MALLERY. | EFFECT OF MATERIAL ON DRAWING. (43 
of the old method continued. The cuneiform characters are due to the 
shape of the wooden style used to impress the figures on unbaked clay. 
It may generally be remarked that in materials haying a decided 
“erain,” of which bamboo is the most obvious instance, the early stage 
of art with its rude implements was forced to work in lines running 
with the grain. 
Dr. Andree (e) gives the illustration presented here as Fig. 1256 with 
these remarks: 
The advances made by the Kanakas of New Caledonia in drawing are illustrated 
by the bamboo staves covered with engraved drawings, which they carry about as 
objects of fashion, somewhat as we 
do our walking sticks, and a num- 
ber of which are preserved in the 
ethnographic museum of Paris 
(Trocadero). They have been de- 
scribed by E. T. Hamy. In these 
finely incised drawings ornaments 
of the simplest kind (straight lines 
and zigzag models) are combined 
with figures and tree groups. The 
artistic execution is a rather primi- 
tive one, yet the figures by no 
means lack character and yivid- 
ness. There are seen on the bam- 
boo the pointed-roofed huts of the 
chieftains, turtles, fowl, lizards, 
and between them scenes from the 
life of the Kanakas. A man beats 
his wife, men discharge their bows, 
Fic. 1256.—Engravings on bamboo, New Caledonia. 
others stand idle in rank and file, adorned with the cylindric straw hat described 
by Cook, which at this day has almost entirely disappeared. 
The explanation of many peculiar forms of Indian drawing and paint- 
ing is to be found in the stage of mythologic sophiology reached by the 
several tribes. Forinstance, Mr. W. H. Holmes, op. cit., discovered that 
in Chiriqui all the decorations originated in Jife forms of animals, none 
being vegetal and none clearly expressive of the human figure or at- 
tempting the portrayal of physiognomy. This peculiarity doubtless 
arose from the exclusively zoomorphie character of the religion of the 
people. Other mythologic concepts have given a special trend to the 
art of other tribes and peoples. This results in conventionalism. The 
sculptures of Persia chiefly express the power and glory of the God- 
King, and the Egyptian statues are canonical idealizations of an ab- 
stract human being, type of the race. It is to be noticed that Indians 
also show conservatism and conyentionalization in their ordinary pic- 
tures. Within what may be called a tribal, or more properly stock, 
system, every Indian draws in precisely the same manner. The figures 
of a man, of a horse, and of every other object delineated are made by 
everyone who attempts to make any such figure, with seeming desire 
for all the identity of which their mechanical skill is capable, thus 
