XII DECORATIVE ART 235 



frequently applied. The name dog-pattern (kalang 

 asu) is given to a very large number ; and of these 

 some obviously reproduce the form of the dog, 

 while the derivation of the others from the same 

 original can generally be made clear by the inspec- 

 tion of a number of intermediate forms, although 

 some of them retain but very slight indications of 

 the form or features of the dog. The unmistakable 

 dog-patterns are illustrated by one of the panels 

 shown in PI. 124 ; and in Pis. 134 et seq. we repro- 

 duce a number of dog-patterns of more or less con- 

 ventionalised characters. It will be noticed that the 

 eye is the most constant feature about which the 

 rest of the pattern is commonly centred ; but that 

 the eye also disappears from some of the most con- 

 ventionalised. It seems probable that, although the 

 name kalang asu continues to be commonly used to 

 denote all this group of allies, many of those who 

 use the term, and even of those who carve or work 

 the patterns, are not explicitly aware in doing so 

 that the name and the patterns refer to the dog, or 

 are in any way connected with it ; that is to say, 

 both the words and the pattern have ceased to 

 suggest to their minds the meaning of the word 

 dog, and mean to them simply the pattern appro- 

 priate to certain uses. 



We have questioned men who have been 

 accustomed to apply the dog -pattern as to the 

 significance of the parts of the pattern, and have 

 led them to recognise that the parts of the dog, 

 eye, teeth, jaws, and so on, are represented ; and 

 this recognition has commonly been accompanied by 

 expressions of enlightenment, as of one making an 

 interesting discovery.^ This ignorance of the origin 

 of the pattern is naturally true only of the more 

 conventionalised examples, whether of the dog or 



^ Some Kayans habitually speak of most of the dog-patterns by the term 

 usang orang (which means the prawn's head). This indicates possibly some 

 gradual substitution of designs of the one origin for those of the other. 



