POTTER'S% Technical Method and Quality.—All the Nahuatl nations were skilful potters, and manufactured vast quantities of ware, as the innumerable fragments scattered over the plains remain to testify. It varied greatly in quality, that which was designed for common domestic use being coarse and of clay mixed with gravel and fragments of stone, while the finer articles were of entirely pure clay, carefully worked and moulded with great skill. Different colored clays were employed, and although no example has been produced where the colors on an object were obtained by employing pates of different hues in the walls, the method of app/iqut work, where figures separately moulded and sometimes of varied colors are attached to the vessel while moist and burned with it, was perfectly familiar. Sometimes as many as twenty such figures are imposed upon one vessel.
Color.—The prevailing tint is brown or black, but that which is finest and most highly prized by antiquaries is a bright red of fine even grain. Unfortunately, much of this is found in modern fraudulent imitations of the antique ware; it is said there is a village in the Valley of Mexico whose chief industry is the manufacture of these modern antiques for the market.
Various Forms.—Not a few of the Mexican vases present graceful out lines and symmetrical proportions. Their ornamentation is often elabo rate, in some instances representing scenes from life, ancient costumes, head-dresses, etc. Om 7, figs. 33-36, 39-46).
In the vicinity of some of the ancient temple-sites small terra-cottas, chiefly representing the heads of men (figs. 4, 5) and animals, abound. Some of these portray artificial malformations of the human head, others show the prevailing national features, the modes of dressing the hair, and the popular ornaments.
Clay Masks (see p. 9o) are also abundant. Some are half life-size, others larger than life. They are executed with great freedom and con siderable artistic skill. Some of them have the features exaggerated into caricature with much spirit; others appear to be portraits of individuals, the latter not always portraying the traits of the red race.
Rattles.—Terra-cotta rattles are abundant in Mexican collections. Mr. Tylor says of them: "They have little balls in them which shake about, and they puzzled us as much as the apple dumpling did good King George, for we could not make ont very easily how the balls got inside. They were probably attached very slightly to the walls, and so baked, and then detached." Clay Musical spindle-whorls, and numerous other small articles were baked from clay; but one of the most interesting of the art-products in this substance is the class of musical instruments. These are found abundantly over Mexico and Central America, and recur in Peru. They are divided into musical jars, whistles (p1. 7, 37, 38), and
flutes. The first mentioned are somewhat spherical jars of various sizes, and so provided with canals and apertures that on blowing in the mouth piece and closing one or more of the holes several musical notes, some times as many as six, can be produced. The whistle was a more simple instrument on the same plan, usually from two to three inches in length and in the form of sonic bird or animal. It is found occasionally in Mexico and Nicaragua, and abundantly in the Chiriqui graves on the Isth mus of Panama. The flutes are long and slender, and somewhat flattened, having an aperture for the mouth, and finger-holes. They yield soft musical notes, and in the hands of an adept would prove agreeable and effective instruments.
Mortuary Urns form an important portion of the relics of the pot ter's art. They were placed with the body for the spirit's use or they enclosed the cremated remains. To this custom we owe in the Old World the preservation of the celebrated Portland Vase, now in the British Museum, and in the New many scarce less interesting relics of a similar character.
Of these the peculiar "shoe-shaped" vessels (fig. 34) of Nicaragua are characteristic of that locality. They seem to have been modelled on the shape of the human foot, and sometimes are large enough to contain the whole body of an adult.
Technical pottery from different localities in this area reveals marked differences in technical skill. In Mexico that from Cholula was most celebrated at the time of the Conquest. But some from South-eastern Mexico in the vicinity of Cempoallan surpasses it in finish. Many of the vases from the latter district present strong evidence that they were manufactured on a wheel. The colors are varied, laid on with skill, and resist time and a high temperature.
With reference to the pieces representing human or animal figures, both of which are exceedingly abundant, it is observed that the face and head have received most attention, while the body is neglected. A figure finished with equal care throughout is rare. Generally, there is visible a distinct effort to make some one trait or feature especially prominent, even to caricature. Very little sense of beauty is observable. The expression is usually jocose, comic, or extravagant, and the proportions of the parts untrue. Drapery is carelessly treated, but elaborate or fan tastic head-dresses are detailed with singular minuteness. The obscenity so common and gross in the art of the Peruvians and of several other American nations is extremely rare in that of the Mexican and Central American peoples. These observations apply equally to figure-work in stone and metal.