No. 1616. A STUDY OF ALASKAN NEEDLECASES—BOAS. aia hy 
the same place I have shown that the treatment of the animal figure 
on carved boxes of the Tlingit has other fixed conventional forms, 
which, although closely related to the blanket design, are quite per- 
manent and applied only in the manufacture of boxes.* 
In a quite different region, among the Tungus tribes of the Amur 
River, Dr. Berthold Laufer has shown that one of the essential types 
determining the whole arrangement of decorative designs, which con- 
sist of realistic figures as well as of curved lines, is based on the type 
of “ cocks combatant.” ? 
It is also important to note that figures conforming to such funda- 
mental types may be interpreted in a great variety of ways by the 
people who use them. I have pointed out such a similarity of type 
and fundamental difference of interpretation in explanations given 
by the Huichol Indians.° Here we find practically the same figure 
once interpreted as the fresh-water crab, and then as oak leaves and 
stems. Other more extended series of such ambiguous interpreta- 
tions may be found in the art of the Plains Indians as well as in those 
of other parts of the world. 
I have suggested before that in many cases these forms seem to com- 
pel us to assume that the interpretations of many simple forms are 
entirely secondary; that often the forms have been borrowed; and 
that later on, according to their use in the life of the people, they have 
been given a fitting interpretation.¢ 
T think evidence can be brought forward also to show that the ten- 
dency to play, and the play of the imagination with existing forms, 
have deeply influenced the decorative art of primitive tribes as we 
find it at the present time. | 
The first of these traits appears with particular clearness in the 
tendency to use rhythmic repetitions of varying forms. Bead neck- 
laces are one of the most striking examples of the pleasure that man 
receives through the use of rhythmic repetition of colors and forms. 
It is very important to notice that among primitive tribes the rhythmic 
and symmetrical order of such arrangements are often exceedingly com- 
plex,—so complex, in fact, that they can be recognized by us only by a 
close study of the arrangement. <A case of this kind occurs in the 
fringe on a pair of leggings collected among the Thompson Indians, 
which I have described.’ In this specimen we have a fringe which 
*G. 'T. Emmons, The Chilkat Blanket, Memoirs, Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., II, 
pp. 357 et seq. 
® Publications of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, IV, pp. 22 et seq. 
€ Carl Lumholtz, Decorative Art of the Huichol Indians, Memoirs, Amer. Mus. 
Nat. Hist., III, p. 287 and figs. 451 and 465. 
@A. T.. Kroeber, The Arapaho, and Clark Wissler, Decorative Art of the 
Sioux Indians, Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., XVIII. 
Franz Boas, The Decorative Art of the North American Indians, Popular 
Science Monthly, LXIII. 
/ Publications of the J esup North Pacific Expedition, I, p. 384, fig. 313. 
