134 
THE ORIGIN OF DECORATIVE ART. 
June. 1890 . 
obtained, the snail’s shell gradually leaves the snail and 
becomes a kind of boss upon the twig, and finally the 
design is turned upside down ; the artists at this stage being 
convinced that the sketch is intended to represent a bird, 
the “horns,” of the snail having become the forked tail of 
the bird. It is seen that the extremes of the series are 
absolutely unlike each other, but in no case are any two 
adjacent sketches very dissimilar.* In savage art examples 
of this kind of evolution in design frequently occur. 
Thus, in the earlv condition of man’s culture, conventional 
design has been to a very great extent unconsciously evolved 
from realistic representation, and the passage from the one 
to the other has been made by easy stages. 
This unintentional variation of designs is, however, fre¬ 
quently, if not usually, accelerated by another process, which 
I may call “ conscious variation ,” that is, the desire to 
improve upon the design copied. This, as a rule, results in 
some particular portion of the design being specially empha¬ 
sized, and made thus to develop gradually at the expense of 
the remainder. Countless examples of this can be seen in 
savage as in civilised art. 
In this case the cause of the variations seems to be due 
merely to caprice on the part of the artists, wilful tampering 
with the design, with no special motive beyond increasing the 
ornamental effect, unless it be for the purpose of creating 
slight differences to act as marks of ownership. But occa- 
sionally there is a definite reason for emphasizing some parti¬ 
cular portion of a design. That portion may have some 
special meaning which renders it the most important part of 
the design. In reproducing the design again and again the 
tendency would always be to make the most of this important 
detail, and the rest of the design would tend to sink into 
insignificance before its encroachments, and perhaps disappear 
altogether, leaving the principal feature master of the field. 
I will give an instance of this. The carved ceremonial staves 
carried by the Maori chiefs of New Zealand, have almost 
invariably at their upper ends a carved grotesque representa¬ 
tion of a human head, with large mouth and enormously 
protruded tongue. The raison d'etre of this design lies in this 
protruded tongue, which among the Maori warriors indicates 
defiance, an important emotion amongst a warlike people ! 
In a few examples of these staves the head is represented in 
profile, though the tongue is invariably “ full face,” thus 
* This method of treating designs was suggested to me by General 
Pitt-Rivers, who has collected some very curious examples of series of 
this kind. 
