These human faces and forms ([figs. 280-288]), as well as the others, belong to the mound builders, and are found with their remains in the mounds. The figures are inserted, as is the rattlesnake, for comparison with the shell designs and work shown in the Buddha figure ([pl. 10]) and its associates. Slight inspection will show two styles, differing materially. To decide which was foreign and which domestic, which was imported and which indigenous, would be to decide the entire question of migration, and if done off-hand, would be presumptuous. To make a satisfactory decision will require a marshaling and consideration of evidence which belongs to the future. The specimens shown in [figs. 280 to 285] are from Tennessee and Virginia. They are all masks, bearing representations of the human face. The first two are from the McMahon mound, Tennessee; that in [fig. 282] from Brakebill mound, Tennessee, and that represented in [fig. 283] from Lick Creek mound, Tennessee. The shell shown in [fig. 284] is from Aquia Creek, Virginia, and that in [fig. 285] is from a mound in Ely County, Va. The workmanship on these has no resemblance to that on the Buddha figure ([pl. 10]), nor does its style compare in any manner therewith.
Fig. 288.
ENGRAVED SHELL GORGET WITH
REPRESENTATION OF A HUMAN FIGURE.
Missouri.
Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, pl. LXXIII.
On the contrary, [figs. 286 to 288], representing sketches (unfinished) of the human figure, from mounds in Tennessee and Missouri, have some resemblance in style of work, though not in design, to that of the Buddha and Swastika figures. The first step in execution, after the drawing by incised lines, seems to have been to drill holes through the shell at each corner and intersection. The work on the specimen shown in [fig. 286] has progressed further than that on the specimens shown in figs. [287] and [288]. It has twenty-eight holes drilled, all at corners or intersections. This is similar to the procedure in the Buddha statue ([pl. 10]). In [fig. 287] the holes have not been drilled, but each member of the figure has been marked out and indicated by dots in the center, and circles or half circles incised around them in precisely the same manner as in both Swastikas (figs. [237] and [238]), while [fig. 288] continues the resemblance in style of drawing. It has the same peculiar garters or bracelets as the Buddha, the hand is the same as in the fighting figures ([fig. 239]), and the implement he holds resembles closely those in the copper figures (figs. [240] and [241]).
DESIGNS ON POTTERY.
| Fig. 289. POTTERY VESSEL. Four-armed volute, ogee Swastika (tetraskelion). Arkansas. ⅓ natural size. | Fig. 290. POTTERY VESSEL. Four volutes resembling Swastika. Pecan Point, Ark. ⅓ natural size. |
