Part 16

“Many pauses took place ere the process was completed. Now one part of the body was surrendered to the skeuomorph and anon another. Conventionalism established a temporary truce, but the war of structure against nature broke out afresh, and the grotesque appeared. We look upon the death-grasp of a writhing quadruped, the knotted convolutions of a serpent, the spectral gleam of a vanishing face. And then, when all was over, when the battle on the ornamental field was lost and won, nothing was left but a zoomorph of contrasted curves and symmetrical scrolls.”

The human form is not exempt from the skeuomorphic inroad. The two men in Fig. 4, Plate VII., which is taken from an illuminated page of the Gospel of Mac Regol, at Oxford, are suffering from but a mild attack, but the men on the Pre-Norman font at Checkley, near Uttoxeter, and similar figures (Figs. 110, 111) on a cross at Ilam, five miles from Ashbourne, have all but succumbed.

THE REASONS FOR WHICH OBJECTS ARE DECORATED.

In the Introduction I referred to what were termed certain needs which constrained man to artistic effort. These were art, information, wealth, and religion, and they will now be treated as briefly as may be, since it is impossible to deal adequately with them.

I. ART.

Æsthetics is the study and practice of art for art’s sake, that is, for the pleasurable sensations which are induced by certain combinations of form, line, and colour. It does not signify for our purpose how the feeling for art has been obtained, nor is an analysis of the sensations necessary. All men have this sense, varying from a rudimentary to an exalted extent. Though it is naturally the basis of all art work, it does not follow that the æsthetic sense has been the sole cause of decorative work. Religion and the desire to convey information have both imitated and controlled pictorial and decorative art, but the artistic sense has all along exerted its influence to a greater or less extent. The artistic feeling has endeavoured to cast a glamour of beauty over the crude efforts of religion and science.

In the scheme of the life-history of pictorial or decorative designs given on p. 8, I have considered only those which have originated from various combinations of originally solitary figures. Separate portraits whether of men or animals, either in the flat or in the round, have been omitted as they remain in the lowest place of development, though they may attain to the highest excellence of art. Those who have followed the brilliant researches in classical archæology will appreciate what I mean by the life-history of representations. The origin, rise, glorious consummation, and decadence of Greek statuary is a striking illustration of my theme.

Figures may be grouped not only to convey a sentiment, as in a picture, but merely for decorative effect. The artist in this case usually at once adopted a conventional treatment. In some instances strict realism may be appropriate, but in the greater number of conditions it is most inappropriate.

Walls, fabrics, and platters have from time immemorial been decorated in this manner. Many books have been written illustrating this branch of art and laying down principles of design, and the reader is referred to these, as this subject does not fall within the scope of the present essay.

I would like to point out in this place that there is a very instructive field for study in the consideration of the decorative methods of various peoples. The way in which areas are decorated, the idea of symmetry, and such-like subjects; for example, the essence of Japanese decorative art is asymmetry, and the results are charming to our eyes although we have been reared amongst symmetrical designing. Symmetry may be exhibited in the equal balancing of dissimilar designs, as is commonly done by Oriental artists, or in the mechanical duplication in relation to a median line which is so dear to European decorators.

The style of the decorative art of a savage or barbaric people is a legacy and its perpetuation is usually binding, not merely by custom but more frequently by religion. When all the various factors are taken into account, one finds that the æsthetic sense of a savage artist is not so very different after all from that of his civilised fellow-craftsman, and one can see in the disposition or the introduction of certain elements in a design, that both are actuated by the same æsthetic sense of what is suitable,—both are, in fact, artists.

In the section on Physicomorphs I allude to the rarity of landscape drawing among savage peoples, and give an illustration (Fig. 66) of one, from Torres Straits, which occurred casually on a bamboo pipe; there is another but poorer landscape from the same locality in the Oxford University Museum. Early attempts, such as these, at pictures are especially interesting as illustrating the working of the mind of the artists.

It is not within the scope of this book to trace the history either of pictorial art or of individual pictures. The genesis of a great picture is most interesting, and it may occasionally be traced owing to the fortunate preservation of the artist’s sketches and studies. It often happens that some of the figures in the finished picture have lost the vitality which they had in the sketch stage, even such a great artist as Raffael could not always reproduce the spirit of his own work.

If the originating artist lost something out of his own handiwork, it is no wonder that a copyist should lose more, especially when the latter may not have access to the original, but base his reproductions on copies several times removed from it. A late stage of degeneration of pictorial art, through more or less incompetent copying, is seen in the cheap lithographs which occupy, without adorning, the walls of houses of the country folk, many of which, like the analogous frescoes of Pompeii, are the pictorial echoes of the works of masters of the craft.

