gles, represent the officers, headmen, and members of the chiefs' 

 families, all marked in mourning by the black ribbon filling. 



A few remarks applying to the Penobscot designs, which 

 may incidentally have a bearing upon the art of neighbouring 

 regions, may supply a few helpful details. A realistic plant and 

 political symbolic foundation here seems to have become the 

 ruling motive in the double-curve figures, while geographical 

 and landscape representations are, nevertheless, not lacking 

 among them. The interpretations, however, as may be imagined 

 from the complexity and random character of the curved interiors, 

 are by no means rigid or even general. Each artist, after starting 

 the decoration with the conventional double-curves, falls, it seems, 

 upon his or her own ingenuity in filling in the middles with what 

 looks to him like this or that plant or some picture or representa- 

 tion of alliance. In consequence of this individual play of fancy it 

 is hard to get interpretations for designs and their parts except 

 from those who have executed them. Nevertheless, through 

 all the freedom of style a number of conventionalities are main- 

 tained which give a homogeneous tone to the designs as a whole 

 and make them decidedly distinctive for the tribe. Such, for 

 example, are the cross-hatched ovals and triangles, the spreading 

 curves, the hump in the middle of the curves with the central 

 embellishments on it, the embellishments midway on opposite 

 vertical sides and those flanking the central elevation, and the 

 peculiar little parallel lines so often seen in the last mentioned 

 places. By thus assembling the common peculiarities which 

 run through most of the designs in each tribe, one may hope to 

 obtain a basis for a comparative study. The determination, 

 however, of any particular type may have to be decided by the 

 eye, since the designs appear to vary about as much in the same 

 tribe as between tribes in proximity to each other. 



Malecite and Passamaquoddy. 



The Malecite Indians of St. John river, New Brunswick, are 

 the next people encountered east of the Penobscots. South of 

 them, on Passamaquoddy bay and St. Croix river, in Maine, 

 are the related Passamaquoddy. In the art work of both tribes 

 the double-curve predominates, though no particularly distinctive 



