civilization through the agency either of commerce or of conquest. It is carried across seas and lands, and in new hands receives still another dress in combinations still more incongruous with its original significance. It is no longer a symbol, but an arbitrary ornament, wholly conventional, modified to suit the taste and the arts of the foreigners who have adopted it. In many cases it undergoes modification in two or more directions, resulting in divergent developments, which in time produce as many distinct motives—cousins, as it were, of each other—each of which runs its own course independently of the others. This phenomenon we may call 'divergence.' A common cause of divergence is the tendency to assimilate a borrowed motive to some indigenous and familiar form, usually a natural object, thus setting up a new method of treatment quite foreign to the origin of the motive."
I intend to show in the following pages that the same processes, which Professor Hamlin traces by historical evidence in the art of the civilized peoples of the old world, have occurred among the primitive tribes of North America.[1]
Before taking up this subject, I wish to call attention to a peculiar difference between the decorative style applied in ceremonial objects and that employed in articles of every-day use. We find a considerable number of cases which demonstrate the fact that, on the whole, the decoration of ceremonial objects is much more realistic than that of ordinary objects. Thus we find the garments for ceremonial dances of the Arapaho covered with pictographic representations of animals, their sacred pipe covered with human and other forms, while their painted blankets for ordinary wear are generally adorned with geometrical designs. Among the Thompson Indians ceremonial blankets are also covered with pictographic designs, while ordinary wearing apparel and basketry are decorated with very simple geometrical motives. On the stem of a shaman's pipe we find a series of pictographs, while an ordinary pipe shows geometric forms. Even among the eastern Eskimo, whose decorative art, on the whole, is very rudimentary, a shamanistic coat has been found which has a number of realistic motives, while the ordinary dress of the same tribe shows no trace of such decoration (Fig. 1). Perhaps the most striking examples of this kind are the woven designs of the Huichol Indians of
- ↑ The examples and illustrations here represented are taken, unless otherwise stated, from specimens in the American Museum of Natural History. The information and material used were collected by Dr. Roland B. Dixon, Professor Livingston Farrand, Dr. A. L. Kroeber, Dr. Berthold Laufer. Dr. Carl Lumholtz, Mr. H. H. St. Clair, Mr. James Teit and Dr. Clark Wissler, all of whom have contributed to the systematic study of decorative art undertaken by the museum.