II. INFORMATION OR COMMUNICATION.

I have already referred to the difficulty of finding a term which will express all that might be dealt with in this section.

In order to convey information from one man to another, when oral or gesture language are impossible, recourse must be had to pictorial signs in some form or another.

Probably one of the earliest of this needs was that of indicating ownership, and it may be that many devices on primitive implements and utensils have this as one reason for their existence, although the nature of the ornamentation may be owing to quite a different reason.

As a matter of fact we know very little about owners’-marks, but it is possible that while an object may frequently be decorated with a clan or tribal device, the particular variety or delineation of that figure will serve to distinguish the ownership of the object.

Allied to owners’-marks are trade-marks; on this subject, too, information is lamentably deficient, but we know that these do occur amongst primitive folk (p. 48, Fig. 23).

Most savages employ a more elaborate method of conveying information, and this picture-writing, as it is called, has been of such importance in the history of the world, especially in its later developments; that it deserves a more detailed treatment.

_Pictographs._

A pictograph is writing by means of a picture. It records and conveys a fact or an idea by graphic means, without the employment of words or letters. As pictography belongs to a low plane of culture, so far as the visual communication of information is concerned, the representations are generally very crude. By no means should they be regarded as typical examples of the artistic skill of the people who execute them. They are intended for picture-writing, not for pictures. An examination of pictographs shows at once that only essential or salient characters are noted, and when objects are frequently repeated they become conventionalised, and in their later forms cannot be regarded as in any sense objective portraitures.

Nowhere in the world are pictographs so much employed as in America, and fortunately it is possible to gain precise information respecting their signification. Colonel Mallery[115] has devoted himself to an exhaustive study of North American pictography, and I cannot do better than briefly detail a few of his deductions.

[115] Garrick Mallery, “On the Pictographs of the North American Indians,” _Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_, 1882-83 (1886). See also _Tenth Ann. Rep._, 1888-89 (1893).

“A general deduction, made after several years of study of pictographs of all kinds found among the North American Indians, is that they exhibit very little trace of mysticism or of esotericism in any form. They are objective representations, and cannot be treated as ciphers or cryptographs in any attempt at their interpretation. A knowledge of the customs, costumes, including arrangement of the hair, paint, and all tribal designations, and of their histories and traditions, is essential to the understanding of their drawings. Comparatively few of their picture signs have become merely conventional. A still smaller proportion are either symbolical or emblematic. By far the larger part of them are merely mnemonic records, and are treated of in connection with material objects formerly and, perhaps, still used mnemonically.

“It is believed that the interpretation of the ancient forms is to be obtained, if at all, not by the discovery of any hermeneutic key, but by an understanding of the modern forms, some of which fortunately can be interpreted by living men; and when this is not the case the more recent forms can be made intelligible, at least in part, by thorough knowledge of the historic tribes, including their sociology, philosophy, and arts, such as is now becoming acquired, and of their sign language.

“It is not believed that any considerable information of value in an historical point of view will be obtained directly from the interpretation of the pictographs in North America. They refer generally to some insignificant fight or some season of plenty or famine.

“Ample evidence exists that many of the pictographs, both ancient and modern, are connected with the mythology and religious practices of their makers.

“Some of them were mere records of the visits of individuals to important springs or to fords on regularly established trails. In this respect there seems to have been, in the intention of the Indians, very much the same spirit as induces the civilised man to record his initials upon objects in the neighbourhood of places of general resort.

“One very marked peculiarity of the drawings of the Indians is that within each particular system, such as may be called a tribal system, of pictography, every Indian draws in precisely the same manner. The figures of a man, of a horse, and of every other object delineated, are made by every one who attempts to make any such figure with all the identity of which their mechanical skill is capable, thus showing their conception of motive to be the same” (pp. 15-17; all the quotations are from the _Fourth Ann. Rep._).

The purposes for which pictography has been employed by the North American Indians are:—

1. _Mnemonic._—For the remembrance of the order of songs, the figurative or representative pictures remind the singers of the order of the stanzas previously committed to memory; as well as for traditions, treaties, and the records of events. Among the most interesting of the latter are the Dakota Winter Counts. The Dakotas reckon time by winters, and apply names to them instead of numbering them from an era. Each name refers to some notable occurrence of the year to which it belongs, and ideographic records of these occurrences were formerly painted in colours on the hides of animals. A single example will suffice, it is for the year 1812-13. “Many wild horses caught,” or “catching wild-horses winter.” The wild horses were first run and caught by the Dakotas. The device is a lasso. The date is of value, as showing when the herds of prairie horses, descended from those animals introduced by the Spaniards, had multiplied so as to extend into the far northern regions. The Dakotas undoubtedly learned the use of the horse, and perhaps also of the lasso, from southern tribes ... in only two generations since they became familiar with the horse they have become so revolutionised in their habits as to be utterly helpless, both in war and the chase, when deprived of that animal” (p. 108).

