On looking through collections of Australian weapons in museums, or in glancing over the illustrations to works on Australia, one is struck by the fact that a large number of objects are decorated with simple devices, and further that there is a very great deal of uniformity in the designs. Considering the size of that continent and the numerous tribes of its sparse native population, the paucity of artistic motives is very remarkable. The conclusion is pretty obvious, these designs must be representations of totems. At present we have no proof of this, nor are there sufficient data for the collation and assignation of the designs.
Dr. E. Grosse[154] is the sole anthropologist who has studied Australian art, but he has not been able to do more than enunciate general principles, owing to the absence of authoritative information from the natives. It is to be hoped that residents in Australia will learn all they can from the natives about their art before the knowledge is lost.
A slight acquaintance with decorated objects from Australia will reveal the very common occurrence of angular designs—zigzags, chevrons, diamonds, and so forth. As Dr. Grosse truly says:[154] “One is accustomed to describe these primitive ornaments as geometrical; and then it is not difficult to confound the name with the thing, so one quotes the geometric pattern occasionally as evidence for the natural predilection of the simplest people for the simplest æsthetic motive, but no proof is advanced for this peculiar predilection, because in the bulk of the philosophy of art the a priori method remains unshaken. All primitive ornaments are not what they seem to be. We shall see that they have at bottom nothing whatever in common with geometric figures.... It is certainly not always easy to recognise the original form of a primitive ornament. When one considers the zigzag or the diamond pattern of an Australian shield, it appears that our assertion is without doubt that this is destitute of animal forms, and it will appear doubly certain when we acknowledge that in most cases we cannot directly know it. It was certainly a wonder to us when we knew it. The ornament of the Australians has been by no means systematically investigated. Even in the comprehensive work of Brough Smyth it is dismissed in some very general and very superficial remarks. In fact, no one has so much as taken the pains to ask the natives the meaning of the different patterns.”
Dr. Grosse then goes on to point out that “most of the ornament of the lower folk, as far as it has been investigated and as the Australian should be studied, is known to be imitations of animal or human forms. Nowhere has ornament so markedly a geometrical character as among the Brazilian tribes. Their rectilinear patterns suggest to a European, who contemplates them in a museum, anything else rather than natural forms. But Ehrenreich, who has studied them on the spot, has irrefutably demonstrated that they represent neither more nor less than animals or parts of animals.” In the section which deals with zoomorphs I describe some of these remarkable patterns, and to avoid repetition I would refer the reader to that description.
We must now review all the evidence which is before us, and slender though it is, there is sufficient to justify Dr. Grosse in arriving at his general conclusions.
P. Chauncy, in Appendix A. to Brough Smyth’s work (ii. p. 251), writes: “Some of the ancients took much delight in ornamenting their shields with all sorts of figures—birds, beasts, and the inanimate works of Nature. In like manner, the natives of Western Australia—at least some tribes north from Perth—adorn their narrow shields.” Brough Smyth (i. p. 294) says: “In ornamenting their rugs they copied from nature. One man told Mr. Bulmer[155] that he got his ideas from the observation of natural objects. He had copied the markings on a piece of wood made by the grub known as Krang; and from the scales of snakes and the markings of lizards he derived new forms. The natives never, in adorning their rugs or weapons, as far as Mr. Bulmer knows, imitate the forms of plants or trees.” On p. 284 he says: “On a few of the weapons appear rude figures of men and four-footed animals. One figure of a man shown by lines on a club is in the dress and attitude of a native dancing in a corroborree. The carvings are confined to their weapons of wood. Not one of the bone implements in my possession has a single line engraven on it. There are peculiarities in the arrangement of the lines on the ornamented shields of the West Australian natives which suggest that some meaning—understood only by the warriors themselves—is conveyed by such representations. The natives of Victoria often used forms the meaning of which is discoverable now.... In like manner, the natives of the Upper Darling represented on their shields figures in imitation of the totems of their tribes. One in my possession has engraven on it the figure of an iguana. Collins[156] states that in ornamenting their weapons and instruments, each tribe used some peculiar form by which it was known to what part of the country they belonged.” In the Introduction (p. liv.) we read, “There are, amongst some tribes, conventionalised forms, evidently; and it is of the utmost importance to ascertain to what extent these are used, and by what tribes they are understood.” These remarks are as applicable to the designs on weapons and other objects as to the message-sticks to which our author was then more particularly referring. After contrasting the drawings of the native human figure by the Australians with the rude drawings of men made by European children, he continues (i. p. 285): “In like manner the natives have conventional forms for trees, lakes, and streams; and in transmitting information to friends in remote tribes they use the conventional forms, but in many cases modified, and in some cases so simplified as to be in reality rather symbols than diagrams or pictures.” “They often record events deemed worthy of note on their throwing-sticks” (ii. p. 259).
Brough Smyth describes the various kinds of angular patterns delineated by the natives of Australia, and concerning the figures cut on certain boomerangs and other missiles from Queensland, he says (i. p. 285), “All these forms have a meaning intelligible to the blacks of that part of the continent.”
“The information which Bulmer has preserved,” writes Dr. Grosse, “solves the problem of Australian ornament. It does not tell us how we can interpret it, but it does tell us why we can know next to nothing about it. If the whole form of an animal is represented as an ornamental motive, it is possible to recognise it even in a diagrammatic distorted representation, for this at least, as a rule, approaches the original form; but in most Australian patterns only portions of animals occur, and the natives most frequently delineate their signs for skins; in this case it is next to impossible for a European to elucidate their signification, especially as the implicated natural forms are almost always conventionally rendered. Our explanation is, as we previously stated, not strictly proved; but the old doctrine, which takes primitive ornament for freely constructed geometrical figures, is just as little so.”
Dr. Grosse maintains that his interpretation is in harmony with what is known of the nature of primitive folk, and reminds us that Ehrenreich has shown us that appearances may be deceptive. He then goes on to suggest that the decoration on a certain shield that he figures is an imitation of a snake’s skin, that on another shield the representation of a bird, and the diamonds and zigzags scored on other shields as conventional representations of feathers, hairs, or scales. Those interpretations may or may not be correct, and the reader should be on his guard not to take suppositions for facts. Dr. Grosse may have more evidence than he has been able to present to his readers; but, while adopting his main thesis, I do not think that, without such evidence, we can identify the originals of the designs.