ASPECTS OF ABOlilGINAL DECORATIVE ART IN AMER- 

 ICA BASED ON SPECIMENS IN THE UNITED STATES 

 NATIONAL MUSEUM 



By H£3BEBT W. Kbiboeb 

 United States National Museum 



I With 37 plat OS 1 



I 



Author'a mtto. — Tho avuilalilo data rognrdin;,' liriiuitivc art arc ciK-ycIopodic in 

 scope, but are not always readily accessii)lo. In a brief article covorinK con- 

 tinental America, the barest of mention is made of several styles of decorative 

 and representative art. New data are oflfered for consideration along with 

 facts that are well known, while principles of primitive design are treated from 

 a geographic point of view, considering tribal groups as they existed before 

 their disruption after contact with the white race. 



STYLE IN PRIMITIVE DECORATIVE ART 



Geographic stdbUity of design. — In primitive society decorative 

 designs appear as excrescences embellishing the arts and crafts. 

 They constitute the hall mark of the primitive artisan. Charac- 

 teristic forms of decorative design, like the technical structure or 

 style of its artistic expression are local in their development. Art 

 designs never wander far afield, and scarcely ever flourish when 

 borrowed. Each of tho more generally diffused elements of design 

 as the triangle and zigzag or alternate spur, the spiral, the swastika 

 or axial cross, and the meandered guilloche has a distinct local style 

 which may never be mistaken when once one has become familiar 

 with it in its local setting. Many examples of the ideosyncrasies of 

 style might be cited. The designs of the Eskimo engraved on ivory 

 tusks of the walrus or prehistoric mammoth and carvings in the 

 round on wood by the Pacific Northwest Coast Indian tribes are 

 characteristic each of a definite style area even to the point of dif- 

 ferentiation of many subareas of design. Thus the Tlingit animal 

 totem of southeast Alaska, though a realistic form of sculpture in 

 wood, appears plain and crude when contrasted with the same 

 totemic pattern as treated by the Haida, their British Columbian 

 neighbors on the soutli. Again, the wood carving of the Maori of 

 New Zealand with its repeated embellishment of engraved spirals 

 may never be mistaken for decorative carvings of the Melanesians 

 whose designs are likewise frequently characterized by the engraved 



519 



