Similar vase-feet are found at Tehuantepec, at Cuicatlan, at Teotitlan and, as we have seen, at Cholula. Of these localities the first pair seem to stand in close relation one to the other, and also the second pair, from the fact that the Cholulan and Teotitlan vase-feet are most commonly in the form of grotesque human heads, those of Cuicatlan and Tehuantepec in the form of heads of snakes. However, the distinction is by no means absolute. As far as the Totonac region is concerned, the beast heads seem to be in the majority. Impressed patterns are found on the bottoms of bowls from Sacrificios (Pl. [XVIII, 9]), but these form regular designs, instead of being, as in Mexico, mere series of incised lines. Similar bowls are found at Atlixco and at Cuicatlan, though at the latter locality they are made in black ware. An interesting characteristic of Totonac pottery ornamentation is seen in more or less naturalistic painted designs, usually in yellow and brown slip, representing animals, such as the Mexican porcupine, the coati, monkeys, snakes, bats, lizards and insects. Quantities of fragments of pottery figurines occur throughout the Totonac area. These are made of a ware inferior to that of the vases, and though the treatment of the bodies and limbs is apt to be clumsy, yet the faces are modelled with considerable skill. Many of the details are applied, such as head-dresses, sandal ties and the like; the teeth are often shown filed to a point, or even mutilated in characteristic Maya fashion. The last peculiarity emphasizes the general resemblance which these figurines bear to those of British Honduras.
The pottery of the Totonac has been investigated carefully by Strebel, who distinguishes several local types within the area. In a general work of this nature it is impossible to deal at length with minor variations, and it will be sufficient to state that the careful investigations of this archæologist seem to indicate four culture centres for the coastal region between the rivers Nautla and Papaloapan. The two first are in the north, and close together, and are associated respectively with sites at Cerro Montoso (E.N.E. of Jalapa, near the coast) and Ranchito de las Animas (immediately N.E. of the last). At the former of these the style is akin to and influenced by the neighbouring highlands and the district beyond, while the latter is probably more purely aboriginal. The two second lie to the south, one including the Rio de Cotaxla, the other extending thence to the Rio Papaloapan.
The pottery of the Huaxtec (Figs. [42–44]) is peculiar from more than one point of view. The paste of the most characteristic specimens is hard and well-fired, of a pale cream colour, and the most typical shape is a handled vase with a spout, rather like a teapot (Fig. [42]), with moulded and painted ornament, in red and black, on the body. The latter is frequently in the form of an animal, with a large human face modelled upon its back near the tail. Other vases in human shape, with a spouted handle and similar painted decoration were also moulded from this pale clay (Fig. [43]). The presence of a spout distinguishes Huaxtec pottery from Mexican, though an appendage of this nature is not unknown from the Totonac country, since the tail of the animal vase figured on Pl. [XIX] is pierced by a hole. Red pottery is also found in the Huaxtec country, in the form of large vases and smaller tripod bowls, often with engraved ornament on the outer surface. Grater-bowls, similar in pattern to those of the Mexican valley, but in the pale cream ware, are also found, together with many figurines and fragments of such which are not mould-made.
Fig. 42.—Huaxtec pottery vase; Tanquian.
(After Seler)
Fig. 43.—Huaxtec pottery vase; Panuco.
(After Seler)
To speak generally, the earliest type of pottery of which we have cognizance is similar in type to that manufactured later by the Tarascans. Following this came the far finer ware characteristic of Teotihuacan, the product of the Toltec culture. In pottery-making the mantle of the Toltec seems to have fallen upon the people of Cholula and Tlaxcala, districts associated with them in legend, and upon the Totonac, whose art shows certain affinities with that of Cholula. Between the ware of the Cholula-Tlaxcala region and that of the Mixtec-Zapotec district considerable similarity exists, a similarity which extends to the decoration of the pyramid of Xochicalco. It is usually held that the Cholulan style penetrated into Oaxaca via Teotitlan, but I do not feel certain that the reverse may not be truer, and that the real home of the highly-burnished polychrome ware may not eventually be found to lie in Oaxaca. The form of ornament does not seem to be a direct descendant of the Teotihuacan art, and there are found in the Oaxaca region certain original forms, such as the “Peruvian” designs mentioned above, as well as a tendency to elaborate textile motives as ornament (for instance, the wall-mosaics of Mitla), many of which motives constantly recur in the decoration of vases in the “Cholula” style, while they are wanting on the Teotihuacan pottery. However that may be, Teotitlan is a site of great importance, constituting as it does a meeting-point of the three best schools of pottery, Cholula, Oaxaca and Totonac. Further consideration of the questions involved in the study of Mexican pottery must be deferred until something has been said about the art and culture of the Maya.