CONCLUSIONS. 229 



delineating color (purple) and the occurrence of the branching scroll — offers 

 sufficient reason for retaining the old name, although the latter is liable to lead 

 to confusion, having already been applied by other writers to totally different 

 kinds of pottery. In fact the name polychrome might equally well denote any 

 class of pottery in the decoration of which the requisite number of colors were 

 employed. 



In making animal motives a basis for classification, therefore, it must not be 

 inferred that a motive derived from a given animal is confined wholly to a given 

 group of ware. While distinctive of the armadillo group, motives derived from 

 the armadillo or parts thereof appear sparingly in other groups, serving as ties 

 that bind together a series of related groups. Motives derived from the armadillo 

 are everywhere plastic, presumably because they originated in a class of unpainted 

 ware that depended on sculpture and relief for ornament. When transferred to 

 painted ware, their plastic origin still asserted itself. The development of a whole 

 series of motives derived from the armadillo is first noted in this work. This evolution 

 was accomplished by a process of elimination, by wholesale reduction and simplifi- 

 cation, also by the isolation of parts and their use as symbolic or decorative 

 motives independent of the animal as a whole. We have thus eye, foot, tail and 

 carapace motives. These are employed in series, either separately or in com- 

 binations, to produce highly original, significant and decorative patterns — such 

 as, for example, a meander encircling the neck of a vase, composed of a series 

 of tails or of carapace bands, with an eye or a foot symbol filling each angular 

 space. 



The alligator was also a great favorite with the ancient Chiriquian potter. 

 Motives derived from it however are executed in color instead of in relief. They 

 characterize a group of ware that depends on color for ornament rather than 

 on sculpture, and when carried over into other groups they appear consistently 

 as painted forms, but with an individuality somewhat altered by the technique 

 of the group of ware in question (see figs. 381-384). 



Realistic painted representations of the alligator are in profile. By this means, the 

 peculiarities of its anatomy and pose are easily indicated. A number of processes 

 set in action lead to conventionalism. Some of these are: (1) The reduplication, 

 exaggeration, elimination, or fusion of parts or units ; (2) transposition, shifting and 

 substitution ; (3) isolation of parts and their use independently of the whole ; (4) 

 wholesale reduction and simplification, and (5) adaptation to fit a given space. The 

 profile figure is eventually reduced to a mere body-line with a spot in the hollow 

 of the dorsal curve to represent scales and spines on the animal's back. This 

 becomes a decorative motive and when repeated in a series forms a pleasing 

 pattern. Groups of two, one of them being inverted, form a unit of the sigmoid 

 scroll. A number of these motives are often combined in such a way as to pro- 

 duce the branching scroll that characterizes the ornamentation of the polychrome 

 ware. A single profile motive reduced to its lowest terms would have made a 

 very convenient hieroglyph in a system of writing, but there is no evidence to 

 prove that it was used as such. The same can be said of the spine motive and 

 the scale-group motive, both of which become differentiated from the profile 

 motive. 



