ANTHROPOLOGY: G. G. M'CURDY 
503 
ornaments (fig. 6). As might be expected, it is not limited to the 
lozenge form. Any four-sided, perhaps even rounded or triangular 
design would answer the symboKc requirements, especially if it contained 
dots to suggest succers and, by inference, the appendages on which they 
grow. 
With such an exuberant proliferation of motives derived from a single 
zoomorphic original, there is of course ever present the possibiHty of the 
overlapping of motives that started from wholly different originals. 
I have already referred to the occurrence of the dorsal-view motive of 
the alligator on lost color ware {Op. cit.). It is highly probable that the 
overlapping of this motive (perhaps also the scale-group and spine 
motive) and the one derived from the succers and appendages of the 
octopus has taken place to some extent, due to the convergence toward 
a common type, of scale-spine symbols of the alligator on the one hand 
and appendage-succer symbols of the octopus on the other. In so far 
as ancient Chiriquian art may serve as a guide, however, such over- 
lappings instead of accounting for the evolution of the various motive 
groups, are rather to be considered as exceptions that prove the rule. 
^Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Smithsonian Inst., Rep. Bur. Amer. Eth. 6 
(1888). 
study of Chiriquian antiquities, Mem. Conn. Acad. Arts Sci., 3 (1911). 
■^Note on the archeology of Chiriqui, Amer. Anthrop., N. S., 15, 661-667 (1913). 
FIG. 5.— OCTOPUS MOTIVE. THE TWO 
KINDS OF APPENDAGES CONVERGE TO- 
WARD THE CENTER OF A CIRCULAR 
PANEL. YALE COLLECTION. §. 
FIG. 6.— ZONAL DECORATION CON 
SISTING OF THE OCTOPUS BODY 
MOTIVE ENCLOSING SUCCER DOTS. 
YALE COLLECTION. ^ 
