484 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



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 orig- 

 inal significance. It is no longer a symbol, but an arbitrary orna- 

 ment, wholly conventional, modified to suit the taste and the arts of 

 the foreigners who have adopted it. In many cases it undergoes modi- 

 fication 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.* 



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 geo- 

 metrical designs. Among the Thompson Indians ceremonial blan- 

 kets 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 picto- 

 ^raphs, while an ordinary pipe shows geometric forms. Even among 

 the eastern Eskimo, whose decorative art, on the whole, is very rudi- 

 mentary, 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 ex- 

 amples of this kind are the woven designs of the Huichol Indians of 



* The examples and illustrations here represented are taken, unless other- 

 wise stated, from specimens in the American Museum of Natural History. The 

 information and material used were collected by Dr. lloland B. Dixon, Pro- 

 fessor Livingston Farrand, Dr. A. L. Kroeber, Dr. Berthold Laufcr. 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 ihe museum. 



