Part 10

The most obvious sign for lightning, a zigzag line, is practically ubiquitous. Similarly the sun is variously depicted as a star with few or many rays; as a circle, with a cross or star inscribed within it, or with rays projecting from its periphery. A plain disc, or more often a crescent, stands for the moon.

As the heavenly powers are so generally associated with the heavens, the celestial phenomena and bodies come to represent these cosmical deities, and symbolism is born. In the following pages I touch upon some of the symbolism of physicomorphs in America; later, in dealing with religion and its symbolism, I shall discuss similar symbols in the Old World.

The symbolism of their autocthones has been, and is still actively and sympathetically studied by American anthropologists, as in a valuable paper[50] by F. H. Cushing, who remarks:—“The semi-circle is classed as emblematic of the rainbow; the obtuse angle as of the sky; the zigzag as lightning; terraces as the sky horizons, and modifications of the latter as the mythic ‘ancient sacred place of the spaces,’” and so on.

[50] _A Study of Pueblo Pottery_, etc., 1886.

By combining several of these elementary symbols in a single device, sometimes a mythic idea was beautifully expressed. For example, Fig. 62 is the totem-badge Major J. W. Powell received from the Moki Pueblos of Arizona as a token of his induction into the rain gens of that people. An earlier and simpler form of this occurs on a very ancient sacred medicine jar. (Fig. 63.) The sky (A), the ancient place of the spaces—region of the sky gods—(B), the cloud-lines (C), and the falling rain (D), are combined, and depicted to symbolise the storm, which was the objective of the exhortations, rituals, and ceremonials to which the jar was an appurtenance.

Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, in a more recent paper entitled “A few Summer Ceremonials at the Tusayan Pueblos,”[51] gives an interesting account of the Flute Ceremony. Several ancient rain-cloud tiles are described; one of them (Fig. 64) was in the room of the South House, which contained the altar. “Like its fellow, this tile had an _O’-mow-uh_ [cloud] symbol, with falling rain and the two lightning snakes depicted upon it. There were also fourteen broad black parallel lines on a white ground representing falling rain. Three rain-cloud semi-circles were outlined by a broad black band above the falling rain. The field of the clouds was brown, and the middle cloud, which was the largest, had a conventionalised half-ear of corn,[52] consisting of two parallel rows of rectangular kernels, each with a dot in the middle. A field of green occupied the whole face of the tile above the figures of the rain-clouds. On this region, rising from the depression which separates the lateral from the medial rain-cloud, one on each side, there was a brown zigzag lightning figure outlined in black. Each of these bore a simple terraced _nā’k-tci_ [a terraced tablet placed on the head of certain figures] on the head” (p. 121).

[51] “A few Summer Ceremonials at the Tusayan Pueblos,” _Journal of American Ethnology and Archæology_, ii., 1892.

[52] Maize or Indian corn.

Mr. Cushing[53] has drawn attention to a bowl of which the form as well as its decoration is symbolic. He says, “Thus, upon all sacred vessels, from the drums of the esoteric medicine societies of the priesthood and all vases pertaining to them, to the keramic appurtenances of the sacred dance or _Kâ’kâ_, all decorations were intentionally emblematic. Of this numerous class of vessels I will choose but one for illustration—the prayer-meal-bowl of the _Kâ’kâ_. (Fig. 65.) In this both form and ornamentation are significant. In explaining how the form of this vessel is held to be symbolic, I will quote a passage from the ‘creation myth,’ as I rendered it in an article on the origin of corn, belonging to a series on ‘Zuñi Bread-stuff,’ published this year [?1882] in the _Millstone_ of Indianapolis, Indiana. ‘Is not the bowl the emblem of the earth our mother? For from her we draw both food and drink, as a babe draws nourishment from the breast of its mother; and round, as is the rim of a bowl, so is the horizon, terraced with mountains, whence rise the clouds.’ This alludes to a medicine bowl, not to one of the handled kind, but I will apply it as far as it goes to the latter. The two terraces on either side of the handle are in representation of the ‘ancient sacred place of the spaces,’ the handle being the line of the sky, and sometimes painted with the rainbow figure. Now the decorations are a trifle more complex. We may readily perceive that they represent tadpoles, dragon-flies, with also the frog or toad. All this is of easy interpretation. As the tadpole frequents the pools of springtime he has been adopted as the symbol of spring rains; the dragon-fly hovers over pools in summer, hence typifies the rains of summer; and the frog, maturing in them later, symbolises the rains of the later seasons; for all these pools are due to rainfall. When, sometimes, the figure of the sacred butterfly replaces that of the dragon-fly, or alternates with it, it symbolises the beneficence of summer; since, by a reverse order of reasoning, the Zuñis think that the butterflies and migratory birds bring the warm season from the ‘Land of everlasting summer.’

