6 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol.79 



found such groups as the Philippine Islands, the great islands of 

 Borneo, Sumatra, Java, New Guinea, even the Malay Peninsula, in 

 possession of a dark-skinned Melanesian population. Pausing for 

 a time along the Melanesian coasts, and occupying large areas in 

 Borneo, Java, Sumatra, the Philippine Islands and other islands of 

 the East Indies,, they wandered gradually eastward, occupying 

 untimately the several island groups known to us as Polynesia. 

 These islands in mid-Pacific they found unoccupied. 



These early immigrants possessed the rudiments of a wood carver's 

 art. Figurines representing the ancestral gods were carved from 

 hard wood ; representations of them were applied ornamentally to 

 weapons and utensils. The use of paints was restricted to the 

 medium of bark cloth which was used decoratively or as a bodily 

 protective covering. The Polynesian artist was not master of such 

 a large field as a robe of bark cloth. He therefore divided the field 

 into zones when he applied his decorative designs in paint. He like- 

 wise had not learned how to portray plant, animal, or human forms. 

 In this he resembles other primitive artists from other lands who, 

 although possessing a conventionalized style of decorative art, yet 

 can not break away from geometrical devices of a more unsophisti- 

 cated nature. The realistic drawing of such tribal artists is crude. 

 The Cheyenne and Sioux Indian drawings, for example, portray- 

 ing horses, battle scenes, and hunting episodes, are similarly crude 

 though the conventional geometric art of the Plains Indians is pleas- 

 ing to the M^estern eye and answers the requirements of many of the 

 principles of design. The early undifferentiated " Old Malayan " 

 art foundation blossomed out into what is clearly distinguishable as 

 subareas of Polynesian design on such islands as New Zealand, 

 Tahiti, Raratonga, Hawaii, the Marquesas, and Easter Island. This 

 differentiation transpired before the time of the great European ex- 

 plorers in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Cul- 

 ture contact was had only with the culturally impoverished Melane- 

 sian, Papuan, and Negrito. In the Marquesas and in New Zealand 

 they learned to carve wooden and stone gods of heroic size accord- 

 ing to a design developed by them in their isolation. 



The exceptional art patterns developed by the Maori and Mar- 

 quesans must be attributed in part to Melanesian influences. The 

 Maori learned to free themselves from the conventional division of 

 the decorative field which may still be observed in the tapa cloth 

 decorative designs of Hawaii and Tahiti. In their tattooing this 

 may be noted only to a limited extent as the size of the skin sur- 

 faces to be ornamented is naturally determined and divided. The 

 banded panelings in triangular and quadrangular figures appear 

 along with realistically applied figures of birds, sea creatures, as star 



