The decorations, too, were somewhat varied, but in none which I have seen do they go beyond the elementary styles already mentioned.
The production of idols and fantastic vases, animals and grotesques, must have been extensive, as so many of these have already been found; indicating that they must have been common in their day. Examples of this fantastic decoration and modeling are seen in Figs. 12 to 15—and in Fig. 14 is an approach to portraiture. In one ([Fig. 15]) is seen the double-bellied bottle, so much in use in China and Japan. The twin-bottles seen in Figs. 8 and 9 are good examples of a fancy which evidently pleased potter and people in those “good old Peruvian times.”
A most singular fact is mentioned by Demmin, that on one of their casseroles the handle is clearly the phallus, symbol of life, found on Egyptian sculptures, and once worshiped.
One curious fact is asserted by the French savants,[1] that there is abundant evidence to show that through a long succession of years, perhaps three thousand, the character of these American potteries grew less and less pure and simple, and more and more debased and vulgar; which one can well believe, when we see everywhere that whole nations, some of them calling themselves civilized, have gone the same road, downward from the good to the bad, and not upward toward the true and the beautiful.
Fig. 21.—Ancient Gaul.