Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia Part 7

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 117. Pattern upon the back of the vase presented in Fig. 116.]

The unpainted wares here so briefly described are typically Chiriquian, and are closely a.s.sociated in the graves with most of the leading groups of art products of the province. It must be allowed that they take first rank in the isthmian states, if not in America, for simplicity and refinement of form, perfection of method, and purity of style.

PAINTED WARE.

The painted vases of Chiriqui embrace at least ten easily distinguished varieties of ware. The characters upon which the cla.s.sification is based are somewhat heterogeneous and include material, color, shape, finish, ornamentation, method of manufacture, and evidences of use. No single character and no one group of characters can be relied upon to distinguish the different groups. We must depend, therefore, upon an a.s.semblage of characters or upon one character in one place and another in another place. Observing a number of striking differences in two groups of ware, we arrive at the conclusion that these groups must have been the work of distinct communities; yet we find very marked differences in wares that (through the possession in common of some particular feature) we know to be the work of the same hands. We can, therefore, determine little in regard to the peoples concerned.

I do not consider the presence in a single grave of two or more varieties sufficient proof of their common origin, for a number of distinct wares may come into the possession of one community through trade, conquest, or the spoliation of tombs; but a constant recurrence together of the same forms affords strong evidence that the objects were the work of the people with whom they were buried. Unfortunately our observations in the field are not sufficiently accurate to enable us to utilize a.s.sociations or methods of occurrence in the graves as a means of cla.s.sification.

The following cla.s.sification is, under the circ.u.mstances, the best that I can devise, and is of use mainly as a means of facilitating description. The name chosen generally indicates a leading or striking characteristic of the group.

The _scarified_ group, separated widely from all other varieties.

The _handled_ group and

The _tripod_ group, apparently the work of one community and devoted to the same or similar uses.

The _maroon_ group;

The _red line_ group;

The _white line_ group;

The _lost color_ group;

The _alligator_ group; and

The _polychrome_ group, no two of which are sufficiently alike to make it certain, without extraneous evidence, that they were manufactured by the same community, yet all clearly belonging to one great family.

These groups are presented in the order given.

Before proceeding with the descriptions, however, there are some matters of a general nature that should be referred to. Technical questions have already received considerable attention, and I shall need only to refer here to the painted ornamentation, and at sufficient length to insure a clear understanding of its treatment and the scope of its subject matter.

Painted vessels are embellished to some extent also by incising and modeling, and these methods are employed very much as in the unpainted pottery already described.

Painted decoration is executed with much freedom and in many cases with considerable skill. It is greatly varied in method of treatment and embraces a wide range of motives. Geometric patterns occur in great variety, but are found to be of types peculiar to Isthmian America. The conventional meanders, frets, and scrolls so extensively employed in other regions are here almost unknown. Decorative motives derived from natural forms are abundant and afford an excellent opportunity to study the processes of conventional modification. These designs are often applied in a way to indicate that the decorator possessed a keen sense of the requirements of the vessel, although the treatment perhaps is not as universally satisfactory as is the treatment of plastic embellishment.

The potter, in preparing the vessel for the decorator, ordinarily finished it with a slip or wash of fine clay, which varied in hue from a gray white to a pale orange. A slip of bright red tint was also extensively used. The more delicate hues formed an excellent ground upon which to work. The slip covered surface was generally polished, often to a high degree, with the usual polis.h.i.+ng implements, the marks of which can be seen upon the less carefully finished surfaces. By observers unacquainted with aboriginal methods this polish is liable to be taken for a glaze, and it has been p.r.o.nounced a vitreous glaze by a few writers. It is more noticeable upon specimens that have been handled a great deal, as is the case with whistles, needlecases, and the like.

The colors utilized in decoration, so far as they have been preserved, are the ground tints, described above, and the delineating colors, the latter consisting of black, white, red in various hues, and a dull purple. An additional color (or perhaps a solution without particular color) extensively employed in the designs has totally disappeared. The nature of the various colors has not been determined, but it is probable that some were of mineral and others of vegetal origin.

