Sept. 30, 1880] 



NATURE- 



513 



the world. Side by side are placed the coarse wax models 

 of breasts, hands, feet, eyes, and other parts of the human 

 body offered up at the present time in Roman Catholic 

 shrines in France and elsewhere by persons who have 

 been cured of diseases in those parts, and the exactly 

 similar earthenware models of the same parts which were 

 used for the same purpose in ancient Cyprus, and have 

 been found there in excavations. It is most curious how 

 ■exactly the two series correspond. A small collection 

 comprehends the representations of the Mother and Child 

 of various races. Side by side may be seen and com- 

 pared the Peruvian, Cyprian, Egyptian, Indian, Chinese, 

 and Christian embodiments of this idea. 



Several series are devoted to the curious question of the 

 development of pattern ornament. The development of 

 patterns appears to have arisen in two ways : either draw- 

 ings of various natural objects have been made upon 

 weapons, implements, and utensils, and these drawings, 

 having become more and more conventionalised by succes- 



sive copyings, have degenerated into patterns which have 

 in many instances been subsequently elaborated as such ; 

 or various patterns have been from the first suggested by 

 various articles often used in connection with the objects 

 ornamented, by coils of string, or by wire, or by nets, or 

 accidental markings on the objects themselves. Patterns 

 thus once commenced have been gradually modified, and 

 have run through a series of changes which can be traced 

 step by step. A particular elaborate pattern is a thing 

 which has probably arisen only once in the progress of 

 evolution, and in tracing its history we trace at the same 

 time the history of the race which makes use of it. It 

 may yield as important evidence as even language itself. 

 The earliest known ornamentations are those of primi- 

 tive man found in the caves of Europe. They are all 

 representations of animals, figures of the mammoth, cave- 

 bear, or reindeer scratched on ivory or bone. Some of 

 the most interesting of General Pitt Rivers' series are 

 those which show how such rude figures gradually de- 



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us modifications of the double loop coil ornament in the Old and New Worlds. 



■generate into mere conventional pattern ornaments. One 

 of the most striking examples is one described by him in 

 his address to the Department of Anthropology at the 

 meeting of the British Association at Brighton in 1872, 

 It is the series of transformations which are undergone 

 by a figure of a human head represented on their paddles by 

 the natives of New Ireland. The series is shown in the an- 

 nexed woodcut (Plate 3), taken from the specimens exhibited 

 in the collection. The human figure gradually loses its 

 limbs and body, then the sides of the face, leaving only 

 the nose and ears, and ultimately the nose only, which 

 finally expands at the base, and is converted into the 

 representation of a half moon. In this sequence we have 

 an exact parallel to the transformations observed upon 

 ancient British coins by I\Ir. John Evans, by which the 

 representation of the chariot and horses of Victory on a 

 coin of Philip of Macedon becomes converted into a 

 single horse, and ultimately into fragments of a horse. 

 Amongst the natives of the North- West coast of America 



a curious intricate conventional ornament represented on 

 all their paddles and many other objects, is derived from 

 an albatross head, as shown in a series in the collection. 

 A series of curved wooden sharp-edged clubs or glaives 

 show how the form of a fish, to represent which the 

 curved head of the club is carved, degenerates into a 

 single W ornament, the remains of the fish's mouth. 

 Mr? Brooke Low has in his Bornean collection already 

 referred to a series of native fabrics ornamented with 

 elaborate patterns, each of which pattern has a name, 

 usually the name of an animal. One pattern is evidently 

 a representation of a crocodile, it is so named, and others 

 are derived from it. He finds it impossible to determine 

 in many instances by examination from w^hat form the 

 other patterns have been derived, but believes that the 

 history of their origin survives in their names. One name 

 given to them was, for example, "cat," referring to_ the 

 animal, from a drawing of which the pattern was origin- 

 ally developed. No doubt all the curious patterns in vogue 



