FLORIDA. 



127 



The vessels and vessel-like objects number about seventy-five and are generally 

 of small size, the cup-like forms ranging from 2 to 6 inches in diameter. With few- 

 exceptions the}- are quite shallow and all but two were made perforate. Four are 

 slightly and rudely decorated with incised marks and indentations. Their descrip- 

 tion is rendered difficult by the variety of shape and feature. The ample illustra- 

 tions presented in Mr. Moore's report serve to convey a vivid idea of their peculiar 

 characteristics. All are decidedly mere " sports " rather than serious or legitimate 

 art. Some of the shallow cups have handle-like projections and others have 

 modeled within the cup, forms which suggest the body of a mollusk such as a clam 

 or oyster with a tongue-like appendage projecting over the rim of the vessel. Fig. 15. 

 Others are noded and spined or supplied with appendages suggesting the extremi- 

 ties of animals, Fig. 16. 



The animal figures, some fifty in number and varying from 2 to 7 inches in 

 length, include a wide range of forms, but so rude is the work that it is difficult to 

 determine the originals with certainty. The forms most clearly suggested are the 

 panther, bear, cat, squirrel, turkey, turtle and fish. The otter and beaver are sug- 

 gested and in the mouth of one of these forms is held what appears to be a stick. 

 In other sections of the country as along the gulf, in the Mississippi Valley and on 

 the northwest coast, the animal thus treated is identified as the beaver, the stick 

 held in the mouth being suggestive of the building operations of that creature. 

 Characteristic examples are presented in Figs. IT and 18. The former representing 

 perhaps a dog or wolf and the latter apparently a turkey. 



Vegetal forms are here seen for the first time, in the ceramic art of the eastern 

 United States, save as embodied in the shapes of actual vessels. The acorn is rep- 

 resented a number of times and an ear of corn and a bud-like form appear in two 

 or three cases. 



Fig. 20. Bead with spiral grooves. 



Fig. 21. Spool-shaped specimen. 



There are a number of formal shapes, some resembling beads, Fig. 20, one 

 with rudely excavated spiral grooves ; others are spool-like, pear-shaped and top- 

 shaped. 



The occurrence of this menagerie-like collection of rudely-modeled objects of 



clay is wholly unique in primitive art. If we explain the existence and use of such 

 articles as a phase of mortuary practices developed in the region, we still fail to sug- 



