GRAPHIC ART OF THE ESKIMOS. 803 



trade routes "and are distributed far and wide, it does not always nec- 

 essarily follow that the ornamentation itself is naturalized. It is pos- 

 sible that in many cases a certain style of decoration is associated with 

 a particular kind of object, and it migiit not occur to people to transfer 

 tbat decorative style to other objects, or at all events the process would 

 doubtless be slow." 



An interesting example of bone dress ornaments, bearing simple 

 decorations and common to both the eastern Eskimo and the Nascopi, 

 as well as the now extinct Beothuk Indians of Newfoundland, was 

 brought to my attention by Professor O. T. Mason, Curator of Ethnology 

 in the National Museum. 



The specimens are reproduced in colored and plain sketches, and 

 presented to the National Museum by Lady Blake, of the Government 

 House, St. Johns, Newfoundland. 



The illustrations represent the primitive bone ornaments worn about 

 the bottom of dresses prior to the use of metal substitutes, such as are 

 now attainable from the whites. These ornaments are chiefly of a class 

 which represent an inverted narrow letter V — thus, A — each about 2 

 or 2i inches in length and decorated with various angular designs. 

 Some of them have marginal incised lines, within wliich and attached 

 thereto are the base of triangular or serrated markings similar to 

 some Eskimo patterns, shown in various illustrations. 



Upon the ends of some other small horn ornaments are similar rude 

 zigzag patterns, as shown in other illustrations of Eskimo workman- 

 ship. 



The information is obtainable as to the conceptions which gave rise 

 to the art patterns of the Beothuk. The simple zigzag may have 

 resulted from an incised imitation of some notched ornaments made by 

 Nascopi, ornaments such as the Beothuk were undoubtedly familiar 

 with, as both varieties are shown upon the same plates of illustrations 

 made by Lady Blake. By laying the Nascopi ornament upon the slab 

 of horn used by the Beothuk, the incised serrations forming the border 

 almost exactly fit to the zigzag or serrated ornamentation forming a 

 border near the edge of the piece used by the latter. 



Several patterns occur in p]skimo decorations, however, which, while 

 not exactly resembling patterns from other parts of the world, appear 

 to have originated with them, and were suggested to them by original 

 products or mechanical contrivances, as the Siberian kantag or wooden 

 buckets, in nests of several sizes, and the peculiar fish trap or run 

 placed in narrow channels of water, and perhaps the guides to the pit- 

 fall. To the latter class of ornamentation may be placed the "seal- 

 tooth" pattern. These two different types of objects may have 

 suggested the motive for the figure of concentric circles and the rude 

 zigzag, respectively; or the introduction from Avithout the territory of 

 the Eskimo of these designs— the former, for instance, through the infiu- 

 ence of the Eussians, and the other, perhaps, from the vicinity of 



