At the extreme south-east end of New Guinea and in the adjacent archipelago the most frequent designs are beautiful scroll patterns, which are subject to many variations. I have already[103] described many of these, and so there is no need to again repeat what I have said, except to remind the reader that all these patterns are variations of serially repeated conventionalised heads of the frigate-bird. I shall again allude to this bird when I deal with the relation of religion to art.
[103] Pp. 49-56, and at greater length in my Memoir on the Decorative Art of British New Guinea.
In the same district one occasionally meets with a pattern (Fig. 106) which in some respects resembles the former and appears in some cases to have been confounded with it. This one clearly arises from the serial repetition of conventionalised heads of crocodiles. The illustration is part of the carved rim of a wooden bowl in my possession, which probably came from the Trobriands or the Woodlarks. The triangles above the crocodiles' snouts are coloured black, those bounded by their jaws are painted red.
There is yet another method of representing animals which consists in grouping them so as to tell a story, or, in other words, to make a picture.
[Illustration: FIG. 106.--Rubbing of part of the carved rim of a wooden bowl in the author's collection. Probably from the Woodlarks or Trobriands, British New Guinea. One third natural size.]
Grouped animals rarely occur by themselves in decorative art; men, houses, implements, and even vegetation are frequently associated with them. The Arctic peoples, such as the Lapps, Eskimo, etc., greatly affect this form of art. The bulk of these pictures are representations of hunting scenes, and many incidents in the lives of these hyperboreans are depicted on bone and ivory. There is reason for regarding these as records of particular events (cf. p. 207); but they are also very useful to us as illustrations of native life and industry. Animals are sometimes drawn foreshortened, and confused herds of reindeer are often figured; but the grouping is mainly linear, without effects of perspective being attempted.
This kind of art is extremely rare amongst savage peoples, in fact its presence may be regarded as one of the proofs that the people practising it have passed from a purely savage condition, and have made some advance towards civilisation. It has reached its highest point in the works of the great animal painters of the present day, and thus has been one of the last forms of graphic art to be perfected.