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

by Alfred C. Haddon

In the various illustrations which have been given representations of the human form may be isolated, as in Melanesia (Fig. [3], O), Mangaia (Fig. [124]), and New Zealand (Plate [VI.], Figs. 10, 12), or they may be double; for example, one frequently finds in Polynesia two god-figures placed back to back, and these may strangely degenerate, as in the examples given by Stolpe[104] and Read.[105] Human forms placed in linear series are frequent in Mangaian wood-carving (Figs. [127] and [125], A). Fig. [126] illustrates the decoration of a broader area.

We get examples of the selection of one portion of the man in the face patterns of the Papuan Gulf. (Figs. [10]-[19].)

These are undoubtedly conscious selections from the very commencement, but we find various parts of the body come to be perpetuated, with the elimination of the remainder, owing to differing causes.

The reason for the simplification of the body and the disappearance of the head in the Mangaian art is probably partly due to the fact that savage peoples are usually quite content with suggestions of objects, they do not demand what we term realism. By conventionalising their representations the Mangaians were better able to multiply them, and at the same time to appropriately decorate the object with which they were concerned. It could not be with a view of economising time or labour. “Time,” as Stolpe says, “is for them of no importance, they have plenty of it, and usually they are not able even to reckon it.” Judging by the skill exhibited by these clever carvers in wood, we cannot put down the simplification of the human body to careless copying.

We have seen that the face may be represented to the exclusion of any other part of the body, but there are examples of parts of the face becoming predominant.

Professor Moseley[106] was, I believe, the first to indicate the evolution which occurred in the images of gods in the Hawaian group. In some instances the hollow crescent form, which came to represent a face, seems to have been arrived at by an enormous increase in the size of the mouth; in others, as in the case of some wicker images, by a hollowing out of the face altogether; the mouth in the latter, though large, not being widened so as to encroach upon the whole area of the face. Since, in the worship of the gods, food was placed in the mouths, the mouths may have been gradually enlarged as the development of the religion proceeded, in order to contain larger and larger offerings, and the head in the wicker-work image may have been hollowed out for a similar purpose. Moseley traced the degeneration of the human (or god’s) face down to a hook-shaped ornament cut out of a sperm whale’s tooth.

Some of the carvings of the human face from New Zealand bear a general resemblance to those from Hawaii; but a very noticeable feature in the art of the former island is the protruding tongue. The most interesting development of this member occurs in the Maori hani, or staff of office. At the upper end is what appears, at first sight, to be a spear-point. “This portion, however, does not serve the purpose of offence, but is simply a conventional representation of the human tongue, which, when thrust forth to its utmost conveys, according to Maori ideas, the most bitter insult and defiance. When the chief wishes to make war against any tribe, he calls his own people together, makes a fiery oration, and repeatedly thrusts his hani in the direction of the enemy, each such thrust being accepted as a putting forth of the tongue in defiance. In order to show that the point of the hani is really intended to represent the human tongue, the remainder of it is carved into a grotesque and far-fetched resemblance of the human face, the chief features of which are two enormous circular eyes made of haliotis shell.”[107]

My friend, S. Tsuboi, has made a special study[108] of the protruding tongue in New Zealand art. He gives illustrations of thirty-one specimens, and with characteristic Japanese ingenuity he has drawn figures of half-a-dozen models which he has constructed which illustrate the various possible variations, and the lines they may have taken. He has also made numerical tables of possible varieties. I allude to, this paper in order to draw the attention of students to graphic methods. I regret that my ignorance of the Japanese language precludes my giving the results of this investigation.

In Ancient Egypt the eye was symbolic, and numberless amulets are found which exhibit one, two, or numerous eyes in varying stages of degeneracy, or in strange modifications. These, too, have been studied and described by Tsuboi.[109]