SwANTONj INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 621 



peaty muck from its surface, I discovered that an elaborate figure of a crested 

 bird was painted upon one side of it, in black, white, and blue pigments, . . . 

 Although conventionally treated, this figure was at once recognizable as repre- 

 senting either the jay or the king-fisher, or perhaps a mythologic bird-being 

 designed to typify both. There were certain nice touches of an especially 

 symbolic nature in portions of this pictorial figure (and the same may also 

 be said of various other figures illustrated in the plates), the nicety of which 

 is not suflicientiy shown in the drawings, that were unfortunately made from 

 very imperfect prints of our photographs. It will be observed, however, not 

 only that considerable knowledge of perspective was possessed by the primitive 

 artist who made this painting, but also that he attempted to show the deifie 

 character of the bird he here represented by placing upon the broad black 

 paint-band beneath his talons (probably symbolic of a key), the characteristic 

 animal of the keys, the raccoon ; by placing the symbol or insignia of his 

 dominion over the water — in form of a double-bladed paddle — upright under his 

 dextral wing; and to show his dominion over the four quarters of the sea and 

 island world thus typified, by placing the four circles or word-signs, as if 

 issuing from his mouth, — for in the original, a fine line connects this series 

 of circlets with his throat, and is further continued downward from his mouth 

 toward the heart, — as is so often the case with similar representations of 

 mythologic beings in the art of correspondingly developed primitive peoples. . . . 



Upon one side of [a box lid] was drawn, in even, fine lines of black . . . the 

 representation of a horned crocodile. Again, in this as in the painted tablet, 

 may be seen a clear indication of a knowledge of perspective in drawing, on 

 the part of the primitive artists who designed it. This is apparent in the 

 treatment of the legs, of the serrated tail, and of the vanishing scales both 

 at the back and under the belly of the figure. . . . Upon another box-lid or 

 tablet was painted in outline, a graceful and realistic figure of a doe, and along 

 the middles of the ingeniously rabbeted sides and ends of these boxes — whether 

 large or small — were invariably painted double lines, represented as tied with 

 figure-of-eight knots, midway, or else fastened with clasps of oliva shell — as 

 though to mythically join these parts of the boxes and secure their contents. 



The painted shells I have referred to as contained in the pack just described, 

 were those of a species of Solenidae, or the radiatingly bandied bivalves that 

 are locally known in that portion of Florida as "sun-shells." Each pair of 

 them was closed and neatly wrapped about with strips of palmetto leaves that 

 were still green in color, but v^^hich of course immediately decomposed on 

 exposure to the air. On opening this pair of them, I found that in one of the 

 lids or valves, the left one, was a bold, conventional painting, in black lines, 

 of an outspread hand. The central creases of the palm were represented as 

 desceiiding divergingly from between the first and middle fingers, to the base. 

 This was also characteristic of the hands in another much more elaborately 

 painted shell of the kind, that was found by Mr. George Gause within four or 

 five feet of the bird-painting or altar-table . . . this painting represented a man, 

 nearly nude, with outspread hands, masked (as indicated by the pointed, mouth- 

 less face), and wearing a head-dress consisting of a frontlet with four radiating 

 lines — presumably symbolic of the four quarters — represented thereon, and 

 with three banded plumes or hair-pins divergingly standing up from it. The 

 palm-lines in the open hands of this figure were drawn in precisely the same 

 manner as were those in the hand painting of the pair of shells found with 

 the ceremonial pack, and the thumbs were similarly crooked down. Upon 

 the wrist, and also just below the knees, were reticulate lines, evidently designed 

 to represent plaited wristlets and leg-bands. Otherwise, as I have said, the 

 figure was nude. . . . 



