1902.] Dixon, Basketry Designs of California Indians. 3 1 



may have some bearing on the question. That so large a 

 number of designs, referred in such overwhelming proportion 

 to animals or plants, should not owe their origin and devel 

 opment more to the realistic than to the purely decorative 

 tendency, seems unlikely; and while we have not here, as in 

 the case of the Salish flying birds, any variants which are 

 distinctly more realistic, it would seem not unreasonable to- 

 expect that they had existed. Here, however, we enter on 

 the domain of pure speculation, which in such matters is 

 exceedingly unsafe. On the whole, then, taking all the cir 

 cumstances into consideration, the designs here discussed may 

 be regarded as occupying a plane about midway between the 

 designs of the Salish and the Arapaho. 



It would be of considerable interest in this connection to 

 know the meaning of the designs on the African baskets 

 previously spoken of. In the absence of any information , 

 we cannot say a design identical with the Maidu form is in 

 this case the result of a similar relative importance of the two- 

 chief factors in primitive art. From the extremely simple 

 character of these and all other designs on baskets from these 

 African tribes, it seems possible that we have here, not a 

 slight preponderance of realism, as in the Maidu and still more 

 in the Salish, but rather an equilibrium, or even a preponder 

 ance on the other side ; realism being subordinated somewhat 

 to the purely decorative tendency. 



From the material here presented, then, as a whole, we may 

 conclude, that, in so far as it has a bearing on the theories of the 

 origin and development of art in general, it tends to confirm 

 the belief, that in the mind of primitive man no design is -** 

 either purely realistic or decorative, that all designs are to be 

 ascribed in their origin to the interaction of both factors ; now 

 one, now the other, being in ascendancy. The great number 

 and variety of designs in use by the stocks as a whole would 

 seem to be the effect, partly, of a concentration of artistic 

 effort upon a single type of art. On the other hand, the 

 paucity of designs among the Porno shows, again, the effect of 

 such concentration ; feather ornamentation here being exalted 

 to first place, thus turning the attention away from the 



