Chapter III: Part 3

The color is dark and shows the usual fire mottlings. There is no admixture of shell material, finely pulverized micaceous matter appearing in its place. The ornamentation is simple, but is applied in a way to greatly enhance the beauty of the vessel. It consists of a single broad zone of incised figures. Three zigzag lines meander the middle of the band and the intervening triangles are filled in with groups of straight lines. All the lines are well drawn and appear to have been cut with a sharp point in the dry clay.

Bottle-shaped vases are not found to any great extent outside of the Mississippi Valley, and are quite rare in Alabama, Georgia, and Florida.

The piece illustrated in Fig. 461 is from Mississippi, and in most respects is identical with the ware of the Gulf Province. The paste is silicious, fine-grained, and quite hard. The color is slightly ferruginous and clouded with fire stains from the baking. The body is ornamented with the engraved figure of a bird apparently intended for an eagle. The head, with its notched and strongly curved beak and conventionalized crest, occupies one side. The wings may be seen at the right and left, while the tail appears on the side opposite the head. The flattened base of the vessel occupies the place of the body. The lines have been scratched with a sharp point in the hardened clay. Certain spaces in the plumes, wings, and tail are filled in with reticulated lines.

The bottle presented in Fig. 462 is embellished with a rather remarkable design in color. The material is fine grained and without admixture of shell. The color of the paste is a pale, salmon gray. The surface is coated with a thick slip or enamel of whitish clay, very fine grained and smooth; upon this the design was painted, not in the thick earthy color employed farther north, but in what appears to be a dark purplish-gray stain. The design upon the body is wholly unlike anything yet described. It is developed in the light ground tint by filling in the interstices with the dark color. The peculiar character of this design inclines me to the view that it probably had an ideographic origin, although possibly treated here as pure decoration. The open hand is sometimes seen, in both the decorative and the symbolic work of the Gulf coast tribes, and is not unknown elsewhere. The figures alternating with the hands are suggestive of a highly conventionalized face, the eyes being indicated by the volutes and the mouth and teeth by the lower part of the figure, as will be seen in the fully projected design, Fig. 463. The neck has two indistinct bands of triangular dentate figures apparently painted in the dark color. The bottom is flattish and without the coating of light clay. Both paste and slip can be readily scratched with the finger nail. This vase was found in Franklin County, Alabama, near the Mississippi line.

RESUME.

Attention has been called to the great numbers of pieces of earthenware recovered from the mounds and graves of the middle province of the Mississippi Valley. In certain districts--as remarked by one of our collectors--we have but to dig to fill museums. Such districts must have been occupied for a long period by a numerous people who recognized the claims of the dead upon their worldly treasures. The burial grounds of many other sections of the American continent are correspondingly rich in ceramic remains.

The vessels were not to any extent cinerary, and probably not even mortuary in the sense of having been constructed especially for inhumation with the dead. They were receptacles for food, drink, paint, and the like, placed in the grave along with other possessions of the departed in obedience to the demands of an almost universal custom.

The material employed in manufacture embraced clay in all grades of refinement, from coarse loamy earths to the refined slips used in surface finish. The tempering materials--used in greater or lesser quantity according to the character of the vessel to be made--consisted of shell, sand, and potsherds reduced to various degrees of pulverulence.

The stage of the art represented by this ware is one of hand building purely. No lathe or other revolving device was known, although varieties of improvised molds--baskets, gourds, and the like, such as are known to nearly all pottery-making peoples--were frequently employed.

The highest degree of finish known was attained by the application of a slip or wash of fine clay which was given a good degree of mechanical polish by means of a smooth implement held in the hand. Ornament was produced by both flat and plastic methods. The colors used in painting were white, black, and red earths. The plastic subjects were incised, stamped, relieved, and modeled in the round.

