Page:The Incas of Peru.djvu/251

Rh It must have taken many generations, nay centuries, for these busy modellers and designers to reach the high standard displayed in their best metal and clay work, and in their cotton fabrics.

The most frequent ornaments are fish, lizards, serpents, a long-legged bird, a bird devouring a fish. The ornament of the head-dress of chiefs was like an inverted leather-cutter's knife, as Squier describes it, with plumes, and diadems of gold and silver. The golden cups and vases were very thin, with the ornaments and figures struck from the inside. Gold ornaments on the dresses were also frequent. Mr. Spruce describes a series of plates, almost like a lady's muslin collar in size and shape, covered with figures. On one of them there were nearly a hundred figures of pelicans. Every figure represents the bird in a different attitude, and, as they have been stamped, not engraved, a separate die must have been used for each figure. Silver vases and cups were of various shapes, sometimes modelled into the form of a man's head. Silver lizards, fishes, and serpents were sewn on the dresses as ornamental borders.

The most astonishing work of the northern coast people was their modelling and painting in clay. The prevailing colours of their vases were white, black, and a pale red, the designs being painted, in various colours, on a white ground. A great number are double, some quadruple, and a prevailing feature is the double spout. It is not too much to say that not only the fauna and