POTTERY.
In some respects the ancient Peruvians were the most noteworthy pot ters on the continent. No other nation presented products with such diversity of forms, with such ingenious combinations, with such faithful imitations. (See Vol. I. /5/. 53.) These are, moreover, extremely abun dant, and no museum of American antiquities is without its series of Peruvian huacas, as they are called.
Methods of natives employed clay of various colors, but, as it was generally mixed with powdered charcoal, ashes, or graphite as a siccative, the specimens are mostly brown or black, except when superficially colored. In common ware chopped maize-leaves were mixed with the clay, and the charring of these gave the latter also a dark hue. The finest ware was often prepared with pounded mica or shells as the siccative. Gold-dust was sometimes added to give a brilliant reflection.
In some localities the pottery was sun-dried; generally it was fire burned, the fuel being dried dung, which was placed around the clay object and excited to intense heat by blowing with long tubes.
Coloring was accomplished by various devices. Mineral colors were mixed with earth to the proper fluidity, and then laid on the moist vessel with a brush or spatula. At other times the painting was in vegetable colors after the firing was completed.
Decoration was largely conventional. It is evident from existing speci mens that moulds or stamps in wood, pottery, or stone were employed to impress various designs on the clay. Those designs represent lozenges, squares, and other dispositions of straight lines, the serpent, birds, stars, and the human face. They have little expression, and probably conveyed no recondite meaning.
Potter's antiquaries insist that the Peruvians employed the potter's wheel. The concave and circularly striated bases of some of the huacas seem to indicate this; so also do the extreme smallness of some vases, not an inch in height, and the great size of others, measuring nearly six feet from bottom to top, both sizes finished with perfectly symmetrical sides. This symmetry, it is maintained, could not have been achieved in any other manner than by rotation.
of astonishing diversity in form prevails, and evidently the ancient artists vied with one another in their efforts to turn out novel figures. Many of the vessels are double, as we also
saw in North America in the Ohio Valley (p. 78); others, have double spouts, like the "monkey" in use among our own farmers. Many are modelled from melons, gourds, and fruits. Representations of animals abound, and almost the whole of the Peruvian fauna can be exhibited in the ancient jars. They represent quite accurately the duck, parrot, pelican, turkey, turtle, monkey, lynx, otter, llama, toad, cayman, shark, condor, etc.
The diversity of form and the skill in workmanship displayed in the ceramics of the ancient Peruvians are well illustrated in the series of vases on Plate 8 (figs. 35-38, 40, 41).
Imitations of the Human abundant are the representa tions of a part or the whole of the human figure. Whole figures in the nude are rare, and are always repulsive and coarse. Generally, the fea tures are caricatures and the expression is ludicrous or ignoble. A few are of simple and graceful forms, and here and there may be discovered a face which is dignified and impressive. The external decoration occasionally depicts scenes in life which are instructive as to ancient manners.
Musical and musical jars, rattles, and similar articles constitute a prominent feature in Peruvian ware; but it does not appear that musical instruments equal to those of the natives of Nic aragua and Mexico were produced from this material.
Sacred vessels found in the tombs are usually of a sacred character, and were destined to receive the chicha, a drink made from maize and employed in ceremonies. They often have an enlarged neck near the handle, with a hole for pouring out the liquid, and an opposite open ing through which the air escapes while the vessel is being filled. Many are double; others are quadruple or sextuple, or even octuple; that is, the principal vessel is surrounded with regular appendages which communi cate among themselves and with the principal vessel. Some of these double vessels while they are being filled with fluid emit from the air holes gurgling and other sounds which a sufficiently strong imagination can assimilate to the voice of the animal represented by the principal part of the vessel.