HOLMES] METHODS OF DECORATING 67 



res8, and neat appearance became desirable, coloring was applied, and 

 when the office became ceremonial or superstitious, elaborate designs 

 were employed. Ornament in color is common in the middle and 

 lower Mississipi^i regions, and is seen to some extent along the Gulf 

 coast and in Florida; rare examples have been found in the middle 

 Ohio region and east of the Appalachian high land in (ieorgia and the 

 Carolinas. The most decided prevale^1ce of color in finish and decora- 

 tion is discovered in the Arkansas region, from which locality as a 

 center tliis feature is found to fade out and gradually disappear. The 

 reason of this is not determined, ))ut it is to be remarked that Arkansas 

 borders somewhat closely on the Puelilo country where the use of color 

 was general, and this idea, as has already been remarked, may have 

 been borrowed from the ancient Pueblo potter. 



The colors used in painting were white, red, brown, and l)]ack: they 

 consisted for the most part of finely pulverized cla}' mixtid with ochers 

 and of native ochers alone. Occasionalh' the colors used seem to have 

 been mere stains. All were pi'obably laid on with coarse brushes of 

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

 ple, but are applied in a broad, bold way, indicative of a well-advanced 

 stage of decorative art. Skill had not yet reached the point, however, 

 at which ideographic pictorial subjects could be presented with much 

 freedom, and the work was for the most part purely conventional. 

 As would be expected, curvilinear forms prevail as a result of the 

 fi'ee-hand method of execution; they eml)vace meanders, scrolls, cir- 

 cles, spirals, and comljinations and grouping of curved lines. Of 

 rectilinear forms, lozenges, guilloches, zigzags, checkers, crosses, and 

 stellar shapes are best known. Many of these figures were doubtless 

 symbolic. Life forms were seldom attempted, although modeled fig- 

 ures of animals were sometimes given appropriate markings, as in the 

 case of a fine owl-shaped vessel from Arkansas, and of a quadruped 

 vase, with striped and spotted body, from Missouri. Examples of 

 human figures froni Arkansas have the costume delineated in some 

 detail in red. white, and the ochery color of the paste, and numerous 

 vases shaped in imitation of the human head have the skin. hair, and 

 ornaments colored approximately to life. 



In some cases the patterns on vases are brought out by polishing 

 certain areas more highly than others, and an example is cited by 

 C. C. Jones in which inlaying had been resorted to." 



USE OF TEXTILES IN MODELIN(; AND EMBELLISHIXCJ 



Relation of the Textu.e and Cera51ic Art.s 



Among the tribes of a wide zone in southern British America and 

 northern United States, and extending from the Atlantic to the Rocky 

 mountains, the ceramic art was intimately associated with the textile art, 



"Jones, C. C, Antiquities of ttie southern Indians, p. 459. 



