ABT.30 DESIGN AREAS IN OCEANIA KRIEGER 23 



Guinea, where the Melanesian-Papuan element meets with the Indo- 

 nesian art motivation especially characterized in the squatting fig- 

 ures used as burial vaults, again on the neck rests, wooden carved 

 drums, shields, spears, and bamboo lime containers of the north and 

 south coasts. These display in part the bordered incised designs, 

 in part the faces and figures of men and animals in abundance of 

 decorative variation, all this carving in the round and etching on 

 , wood being the work of practically naked cannibals. In the Sepik 

 figurines of carved wood the nose becomes a beak extending to the 

 navel as an ornamental embellishment. This may be due to bird 

 mythology and to nose piercing which distorts the septum of the nose 

 in real life in a supposedly ornamental manner. Ornamental de- 

 signs of a crocodile head from the Sepik is pleasing and realistic, not 

 grotesque as are the above mentioned. In the south of New Guinea 

 the Tugeri, also the tribes on the Gulf of Papua, all possess this 

 ability of pleasing animal sculpture. 



In the east of the island, in the Massim region, appears Indo- 

 nesian art decoration. This is seen also in the Solomons, where 

 decorated bamboo lime boxes similar to those from Timor in highly 

 ornamental patterns appear, along with dancing boards, black bowls 

 with mother of pearl inlay and horseshoe-shape patterns. 



Aboriginal Avstralian design. — ^When separated from their tra- 

 ditional methods of executing art designs, most primitive peoples 

 make a poor showing. A conventionalized frigate bird, spiral, or a 

 water buffalo volute may be practically mathematically perfect when 

 it leaves the hand of the Polynesian or Malayan artist, but actual 

 pictures of the frigate bird or of the water buffalo could not be 

 drawn by either of the two. Apparently we must go back to the less 

 sophisticated Magdalenian of the old stone age, or the bushman, or 

 even the lowly Australian aborigine, for realism in pictographic art. 

 Smooth surfaces of rock bowlders and cliffs are sometimes covered 

 with paintings of hunting scenes, human faces, corroboree scenes, and 

 of animal life. Melanesians are also skillful in pictographic art. The 

 work of Australian and of Melanesian, also of African bushmen 

 artists, like that of the Eskimo, is in silhouette and lacks perspective. 



Australia, larger than continental United States and bordering 

 Indonesia on the south, shows but little differentiation in art designs, 

 and these but of a low grade, on a par with .those of the South 

 African bushmen and kindred tribes. Museum collections represent- 

 ing the tribal art characteristic of north, south, and west Australia, 

 include totemic designs on incised stone, bone, and wood. Their 

 representations in sand pictures are considered superior to their 

 incised work on stone and wood. Ornaments of fur and feathers are 

 common; paint designs are associated with incised shell and other 

 media. In art, as in several other phases of primitive life, Australian 



