of the Bureau
of Ethnology, is of much inferior interest, being plain and rude.

_Life forms._--A very large percentage of the bowls of this district
are modified in such a way as to resemble, more or less closely,
the form of some living creature--bird, beast, or reptile. Especial
attention has been given to the heads. These are modeled in the round
and attached to the rim or side, while other parts of the animal
appear upon different portions of the vessel.

[Illustration: FIG. 373.--Trough-shaped vessel: Arkansas.--1/3.

[_National Museum._]]

It will be difficult to determine the origin of this curious practice.
We shall not be able to say that it came from the elaboration of
handles, simply to please fancy, for the reason that vessels of
this class are rarely known to have had simple handles; nor from the
modification of simple ornaments, as such were but little used. It
is still less probable that animal forms were first modeled
independently, and afterwards changed in such a way as to serve as
vessels. There are no examples of animal forms in clay independent
of vessels. It would not be consistent with primitive methods
of procedure to copy nature direct, at least until some mystic
significance had become attached to the form employed. It is possible,
however, that the origin of this practice is not to be found
within the plastic art itself, but in the shapes of antecedent and
co-existent vessels of other materials in which life forms had been
employed; or in the use of natural objects themselves as utensils,
the original forms not having been lost sight of and having in time
suggested the employment of other natural forms. Examples of the
latter class may be cited.

Shells were primitive vessels. The hard cases of seeds and fruits were
also much used. These were doubtless antecedent to vessels of clay.
They were the natural models for the potter, the carver in wood or
stone, and their employment as such served to lead up gradually to a
more realistic and general use of natural shapes in works of art to
which they were not essential features. The importance of the various
animal forms was increased by their association with religious ideas.
Nearly all the vessels of this class presented in the following
illustrations come from the vicinity of Pecan Point, Arkansas.

Clay vessels imitating both marine and fresh-water shells are
occasionally obtained from the mounds and graves of the Mississippi
Valley. Th