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

by Alfred C. Haddon

The association of a human being and crocodile is shown in Fig. [5], which is taken from a rubbing of a bamboo tobacco-pipe (the white spot in the centre indicates the hole for the insertion of the bowl). Only the face and arms of the man are represented. This design is repeated four times on the same object. The figure also illustrates a concentric treatment of designs which appears to be characteristic of the mainland near the mouth of the Fly River.

Fig. 5.—Rubbing of part of the decoration of a bamboo tobacco-pipe, probably from the mouth of the Fly River; one-third natural size, in the Liverpool Museum. In the original the lines show dark on a light ground.

From about the same district where the last object came from are made the carved wooden arrows, which are traded by the natives to the islanders of Torres Straits, and which may be found in many of our ethnographical museums. All the arrows formerly used in Torres Straits were imported from the mainland of New Guinea. Of these there were many kinds: some were quite plain, others had simple wooden barbs, while others again had bone barbs; it is only with these latter that I am now dealing.

No two of these arrows are precisely alike, but they fall into four main groups—(1) undecorated, or with an occasional simple band pattern below the barbs; (2) those with the figure of a man carved upon them; (3) those with a representation of a crocodile; and finally (4) those with simple patterns, which usually have a longitudinal direction.

I will confine myself to the third group, and will illustrate only a few of the numerous variations which occur; these will suffice to indicate what sort of modifications take place, and will enable any one to interpret the carving on the majority of arrows belonging to this class which may be met with in a museum.

The Crocodile Arrow and its Derivatives.—This class of arrows forms a very interesting series, as it becomes greatly modified. At one end of the series we have an easily recognisable crocodile; at the other we have a lizard, or a well-marked snake; and possibly even this may degenerate into the simplest patterns.

(a.) The Crocodile and its Degenerate Forms.—In front of the main design there are usually a few barbs, much as in the “man-arrow,” but these barbs may be considerably increased in number in the more degenerate type, or they may be altogether absent.

It is desirable to first describe a typical crocodile-arrow; and it will be necessary to call attention to certain well-marked divisions of the total representation: these are the snout, the head and neck (from the eyes, inclusive, to the fore-limbs), the fore-limbs, the trunk, the hind-limbs, and the tail.