Section IL, 1885. [ 67 ] Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada. 



VI. — The Artistic Faculty in Aboriginal Races. 



By Daniel Wilson, LL.D., F.E.S.E., President of University College, Toronto. 



(Presented May 2G, 1885) 



Among varions characteristics of native American races which invite attention, the 

 prevalence of an aptitude for imitative art is one that merits careful study ; and to this 

 fresh interest attaches owing to recent disclosures. It is not, indeed, to be overlooked that 

 if due allowance is made for the narrower range in degrees of civilization among the races 

 of the New World, as compared with those of Europe or Asia, the same diversity of racial 

 characteristics is observable here as elsewhere. The tendency, moreover, of civilization is 

 to efface, or greatly to modify siTch distinctions. Diversities in capacity and character are 

 in reality much greater among barbaroi^s tribes than among civilized nations, who habitually 

 borrow the arts, and imitate the social habits of neighbouring races, or accept some com- 

 mon standard of intellectual and moral preeminence. Nevertheless, while the capacity for 

 imitative art is neither peculiar to this continent, nor characteristic of all its diverse 

 nationalities, it appears to be more generally diffused among the races of America than 

 elsewhere. It is prevalent among tribes in nearly every condition, from the rvxde Indian 

 nomad, or the Eskimo, to the semi-civilized Zuni, or the skilled matallurgists and archi- 

 tects of Central America and Peru. 



This development of a feeling for art in savage races is at all times interesting as indica- 

 tive of intellectual caiiacity and jwwers of observation, even when manifested, as it fre- 

 quently is, within a very narrow range. It is by no means a general characteristic either 

 of savage or civilized man. Yet recent archaeological discoveries prove it to have been one 

 of the earliest forms of intellectual activity among the caA^e-dwellers of Europe's palaeo- 

 lithic dawn. The most civilized nations have diftered widely in the manifestations of this 

 aesthetic faculty. The city of Dante was the Athens of the Middle Ages in art as well as 

 letters ; while the land which gave birth to Shakespeare can scarcely be said to have had 

 a native school of painting or sculptiire till late in the eighteenth century. The like 

 differences are observable among barbarous nations. Races are met with, to whom the 

 drawing of a familiar object suggests no idea of the original ; while others, in nearly the 

 same stage of savage life, habitually practice the representation of natural objects in the 

 decorative details of their implements and articles of dress, and in the carvings which 

 furnish occupation for many leisure hours. 



A special interest attaches to the disclosures of archaeology relative to the prehistoric 

 races of Europe, owing to the evidence thereby furnished of many striking resemblances in 

 their arts and conditions of life to those of uncultured races of our own day, and especially 

 to the aborigines of this continent. In many respects it seems as though the present con- 