[53] _Loc. cit._, p. 517.

“Upon vessels of special function, like these we have just noticed, peculiar figures may be regarded as emblematic. On other classes, no matter how evidently conventional and expressive decorations may seem (excepting always totemic designs), it is wise to use great caution in their interpretation as intentional and not merely imitative.”

The study of symbols is a peculiarly difficult one, and there is no branch of our subject which contains so many pitfalls for the unwary. The two following paragraphs, respectively by Messrs. Holmes and Cushing,[54] afford a useful warning:—

[54] _Annual Report Bureau of Ethnology_, iv.

“There are those who, seeing these forms already endowed with symbolism, begin at what I conceive to be the wrong end of the process. They derive the form of the symbol directly from the thing symbolised. Thus the current scroll is, with many races, found to be a symbol of water, and its origin is attributed to a literal rendering of the sweep and curl of the waves. It is more probable that the scroll became the symbol of the sea long after its development through agencies similar to those described above, and that the association resulted from the observation of incidental resemblances. This same figure, in use by the Indians of the interior of the continent, is regarded as symbolic of the whirlwind, and it is probable that any symbol-using people will find in the features and phenomena of their environment, whatever it may be, sufficient resemblance to any of their decorative devices to lead to a symbolic association” (p. 460).

“To both the scroll or volute and the fret, and modifications of them ages later, the Pueblo has attached meanings. Those who have visited the South-west and ridden over the wide, barren plains during late autumn or early spring have been astonished to find traced on the sand, by no visible agency, perfect concentric circles and scrolls or volutes yards long, and as regular as though drawn by a skilled artist. The circles are made by the wind driving partly broken weed-stalks around and around their places of attachment until the fibres by which they are anchored sever and the stalks are blown away. The volutes are formed by the stems of red-top grass and of a round-topped variety of the Chenopodium drifted onward by the whirlwind, yet around and around their bushy adhesive tops. The Pueblos, observing these marks, especially that they are abundant after a wind storm, have wondered at their similarity to the printed scrolls on the pottery of their ancestors. Even to-day they believe the sand marks to be the tracks of the whirlwind, which is a god in their mythology of such distinctive personality that the circling eagle is supposed to be related to him. They have naturally, therefore, explained the analogy above noted by the inference that their ancestors, in painting the volute, had intended to symbolise the whirlwind by representing his tracks. Thenceforward the scroll was drawn on certain classes of pottery to represent the whirlwind and modifications of it (for instance, by the colour-sign belonging to any one of the ‘six regions’) to signify other personified winds” (p. 515).

It is interesting to note that colours are often symbolic. Thus in a footnote to p. 111, _loc. cit._, Dr. Fewkes says:—“Red is the colour of the south, yellow of the north, blue of the west, and white of the east. For the west the available pigment used has, however, a green colour, although blue is the colour corresponding to west.” A correspondence on the colours of the winds was carried on in the _Academy_ in 1883. Dr. Whitley Stokes points out (p. 114) that among the Mayas of Yucatan red was associated with the east, white with the north, black with the west, and yellow with the south. (Cf. Brinton, _Folk-Lore Journal_, i. p. 246.) In Ireland, east was purple; south, white; north, black; and west, dun; the sub-winds between S. and E. were red and yellow respectively; between S. and W., green and blue; between N. and W., grey and dark brown; between N. and E., dark grey and speckled. Professor Max Müller (p. 302) notes that among the Navajos E. is dark; S., blue; W., yellow; N., white (cf. Mathews, _Amer. Anth._, April 1883); and in the Veda E. was red; S., white; W., dark or dark blue; and N., very dark. Lastly, Mr. Hilderic Friend (p. 318) says that in China and ancient Java there were five deities or rules—(1) black, water, N.; (2) red, fire, S.; (3) green, wood, E.; (4) white, metal, W.; (5) yellow, earth, middle. Colonel Garrick Mallery has also some notes on this subject, _Fourth Ann. Rep. Bureau Ethnol._, Washington, p. 53, and _Tenth Ann. Rep._, p. 618.

It is very rarely that landscapes are drawn by savages purely for decorative purposes. Maps or plans, or diagrams which are virtually a kind of elevation section, or even a sort of bird’s-eye view, may be limned for mnemonic or directive purposes (p. 209); but pictorial views are so rare that it is worth while giving an illustration of one (Fig. 66) which I found etched on a bamboo tobacco-pipe, from Torres Straits, in the Museum für Völkerkunde, in Berlin.

I have little doubt that the island of Mer is here intended, on account of the shape of the hill and the presence of dome-shaped structures, which I take to be the beehive huts which characterise the eastern tribe of Torres Straits. I add for comparison a rough sketch (Fig. 67) I took of this island, as seen from the south-west by west.

