ABORIGINAL DECORATIVE ART — KRIEGER 531 



we find a close resemblance in the leather puppets and dance fipurine^ 

 used in Java, Siam, Burma, Ceylon, Japan, and China. 



Occasionally the Indian or the primitive Malayan, the Australian, 

 or the African did not resort to masks but daubed his face with col- 

 ored clay. Perhaps the greatest caricature of a masked human being 

 is the Australian who has ceremonially daubed his face and body 

 with ochres and clays in readiness for his very serious ceremonies or 

 dances. Tribes living in reprions subjected to «rreat drought have 

 developed a lore of animal life in the desert. The lowly Bushman 

 and the primitive Australian have not advanced beyond the mimicry 

 of animal sounds and actions familiar to them. An example of this 

 is the dance of native Australian women imitatin*; the jumping; of 

 the kangaroo. 



DKCORATIVE AUT OF THIO ESKIMO AND INDIAN TRIBES OB' THE 

 PACIFIC NORTHWEST COAST 



FJsJcimo design. — The engraved and carved objects of Eskimoan 

 decorative art, characterized by the extensive use of ivory materials, 

 has been likened to the art of the Magdalenian culture stage of 

 central an»l southern Europe. The answer apparently is that, due to 

 the Arctic environment it could not very well be otherwise. "We do 

 Icnow, however, tliat the decorative art of the western P^skimo 

 merges into that of the Pacific northwest coast Indian tribes. This 

 may at once be noted in the realism of animal and human figurine 

 carvings in wood and ivory in the two adjoining areas. Masks are 

 a characteristic feature of Eskimo art as also of the northwest Pa- 

 cific coast. The sculpturing of human features in wood, stone, bone, 

 and ivory links up Eskimo art with a larger Pacific coast art area 

 extending south as far as San Francisco Bay and central California. 

 Representation of totem animals is also characteristic of the two 

 areas. This representation is in part realistic and in part symbolic. 

 Inci.sed designs on wood, bone, and walrus or fossil mammoth ivory 

 characterize similarly tiic art of the western Eskimo and of tribes 

 of eastern Siberia. Feather decorations on hoods or coats, also em- 

 broidery work in border designs utilizing the hair of the seal are 

 noteworthy. 



The earlier geometric art of the Eskimo of Alaska is an offshoot 

 of the boreal design area of northern and eastern Canada. The 

 curvilinear designs engraved on bone and ivory are generally of the 

 double si)iral type of engraved and embroidered designs common to 

 Indian tribes from the Xaskapi of Labrador to the Dene of the valley 

 of the ^lackenzie. The design is not discontinued there but may be 

 traced in beaded moccasin designs of the Tinne of the Yukon Valley 

 westward across lieriiig Strait to the Amur River peoples of Siberia 



