SPINDEN— CENTRAL AMERICAN PORTRAITURE 



The purely human type of figure shows a formal but life-like 

 modeling. The faces are often out of all proportion to the rest of the 

 body and are characteristically broad rather than high. The eyes 

 have heavy lids and deep sockets that fill with shadow. The lips are 

 usually parted so that the filed teeth are exposed. The upper lip is 

 arched and curled back, while the lower one is straight. We cannot 

 be sure that the faces on Zapotecan funerary urns are actual portraits 

 of the dead, but there is a possibility that they were regarded as such 

 even when fashioned after formal types. The writer has not been able 

 to find examples of physical abnormalities which might safely be re- 

 garded as individual. The ideal portrait quality attained in the best 

 products is well illustrated in the small and simple urns reproduced 

 in plate in, e and/. 



Laughing Faces from Vera Cruz. — The smiling or laughing faces 

 commonly referred to the Totonacan culture of Vera Cruz are remark- 

 able examples of free-hand modeling in clay. They were probably set 

 into temple walls by means of tubular extensions at the back. The 

 faces are broadened to agree with the peculiar esthetic types of a fore- 

 head-flattening people. The eyes are not so deeply set under the brow 

 as in nature, but rather more so than in the common run of Central 

 American products, and they sometimes have a pleasing upward tilt 

 at the outer corners. The noses vary considerably in length, but are 

 seldom prominent. In the modeling of the mouths there are differ- 

 ences which seem to be individual. One can readily believe that a 

 master potter, using his finished art in an off-hand manner, caught 

 the fleeting differences in smiles, gay, reluctant, and malicious, of the 

 townspeople who crowded around him as willing models. Four exam- 

 ples are given in plates v and vi, and attention should be directed to 

 the subtle but measurable differences in form that may be observed 

 in these faces. The modeling is so consistent and coherent that every 

 feature smiles, and unless one holds himself by sheer force of will to 

 an objective study his eye forgets mere form while his mind sees an 

 apotheosis of laughter. 



Unusual Figurines in Clay. — While most clay heads and figurines 

 fall into well-defined types and classes, a few have special if not indi- 

 vidual features. In plate vn, a, is pictured a cripple with bulging 

 chest and back. The head is set close to the shoulders and the single 

 preserved arm is long and thin (this is foreshortened in the photo- 

 graph). The mouth is unusually large, with thin compressed lips. The 

 expression is so thoroughly characteristic of hunchbacks that the pot- 

 ter must have carefully studied the subject. Since it is unlikely that 

 more than one hunchback would be living in an ordinary Mexican 



[439] 



