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 
