538 ARCHEOLOGY 



used, beixu-twmers, whirring-boards, dance-masks, and other 

 things "he found here partly painted with geometrical ornaments, 

 for which, in a way which seemed striking to him, objects with a 

 definite non-geometrical figure were almost always named as pro- 

 totypes. He was convinced that here he saw before him in its definite 

 results the process of the evolution of a so-called geometrical motif 

 out of a definite animal, human, or other figure which Hjalmar 

 Stolpe demonstrated for certain regions in the South Seas; and 

 his intelligent discussion of this question has proved extraordin- 

 arily stimulating in the most various directions. In the mean time, 

 with the extension of these investigations, it became evident that, 

 e. g., the same triangle which the Bakairi called uluri (a woman's 

 garment) was explained by other tribes as a fish's tooth. Von den 

 Steinen himself felt compelled in consequence to revise the views he 

 had hitherto held. He now considers that a whole class of so-called 

 geometrical ornaments arose out of textile patterns, but, when they 

 were transferred from plaiting or weaving on to other materials 

 and executed in engraving or painting, acquired an independent 

 life of their own and ended by drawing into themselves a whole 

 series of the most varied figure- meanings, according to what ap- 

 pealed to the artist or was suggested to him, and with no essential 

 relation to the original geometrical patterns. Now the old Peruvian 

 art. of the different centres is simply full of such ornamental types 

 taken from textile art. These, together with the figure-types which 

 came to be used in textile work, seem to have found their way among 

 the uncivilized tribes also, and to have furnished the suggestions for 

 the decorations which we now meet with among tribes of the far 

 interior of Brazil in the most varied forms, there to be interpreted 

 and reinterpreted in sometimes extremely remarkable ways. To 

 follow these migrations is a very attractive task, and offers another 

 case in which archeology and descriptive ethnology must support 

 and supplement each other. 



The wide region of Argentina, the valleys lying below the Cor- 

 dilleras, the Pampas, and Patagonia, formerly supported a number 

 of half-civilized tribes, which have now dwindled to insignificant 

 remnants or been absorbed into the Spanish-Indian mixed race. 

 Through the labors of Argentinian scholars a mass of material 

 has been brought to light, whose working-out has only just begun. 

 Where the reports of the conquerors and missionaries give us 

 scarcely more than the name of a tribe, we have now extensive 

 dwelling-sites, including entire mountain-sides, fortifications, and 

 burial-places. A large number of clay vessels have been found 

 there, many of them of considerable size; stone or metal imple- 

 ments, and, in the tombs, even objects made of perishable material, 

 wooden bows, arrows, gourds with patterns burnt into them, 



