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CHAPTER XIII. 



NOTES UPON MALAGASY ART IN DECORATION AND 

 MANUFACTURE. 



HOVA ART : HOUSE DECORATION — CHURCH ADORNMENT — TEXTILE FABRICS — 

 STRAW PLAITING — METAL WORK — POTTERY — BETSILEO ART : CARVING 

 ON BURIAL MEMORIALS — HOUSES — AND UTENSILS. 



If we look at any illustrated book describing the inhabitants 

 of Polynesia we shall find that every group, and sometimes 

 every solitary island, has its peculiar style of ornament, 

 special to itself, and easily distinguishable from that of other 

 groups and islands. Their canoes and paddles, their clubs 

 and spears, houses and beds, dishes and spoons, pipes and 

 snuff-boxes, are all ornamented, sometimes most elaborately 

 and beautifully. And this decoration extends to their own 

 persons, in the practice of tattooing, and also to their cloth- 

 ing, as seen in the patterns woven into the cloth or matting 

 of their dresses, or stamped upon the bark cloth they procure 

 from various trees. 



Hova Art. — But among the Hovas, in the centre of Mada- 

 gascar, there is very little ornamental art, and in the great 

 majority of the articles which they construct for daily use, 

 there is a remarkable absence of the elaborate and varied 

 carving which is employed by most of the Malayo-Polynesian 

 tribes. It is true that many of the large stone tombs built 

 of late years in Imerina have some architectural pretensions, 

 and decorative carving is employed on them, but the details 

 are copied from drawings of European buildings, and can in 

 no respect be considered as examples of indigenous art. 



There are, however, some few indications of a feeling for 

 decoration among the Hovas which it may be worth while 

 to note down, before proceeding to speak of the much more 



