74 BULLETIN 134, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



flat; second, with reference to derivation; third, with reference to 

 the plan of manifestation, as geometric or nongeometric ; and 

 fourth, with reference to association of ideas, as significant and 

 nonsignificant." 



Human -figures and animal wood carvings. — The wood carvings of 

 the Darien tribes are primarily of animals, birds, reptiles, and of 

 the human figure ; rarely of floral design and plant forms. 



The human figure carvings are of two types ; one, clearly traceable 

 to European influence, even in such minor details as a green neck- 

 tie; the other, to native models of costume and tradition and repre- 

 senting both men and women. 



The San Bias Coast Tule or Towali employ for various pur- 

 poses a wooden cane or staff on which a figure is carved, less as a 

 support staff or walking stick than as a staff of command or in- 

 signium of office and authority. It is probably reminiscent of the 

 war club, which seems to survive in no other form among the 

 Darien tribes. Another utilization of the cane is as a doctor's 

 staff. Without his staff surmounted with a carving of a male 

 human figure, the primitive Tule healer is not adequately equipped 

 to ply his vocation. Fetishes in animal form insure success in all 

 undertakings; thus the Choco gods are those having to do with the 

 hunt, with crops, household, children, dance, fertility, weather, 

 sickness, marriage, and health. Among the Tule each carved fetish 

 has its distinct functions in treating disease, aiding at childbirth 

 and in bringing good luck generally. Again, the Tule village or 

 tribal policeman carries his staff of authority with an animal or 

 bird figure carving at its head. The staff is carved usually from 

 a semihardwood, though the red hardwood known as snakewood 

 is similarly used; it is undecorated and unpainted throughout its 

 course except at the handle head. There is a strange blending on 

 the human figure head carvings of primitive garb, facial features, 

 and ornamentation along with the most striking European costume. 

 Why should a tribal group as hostile as are the Tule to encroach- 

 ments on their territory by foreigners of any stamp model their 

 magician or medicine man's staff head in the exact image of a 

 European garbed in a tailored coat with pocket flaps and a but- 

 ton hole in the coat lapel ? 



In the third number of the sixth volume of Indian Notes and 

 Monographs (p. 89), A. Skinner mentions a similar wood carv- 

 ing of the Bribri of Costa Rica in which the human figure is ap- 

 pareled and featured as a native. Skinner calls this staff a "cacique- 

 stick." 



These are long, cane-like staves, made of a dark, hard, heavy, reddish- 

 brown wood called " cacique." As a rule they are entirely plain, but * * * 

 a type now said to be obsolete has the figure of a man rudely carved on the 



