The first point that appears in the consideration of these designs and
their interpretations is the animistic basis upon which they rest. The
Indian has observed nature, and singled out those qualities and
situations that are not only wonderful from his point of view, but
greatly to be desired as means to his own ends. He then proceeds on the
assumption that these originate in and are due to some hidden agency,
from which it follows, that, if he can put himself in the place of one
of the favored living creatures, he will in turn be the object upon
which this hidden agency will act. If he can be the bird that rides the
storm in safety, he will in turn ride successfully the analogous storms
of his own sphere, and, like the child that in its own mind is the
policeman when it thrusts a club into its waistband, he feels that he is
the bird calling to the thunder when he sounds the bone whistle, and
mutters his song-prayer. That this is true only of the great Indian or
the devotee, speaking in relative terms, and that the mass of
Indian-kind follow in blind imitation of the more sensitive few, may be
true; but the phenomena, for all that, are none the less ethnic.
One characteristic of the foregoing protective designs is, that they are
usually animal motives to the almost entire exclusion of plant and
inanimate forms. While it is true that the phenomena of the heavens hold
a prominent place in this art, such phenomena are often interpreted as
results of the activity of animal-like beings, and consequently are so
expressed in art. The conditions leading to such a result are doubtless
many and intricate; but the tendency to ignore plant-forms in protective
conceptions may be due to the inactive character of the more inanimate
world. Inert things are not easily conceived of as guardians or
protectors. On the other hand, the Indian may not see the logical
necessity of carrying his view to the utmost bounds of the universe.
Pots and kettles may have an animistic presence within themselves; but
perhaps this does not appeal to the Indian, because the living creatures
are so much nearer to him and the analogy between their lives and his is
not difficult to perceive. The mystery in the animal forms that come and
go, in the storm, and in the heavenly bodies, reaches the mind unaided;
but the plant and mineral wonders require a more microscopic eye. That
there was a time when the animals were as the people is the striking
thought in many Indian myths, and this indicates a belief in the
fundamental life-identity of all moving creatures.
There is, however, one interesting suggestion in the interpretation of
protective powers. In all of these conceptions we find less appeal for
the direct destruction of enemies than for a shielding protection to
enable the man himself to be the destructive agent. His prayers are,
that he may be swift and impossible to hit in order that he may strike
down the victim.
Again, there are in every part of the preceding paper examples of the
close association between powers, or at least power-symbols, that are
from many points of view incongruous; as the mirror and the hoop, the
spider, the thunder, and the elk. There is in these a tendency to
coalesce into conceptions of larger wholes in which the power becomes
more general, tending toward the definite abstraction of a power-unit,
or identity of forces in nature. These larger conceptions, that are
really much more complex than indicated in this brief paper, seem to
represent a growth, or at least an accumulation of ideas, on the part of
a people who have not felt the need of systematically unifying them, or
expressing them as an objective unit.
[Illustration: ANTHROP. PAP. A. M. N. H. VOL. I, PLATE V.
MODEL OF A SHIELD. ]
[Illustration: SHIELD-DESIGN ON A CAPE.
PLATE VI. ]
[Illustration: ANTHROP. PAP. A. M. N. H. VOL. I, PLATE VII.
MODEL OF A SHIELD. ]