THE ORIGIN OF ART. 831 



It is doubtful whether we could give more evident proofs of 

 the entirely special significance attributed by the savage to draw- 

 ing, regarded by him as an instrument of power over another. 

 While the examples we have cited relate particularly to man, it 

 is logical to assume that the same process that is, the figurative 

 representation of animals plays a like part in the struggle of the 

 savage against his natural enemies. There exist other facts that 

 confirm this hypothesis. 



According to Mr. Tanner, the North American Indians, to 

 assure success in their hunts, made rude drawings of the animals 

 they pursue, with arrows sticking through the place of the heart, 

 believing that they will by this means obtain power to cause the 

 game they seek to fall into their hands. The Australians, accord- 

 ing to an observer quoted by Tylor, make a figure of the kangaroo 

 of grass in order to become the masters of the real kangaroos in 

 the bush. When an Algonkin Indian wanted to slay an animal, 

 he made a grass figure of it and hung it up in his lodge. Then, 

 having named it several times, he shot an arrow at the image. If 

 he hit it, it was a sign that he would kill the animal on the 

 morrow. 



In the same way, if the hunter, after he had touched the 

 wand of a wizard with his arrow, strikes the track of an animal 

 with the same arrow, the animal will be stopped in its flight and 

 held till the hunter can catch up with it. The same result, ac- 

 cording to the aborigines, can be easily secured by drawing the 

 figure of the animal on a piece of wood, and praying to the image 

 for success in the hunt. 



Here, then, we have, in substance, the origin of the part 

 played by drawing. An Indian song expresses this part admi- 

 rably in the words, " My picture makes a god of me," and it is 

 really doubtful whether faith in the powerful significance of the 

 art of drawing as an instrument by the aid of which primitive 

 man could obtain a supernatural power over his enemy or his 

 game could be more powerfully expressed. 



If we now consider the works of the cave men in the light of 

 these facts, we shall recognize that the object that inspired them 

 had really few points in common with the sense of beauty or the 

 tendency to imitation ; and it is clear that if there existed in the 

 mind of primitive man a material relation between a being and 

 its shadow or its image, that man would believe that the same 

 relation was preserved between that being and its image trans- 

 ferred to any object. The purpose sought was to possess one's 

 self of the shadow of the desired object, and the only way of do- 

 ing that was to fix the silhouette of the shadow on some article. 

 This, in our opinion, was the primary purpose of drawing, and 

 consequently of painting. 



