S04 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1895. 



Torres Straits ami adjaceut territory — may have been seized upou as 

 suocresting the outlines or eoueepts i^eroeived in tlie uative products, 

 the possible dtftereuce iu artistic results being dependent upou the 

 difference in material upon which the designs are portrayed aud to the 

 expertness or lack of skill of the Eskimo copyist or artist. 



Upon a careful examination of all available materials bearing pic- 

 torial records or only simple decorative designs, several interesting 

 facts appear. 



First. That the Eskimo east of Point Barrow, including those even 

 of Labrador and Greenland, exhibit but little artistic expression, this 

 being confined chiefly to lines, dots, aud other similar rudimentary 

 markings which are employed almost wholly for decorative purposes. 

 This does not refer to various kinds of carvings and outlined flat fig- 

 ures in bone or ivory, which are intended to be stitched to clothing, a 

 custom very much resembling a like practice which obtains in Finland. 

 jS'either does this refer to the custom of stamping designs upon cloth 

 or buckskin, a practice apparently learned from the several Algonkian 

 tribes with which some of the Hudson Bay and Labrador tribes of 

 Eskimo come in contact. 



Second. That the Point Barrow natives are apparently but moder- 

 ately advanced in the art of recording tribal or individual events, cus- 

 toms, etc., and that most of thek ivory utensils are not decorated: but 

 that where attempts at beautifying are apparent, only those designs 

 are adopted which suggest or require the least amount of manual exer- 

 tion and artistic ability, so that straight incisions, creases, or grooves 

 are most numerous, while nucleated circles, and rarely also a few con- 

 centric rings, are incised, the latter apparently by means of the common 

 carpenters auger bit, properly filed at the cutting edge so as to pro- 

 duce a scratch instead of an incision, the latter being too delicate and 

 tedious a process for success in removing the dense resisting particles 

 of ivory. 



Third. That the engravings on ivory and bone from the northern 

 portion of the west coast of Alaska, embracing the region about Kotze- 

 bue Soimd and northward, and inchtding Diomede Islands and the 

 opposing coast, as well as the area occupied by the Asiatic Eskimo, are 

 more deeply and crudely cut, as indicated by the lines being broader 

 and bolder than in the products from any other area. 



Fourth. That the general results in graphic portrayals are more artis- 

 tic among the natives of Bristol Bay and Xorton Sound, and improve 

 in delicacy of engraving toward the southward even to and including 

 the Aleutian Islands: that the portrayal of animal forms is accom 

 plished with such fidelity as to permit of specific identification; that 

 the attempt at reproducing graphically common gesture signs becomes 

 more frequent, and various instances of the successful portrayal of 

 subjective ideas also occur. 



In his reference to the Agulmuts, whose location extends from near 