The period was one of open-air baking, a moderate degree of hardness being secured. The texture was porous and the vessels were without resonance. The paste exhibits two distinct varieties of color which may be described roughly as light and dark. A certain range of dark hues--blacks, browns, and grays--were probably produced by "smother baking." Another set of colors embracing light reddish and yellowish grays resulted from changes in the clay produced by simple open air baking.

A feature worthy of especial note is the great diversity of form--indicating a long practice of the art, a high specialization of uses, and a considerable variety in the originals copied. The manual skill exhibited is of no mean order. Symmetry of form combined with considerable grace of outline has been achieved without the wheel--a result attained in still greater perfection by other American races. Notwithstanding the great diversity of the forms of vessels, the very primitive condition of the art is indicated by the absence of bricks, tiles, whistles, lamps, spindle-whorls, toys, and statuettes. The models from which the vessels were copied must have been quite varied, comprising shells of mollusks--marine and fresh-water--gourd shells of varying shapes, and vessels of wicker, bark, horn, and wood, such as are in common use with our western and northern tribes.

The execution of the ornamental designs indicates a rather low grade of skill. This is especially true of work in color, which has the appearance of a newly acquired art. Intaglio and relief work evinces much greater skill--the incised forms especially giving evidence of long experience.

In subject-matter the ornament employed bespeaks nothing higher perhaps than could be expected of our historic tribes. The great body of the devices are geometric, and comprise such motives as could have developed within the art or that might have been borrowed from closely associated arts. A small percentage of incised linear designs come, apparently, from mythologic sources, and delineate, in a rude way, both men and animals.

The modeling of life forms in connection with earthen vessels constitutes a feature of considerable interest, the highest known achievement being represented by a series of vases imitating human heads. Animal forms are generally rudely modeled, the imitation of nature having been apparently a secondary consideration--the associated idea or the fancy for the grotesque being the stronger motive. The animal forms are inferior to those carved in stone by some of the mound-building peoples.

That any of these images were idols in the ordinary acceptation of the term is an idea that cannot be entertained. They are always associated directly with vessels, and could not be more than representations of the tutelary deities supposed to be interested in the uses or ceremonies to which the vessels were assigned.

In form there are many suggestions of the characteristic utensils of the north, in ornament there are occasional hints of the south--of Caribbean and Mexican art.

With the Pueblo peoples, notwithstanding their proximity, there is hardly a hint of relationship of any kind. Unlike the Pueblos, the ethnical environment of the Mississippi Valley races would seem to have been considerably diversified; there was less isolation; yet there are strong indications that the art is mainly of indigenous growth, as there is unity and consistency in all its features.

In reference to the period of culture represented by this ware, a few words may be added. There is no feature in it that could not reasonably be expected of the more advanced historic tribes of the Valley. It indicates a culture differing in many ways from that of the Pueblos, ancient and modern, but on the whole rather inferior to it. The work of Mexico, Central and South America is decidedly superior in every essential feature.

There are many difficulties in the way of instituting a comparison of this work with that of the primitive work of the Old World. These I shall not stop to present in this place. In the most general way, I may say that the ceramic art of the Middle Mississippi is apparently superior to that of the stone age in Europe, but little can be inferred in regard to relative grades of culture. In classic countries it is difficult to find its true equivalent. To reach a stage of art correspondingly low we shall have to go behind the heroic age--to pass down through more than the five prehistoric cities of the hill of Hissarlik and descend into the lowest archaeologic substratum. Even this, unless it represent the first achievement of that grade of art upon the continent, would afford uncertain data for comparative study.

A given grade of ceramic achievement runs so freely up and down the scale of culture that alone its evidence is of little value in determining culture status.

