HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN POTTERY 19 



Still more fully pottery recoi-ds the history of the decorative arts — 

 the Ijcgiuoings and progress of esthetic evolution. To a large extent, 

 also, religious conceptions are embodied in it. Mythical beinjifs are 

 modeled and painted, and their strange symljols ar(> introduced into 

 the decorations. Every touch of the potter's hand, of the modeling 

 tool, the stylus, and the brush becomes, through changes wrought 

 in the plastic clay by the application of lieat. an ineffaceable record 

 of man's thought and of woman's toil. Tiiese fictile products, broken 

 and scattered broadcast o\-er all habita1)le lands, are gathered and 

 hoarded by the archeologist. and their ad\entitious records are 

 deciphered with a fullness and clearness second only to that attained 

 in the reading of written records. 



Notwithstanding the above-mentioned \-ery decided advantages of 

 the ceramic art over oth(>r arts as a record of prehistoric peoples, its 

 shortcomings in this direction are apparent at a glance. The student 

 is embarrassed by the parallelisms that necessarily exist between the 

 arts of widely separated jjeoples of like grade of culture and like 

 environment. Even the discriminating investigator may be misled in 

 his efforts to use these relics in the tracing of peoj)les. Other classes 

 of confusing agencies arc interchanges Ijy trade, nudtiple occupation 

 of sites, adoption of pottery-making captives, and the amalgamation 

 of conmiunities; by all of these means works of distinct families of 

 people may in cases be thrown into such close association as to make 

 ethnic determinations difficult and uncertain. 



The danger of making erroneous use of prehistoric works of art in 

 the identification of peoples is especially great where the number of 

 available relics is limited, as is very often the case in archeologic col- 

 lections. Conclusions of importance respecting a given people may in 

 this wa\- be based on evidence afforded by intrusive products or on 

 exceptional conditions or phenomena — conclusions difficult to contro- 

 vert and increasingly difficult to correct as the years pass by. 



Aboriginal American Pottery 



It is hardly possible to find within the whole range of products of 

 human handicraft a moi-e attractive field of investigation than that 

 offered I)}' aboriginal American ceramics, and probably no one that 

 affords such excellent opportunities for the study of early stages in 

 the evolution of art and especially of the esthetic in art. The eai'ly 

 ware of Mediterranean countries has a wider interest m many ways, 

 but it does not cover the same ground. It represents mainly the 

 .stages of culture rising above the level of the wheel, of pictorial art, 

 and of writing, while American pottery is entirely below this level, 

 and thus illu.strates the substratum out of which the higher phases 

 sprmg. But it should be noted that not merely the beginnings of the 

 story ai'e represented in the native work. Thec\dtuie I'ange covered 



