THE BUFFALO MOTIVE IN MIDDLE CELEBES 

 DECORATIVE DESIGN 



By Walter Hough 



Hvad Curator of Anthropology, United States Ndtionat Mii.'<(iiin 



An acquaintance \Yitli middle Celebes design was derived from 

 a study of a collection brought from that island in 1916 by H. C. 

 Raven, explorer, and ]iresented to the United States National Museum 

 by Dr. W. L. Abbott. The collection is a general one illustrative 

 of the material culture of the Malay groups on the middle Celebes, 

 thoroughly labeled, and from its diversity and completeness reflect- 

 ing great credit on the collector. 



Especially interesting are the varied examples of bark cloth, differ- 

 ing in quality and character according to the uses to which they were 

 put. Most of the bark-cloth specimens are costume or adiuncts of 

 costume. There are, therefore, no great sheets of bark cloth as 

 observed in the tapa of the Pacific islanders manufactured by pastinc 

 strips of the beaten bark together. The middle Celebes cloths are 

 apparently a primitive type beaten out from a single strip of bark, 

 thus forming pieces useful for turbans, loin cloths, and the like. 



It was seen at once that the decorated cloth, principally jackets 

 and turban strips, bore designs new to the Museum and of unique 

 character not related to any art hitherto observed in Malaysia. 



The contents of the designs are three elements or units, as circles, 

 diamonds, and pairs of crescentic figures diverging outwardly from 

 a base. These elements used in conjunction, sometimes in a definite 

 order and again as units of design reaching the geometric, as suited 

 the artist's fancy, formed an interesting problem. Based on a knowl- 

 edge of Pueblo Indian designs, it was more than suspected that the 

 Celebes designs were zoomorphic. 



In studying other specimens in the collection this supposition 

 became a certainty. Several hooks of horn and wood used for hang- 

 ing articles in the house afforded the clue and themselves illustrated 

 grades from the conventional to the realistic or vice versa, no asser- 

 tions as to the order being stated. It will be seen that the realistic 

 specimen represents a female figure standing between the horns of a 

 buffalo (pi. 1, fig. 3). Another hook (pi. 1, fig. 5) shows a more 

 66994—32 1 



