Evolution in Art: As Illustrated by the Life-histories of Designs

by Alfred C. Haddon

When dealing with the decorative transformation of artificial objects I referred (p. [78]) to the large axes which are made in some of the islands in the archipelagoes off the south-east peninsula of New Guinea, and I pointed out how the desire for a reputation for wealth appears to have resulted in the production of a useless article, which took a great deal of time to fabricate.

Mr. H. Balfour[123] gives a parallel example in the case of “the development of our own civic and state maces. In these the end which was originally the handle end has now become the ‘clubbed’ end, through the small crown, which originally embellished the handle, having gradually developed into the enormous head so characteristic of the modern ceremonial mace; the two ends have changed places, and the sometime ‘business’ end is now the smaller.”

An analogous modification often occurs in votive objects. In prehistoric as well as in recent times objects are dedicated to certain shrines. Sometimes these may be objects in actual use, but frequently they are specially made, and in order to increase their value they are made in some more precious material or with more elaborate workmanship. For example, votive axes have the blade decorated and even often perforated, so that it comes to be an elegant fretwork axe-blade, artistic and valuable but utterly useless for material purposes. This has happened amongst many peoples and at various times.

But there is also a reverse process which operates in votive offerings, which may partly be due to the idea that the deities or powers to whom the offerings are made care more for the idea of offering than for the object offered, as at a later stage it was recognised that “to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams” (1 Samuel xv. 22). It must, however, be confessed that another consideration has probably been operative, and that is economy, and it is conceivable that this motive has led to the reason being assigned that the idea of the gift, or the essence of the gift, was all that was necessary.

It is superfluous to detail many examples, as the following will suffice to illustrate this retrograde tendency. It was formerly a widely-spread custom to sacrifice attendants for the dead. “In the seventeenth century the practice is described as prevailing in Japan, where, on the death of a nobleman, from ten to thirty of his servants put themselves to death. The Japanese form of modern survival of such funeral sacrifices is the substitute for real men and animals, images of stone, or clay, or wood, placed by the corpse.[124] The ceremonies (in China) of providing sedan-bearers and an umbrella-bearer for the dead, and sending mounted horsemen to announce beforehand his arrival to the authorities of Hades, although these bearers and messengers are only made of paper and burnt, seem to represent survivals of a more murderous reality.”[125] The Chinese, too, on certain occasions make mock money in paper and then burn it as an offering.

Associated with wealth is the evolution of money. Money is essentially a symbol of value; coin is always of less intrinsic worth than its nominal value, and as money transactions increase the nominal value bears absolutely no relation to the real value, as in the case of paper money.

In some parts of British New Guinea we find at the present time a very interesting intermediate stage between mere barter and the evolution of money.

I have elsewhere[126] pointed out that there is no money in Torres Straits; but certain articles have acquired a generally recognised exchange value. Some of the objects necessitate a considerable amount of skilled labour; others, such as certain shell ornaments, vary in value according to the size of the shell, although, of course, the labour in fabricating a small shell is very little less than that expended over a large one. I noticed that, as with our precious stones, a comparatively small increase in size greatly enhances the value. In the first case it is the labour that gives the value, in the second it is the rarity. Thus these objects cannot be regarded as money as they have an intrinsic value. Those most generally employed are the dibidibi, a round polished disc worn on the chest, and formed from the apex of a large cone shell (Conus millepunctatus); the waiwi or wauri, a shell armlet formed of a transverse section of the same shell; a wap or dugong harpoon, a long elegantly shaped instrument cut out of a tree; a canoe.

A good waiwi, one which can be worn on the arm of a man, is a very valued possession, the exchange value is a canoe or a dugong harpoon. I gathered that ten or twelve dibidibi are considered of equal value to any of the above. The ornaments vary in size and finish, and the value varies correspondingly, thus no table of equable exchange can be drawn up.