374 ANCIENT POTTERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 



There is also a decided tendency toward the grotesque. To such an 

 extreme have the dictates of fancy been followed, in this respect, that 

 utility, the true office of the utensil, has often taken a secondary place, 

 although it is never lost sight of entirely. Bowls have been fashioned 

 into the shapes of birds, fishes, and reptiles, and vases and bottles into 

 a multitude of animal and vegetable forms without apparent regard to 

 convenience. All of these modifications of essential forms were doubt- 

 less looked upon as, in a sense, ornamental. So far as I can determine 

 they were, in no case intended to be humorous. 



Relief ornament. — Decorative ideas of a purely conventional character 

 are often worked out iu both low and salient relief. This is generally 

 accomplished by the addition of nodes and fillets of clay to the plain 

 surfaces of the vessel. Fillets are applied in various ways over the 

 bod}', forming horizontal, oblique, and vertical bauds or ribs. When 

 placed about .the rim or base, these fillets are often indented with 

 the finger or an implement in a way to imitate, rudely, a heavy twisted 

 cord — a feature evidently borrowed from basketry. Nodes are like- 

 wise attached iu various ways to the neck and body of the vessel. In 

 some cases the entire surface of the larger vessels is varied by pinching 

 up small bits of the clay between the nails of the fingers and thumb. 

 An implement is sometimes used to produce a similar result. 



Intaglio designs. — The aesthetic tendencies of these potters are well 

 shown by their essays in engraving. They worked with points upon 

 both the plastic and the sun-dried clay, as well as at times upon the 

 fire-baked surface. Figures thus produced exhibit a wide range of 

 artistic achievement. They illustrate all stages of progress from the 

 most archaic type ot ornament — the use of dots and straight lines — 

 to the most elegant combinations of curves; and, finally, to the delinea- 

 tion of life forms and fanciful conceptions. 



Generally, when a blunt implement is employed, the line is produced 

 by a movement that I shall call trailing, in contradistinction to incision, 

 in which a sharp point is used, and excision or excavation, which is 

 more easily accomplished with the end of a hollow reed or bone. Im- 

 pressed or stamped ornament is of rare occurrence, and anything like 

 repoussee work is practically unknown. The practice of impressing 

 cords and fabrics was common among many of the northern tribes, and 

 nets have been used in the manufacture and ornamentation of vases at 

 many points within this province. The use of stamps, especially pre- 

 pared, was in vogue in most of the Gulf States, and to a limited extent 

 in northern localities. 



Designs in color. — The colors used in painting are white, red, brown, 

 and black, and have generally consisted of thick, opaque, clayey paste, 

 white, or colored with ochers. Occasionally the colors used seem to 

 have beeu mere stains. All were probably laid on with coarse brushes 

 of hair, feathers, or vegetable fiber. The figures are in most cases sim- 



