FICTILE WARE. Next ill abundance to stone implements among the relics of ancient America is pottery; it may be found in sherds and smaller fragments in every commonwealth, if not in every county of the United States, ill every Stale, if not every district, of Mexico, and in equal abun dance throughout most of Central America and Smith America, as well as in some abundance over much of Canada. In general, the prevalence of fictile ware in the domestic economy of the various tribes was inversely proportionate to ( 1 ) basketry, (2.) gourds, (3) shells, (4) wood enware (often shaped in imitation of shells), (5) horns of buffalo, musk ox, etc., and (C) birch bark, etc.; yet so far as the relics go, they indicate that the prevailing utensils of pre-Columbian America were of fictile ware. The ware varies widely in quality, from rude inch-thick ware to delicately shaped, artistically painted and semi glazed bowls and vases; while in the Valley, the Pueblo region, :Mexico, Central Amer ica, Peru, and to sonic extent elsewhere, elaborate figures of symbolic and ceremonial character were wrought in clay, and fired with a skill little short of that of the Old World. By Cushing and others, the genesis of the pottery bowl has been traced to the basket, the germ appearing when a flat basket was lined with earth for use in parching corn (by mixing the grain with hot coals and shaking them within it) ; and this in terpretation has been measurably verified by the finding of sherds, and some entire pieces bearing the impress of the baskets in which they were molded in certain mounds and cemeteries. The
molded and painted designs on aboriginal ware have received much attention, notably from Holmes and Fewkes; they have been found to be symbolic, and in many cases susceptible of inter pretation as totemic emblems, etc. Closely related to the fictile ware, and especially to the figur ines, is the stucco work of Central -Mexico, Yuca tan, Honduras, Costa Rica, and other districts. These stucco designs, which have been carefully studied by Saville. Holmes, and many other students, are sometimes of calendric character, and are related on the one hand to the stone sculptures of the same districts, and on the other hand to the native books, or codices, inscribed on maguey paper. Viewed collectively, the fic tile ware of America is of interest as marking, in many respects, the highest intel lectual advancement of the Western Hemisphere; for the better grades, at least, represent well developed esthetic standards, fair technical skill, a highly differentiated religious symbolism, and the germ of writing. Yet it is to be remem bered that even the finest products of the Ameri can claypit and kiln were but earthenware rather than porcelain or delft, and that both the potter's wheel and true glazes were unknown to its makers.