The natives have a legend that this hill, “Gelam,” was originally a dugong; and I believe the eye-mark in the native’s drawing is intended for the eye of Gelam, “Gelam dan,” and the projection to the extreme left to indicate Gelam’s nose, “Gelam pit,” a small jutting rocky escarpment at the head end of the island, which is enormously exaggerated in the drawing. I take it that the break in the ground of Fig. 66, below the first bird, indicates the hill “Korkor,” which forms the tail of the dugong in my sketch, and which is one end of the horse-shoe shaped crater of a volcano. The part extending beyond this is the lava-flow which forms the north-eastern half of the island.[55] The vegetation is suggested in a very perfunctory manner. I do not know what the lines that stream from the apex of the hill are intended for. I should add that to make it approximately topographically accurate, the native picture should be reversed,[56] assuming my identification to be correct. What I imagine to have occurred is as follows:—The artist intended to represent Mer (Murray Island), and he drew the peak of the principal hill, Gelam, from a very characteristic point of view (I have sketches of my own similar to this); in order to give a realistic touch he inserted the eye, which is a prominent block of volcanic ash, and added the nose. The view is suggestive, but it is an impossible one, and it appears to me that this is characteristic of a great deal of the pictorial art of savages.

[55] Cf. map by author in a paper “On the Geology of Torres Straits,” by Professors A. C. Haddon, W. J. Sollas, and G. A. J. Cole. _Trans. Roy. Irish Acad._, xxx., 1894, pp. 419-470.

[56] An interesting example of reversal is found on a bamboo tobacco-pipe which I obtained on the island of Mabuiag in Torres Straits, and which I have given to the National Museum at Washington, U.S.A. On one side of the pipe was cut =ᑎAЯIЯ=, and on the other =MÖRAP=; the latter is the name for a bamboo pipe, and the former I understood was the name of the place in Daudai where the owner had cut the bamboo from which he made the pipe; possibly it was his own name. It will be observed that this name, which is really =RIRAU=, is printed backwards, and the final =U= is upside down. I suspect that the occasional reversal of words is due to the method of counting on the fingers which these people employ. They always begin with the little finger of the left hand, and pass from the thumb of the left hand to that of the right. If a man was spelling out a word letter by letter as if he were counting he might readily fall into the error of putting down the first letter in a place corresponding to the little finger of the left hand, and so on. If the man who carved the pipe began with =RIRAU=, that word would utilise all the digits of the left hand, and so =MÖRAP= would come right end foremost on the right hand.

2. _Biomorphs._

The terms “zoomorph” and “phyllomorph” have been employed for the representations in art of plants and animals. Although man is, zoologically considered, only a higher animal, it is convenient to retain the term “anthropomorph,” which has been used by some writers to express representations of the human form. All three terms have reference to living beings, hence the appropriateness of classing them under the general designation of “biomorph.” The biomorph is the representation of anything living in contradistinction to the skeuomorph, which, as we have seen, is the representation of anything made, or of the physicomorph which is the representation of an object or operation in the physical world.

The fact that there is life in the original of the biomorph appears in most cases to exert an influence on the biomorph itself, so that it comes to have what might almost be described as a borrowed vitality.

The distinctive activities or qualities of any living being, more especially in the case of animals, very often cause them to be taken as symbolic of that particular quality. For example, the harmless, gentle, and affectionate dove, which only busies itself with parental cares, has come to be symbolic of peace. There are other reasons to which allusion will be made which have conspired to render biomorphs very important in decorative art.

Biomorphs partake of one characteristic of their originals. They have a life-history. All organisms are born, they grow, they die. During their growth they all pass through greater or less changes. Sometimes these changes, as in the metamorphoses of most insects, have attracted the attention of the least observant, and have appeared to be of such significance as to have been utilised for the illustration of religious doctrines. Whether taking place in full daylight, open to casual observation, or hidden in obscurity, or encapsuled within an egg-shell, marvellous transformations invariably accompany the earlier stages of the development of animals, from the egg stage. The development records an evolution, the history of which is being worked out in detail by the patient investigators of one of the most fascinating of all branches of study—embryology.

We have now to trace the birth, the evolution, and the decay of biomorphs, and we shall find that the subject is scarcely less suggestive and interesting than that of the very animals themselves.

Biomorphs are represented for varied purposes, and with other representations may be classified according to the diagram given in the introductory section (p. 8).

