THE POLYCHROME GROUP. 159 



realistic verification, showing that a unit of the fret involves the body-lines of 

 two alligators. The upturned snout and the spines on the back of the head are 

 easily recognizable. The bands composing the fret are delicately outlined in 

 black and also divided into long slender compartments, that are filled in with red 

 and purple alternately. The fret with accompanying heads on the opposite side 

 is similar to the one figured. This is one of the most elaborate examples of the 

 association of a life form with the fret or scroll. 



The conventionalized treatment of the alligator by the ancient Chiriquian artists 

 suggests a comparison with that of the crocodile {cipactli) and of the blue feather 

 snake [xiuhcouatl) of the ancient Mexicans. The conventional head of a bird worn 

 on the forehead of so many Mexican deities (Cinteotl, Xochipilli, Tonacatecutli, 

 Quetzalcouatl, Tonatiuh) also reminds one of the alligator head with its recurved 

 jaws. In this connection, it is interesting to note that life forms with a head at 

 either end of a common body are incised on some of the metates from Las 

 Guacas, province of Nicoya, Costa Rica, recently described by Hartman. 1 In one 

 case, the common body is a guilloche pattern and in the other it has the ap- 

 pearance of being tied in a knot, bringing the two heads closer together. The 

 latter do not seem to have been noticed by the author. They look very much 

 like the Chiriquian alligator head. In Peruvian art, also, there is a reptilian motive 

 akin to the so-called alligator motive of Chiriqui, even to the spine- and scale- 

 symbols, the nuchal crest and hooked snout. 



The most extraordinary design is the one inside the cup or chalice (PI. I) 2 — a 

 human body and extremities surmounted by the alligator's head with all its 

 characteristic traits (the suspended lower jaw, recurved snout and a frontal as 

 well as a nuchal crest). This is the same mythical creature, excellent examples 

 of which are to be recognized among the gold figurines (see PI. XL VIII, fig. g ; 

 and text-figs. 365-368), to which I have given the name alligator-god. The artist- 

 ically executed spines with alternating red and purple are attached to the crests 

 instead of to the head proper. Within the field back of the eye and leading 

 down to the shoulders are three alligator motives — the curve of the body ac- 

 companied by the symbol for the body-markings placed in the dorsal concavity. 

 In the upper and the lower motive there is a dorsal angle instead of a dorsal 

 curve. The central figure, however, is very similar to the motive as it appears 

 in preceding illustrations of polychrome ware (see fig. 256). The same design is 

 employed to fill angular spaces on opposite sides of the field. Something resem- 

 bling a tail branches off from the body on either side in the region of the hips. 

 Accompanying each of the four extremities there is a design composed of series 

 of parallel lines meeting at an angle. Not an inch of space is left undecorated ; 

 spines and teeth are to be seen everywhere. Both de Zeltner and Holmes speak 

 of the resemblance this interior decoration bears to Chinese art, particularly to 



1 Archeological researches on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. Mem. Carnegie Museum, 

 III, no. 1, PI. VIII, fig. 2, and PI. XVIII, fig. 2, 1907. 



2 The original water-color drawings for the five chromolithographic plates (I, XXVII, 

 XLII, XLIV and XL VIII) in this volume were destroyed by fire before the first proofs of 

 the same had been corrected. 