2. _Notification._—The pictographs of this division may be grouped as follows—(1) Notice of departure, direction, etc.; (2) notice of condition, suffering, etc.; (3) warning and guidance; (4) charts of geographical features; (5) messages or communications; (6) record of expedition, and so forth.

The following (Fig. 113) is an example of a notice of departure on a hunting expedition.[116] Similar ones are made by the natives to inform their visitors or friends of their departure for a certain purpose. They are depicted upon strips of wood, which are placed in conspicuous places near the doors of the habitations.

[116] Originally published by Dr. W. J. Hoffman, _Trans. Anthrop. Soc., Washington_, ii., 1883, p. 134.

1. The speaker, with the right hand indicating himself, and with the left pointing in the direction to be taken. 2. Holding a boat paddle—going by boat. 3. The right hand to the side of the head, to denote sleep, and the left elevated with one finger, to signify one—one night. 4. A circle with two marks in the middle, signifying an island with huts upon it. 5. Same as No. 1. 6. A circle to denote another island. 7. Same as No. 3, with an additional finger elevated, signifying _two_—two nights. 8. The speaker with his harpoon, making the sign of a sea-lion with the left hand. The flat hand is held edgewise with the thumb elevated, then pushed outward from the body in a slightly downward curve. 9. A sea-lion. 10. Shooting with bow and arrow. 11. The boat with two persons in it, the paddles projecting downward. 12. The winter, a permanent habitation of the speaker.

The following is a translation of the native account:—“I there go that island, one sleep there; then I go another that island, there two sleeps; I catch one sea-lion, then return place mine.”

“Hunters who have been unfortunate, and are suffering from hunger, scratch or draw upon a piece of wood characters similar to those figured (Fig. 114), and place the lower end of the stick in the ground on the trail where the greatest chance of its discovery occurs. The stick is inclined toward the locality of the habitation.

“1. A horizontal line, denoting a canoe, showing the persons to be fishermen. “2. An individual with both arms extended, signifying _nothing_, corresponding with the gesture for negation. “3. A person with the right hand to the mouth, signifying _to eat_, the left hand pointing to the house occupied by the hunters. “4. The habitation.

“The whole signifies that there is _nothing to eat_ in the _house_. This is used by natives of Southern Alaska.”

Lean-Wolf, of the Hidatsa, who drew the picture of which Fig. 115 is a fac-simile, made a trip on foot from Fort Berthold to Fort Buford, Dakota, to steal a horse from the Dakotas encamped there. The returning horse-tracks show that he attained the object in view and that he rode home. The following explanation of characters was made to Dr. Hoffman, at Fort Berthold, in 1881:—

1. Lean-Wolf, the head only of a man to which is attached the outline of a wolf. 2. Hidatsa earth lodges, circular in form, the spots representing the pillars supporting the roof. Indian village and Fort Berthold, Dakota. 3. Human footprints; the course taken by the recorder. 4. The Government buildings at Fort Buford (square). 5. Several Hidatsa lodges (round), the occupants of which had intermarried with the Dakotas. 6. Dakota lodges. 7. A small square—a white man’s house—with a cross marked upon it, to represent a Dakota lodge. This denotes that the owner, a white man, had married a Dakota woman who dwelt there. 8. Horse-tracks returning to Fort Berthold. 9. The Missouri River. 10-16. Tule Creek, Little Knife River, White Earth River, Muddy Creek, Yellowstone River, Little Missouri River, Dancing Beard Creek.

3. _Designation._—This group embraces tribal, clan and personal names, marks, status of individual and signs of particular achievements.

The clan, or gentile, designations are totems; these are depicted in the funeral pictographs to the exclusion of the personal names; the latter are not indicative of an Indian’s totem.

In No. 1 of the last figure we have the usual signature of Lean-Wolf. During his boyhood he had another name.

4. _Religious._—Comprising mythic personages, shamanism dances and ceremonies, mortuary practices, grave posts, charms, etc.

5. _Customs, Daily Life and Habits._—The accompanying figure is from a carving made of a piece of walrus tusk and represents incidents in the life of an Alaskan native. The special purport of some of the characters and etchings is not apparent.

