DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42067#0163
Symbolism
139
Ecuador1 up to more recent times. In the Toltec period the
adornment of vessels by attached nodule decoration reached its
highest development. In North America it is not common.
Incised fillets occur in remains from the middle Mississippi region
but even here they are not one of the pronounced features.
In contrast with its frequency in the highly developed pottery
of early Central America its rarity may be noted in Africa, where
highly developed forms are by no means absent, and where lids with
animal figures might seem to suggest readily the application of the
device.2 This is true also of the prehistoric pottery of Europe. The
nodule appears in the pottery of Michelsberg, in Jaispitz (Moravia)
and in a few other late localities. Only in the slip (barbotine) decora-
tions of the terra sigillata do we find anything resembling the
American applique ornamentation, but since the material is applied
in a semifluid state, it does not attain the same freedom of treatment.
Nodes that do occur in European prehistoric pottery were apparently
made rather in imitation of punched bronze decorations and belong
to a late period. Attached animal figures, made in clay, like those
found at Gemeinlebarn, also seem to be imitations of metal work
and have never reached that development which is so characteristic
of Central American ceramic art.
The characteristic slit rattle feet of Chiriqui pottery prove even
more conclusively than the application of fillets and nodes, that the
art forms of this province must be considered as a special development
of forms characteristic of a much wider area. This type of foot is
widely spread beyond the territory in which the fish forms prevailed.3
We are thus led to the conclusion that the use of the nodes and
fillets for building up armadillo motives, are historically related to
1 Marshall H. Saville, The Antiquities of Manabi, Ecuador, New York, 1910.
2 See a relief ornament on a red ware vessel from Banana, Belgian Congo,
Annales du Musee du Congo; Notes analytiques sur les collections ethnographiques,
Vol. 2, Brussels, 1907, Les industries indigenes, PI. Ill, fig. 34.
See Franz Boas y Manuel Gamio, Album de colecciones arqueologicas, Mexico,
1912, Plates 36, 42, 51.
139
Ecuador1 up to more recent times. In the Toltec period the
adornment of vessels by attached nodule decoration reached its
highest development. In North America it is not common.
Incised fillets occur in remains from the middle Mississippi region
but even here they are not one of the pronounced features.
In contrast with its frequency in the highly developed pottery
of early Central America its rarity may be noted in Africa, where
highly developed forms are by no means absent, and where lids with
animal figures might seem to suggest readily the application of the
device.2 This is true also of the prehistoric pottery of Europe. The
nodule appears in the pottery of Michelsberg, in Jaispitz (Moravia)
and in a few other late localities. Only in the slip (barbotine) decora-
tions of the terra sigillata do we find anything resembling the
American applique ornamentation, but since the material is applied
in a semifluid state, it does not attain the same freedom of treatment.
Nodes that do occur in European prehistoric pottery were apparently
made rather in imitation of punched bronze decorations and belong
to a late period. Attached animal figures, made in clay, like those
found at Gemeinlebarn, also seem to be imitations of metal work
and have never reached that development which is so characteristic
of Central American ceramic art.
The characteristic slit rattle feet of Chiriqui pottery prove even
more conclusively than the application of fillets and nodes, that the
art forms of this province must be considered as a special development
of forms characteristic of a much wider area. This type of foot is
widely spread beyond the territory in which the fish forms prevailed.3
We are thus led to the conclusion that the use of the nodes and
fillets for building up armadillo motives, are historically related to
1 Marshall H. Saville, The Antiquities of Manabi, Ecuador, New York, 1910.
2 See a relief ornament on a red ware vessel from Banana, Belgian Congo,
Annales du Musee du Congo; Notes analytiques sur les collections ethnographiques,
Vol. 2, Brussels, 1907, Les industries indigenes, PI. Ill, fig. 34.
See Franz Boas y Manuel Gamio, Album de colecciones arqueologicas, Mexico,
1912, Plates 36, 42, 51.