RÉSUMÉ.
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 archæologic 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.