806 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1895. 



The native drawings of the so-called fish trap or seal tooth pattern 

 also resemble the approaches to the game trap or inclosure, both 

 these contrivances being represented by horizontal or oblique or per- 

 haps even only parallel lines, leading to a trap or inclosure, along 

 which lines are short etchings or bars to denote the posts or divisions 

 to sustain the brush of the game drive or the wickerwork partitions of 

 the fish trap. These short lateral lines simulate the drawings made to 

 denote the separations or spaces between teeth like those of the seal, 

 of which examples are given in fig. 00, and, as was suggested by a 

 native Eskimo, the open mouth of the hunting seal was like the open 

 fish trap and game drive, ready to take in such prey as came within 

 reach. The conception of the design may be found in the trap, as 

 suggested by ISTaomoff, or in the "seal's mouth," as suggested by 

 Nomiksener, a Kaviagmut Eskimo from Port Clarence, whose ])or- 

 trait is shown in plate 2. 



These drawings in ivory are usually placed between horizontal or 

 parallel lines, interesting because they resemble the chief character- 

 istics of Celtic art, of which there is no relationship directly except 

 as showing the like workings of man's mind under like conditions. 

 "The Japanese, for instance," says a writer in Archa^ologia Cambrensis,^ 

 "ignore the margin altogether and make their decoration entirely 

 independent of it, but in Celtic art tlie patterns are all designed to 

 suit the shape of the margin." This is true of much of the Alaskan art. 



The early contact by the Alaskans with art products from the South 

 Pacific is believed to be pretty generally recognized; and an instance 

 of the discovery among the natives of Bristol Bay of the cocoanut 

 suggested an admirable material for engraving which was only sur- 

 passed in beauty and texture by walrus ivory. Various curios have 

 also been carried north by sailors, the carvings upon which have sug- 

 gested, no doubt, possibilities in engraving of Avhich the Eskimo had 

 previously had no concejition. Illustrated newspapers are seized with 

 avidity, and reproductions of various cuts attempted, in some known 

 instances the features of faces being fairly truthful likenesses. 



Much of the art of the Eskimo has been influenced, too, by the intro- 

 duction of articles of Russian manufacture, of which more is remarked 

 elsewhere. Two fairly good examples of native workmanship of this 

 are given on plate 34, figs. 1 and 2, and representing wooden boxes 

 with native ornamentation and Eussian symbols of the cross and other 

 motifs. 



The suggestion for engraving concentric circles being accounted for 

 as to origin and signification by Mr. L. M. Turner, and described farther 

 on, may also have been introduced through the medium of sailors and 

 others from the Gulf of Papua, where, according to Mr. Haddon, they 

 are conventionalized eyes in the ornamental faces carved on wooden 

 belts. 



^ January, 1893. Fifth ser., pp . 20, 21. 