Red was often employed as a ground color, as stated above, and sometimes covered the whole surface, but more frequently occupied zones or panels.

In such use it was applied and polished down with the slip. Red was also extensively used in the delineation of decorative figures in several of the groups of ware, and is in all cases a permanent color. The hues vary decidedly with the groups of products, suggesting differences in people or in environment. White may have been freely used, but it is preserved in a few cases only, in which it was used in the production of simple decorative patterns, and appears to have been a somewhat thick or pasty color. Black was extensively used and was of two distinct kinds: a thick permanent pigment, employed in the delineation of designs, and a thin color, not so permanent and employed exclusively as a ground upon which to execute designs in other mediums. The latter may possibly be of vegetal derivation. Its use was confined to a single variety of ware, the lost color group. The former was employed in all the other groups, with one exception, the red line group.

The light purple tint is but sparingly used and only in the polychrome group. It is very effective in combination with the reds and blacks upon the orange ground of this ware. It is probably of a mineral nature.

What I have denominated the lost color was a pigment, or "taking out"

solution, extensively and exclusively employed in the decoration of one of the princ.i.p.al groups of ware. Its former existence is made known by its action upon the ground colors and upon the paste or slip within the areas covered by it. Where superimposed upon black, that color has in all cases been removed, exposing the underlying tints of the slip in which the designs are now manifested, the inters.p.a.ces being still black.

In some cases the lost color has not only removed the black ground, but has affected the slip beneath, removing it also, and to such a degree that the polished surface is destroyed and shallow intaglio lines occur, leaving the inters.p.a.ces in relief. This circ.u.mstance enforces the idea that possibly the "lost color" was really not a color at all, but an acid which acted upon the ground colors at once, destroying the black entirely and leaving the effect now seen. This point must remain for the present undetermined.

The figures in all cases appear to have been delineated with ordinary brushes and by purely free hand methods. The degree of skill varies greatly. The execution in the great body of the work is rather inferior and indicates a lack of skill and care, but in a limited number of pieces the manipulation is masterly.

The designs are confined to the show s.p.a.ces, being exterior in narrow necked vessels and generally interior in shallow forms.

In arrangement upon the surfaces this decoration presents some novel features. The slight degree of uniformity in arrangement indicates the absence of any mechanical aid, such as the wheel, which device would tend to reduce all decoration to a series of horizontal zones. We observe indeed the occurrence of horizontal arrangements, but not to a degree greater than would naturally arise as a result of the conformation of the vessel. Upright, oblique, and arched arrangements are frequently met with, and all are safely attributable to the domination of s.p.a.ces to be covered or to the influence of antecedent shapes. Examples and details are given as they come up in the various sections.

_The scarified group._--This group is represented by about forty specimens and is worthy of especial attention. It comes from the graves of two localities, one near C. E. Taylor's hacienda, north of David, on the slopes of Mount Chiriqui, and the other at Alanje, southwest of David. As a variety of ware it stands so entirely alone that had it arrived unlabeled no one would have recognized its affinities with Chiriquian art. It is rather inferior in material, grace of form, and surface finish, and the decoration appears to belong to a lower grade of culture than that of the other groups. It is possibly the work of an inferior race in comparatively recent times.

Nearly all the vessels are tripods, but a few have rounded or flat bottoms and a few are supplied with annular stands. The walls are thick and the shapes are uncouth or clumsy. The paste is coa.r.s.e, poorly baked, and friable; near the surface it is a warm reddish or yellowish gray; within the ma.s.s it is a dark gray.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 118. Tripod bowl of red scarified ware--?.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 119. Tripod bowl of red scarified ware--?.]

