HOLMES. ] 



BOTTLES FROM THE GULP PROVINCE. 



433 



aud clouded with fire stains from the baking. The body is ornamented 

 with the engraved figure of a bird apparently intended for an eagle. 

 The bead, with its notched and strongly curved beak aud convention- 

 alized crest, occupies one side. The wings may be seen at the right and 

 left, while the tail appears on the side opposite the head. The flat- 

 tened base of the vessel occupies the place of the body. The lines have 

 been scratched with a sharp point in the hardened clay. Certain spaces 

 in the plumes, wings, and tail are filled in with reticulated lines. 



The bottle presented in Fig. 462 is embellished with a rather remark- 

 able design in color. The material is fine grained and without admix- 

 ture of shell. The color of the paste is a pale, salmon gray. The 

 surface is coated with a thick slip or enamel of whitish clay, very fine 

 graiued and smooth; upon this the design was painted, not in the 

 thick earthy color employed farther north, but in what appears to be a 

 dark purplish-gray stain. The design upon the body is wholly unlike 

 anything yet described. It is developed in the light ground tint by 

 filling in the interstices with the dark color. The peculiar character of 



Fig. 462.— Bottle : Alabama.— J. 



this design incliues me to the view that it probably had an ideographic 

 origin, although possibly treated here as pure decoration. The open 

 hand is sometimes seen, in both the decorative and the symbolic work 

 of the Gulf coast tribes, and is not unknown elsewhere. The figures 

 alternating with the hands are suggestive of a highly conventionalized 

 face, the eyes being indicated by the volutes and the mouth aud teeth 

 by the lower part of the figure, as will be seen in the fully projected 

 design, Fig. 463. The neck has two indistinct bands of triangular den- 

 tate, figures apparently painted in the dark color. The bottom is flat- 

 4 eth 28 



