October 6, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



445 



the application of the device.'' This is true 

 also of the prehistoric pottery of Europe. 

 Only in the slip (barbotine) decorations of 

 the terra sigillata do we find anything re- 

 sembling the American applique ornamenta- 

 tion, but since the material is applied in a 

 semifluid state, it does not attain the same 

 freedom of treatment. Nodes that do occur 

 in European prehistoric pottery seem to have 

 been made rather in imitation of punched 

 bronze decorations and belong to a late 

 period. Attached animal figures, made in 

 clay, like those found at Oedenburg, also seem 

 to be imitations of metal work and have never 

 reached that development which is so char- 

 acteristic of Central American ceramic art.' 



The characteristic slit rattle feet of Chiri- 

 qui pottery prove even more conclusively 

 than the application of fillets and nodes, that 

 the art forms of this province must be consid- 

 ered as a special development of forms charac- 

 teristic of a much wider area. This t3'pe of 

 foot is so well known that no special reference 

 to its occurrences outside of the Chiriqui terri- 

 tory need be given. 



We are thus led to the conclusion that the 

 armadillo motive of the author is historically 

 related to the method of decorating and build- 

 ing up vessels from separate pieces, nodes and 

 fillets, the nodes and fillets being in many re- 

 gions decorated by parallel incised lines, or by 

 dots. If this is true, the armadillo motive 

 can only be a specialized application of the 

 building up of animal motives from the ele- 

 ments in question, and neither can the ele- 

 ments themselves be considered primarily as 

 symbols of the armadillo (p. 61), nor can all 

 the animals built up of these elements be in- 

 terpreted as armadillos. 



* ' ' Notes analytiques sur les collections etlino- 

 graphiques du Musee du Congo, ' ' Vol. II., ' ' Les 

 industries indigenes"; Part 1, "La ceramique. " 

 (Fig. 293 a is the only one that may exhibit this 

 technique.) 



' Relief ornaments consisting of fillets have been 

 described from northern Germany, Bohemia, Bos- 

 nia and Italy. See, for instance, Eadinsky, But- 

 mir, Vienna, 1895; K. Koenen, Gefasskunde, Bonn, 

 1895, PI. III., Pig. 12. 



For the same reason I am inclined to doubt 

 the correctness of the interpretation of the 

 alligator group, which was first given by Pro- 

 fessor Holmes in the work before referred to. 

 The upturned snout, of which much is made 

 as a means of identification, is a character of 

 much wider distribution than the alligator 

 motive. The monkeys on Plates 27 and 32a 

 of Dr. MacCurdy's book have it, and we find 

 it as well in the interior of Costa Rica" as 

 in parts of South America. This is no 

 less true of the curious " nuchal appendage " 

 which occurs in Costa Rica' as well as in 

 South America,* and of the dotted triangle. 



It seems to me that the essential point of 

 this consideration lies in the technical and 

 formal motives that are common to a large 

 area, although differing in details in its 

 provinces. These are the materials with 

 which the artist operates and they determine 

 the particular form which a geometrical 

 motive or a life motive takes. If the notched 

 fillet and node are the material with which 

 the hand and the mind of the artist operate, 

 they will occur in all his representations. If 

 the conventional outline of the animal body 

 has a definite form, all animals will tend to 

 be represented in that manner. I have tried 

 to emphasize at a previous time" the impor- 

 tance of such fixed traditional forms in de- 

 termining the conventional style of decora- 

 tions. 



In his further descriptions of the art work 

 of Chiriqui Dr. MacCurdy notes the similar- 

 ity of motives used in metal castings, notably 



''Hartman, I. c, Pig. 2, PI. 35, PI. 81, Fig. 286, 

 p. 128. The region in question has more fre- 

 quently a proboscis-like appendage, rolled down- 

 ward. 



' Hartman, I. c, Fig. 2 ; PI. 35. 



* M. H. Saville, ' ' Contributions to South Amer- 

 ican Archeology." The George G. Heye Expedi- 

 tion. ' ' The Antiquities of Manabi, Ecuador, ' ' 

 PI. 8. See also E. Seler, ' ' Arehaologische Unter- 

 suchungen in Costarica, ' ' Globus, Vol. 85, 1904, 

 p. 237. 



"Notes to G. T. Emmons, "The Chileat Blan- 

 ket, ' ' Memoirs of the American Museum of Nat- 

 ural History, Vol. III., Part 4, pp. 355 et seq. 