The makers of this pottery, like their brother artificers, took especial pleasure in the modeling of life forms. The work exhibited in these specimens is, however, exceptionally rude. In some cases grotesque heads are attached to the rims of bowls; in others the head, tail, and feet of animals appear about the periphery of the vase; and in a number of cases the legs of the tripods are modeled to represent the forms of living creatures. Generally the feet are clumsy in shape and three toed, suggesting the feet of the tapir.

These vessels are embellished by painting, incising, or scarifying and by modeling in relief. Color was not employed in the production of designs, but a dark Indian red pigment was daubed over that part of the surface not occupied by incised ornament. Little or no slip was used and the rude geometric patterns were executed with pointed tools in a very haphazard manner.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 120. Oblong basin with scarified design--?.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 121. Large bowl with handles imitating animal heads--?.]

The bowls are more numerous than in any other group of the Chiriquian ware, but, as in the other groups, they are supplied with supports, either tripods, shaped like the feet of quadrupeds, or rude annular bases. In most cases the rim expands gradually from below, as seen in Fig. 118, or is recurved, as shown in Fig. 119. In a few cases the basin is oblong or boat shaped and the ends are pointed, as indicated in Fig. 120.

An interesting specimen is ill.u.s.trated in Fig. 121. At the opposite ends of the bowl portions of the rim are carried upward and inward, forming handle-like appendages, modeled to represent, rudely, the heads of animals. Details of form and ornament are well brought out in the cut.

In Fig. 122 we have a high cylindrical shape with a flat bottom, the surface being scarified in vertical bands. A small pot, having an annular base and decoration similar to the preceding, is given in Fig. 123. In Fig. 124, instead of the vertical lines, we have a series of heavy ribs. Two strong vertically placed loops are fixed upon opposite sides of the shoulder and the base is supplied with the usual feet.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 122. Jar with flat bottom and vertical bands of incised ornament--?.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 123. Vase with stand and vertical incised bands--?.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 124. Vase with handles, legs, and vertical ribs--?.]

The tripods shown in Figs. 125 and 126 are somewhat mutilated, but they present features of interest in the novel shapes and the unique animal forms with which the legs are embellished. Each leg is represented as a complete animal, whose back or breast supports the vessel and whose cylindrical nether extremity rests upon the ground. The head in the first example resembles an owl and in the second reminds one of some crustacean form. An additional specimen of considerable interest is shown in Fig. 127. It is a heavy tripod, having four independent mouths, all opening into one chamber. The shape is unsatisfactory, being heavy and unsymmetrical. The exterior surface has the usual scarified figures and the inters.p.a.ces and the entire inner surface of the vessel are painted red and rather carefully polished.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 125. Tripod with owl-like heads at insertion of legs--?.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 126. Tripod with legs rudely suggesting animal forms--?.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 127. Heavy red vase with four mouths--?.]

_The handled group._--The series of vessels to which this name is given comprises a large number of pieces of unusually even characters. They are obtained from a pretty wide district to the north and west of David and occur in connection with other groups. They are notable for uniformity in size, shape, and finish and for the unmistakable evidences of use over fire which at least three-fourths of them show. With the exception of a few large caldrons, not yet a.s.signed to a particular group, they are more like ordinary cooking vessels than any other group of Chiriquian ware. The size, however, is remarkably small, the average capacity being about a pint. Larger pieces contain a quart or three pints.

The body is usually much compressed vertically and is flattish above and more or less conical below, giving a very graceful contour. The surface is rather rudely polished and the painting is done with notable carelessness, as if the intended use were not favorable to the preservation of the ornament. By means of a heavy brush, red figures, consisting of splotches, stripes, arches, and encircling bands, were applied to the yellowish gray surface and sometimes, as indicated by a smeared appearance, were polished down with an implement. It does not seem that a slip of ordinary white clay was very generally used. In a few cases a grayish blue tint appears upon some of the wider s.p.a.ces.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 128. Vase with horizontally placed handles and rude designs in red--.]