[100] The present chapter is a revised edition of my essay, “The
Decorative Art of the Indians of the North Pacific Coast of America”
(Bulletin American Museum of Natural History, Vol. IX, pp. 123-176,
1897).
The general principles discussed in the preceding chapters, may now be
elucidated by a discussion of the style of the decorative art of the
Indians of the North Pacific Coast of North America.
Two styles may be distinguished: the man’s style expressed in the art
of wood carving and painting and their derivatives; and the woman’s
style which finds expression in weaving, basketry, and embroidery.
The two styles are fundamentally distinct. The former is symbolic, the
latter formal. The symbolic art has a certain degree of realism and
is full of meaning. The formal art has, at most, pattern names and no
especially marked significance.
We shall discuss the symbolic art first. Its essential characteristics
are an almost absolute disregard of the principles of perspective,
emphasis of significant symbols and an arrangement dictated by the form
of the decorative field.
While the Eskimo of Arctic America, the Chukchee and Koryak of Siberia,
the Negroes and many other people use carvings in the round which
serve no practical ends, but are made for the sake of representing a
figure,—man, animal, or supernatural being,—almost all the work of
the Indian artist of the region that we are considering serves at
the same time a useful end. When making simple totemic figures, the
artist is free to shape his subjects without adapting them to the
forms of utensils, but owing to their large size, he is limited by the
cylindrical form of the trunk of the tree from which they are carved.
The native artist is almost always restrained by the shape of the
object to which the decoration is applied.
[Illustration: Fig. 154. Tlingit helmet.]
[Illustration: Fig. 155. Mask representing dying warrior, Tlingit.]
The technical perfection of carvings and paintings, the exactness and
daring of composition and lines prove that realistic representations
are not beyond the powers of the artist. This may also be demonstrated
by a few exquisite examples of realistic carvings. The helmet shown
in fig. 154 is decorated with the head of an old man affected with
partial paralysis. Undoubtedly this specimen must be considered a
portrait head. Nose, eyes, mouth and the general expression, are highly
characteristic. In a mask (fig. 155) representing a dying warrior, the
artist has shown faithfully the wide lower jaw, the pentagonal face,
and the strong nose of the Indian. The relaxing muscles of mouth and
tongue, the drooping eyelids, and the motionless eyeballs, mark the
agonies of death. Plate IX represents a recent carving, a human figure
of rare excellence. Posture and drapery are free of all the formal
characteristics of North West coast style. Only the treatment of the
eye and the facial painting betray its ethnic origin. Here belongs
also the realistic head previously referred to, made by the Kwakiutl
Indians of Vancouver Island (fig. 156), which is used in a ceremony and
intended to deceive the spectators who are made to believe that it is
the head of a decapitated dancer.[101]
[101] The selection of North West Coast art given by Herbert Kühn
(Die Kunst der Primitiven, pp. 100, 104, Plates 48, 50, 51 are
characteristic only of realistic representations. Only Plates 47, 49
and part of 52 are stylistically typical).
[Illustration: PLATE IX.