CHAPTER IX
THE FINE ARTS
No doubt many readers will object to the title we have given this chapter on the ground that no aboriginal production can rise to the level of an actual "fine art," but we feel that the name is justified because the productions here considered occupy the same place in aboriginal life as do the fine arts in Europe. They may be comprehended under the familiar heads of sculpture, painting, literature, and music.
As we have indicated before, the center of New World sculpture was Yucatan, where stone carving is one of the most distinctive traits of Maya culture. True stone carving is rare in South America. The Peruvians did next to nothing of this sort; in fact, the only two places where stone carving rises to an observable level are in the extreme southern limits of Inca influence and again in Colombia, where we have the isolated statues of St. Augustine. In North America, no stone carving worthy of the name occurs north of the Rio Grande. Thus, the ancient Maya cities constitute the center of the sculptor's art, which fringes out in northern Mexico above and in Panama below. Although the carving of small objects in stone reached a very high level in the West Indies, it can scarcely be ranked as sculpture. Even the Aztec and other antecedent Mexican cultures which produced a fair amount of stone carving have not left behind evidences of sculptural skill strictly comparable to those of the Maya. Students of aboriginal art claim that the Maya development came before the Aztec and that the influence of the latter is plainly seen in the later Maya.[1] For example, the well-known Chacmool statue found at Chichen Itza is said to represent a Nahua type, examples of which have been found in several parts of Mexico and also in Salvador, south of the Maya. These statues are, however, fairly representative of
- ↑ Spinden, 1913. I.
