In color delineations, although the same subjects are to a great extent employed, there is necessarily greater constraint—there is less freedom as well as less vigor in the presentation of natural forms. There is apparently no attempt at the grotesque or amusing. The
variants are practically infinite. The work is more purely decorative and is perhaps less subject to the restraints of associated ideas and of use with particular vessels or in definite relations to other features of the vessel. At the same time it is manifest that these painted figures are not all merely meaningless decorations, but that many, throughout all degrees of modification, refer with greater or less clearness to natural originals, to ideas associated with these originals, or to the relationship of these originals to the vessel and its uses.
It is clear, however, that a considerable body of nature-derived elements, plastic and painted, are employed as simple embellishments, having no other function. This suggests the separation of all decorations into two grand divisions, based upon the kind of thoughts associated with them. These divisions may be designated as significant and non-significant, the term significant referring not to the mere identification of a device with an original form or to its office as an ornament, but to its symbolism, to its mystic relation with the vessel and its uses. But I have to do here with the forms taken by motives, with their morphology rather than with their signification, as the latter must, with reference to archæologic material, remain greatly speculative.
In the application of life forms in vase painting several classes of modifying and constraining agencies of a technical nature are present, and the following examples are grouped with the idea of defining these classes of forces and keeping them in a measure distinct.
Fig. 257. Graphic delineation of the alligator, from a vase of the lost color group.
Of all the animal forms utilized by the Chiriquians the alligator is the best suited to the purpose of this study, as it is presented most frequently and in the most varied forms. In Figs. 257 and 258 I reproduce drawings from the outer surface of a tripod bowl of the lost color group. Simple and formal as these figures are, the characteristic
features of the creature—the sinuous body, the strong jaws, the upturned snout, the feet, and the scales—are forcibly expressed. It is not to be assumed that these examples represent the best delineative skill of the Chiriquian artist. The native painter must have executed very much superior work upon the more usual delineating surfaces, such as bark and skins. The examples here shown have already experienced decided changes through the constraints of the ceramic art, but are the most graphic delineations preserved to us. They are free hand products, executed by mere decorators, perhaps by women, who were servile copyists of the forms employed by those skilled in sacred art.