i8 



LAUFER, THE DECORATIVE ART OF THE AMUR TRIBES. 



fanciful figures that are characterized as derivations from the conventional form of 

 the fish-ornament in so far as they do not appear at the outset to be mere space- 

 fillers. This figure runs out into a face-shaped head-piece which at first sight 



one might take to 

 be a convention- 

 alized human 

 face : in this case 

 the eyes would 

 be denoted by 

 spirals, the mouth 

 by the figure con 

 nected with these, 

 and the four 

 tooth-like forma 

 tions would repre 

 sent tusks not 



unlike those identified by Hein on the demon-shields of the Dayak. Nevertheless, 

 in this as well as in the following figure (9), the Gilyak in the village of Chai on 

 the northeast coast of Saghalin Island, from whom these patterns were obtained and 

 information concerning them sought, decidedly 

 denied that these figures have any relation to the 

 human figure ; and it seems also that the form of (\3, 



the outline of this pattern is solely due to an 



pectively. 



adaptation and assimilation to the space occupied by the object itself. Fig. 9 

 consists of a structure of spiral ornaments, whose width gradually lessens as it 

 proceeds upward from the broad base, until it ends in a narrow neck surmounted 



A. R. Hein, Die bildenden Kunste bei den Dayaks auf Borneo (Wien, 1890), pp. 41-85. 