1. A native with his left hand resting against a house. To the right is a “shaman stick” surmounted by the emblem of a bird, a “good spirit,” in memory of some departed friend (? of his wife). 2. A reindeer. 3. One man, the recorder, shot and killed another with an arrow. 4. A trading expedition with a dog sledge. 5. Is a sail boat, although the elevated paddle signifies that that was the manner in which the voyage was best made. 6. A dog-sled with the animal hitched up for a journey. Above is the sun. 7. A sacred lodge. The four figures at the outer corners of the square represent the young men placed on guard armed with bows and arrows, to keep away the uninitiated. Inside are the members of the band dancing; the fire-place is in the centre. The angled lines extending from the right side of the lodge to the partition line are a plan of the subterranean entrance to the lodge. 8. A pine tree, up which a porcupine is climbing. 9. A pine tree, from which a woodpecker is extracting larvæ for food. 10. A bear. 11. The recorder in his boat, holding aloft his double-bladed paddle to drive fish into a net. 12. An assistant fisherman driving fish into the net. 13. The net.

The figure over the man (No. 12) represents a whale, with harpoon and line attached, caught by the narrator.

6. _Historical._—Colonel Mallery says: “It is very difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish in pictographs, or indeed orally, between historical and traditional accounts obtained from Indians.... The winter counts, while having their chief value as calendars, contain some material that is absolute and veritable tribal history.”

7. _Biographic._—Pictographs are very common either of a continuous account of the chief events in the life of the subject of the sketch, or of separate accounts of some particular exploit or event in the life of the person referred to.

In this and in another memoir[117] Colonel Mallery calls attention to the fact that it is necessary to distinguish between different kinds of pictorial signs, but this becomes more difficult when the characters have become conventionalised. They may be classified under—1. Pictorial Signs; 2. Emblems; 3. Symbols.

[117] Garrick Mallery, “Sign Language among North American Indians,” _First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_, 1879-80 (1881).

1. The representation of any object when it is intended to express that object is a _pictorial sign_; for example, the figure of a fish in a pictograph would usually refer to fish in general or to some particular species of fish. The pictorial translation of a personal name, such as “Lean-Wolf” (Fig. 115, 1), comes under this heading.

2. Tribal signs, personal insignia, etc., are _emblems_; and these do not necessarily require any analogy between the objects representing and the objects or qualities represented, but may arise from pure accident. The representation of a totem belongs to this category, so that under certain conditions a drawing would not refer to any actual fish or that the individual was named “fish,” but that he belonged to the fish clan; it was emblematic of his clan or his family group, like most of our armorial bearings. Tribal signs among savage peoples are emblems in the same way that the rose, thistle, leek, and shamrock are the emblems of the main components of the British Islands. As Mallery points out, “After a scurrilous jest the beggar’s wallet became the emblem of the confederated nobles, the Gueux of the Netherlands; and a sling, in the early minority of Louis XIV., was adopted from the refrain of a song by the Frondeur opponents of Mazarin.”

3. “_Symbols_ are less obvious and more artificial than mere signs, they are usually conventional, and are not only abstract but metaphysical, and often need explanation from history, religion, and customs. They do not depict but suggest objects; do not speak directly through the eye to the intelligence, but presuppose in the mind knowledge of an event or fact which the sign recalls. The symbols of the ark, dove, olive-branch, and rainbow would be wholly meaningless to people unfamiliar with the Mosaic or some similar cosmology, as would be the cross and the crescent to those ignorant of history. The last-named objects appeared in the class of emblems when used in designating the conflicting powers of Christendom and Islamism.” Among the North American Indians “the pipe is generally the symbol of peace, although in certain positions and connections it sometimes signifies preparation for war, and again subsequent victory. The hatchet is a common symbol for war, and closed hands or approaching palms denote friendship. The tortoise has been clearly used as a symbol for land.” Many pictorial signs can be used as emblems, and both can be converted into symbols or explained as such by perverted ingenuity. An interesting example of the last is seen in the early Christian conceit of the portraiture of a fish used for the name and title of Jesus Christ. This is based on the Greek word ιχθυς “an acrostic composed of the initials of the several Greek words signifying that name and title. This origin being unknown to persons whose religious enthusiasm was in direct proportion to their ignorance, they expended much rhetoric to prove that there was some true symbolic relation between an actual fish and the Saviour of men. Apart from this misapplication, the fish undoubtedly became an emblem of Christ and of Christianity.”[118]

[118] Mallery, “Sign Language,” etc., 1881, p. 389.