14 



PRIMITIVE ART 



In many cases 

 these pictographs 

 become more geo- 

 metrical in char- 

 acter, so that they 

 may be called or- 

 namental designs. 

 Such is the case, for 

 instance, in a young 

 woman's head - band 

 made of buckskin 

 (Case 12 d), painted 

 representing lodges 

 and stars in the 



red with designs 



the lower part 

 upper. In some cases the whole form 

 of the object is given a symbolic in- 

 terpretation. Thus we find a stone war-axe (Case 

 12 e) representing the woodpecker. This design sym- 

 bolizes the idea that the point of the axe is to be as 

 powerful in piercing skulls as the beak of the wood- 

 pecker is in piercing the bark of trees. The point of 

 the axe represents the beak of the bird ; the red dot 

 on the rounded part of the stone, its eye ; the handle, 

 its body. In the pictographic art of this tribe, cer- 

 tain motives have obtained a conventional meaning. 

 Such is the case, for instance, with the triangles 

 on the girl's head-band mentioned before, which 

 always represent lodges. Crosses, like those on 

 the drinking - tubes in Case 12 d, represent 

 the crossings of trails; parallel lines represent 

 ditches, and a circle with four equidistant rays 

 symbolizes the sun. 



The pictographic art of these tribes tends 

 to assume a geometrical character particularly 

 on their woven bags and on their imbricated 

 basketry. The merging of the pictographic and 

 purely decorative elements may be observed 

 very clearly in a bag (Case 12 d), on which 



