ancient pottery of
Alabama.]

It will readily be seen that it is extremely difficult to draw a line
between an ornamentation produced by the use of single or grouped cords
and that made by the use of fabrics.

It is not less difficult to say just how much of this use of cords
and fabrics is to be attributed to manufacture simply and how much to
ornament.

Although the restorations here presented certainly throw considerable
light upon the textile fabrics of the ancient inhabitants of the
Atlantic States, it cannot be affirmed that anything like a complete
idea of their fabrics has been gained. Impressions upon pottery
represent a class of work utilized in the fictile arts. We cannot
say what other fabrics were produced and used for other purposes.

However this may be, attention should be called to the fact that the
work described, though varied and ingenious, exhibits no characters in
execution or design not wholly consonant with the art of a stone-age
people. There is nothing superior to or specifically different from the
work of our modern Indians.

The origin of the use of fabrics and of separate cords in the
ornamentation of pottery is very obscure. Baskets and nets were
doubtless in use by many tribes throughout their pottery making period.
The shaping of earthen vessels in or upon baskets either of plain bark
or of woven splints or of fiber must frequently have occurred. The
peculiar impressions left upon the clay probably came in time to be
regarded as ornamental, and were applied for purposes of embellishment
alone. Decorative art has thus been enriched by many elements of beauty.
These now survive in incised, stamped, and painted designs. The forms as
well as the ornamentation of clay vessels very naturally preserve traces
of the former intimacy of the two arts.

Since the stereotyping of these pages I have come upon a short paper by
George E. Sellers (Popular Science Monthly, Vol. XI, p. 573), in which
is given what I believe to be a correct view of the use of nets in the
manufacture of the large salt vessels referred to on pages 398 and 409.
The use of interior conical moulds of indurated clay makes clear the
reasons for the reversed festooning of the cords to which I called
attention.

INDEX

Cord-markings on pottery 423

Diagonal textiles 416

Fabrics, Diagonal