and is most characteristic among the extreme northern and 
eastern Algonkian tribes. Since it is restricted to them as a 
fundamental motive, it may be regarded from two points of view: 
it may have originated in the northeast and drifted westward, 
or it may have been derived from an original old American design 
element that became remodelled and specialized to its present 
form among some of these tribes and was subsequently adopted 
by their neighbours in general. The latter supposition seems a 
little more plausible. The outskirts of the range of this pattern 
embrace the Menomini, Iroquois, Delaware, Pottawatomi, Sauk 
and Fox, Blackfoot, Cree, and Ojibwa. There may, of course, 
be other groups sharing it, but I have not had access to adequate 
collections from the tribes where it might be expected. My 
direct acquaintance with the motive covers the coast and interior 
Montagnais, Mistassini, Naskapi, Malecite, Penobscot, Pas- 
samaquoddy, and Huron, much of the material available for 
study being now in the Victoria Memorial Museum, Ottawa. 
Several other trips, in quest of art motives, were made to tribes 
related in some ways to those having the double curve, the 
Cherokee of North Carolina and Mohegan of Connecticut. The 
other material presented here has been derived largely from the 
collection of Mr. Heye, University of Pennsylvania Museum, 
and the Peabody Museum, Cambridge. Concerning the derived 
material, much, naturally, could still be wished for, especially as 
regards actual tribal and local identity of specimens and possible 
symbolism or interpretation. From the fact, however, that those 
tribes where the design is most characteristic do not have any 
particular symbolism in art, one might presume that it is through- 
out much of the region primarily an ornamental rather than a 
symbolic motive. 
For the purposes of this paper it seems preferable to discuss 
the data we have at hand under tribal headings, presenting a 
few conclusions in a final summary. 
