OCR Text |
Show 22 very few specimens are found that are not painted, indented, or covered with raised figures. Indeed, these ornamental designs are often so admirable, and apparently so far in advance of the art- ideas of these people in other respects, that one is led to suspect that they may be of foreign origin. This suspicion is in a measure confirmed when we discover the scroll and the fret stuggling for existence among the rude scrawlings of an. artisan who seems to have made them recognizable rather by accident than otherwise. It is not improbable, however, that the specimens referred to are but rude copies of models designed by more accomplished artists or procured from some distant tribe. There is certainly no conclusive evidence that these people ever came in contact with Europeans. The material used in the manufacture of pottery is generally a fine clay, ( in which the country abounds,) tempered with sand or pulverized shells. The modeling is done almost exclusively with the hand; no wheel Las been used, and no implement whatever, except for surface creasings or indentings. The thickness of the ware varies from £ to J an inch. Lightness has evidently been greatly desired, and vessels having a capacity of many gallons are not moffe than £ of an inch thick in any part. Nearly all of the vessels and fragments collected have been baked or burned, but not to such a degree as to greatly change the color of the clay. Most, if not all, of the paiuted pottery is glazed with a very thin vetreous coating that gives a beautiful enamel- like surface of great hardness; upon this the coloring- matter is laid, apparently with a brush. With one or two exceptions the corrugated pottery is without the glazing, and in no instance contains painted figures. The peculiarities of this variety can be described more readily by reference to the examples in the plate. Figure 1 represents a large vessel obtained in one of the Mancos cliff- houses, ( Plate VI). It is of the corrugated variety; has a capacity of about three gallons, and was probably used for carrying or keeping on hand a supply of water. It is quite light, not weighing more than a common wooden pail, and is made of a light- gray clay temi> ered with coarse sand, and but slightly burned. The corrugated appearance is given by laying on strips of clay, in somewhat regular succession, and pressing them into place and indenting them with the thumb or a stick. Whether a thin shell of clay is first constructed and the strips laid on and pressed down so as to unite with it, or whether the vessel is built up by the strips alone, cannot be determined, since the inside is perfectly smooth, excepting finger- marks, and the strips are so welded into the general texture of the vessel that individual strips cannot be detected beneath the surface when examined on broken edges. In the specimen figured the workman has begun near the center of the rounded bottom and laid a strip in a continuous but irregular spiral ( see Fig. 3) until the rim was reached, indenting the whole surface irregularly with the finger. Two small conical bits of clay have been set in near the rim, as if for ornament. Other specimens, have small spirals, while others have scrolls, and still others very graceful festoous of clay, ( Figs. 2 aud 2a.) A number of the more distinct styles of indentation are given in connection with this figure, ( Figs. 3, 3a, 36,3c, and 3d.) Figure 4 is a bowl restored from a large fragment. It is painted both inside and out, aud the designs are applied with rather more than usual care. Figures 5, 5a, and bb are prominent among the ornamental designs. I have corrected the drawing, but have introduced uo new element |