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NATIVE POTTERY.
largo vessel filled with water. T h e infusion yields a y e l l o w ish liquor, which tastes like milk o f almonds. Sometimes papelon (unrefined sugar) is added. T h e missionary told us that the natives b e c o m e visibly fatter during the t w o or three months in which they drink this seje, into which they dip their cakes o f cassava. T h e piaches, or Indian j u g g l e r s , g o into the forests, and s o u n d the botuto ( t h e sacred t r u m p e t ) under the seje palm-trees, " t o force the tree," they say, " t o yield an ample p r o d u c e the following y e a r . " The people pay for this operation, as the M o n g o l s , the A r a b s , and nations still nearer t o us, pay the chamans, the marabouts, and other classes o f priests, to drive away the white ants and the locusts b y m y s t i c words or prayers, o r t o p r o c u r e a cessation o f c o n t i n u e d rain, and invert the order o f the seasons. " I have a manufacture o f p o t t e r y in m y v i l l a g e , " said Father Zea, w h e n a c c o m p a n y i n g us o n a visit t o an Indian family, who were occupied in baking, by a fire o f b r u s h w o o d , in the o p e n air, large earthen vessels, t w o feet and a half high. This branch o f manufacture is peculiar t o the various tribes o f the great family o f M a y p u r e s , and they appear t o have followed it from time immemorial. In every part o f the forests, far from any human habitation, on d i g g i n g the earth, fragments o f pottery and delf are found. T h e taste for this kind o f manufacture seems to have been c o m m o n heretofore t o the natives o f b o t h N o r t h and South A m e r i c a . T o the n o r t h o f M e x i c o , o n the banks o f the Rio Gila, a m o n g the ruins o f an A z t e c c i t y ; in the U n i t e d States, near the tumuli of the M i a m i s ; in Florida, and in every place where any traces o f ancient civilization are found, the soil covers fragments o f painted p o t t e r y ; and the extreme resemblance o f the ornaments they display is striking. Savage nations, and those civilized p e o p l e * who are c o n d e m n e d by their political and religious institutions always t o imitate themselves, strive, as if by instinct, to perpetuate the same forms, t o preserve a peculiar t y p e or style, and t o follow the methods and processes which were employed by their ancestors. I n N o r t h A m e r i c a , fragments o f delf ware have b e e n • The Hindoos, the Tibetians, the Chinese, the ancient Egyptians, the Aztecs, the Peruvians ; with whom the tendency toward civilization in a body has prevented the free development of the faculties of individuals.
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