A. _Representation of Abstract Ideas of Life._

Even such an abstract idea as the Principle of Life, or Vital Energy, has been indicated in decorative art. “On every class of food- and water-vessels, in collections of both ancient and modern Pueblo pottery (except on pitchers and some sacred receptacles), it may be observed as a singular, yet almost constant feature, that encircling lines, often even ornamental zones, are left open or not, as it were, closed at the ends,” writes Cushing[57] (p. 510), who adds, “I asked the Indian women, when I saw them making these little spaces with great care, why they took so much pains to leave them open. They replied that to close them was ‘fearful!’—that this little space through the line or zone on a vessel was the ‘exit trail of life or being.’ How it came to be first left open, and why regarded as the ‘exit trail,’ they could not tell. When a woman has made and painted a vessel she will tell you with an air of relief that it is a ‘Made Being’; as she places the vessel in the kiln, she also places in and beside it food. The noise made by a pot when struck or when simmering on the fire is supposed to be the voice of its associated being. The clang of a pot when it breaks or suddenly cracks in burning is the cry of this being as it escapes or separates from the vessel. That it has departed is argued from the fact that the vase when cracked never resounds as it did when whole. This vague existence never cries out violently unprovoked; but it is supposed to acquire the power of doing so by imitation; hence, no one sings, whistles, or makes other strange or musical sounds resembling those of earthenware under the circumstances above described during the smoothing, polishing, painting, or other processes of finishing. The being thus incited, they think, would surely strive to come out, and would break the vessel in so doing.” In their native philosophy and worship of water, the latter is supposed to contain the source of continued life, hence life also dwells in a vessel containing water, and having once held water, and in virtue of having done so, it contains the source of life. “If the encircling lines inside of the eating bowl, outside of the water jar, were closed, there would be no exit trail for this invisible source of life, or for its influence or breath.” In attempting to arrive at the origin of this, Cushing points out that it is very “difficult to smoothly join a line incised around a clay pot while still soft, and that this difficulty is greater when the ornamental band is laid on in relief. It would be a natural outgrowth of this predicament to leave the ends unjoined, which indeed the savage often did. When paint instead of incision or relief come to be the decorative agent, the lines or bands would be left unjoined in imitation. As those acquainted with Tylor’s _Early History of Mankind_ will realise, a ‘myth of observation’ like the above would come to be assigned in after ages.”

[57] F. H. Cushing, “A Study of Pueblo Pottery as illustrative of Zuñi Culture Growth,” _Fourth Ann. Rep. Bureau Ethnol._, 1882-83. Washington, 1886.

The soul or spirit as it is supposed to emerge from a person at death is often represented in Christian art as a miniature man or as a winged monstrosity, as a butterfly by the ancient Greeks, or in various ways by different peoples. Souls of deceased persons may be enshrined in living fruit-eating bats,[58] frigate-birds,[59] crocodiles,[60] lizards,[61] sharks,[62] or other animals. Under certain conditions the representation of any of these forms would be emblematic of the soul.

[58] According to a legend collected by the author in Torres Straits.

[59] Dr. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 126.

[60] M. Uhle, “Holz- und Bambus-Geräthe aus N.W. Neu Guinea,” _K. Eth. Mus., Dresden_, vi., 1886, p. 6.

[61] M. D’Estrey, “Étude ethnographique sur le Lézard chez les Peuples Malais et Polynésiens,” _L’Anthropologie_, iii., 1892, p. 711.

[62] Dr. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 126.

The dove, flames (or tongues) of fire, wind, and other emblems are symbolic of spirit in Christian art.

B. _Phyllomorphs._

It has been frequently remarked that plant forms are rarely represented by savages. A possible explanation may be found in the fact that plant life is so passive, it does nothing actively or aggressively as compared with the irrepressible vitality of animals. Thus it does not impress itself on the imagination of backward peoples.

Another explanation has been suggested to me by Dr. Colley March. The need of ornament is based on expectancy. The eye is so accustomed to something in a certain association, that when this is not seen there is experienced a sense of loss. Among savage peoples the eye is accustomed to dwell on vegetal forms which are always present. It is only when they cease to be present, as in the exceptional circumstances of desert places, or walled towns, that the sense of loss can arise.

It is very probable that the reputed paucity of ornamentation derived from the vegetable world amongst primitive folk may be partly due to our not recognising it as such. Their conventions are not the same as ours, and they are often satisfied with what appears to us to be a very imperfect realism. Who, for example, would recognise in Fig. 69 the leaves of a small “cabbage”-bearing wild palm? Yet the pattern on this painted bark-tablet of the Bakaïri tribe of Central Brazil has this significance, according to Professor von den Steinen (cf. p. 175).

Backward people have to be taught to see beauty in nature, and it is very doubtful if the elegance of the form of flower or leaf appeals to them. Bright colours we know please all, and it is the colour or scent of flowers and leaves which causes them to be worn or used in decoration.