September. 1913. Wild Tribes of Davao District — Cole. 195 



the dead dresses in black and for a month following, or until they can 

 purchase a slave, the whole family is barred from merry-making. 

 Two reasons for the purchase of this slave were advanced by members 

 of the tribe. One was that the family could be happy if they were 

 still rich enough to purchase a slave. The second, that they thus 

 replaced the dead man with another, "for the slaves are like members 

 of our own family." 



DECORATIVE ART. 



The decorative art of the Mandaya is similar in many respects to 

 that of the Bagobo and Bila-an, yet in part it differs greatly from both. 

 As is true with the other tribes, the weavers make use of many figures 

 which they do not associate with any living forms, but which, neverthe- 

 less, strongly suggest that they may have been derived from realistic 

 designs. In addition to such patterns they frequently employ figures 

 which are intentional copies of human or animal forms. Of these the 

 most common are those representing a man and a crocodile; these 

 sometimes appear together, sometimes alone. The requirements of 

 the space to be filled, as well as readiness of the worker to alter any 

 part in order to give a more pleasing effect to the design have resulted 

 in many distorted and conventionalized figures which can only be 

 explained by the artist. The accompanying drawings are taken from 

 articles collected by the writer and now in the Field Museum of 

 Natural History. 



Patterns A to H in Fig. 54 appear in hemp cloth skirts. These 

 show the steps in the conventionalization of the human figure, 1 as 

 explained by the weavers. In the first four the forms are so realistic 

 that they need no explanation, but E is more complicated. Here two 

 greatly conventionalized figures have been used, one erect, the other 

 with head down. The size of the head has been increased while the 

 body is represented by a small diamond-shaped pattern with out- 

 stretched arms attached. The legs and feet of both figures help to 

 form a pattern similar to a head, except that it lacks the "hair" shown 

 in the end designs. F resembles the preceding quite closely. In it 

 the central head-like pattern does not appear and the legs and feet of 

 one figure help to form the head of the other. This design has been 

 doubled, thus necessitating some alteration of the figures at the points 

 of union. In G and H nearly all the realistic elements have vanished, 

 yet certain resemblance to D and E can be discerned. 



1 One weaver insisted that this figure represents a frog, because of its webbed 

 feet, but none of the others agreed with her. 



