Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/542

 534 Recent Greek Arch(2ology and Folk-lore.

by plaiting. As one parallel instance, where doubtless many could be offered, I need only refer to a detailed study of the ceramic art of the ancient Pueblos/ published in 1882, which contains a great deal of matter interesting to the student of folk-lore and of ornament alike : the Pueblos seem to have passed through precisely the same stages of primitive development as the primitive inhabitants of the ^gaean. The anthropomorphic or naturalistic idea of the vase which the Greek potter has ever in his mind, and which is everywhere so prevalent, has a curious analogy here ; when a Pueblo woman has made a vessel, she will tell you it is a " Made Being" : she recognises that there is something human about it ; and in its decoration the lines of pattern are often left open as the " exit trail of life".-

Before leaving this subject, it may be worth mentioning that the sitting position in burial has received curious illustration by the subject painted on a vase of the fifth century B.C., which has lately been bought by the British Museum. The story represented is that of Glaukos and Polyeidos ; Glaukos, the son of Minos, King of Crete, was one day found to be missing ; his father summoned the seer Polyeidos, who discovered the child dead in a cask of honey. Minos thereupon commanded that Polyeidos, unable to restore the child to life, should be buried with him ; this was done, but as Polyeidos sat in the tomb he saw a snake come out of the ground, and killed it ; after this a second snake came and brought the first to life by laying a particular kind of herb upon its mouth: Polyeidos employed the same means to restore the dead Glaukos, and both were released from the tomb. On the many curious mythological points of interest in this story I will not here venture, but there are two points which bear upon comparative customs. The moment chosen b}- the vase- painter is here, as was often the case, a combination of different episodes, so that the picture may tell you in 1 In the Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, 1882-3. ^ ^'^^'^■' P- 510-