THE ORIGIN OF ART. 829 



in the lower stages of its development distinguishes poorly be- 

 tween subjective representations and objective results, and that 

 both give rise to the same ideas. For instance, a savage seeing 

 one of his family in a dream can not imagine that the image is in- 

 dependent of the organic substance of the personage in question ; 

 and he will see the same relation between the two as between a 

 body and its image reflected from the surface of the water. Thus 

 the Basutos think that if the shadow of a man is projected upon 

 the water the crocodiles will obtain possession of the man. A 

 similar identification may be pushed to the point that some tribes 

 are known which use the same word to designate the soul, the 

 image, and the shadow. This is the essential fact to be taken into 

 consideration in order to regard primitive design in its real mean- 

 ing, and to restore the conditions of the medium in which it origi- 

 nated. If we suppose such a material relation between the image 

 and the object as there is between the shadow and the object, it 

 becomes evident that the savage should deport himself in the same 

 way toward the image, the shadow, and the object. From his 

 point of view the image and the object it represents are in close 

 relation, and in acting upon the one he would be acting in the 

 same way upon the other. By virtue of this way of thinking the 

 savage is convinced that harm done to the image passes to the 

 object, or that in acting upon the copy we attack the original. 



Proofs are numerous to demonstrate the importance which 

 savages attribute to this mode of action on the original. Waitz 

 tells, following Denghame, that it was dangerous in a certain 

 tribe of West Africa to paint the portraits of natives, because they 

 were afraid that a part of their soul would pass, by some necro- 

 mancy, into the image. Sir John Lubbock notices the fear of 

 their portrait entertained by savages and the more like the por- 

 trait, the greater the danger to the original was supposed to be. 

 Dr. Kane got rid of the Indians one day when they were making 

 themselves troublesome to him by beginning to paint their por- 

 traits. Catlin relates an incident, at the same time sad and comic, 

 of his drawing the profile of a chief named Matochiga, when the 

 Indians around him seemed all at once very much moved. " Why 

 did you not draw the other half of his face ? " they asked ; " Mato- 

 chiga was never ashamed to look a white man in the face." Mato- 

 chiga did not appear to have taken offense till then, when one of 

 the Indians came up to him and, laughing, said, " The English- 

 man knows very well that you are only half a man, and he has 

 only drawn half of your face because the other is worth nothing." 

 A fatal quarrel followed this expression, and Matochiga was killed 

 by a bullet which struck him on the side of the face that had not 

 been drawn. 



Charlevoix says that the Illinois and other Indian tribes made 



