LAUFER, THE DECORATIVE ART OF THE AMUR TRIBES. 7 



Schrenck s investigations were unduly devotee! to the Gilyak, and in his 

 predilection for these he likes to hold them up as superior to all other tribes 

 of the Amur country. As I visited first the east coast, and afterward the 

 interior and the western part, of Saghalin Island, later the entire lower Amur 

 region from the mouth of the river up to Khabarovsk, I had an opportunity 

 to study and judge of the activity of the people in branches of art also from 

 a geographical point of view. On my journeyings my observations led, first 

 of all, to the deduction of a prevailing law : namely, that the nearer the people 

 live to a centre of Chinese culture, the higher the development of their art ; 

 the farther they recede from it, the less their sense of the beautiful. The 

 art of the Gilyak of Saghalin is very poor and undeveloped ; they possess a 

 limited number of ornaments, and are unable to produce complicated com 

 positions like those found on the mainland, as they themselves assured me. 

 The farther east one goes the more destitute, and the farther west the more 

 gorgeous, is the display of art, which reaches its climax in and around 

 Khabarovsk. Indeed, the most artistic embroideries of our collection all came 

 from this metropolis, where the Gold dwell in the immediate neighborhood 

 of the Chinese, and have frequent intercourse with them. It is evidently owing 

 to this influence solely that the Gold have attained to such extraordinary skill 

 in the art of silk-embroidery, the knowledge of which, in its highest degree 

 of perfection, is restricted to those inhabiting that area. 



This geographical observation confirms anew the establishment of the 

 historical truth regarding the affiliation of the arts of both groups. As the 

 Gold are generally the most talented representative of the Amur tribes, so 

 they are also those who possess the best understanding of decorative art and 

 the largest number of individual artists. From the correspondence of the Gold 

 and Gilyak patterns, it may be concluded that the Gilyak have derived the 

 greater part of their motives from the Gold. Perhaps only the band-ornaments 

 belonged originally to the former. This tallies with other cultural phenomena, 

 for in all probability the Gilyak have adopted a considerable portion of their 

 material culture, as well as a large mass of traditions and religious conceptions 

 and institutions, from the intellectually superior and more versatile Gold. 

 The decorative art of the Amur tribes is accordingly to be regarded, on the 

 whole, as that of the Gold, who occupy the most prominent place in it. 



This manner of geographical dissemination explains the uniformity of 

 character of this art ; so that diversities, if any exist, lie much less in a varying 

 distribution of the patterns over geographical provinces than in the different 

 grades of execution dependent on the tendency of artists in one community to 

 concentrate their individual minds on particular lines of work, in which, in the 

 course of time, their unequally allotted talents have received special training. 

 The Gold, as a rule, are well versed in all branches of art, and excel all other 

 tribes in proficiency in embroidering; the Gilyak may be superior to others 

 in wood-carving; and the Tungusian tribes of the Amgun and Ussuri Rivers 



