III. General Remarks on the Method of Study.
I have endeavoured in the foregoing pages to formulate and illustrate some of the principles underlying the evolution of decorative art. The subject is so vast that it would be impossible to deal with it adequately unless a series of memoirs could be devoted to it. Here, however, I have been more concerned with the method of study; I have not attempted to seriously investigate even a single department, and various branches of the subject have either been merely hinted at or entirely passed over.
In all studies a right method is of fundamental importance, and in an attempt to understand the meaning of decorative art, as in other matters, a slight deviation from the right method of procedure may lead one far from the truth. Nothing is easier than to be led astray by superficial resemblances, and it is impossible to be too much on one’s guard in this matter. Of this I have given some examples, but I have refrained from giving as many as I might have done, as it is not pleasant to show up the mistakes of pioneers, even if it be only for the purpose of warning others. As Professor Max Müller has said,[210] “Identity of form does as little prove identity of origin in archæology as identity of sound proves identity of origin in etymology. Comparative studies are very useful, so long as they do not neglect the old rule, Divide et impera—Distinguish, and you will be master of your subject!”
There are practically but two methods of work—(1) Inquiry from the people who employ the designs, or the testimony of written evidence when the people no longer know the significance of the designs; or (2) an investigation of induction and interpretation where oral or written tradition fail.
Beyond all question the most valuable results are obtained from oral information. I need only refer the reader to the investigations of Professors Ehrenreich and Karl von den Steinen (p. [174]), and of Mr. H. Vaughan Stevens (p. [236]), to demonstrate that by no other method could we ever gain any idea as to what was the meaning of these particular patterns and designs. In fact, the observations of these travellers make one very sceptical of any interpretations by outsiders.
This is undoubtedly the most important and pressing work in this subject. Only those who have visited backward peoples of certain grades of culture who have come into contact with the white man, can realise how rapidly the old lore is passing away. This may or may not be advantageous, but no one will deny that it is a thousand pities that scarcely any one thinks it his duty to inquire about and to put on record all that can be gathered about those peoples which our civilisation is either modifying or destroying. Every one who can will collect “curios,” especially those which are decorated; but out of the hundreds of collectors, how many units have ever thought of asking the natives what was the significance of the ornamentation? I have already drawn attention to this need for Australia, but it is equally pressing in many other parts of the world. Even museum curators have in the past regarded ethnographical specimens more as “trophies” than as materials for the study of a history of mankind.
There are still some “collectors” (that is, purchasers of “curios”) who think that when they know where an object comes from, and, may be, what is its native name, they know pretty well all that is worth knowing about it. Others have realised that there is a history in every form and pattern.
What is wanted is an interpretation of the form, of the meaning of odd little details of contour, of indentation, or of projection. No apparently insignificant superfluity is meaningless, they are silently eloquent witnesses of a past signification like the mute letters in so many of our words. Almost every line or dot of every ornament has a meaning, but we are without understanding, and have eyes and see not.