we find the style of decoration so modified as 

 to be hardly recognizable as the work of the same people; yet rapid 

 changes would not occur in the uninterrupted course of evolution, for 

 there is a wonderful stability about the arts, institutions, and beliefs of 

 primitive races. Change of environment has a decided tendency to 

 modify, and contact with other peoples, especially if of a high grade of 

 culture, is liable to revolutionize the whole character of the art. The 

 manufactures of our modern tribes show abundant evidence of the de- 

 moralizing effect upon native art of contact with the whites. There are 

 no such features iu the prehistoric art. s 



First stage. — In the early stages of art the elements used in embellish- 

 ment are greatly non-ideographic, and the forms of expression are chiefly 

 geometric. The elements or motives are limited in number and are in a 

 measure common to all archaic art. They embrace dots, straight lines, 

 and various angular and curvilinear figures, which in their higher stages 

 become checkers, zigzags, chevrons, complex forms of meanders, fretted 

 figures, and scrolls, with an infinite variety of combination and detail. 

 At the same time there is no confusion. The processes by which the 

 parts are segregated are as well regulated as are the processes of natural 



