LAUFER, THE DECORATIVE ART OF THE AMUR TRIBES. 5 



find the svastika and the triskeles. Furthermore, the animals which appear in 

 the designs of the Amur natives are just like those which play an important part 

 in Chinese art and mythology. It is indeed most remarkable that animals, such 

 as the bear, 1 the sable, the otter, and many others which predominate in the 

 household economy, and are favorite subjects in the traditions as well as in daily 

 conversation, do not appear in art, whereas the ornaments are filled with Chinese 

 mythological monsters which are but imperfectly understood. In the progress 

 of this paper we shall see, further, that the cock, the fish, the dragon, and other 

 creatures are also loans. As with the Chinese, the representations of animals are 

 not connected with concrete ideas : they have merely an emblematic meaning, and 

 they symbolize abstract conceptions. The art of the Amur peoples is lacking, 

 therefore, in realistic character, and merges into the formative. Objects of nature 

 are not reproduced ; but foreign samples handed down from generation to genera 

 tion, and at last assimilated, are continually being copied. Many women retain 

 in their memories a great variety of patterns, and cut them out of paper with a 

 speed and dexterity that are worthy of admiration. 



SOME GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ART AND ARTISTS. Generally activity 

 in the province of art is limited to the decoration of surfaces. The sense for 

 plastic representations is lacking. These occur rarely, and are to be found only 

 under exceptional circumstances. Animal carvings are met with on the richer 

 sepulchral monuments of the Gilyak. Dishes and spoons, for use at the bear- 

 festival, are adorned with carved bears. For a boy s toy, the bear is also 

 crudely carved out of wood, and perforated above at the back to allow of a string 

 passing through it, on which the figure is moved up and down. Other animals 

 also as, for instance, dogs, frogs, lizards, carp, salmon are cut out of wood 

 by the Gilyak as well as by the Gold, for use as playthings. To the prow of a 

 boat is sometimes attached, especially among the Gold, a wooden duck, generally 

 of rude workmanship. The wooden burchans .images of deities which are 

 manufactured according to the direction of the shaman, for the purpose of curing 

 disease, -a new effigy on each occasion, can by no means claim a place among 

 works of art, since they embody only the particular attributes required in the 

 special case in question, and, for the rest, remain a rndis indigestaque moles. 

 Most striking is the lack of ability to draw human faces or forms ; the more so, 

 since, on prehistoric monuments of the Aimir region, petroglyphs have been 

 found which doubtless represent human heads. Where such occasionally occur, 

 as, for instance, in certain paintings on Goldian paper charms (so-called boachi), 

 they reveal an appalling crucleness. In fact, human faces are never met with in 



1 One of the principal faults of Schurtz s studies, cited on pp. I and 2, lies in the fact that the single forms 

 of ornaments have been extricated from the larger groups in which they occur, and the connection they originally had 

 has thus been dissolved. Ornamental forms have ever-varying significations, according to the combinations in which 

 they are used. Fig. I, on p. 235 of Schurtz s paper, borrowed from Schrenck, and interpreted by him as a bear s head, 

 is the ingredient of a composition covering the back of a Goldian or Gilyak fish-skin garment. The whole figure should 

 be inverted, and then we see obviously the cock with fish in its beak, and perched on an ornamental figure intended to 

 represent a tree. 



