Page:The American Indian.djvu/183

Rh Outside of the sculpture area as defined above, rock inscriptions and drawings are numerous, particularly in the northern continent. Most of these pictographs are obviously recent, but no one has studied them with sufficient care to suggest a chronological grouping.

Closely allied with sculpture, in our minds, at least, is modeling in clay. We have already noted this art in the chapter on ceramics. Very good examples, in some cases of respectable size, are found in both Mexico and Central America. The Inca culture of Peru, which did not successfully carve stone, did nevertheless, reach a high level in clay modeling, but apparently limited its work to small vessels and figures. At least, we find nothing like the large clay figures from Mexico.

Painting in the New World never rose above flat tones, but the drawing is often good. Many examples have been preserved in the codex collections from Mexican and Maya cultures, but nothing of the kind has come down to us from the Andean region. Of the historic peoples, the Eskimo seem to lead in graphic skill, though they are, perhaps, equalled by the Dakota. Elsewhere drawing is rather crude.

Every student of our subject feels a keen regret that so few fragments of Inca, Maya, and Aztec literature have survived, for there is just enough to show that a considerable advance had been made. To most of us the term literature implies printed works, but we are here using the term in the broadest sense, for literature arose and took many of its essential forms before attempts were made to write it. There is fair evidence that the Inca cultivated the drama. Thus Garcilasso, himself of Inca descent, states that they "composed both tragedies and comedies, which were represented before the Inca and his court on solemn occasions. The subject matter of the tragedy related to military deeds and the victories of former times; while the arguments of the comedies were on agricultural and familiar household subjects. They understood the