Index

Adams County, Ohio, Serpent earthwork in 402
Age of pottery in Mississippi Valley 371
Alabama, Pottery from 395, 396, 431, 434
Albany, Illinois, Pottery from 430
Ancient pottery of the Mississippi Valley, William H. Holmes 361-436
Animal forms in pottery 383-392
Arkansas, Pottery from 378-392, 394-398, 399-410, 413-426

Baraboo County, Wisconsin, Pottery from 430
Basket molds for pottery 372
Bottles or jars, Wide-mouthed 398-411
Burial grounds, Pottery in 434
mounds, Pottery in 370
Burning pottery 434-435

Ceramic art groups 369
Change of habitat modifies ideas 370
Cherokee pottery 371
Color in Mississippi Valley pottery 373, 374
Classification of form Mississippi Valley pottery 375
Compound vessels 412
Contact of people modifies ideas 370
Construction of pottery in Mississippi Valley 372
Contributions to the Archaeology of Missouri 367, 414, 418, 422
Culture represented in pottery 430
Curved forms 375

Davenport, Iowa, Pottery from vicinity of 427, 428
Differences in pottery of different regions 427, 431
Dodge, C. A., collected pottery 431
Du Pratz describes pottery 371

Evers, Dr. Edward, Publication by 367, 414

Finish of Mississippi Valley pottery 373
Form in Mississippi Valley pottery 373
Franklin County, Alabama, Pottery in 434

Gulf Province in pottery 431

Habitat modifies ideas, Change of 370
Hall, Captain, Pottery obtained by 381, 429
Holmes, W. H.; Ancient pottery of the Mississippi Valley 361-436

Ideas modified by certain influences 370
Illinois, Pottery from 430
Iowa, Pottery from 427, 428, 429

Jars, Wide-mouthed bottles or 398-411
Jones, Dr. Joseph, Publication by 367

Kentucky, Pottery from 426

Little Rock, Ark., Collection of pottery at (_See_ Thibault).
Pottery from mound near 415
Louisiana, Pottery from 399, 431

Madisonville, Ohio, Mounds at 406
Mexican pottery head 409, 411
Middle Mississippi province in pottery 369-426
Mississippi, Pottery from 399, 403, 431, 432
province in pottery, Middle 369-426
[province in pottery], Upper 426-431
Valley, Ancient pottery of the (W. H. Holmes) 361-436
Missouri, Pottery from 395, 396
Mobile, Pottery from 431
Modification of form in pottery 373
Mound-builders 406, 435
Mounds, Pottery from 370, 415, 429, 431

Natchez pottery 371

Ohio, Mounds at Madisonville 406
Serpent earthwork in Adams County 402

Paducah, Pottery from 426
Peabody Museum collections 367
Pecan Point, Pottery from 369, 381, 390, 391, 392, 396, 397, 398,
399, 404, 408-409, 410, 417, 422
Pot-shaped vessels 392-398
Potter, Prof. W. B., Publication by 367
Pottery buried with the dead 370, 434
from Arkansas 394-398
of the Mississippi Valley, Ancient 361-436
Pratt, Prof. W. H., Aid of 368, 381, 431
Prairie du Chien, Pottery from vicinity of 430
Putnam, Mrs. M. L. D., Aid of 368

Scott County, Iowa, Pottery from. (_See_ Davenport).
Serpent in pottery 402
Shells as primitive vessels 383
used in pottery 372
South American pottery 411
Storage vessels of pottery 371

Technique modifies ornament 400-465
Tennessee, Pottery from 381-382, 395, 397, 413, 423
Thibault, J. H., Pottery collection of 382, 410
Tripod bottles 420, 421

Upper Mississippi province in pottery 426-430

Vernon County, Wisconsin, Pottery from 430

Whitesides County, Illinois, Pottery from 430
Wisconsin, Pottery from 429, 430

* * * * *

Transcriber's Note

Errata

Missing and illegible/damaged punctuation has been repaired.

Page 366: '420' corrected to '422': "445.--Owl-shaped bottle: Arkansas." (Page) 422

Page 434: 'enployed' corrected to 'employed': "known to nearly all pottery-making peoples--were frequently employed."

Sundry page numbers in the Index have also been corrected.