BOLL. 30] 



ORNAMENT 



153 



Associated ornaments are appended or 

 otherwise attached to articles of dress, 

 accouterments, utensils, etc., and consist 

 of tassels, fringes, beads, feathers, but- 

 tons, bells, and the like (see Adornment). 

 They are, however, not usually employed 

 in the elaboration of designs, though ef- 

 fective as ornaments. 



The embellishments introduced by the 

 various methods described above into the 

 native arts include or represent several 

 classes of motives which, although not 

 always readily distinguished from one 

 another, may be grouped in a general 

 way, as follows: 



(1) The technic, having its immedi- 

 ate origin in technic features of the arts 

 themselvesand primarily nonideographic; 

 (2) the simply esthetic, introduced from 

 various sources solely for the purj^ose of 

 adornment and also primarily nonideo- 

 graphic; (3) the simply ideographic, por- 

 traying pictorially some scene, object, or 

 incident, or expressing in more or less 

 formal manner some ordinary or non- 

 sacred idea, as a name, a number, pur- 

 pose, ownership, title, rank, achievement, 

 a personal or tribal device, etc.; (4) the 

 sacred, expressive of some religious con- 

 cept, very generally delineative, and 

 present because the concejat has a signifi- 

 cant relationship with the person or the 

 object decorated. Employed in the va- 

 rious arts these diversified elements are 

 subject to many mutations of form and 

 meaning. Applied to objects of art or to 

 the person, the form.s of all classes of 

 motives, significant and nonsignificant, 

 are, to a greater or less degree, under the 

 supervision of taste, and undergo modifi- 

 cations to satisfy the esthetic sense. The 

 simplest denotive signs, for example, are 

 not cut on an implement or utensil with- 

 out attention to spacing, uniformity of 

 outline, and neatness of finish, while 

 realistic representations are adapted to 

 or brought into harmony with the vary- 

 ing conditions under which they are 

 employed. Motives of all classes take on 

 different forms or receive distinct treat- 

 ment in each of the arts with which they 

 are associated, on account of differences 

 in technic and in the material, shape, 

 and size of the objects to which they are 

 applied. These changes are in the direc- 

 tion of elaboration where this is called 

 for, as in the filling of large spaces, and 

 in the direction of simplicity as influenced 

 by restricted spaces, by haste in execu- 

 tion, or by defective skill; and when 

 the shapes or available spaces demand 

 it, figures are distorted and divided with- 

 out regard to representative consistency. 

 Representations of natural forms intro- 

 duced into embellishment have, in gen- 

 eral, a tendency to become more conven- 

 tional with repetition, and under the 

 influence of the technic of some of the 



arts, as in weaving, they pass readily 

 into purely conventional forms. It does 

 not folhjw, however, that geometric 

 forms necessarily originate in this way. 

 It appears that with many primitive 

 tribes geometric ornament comes into 

 general use at a very early stage of cul- 

 ture progress, arising in technical features 

 of the arts, in suggestions of fancy, and 

 possibly in other ways. Graj)hic deline- 

 ations of life forms coming into use later 

 combine with or take the place of the 

 conventional decorations, and in so doing 

 are forced into the conventional mold, 

 assuming various degrees of simplification 

 andgeometricity. There isalso, nodoubt, 

 a reciprocal elaboration of the geometric 

 forms to meet the requirements of the 

 new associations. That highly geometric 

 phases of decoration in inany cases come 

 into use quite early is apparent from 

 a glance at the work of the northern 

 tribes. In the Pueblo region the hand- 

 some earthenware of the olden time dis- 

 plays mainly nonrealistic geometric 

 phases of embellishment; that of the 

 middle period has a considerable percent- 

 age of representative elements, while that 

 of the later time is rich in realistic mo- 

 tives. In the ^Mississippi valley and the 

 Atlantic woodlands simple geometric dec- 

 orations seem to prevail more fully among 

 the more primitive tribes and the realis- 

 tic among the more cultured. The 

 change from the formal to the realistic 

 is no doubt due somewhat to the gradual 

 adajitation of decorated articles at first 

 purely practical in function to sacred 

 ceremonial uses. The ideas associated 

 with ornament are greatly diversified in 

 derivation and character, and subject to 

 profound changes with lapse of time, with 

 advance in culture, and with tribal mu- 

 tations. The simple technic and esthetic 

 motives are without particular ideo- 

 graphic associations, although ideas may 

 be attached to or read into them at any 

 stage of their utilization by the imagina- 

 tive, symbol-loving aborigines. With all 

 tribes devoted to the embellishing arts 

 there is necessarily a large body of non- 

 ideographic motives which had no sig- 

 nificance originally or which have lost it, 

 but it is a common practice to give to the 

 figures names suggested by their form, 

 often perhaps for convenience of refer- 

 ence merely; thus a triangular figure 

 woven in a basket or painted on a leather 

 case may 1)6 called a "tipi" by one people, 

 a ' ' mountain ' ' by another, and an ' ' arrow- 

 head" by a third; a simple cross may be- 

 come the morning star, a mythic animal, 

 or a sign of the four quarters of the world. 

 And these simple designs employed in 

 basketry or beadwork may be so associ- 

 ated as to tell or suggest a story, which 

 may be elaborated indefinitely by the 

 primitive fancy. Again, any simple mo- 



