48 LAUFER, THE DECORATIVE ART OF THE AMUR TRIBES. 



merely represented by lines of white chain-stitching. This process is therefore 

 at the same time a device by which to make out easily the somewhat obscure 

 cocks and the fishes. 



The embroidered waistband, Fig. 5, Plate xv, consists of a rectangular 

 central field and an ornamental border. In the central field a very interesting 

 geometrical formation of the cock is met with, combined with single small curves 

 and triskeles. In the illustration the outlines of this cock have been strength 

 ened to show more clearly the type of this bird. The border is composed of 

 a succession of continuous double spirals connected with two and three lobed 

 flowers. At the same time the spirals symbolize cocks bodies. 



Fig. i, Plate xvi, represents the upper front border of the half of a collar 

 of a woman s embroidered dress. The ornament shows clearly the way in which 

 leaves and blossoms appear in connection with spirals. One of the arms of the 

 triskeles attached to the spirals is treated like a leaf. 



Fig. 6, Plate xv, shows a paper pattern presenting a purely geometrical 

 formation of flowers or blossoms, the single parts of which are circles, semicircles, 

 and ovals. 1 



There is a certain power of attraction between cock and plant ornaments, 

 leading sometimes to a perfect amalgamation, which may be illustrated in the 

 following specimens. 



In Figs. 12-14, Plate xvi, are reproduced paintings on three Goldian bows. 

 Fig. 12 shows a combination of a tendril-like ornament with a cock-ornament. 

 The outer side of the bow (Fig. 12 a) is divided into ten fields ; but the five fields 

 on the one side do not symmetrically correspond to the five on the other side, in 

 which the same ornamental parts appear in different combinations. In this 

 pattern the motives of the cock and of the fish ornament are so strangely mixed 

 up with leaf and floral designs, and the two are so closely assimilated to each 

 other, that it is sometimes hard to decide what is an ingredient of the cock and 

 what of the plant ornament. In the centre of the field a (Pig. i 2 a) there is an 

 obvious representation of the cock, with head, body, and spur, holding a conven 

 tionalized fish in its beak, to which is attached, on the right, a petal. It would be 

 difficult, however, to determine whether the first design on the left is meant to 

 represent a leaf or a fish. In the field b we observe likewise a cirrose leaf, in the 

 middle a conventionalized fish of the characteristic form, whereas all plant portions 

 are adapted to this style of the fish, both here and in the central field c. In rt we 

 see another cock with a fish in its beak. Its tail-feathers, which in design are 

 like a fish-tail, form at the same time the component of a petal. In a similar way, 

 in field e is a cock with a fish, on a stalk proceeding from a five-lobed leaf. This 

 ornament terminates at the other end in a trifoliate leaf. 



On the inner side of this bow (Fig. isb, Plate xvi) the ornament on the 

 left-hand side begins with a leaf-tendril, which is continued to the end by a long 

 undulating line. It may be that in this wave-ornament the curve itself is con- 



1 Cf. what is said about the circle-ornament, p. 19. 



