For local characters there are various monographs.[1843]
There is no satisfactory evidence that the potter’s wheel was known to any American tribe; but Wilson, in his chapter on ceramic art (Prehistoric Man, ii. ch. 16), feels convinced that the early potter employed some sort of mechanical process, giving a revolving motion to his clay.
MEXICAN CLAY MASK.
After a cut in Wilson’s Prehistoric Man, ii. p. 33, of an example in the collections of the American Philosophical Society, in a totally different style from the usual Mexican terra-cottas; and Wilson remarks of it that one will look in vain in it for the Indian physiognomy. Tyler, Anahuac, 230, considers it a forgery.
Modelling in clay for other purposes than the making of vessels is also considered in this same seventeenth chapter of Wilson, and the subject runs, as respects masks, figurines, and general ornamentation, into the wide range of aboriginal art, which necessarily makes part of all comprehensive histories of art. W. H. Dall has a paper on Indian masks in the Third Report, Bureau of Ethnology, p. 73. The subject is further treated by Wilson in a paper on “The artistic faculty in the aboriginal races,” in the Proceedings (iii., 2d part, 67, 119) of the Royal Society of Canada, and again in a general way by Nadaillac on L’art préhistorique en Amérique (Paris, 1883), taken from the Revue des deux Mondes, Nov. 1, 1883.[1844]
As regards the textile art in prehistoric times, see for a general view W. H. Holmes in the American Antiquarian, viii. 261; and the same archæologist has treated the subject on the evidences of the impression of textures as preserved in pottery, in the Third Rept. Bur. of Ethnology, p. 393. Cf. Sellers in Popular Science Journal, and Wyman in Peabody Museum Reports.
J. W. Foster first made (1838) the discovery of relics of textile fabrics of the moundbuilders; but he did not announce his discovery till at the Albany meeting (1851) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Transactions, 1852, vol. vi. p. 375). He tells the story in his Prehistoric Races, p. 222, and figures the implements, found in the mounds, supposed to be employed in the making their cloth with warp and woof. Putnam has since made similar discoveries (Peabody Museum Reports). The subject is also treated in the Proceedings of the Davenport Academy and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The fabrics were preserved by being placed in contact with copper implements.
The Indians of New Mexico were found by the Spaniards in possession of the art of weaving. Cf. Washington Matthews on the Navajo weavers, in the Third Rept. Bur. of Ethnology, p. 371, and Bancroft (i. 582), who also records the making of fabrics by the wild tribes of Central America (Ibid. i. 766-67). He also notes the references to the textile manufactures of the Nahuas and Mayas (ii. 484, 752). The richest accumulation of graphic data relative to the fabrics of Peru is contained in the great work on the Necropolis of Ancon.
Feather-work was an important industry in some parts of the continent. The subject is studied in Ferdinand Denis’ Arte plumaria: Les plumes, leur valeur et leur emploi dans les arts au Méxique, au Pérou, au Brésil et dans les Indes et dans l’Océanie (Paris, 1875).[1845]