The pottery of the two groups already presented exhibits characters so uniform throughout that there need be no hesitation in placing them together as the work of one community and of one period of practice of the art; but between these groups and those that follow there is a wide gap. The differences are so marked that, if they had come from widely separated localities, very intimate relationships would not have been suggested.
[Illustration: Fig. 154. Cup with incurved rim and life form ornamentation--½.]
[Illustration: Fig. 155. Cup with widely expanded rim and constricted neck--½.]
_The maroon group._--For the want of a better name I have called the group first to be presented the maroon group, on account of its color. Our collection comprises not more than a dozen pieces of this ware. The locality from which they come is called Los Tenajos by Mr. McNiel, but he has not distinguished them in any way from the other varieties, and I am therefore unable to say whether or not they occur together with others or under identical conditions. In symmetry of outline, diversity of shape, and cleverness of modeling this ware takes a high rank, but there is no painted ornament. The surfaces are usually well polished, and all exposed parts have received a coat of purplish maroon colored paint. The paste contains a great deal of fine sand, and is yellowish upon the surface and generally quite dark within the mass. Considering the small number of pieces, the scale of form is remarkably varied. There are plain bowls with incurved rims and with flaring rims, vases with round bases, with annular stands, and with tripods, and life forms wholly unique. Perhaps the most usual form is that shown in Fig. 154, which represents a small cup with incurved rim and a narrow annular base. The shoulder is embellished with three groups of small nodes, of four each, which refer to some animal form. In other similar vases the form of the creature is given in more realistic guise. A larger vase, similar to this in most respects, has a rounded contour and incurved lip. The periphery is supplied with four plain nodes. Another, shown in Fig. 155, has a wide recurved rim, a character seen to equally good advantage in some of the following figures. In the small vase represented in Fig. 156 the treatment of animal forms in connection with the body of the vessel is shown to good advantage. The head, legs, and tail of what is probably intended to represent an alligator, modeled in the round, are attached to the periphery of the basin, and heads of some mammal are used for legs.
