[358] Ibid., p. 181.
[359] See the examples given in Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., Fig. 131. Here are designs, many of which evidently have the object of representing animals, plants, the heads of men, etc., though of course all are very conventional.
[360] Nat. Tr., p. 617; Nor. Tr., p. 716 ff.
[361] Nat. Tr., p. 145; Strehlow, II, p. 80.
[362] Nat. Tr., p. 151.
[363] Ibid., p. 346.
[364] It cannot be doubted that these designs and paintings also have an æsthetic character; here is the first form of art. Since they are also, and even above all, a written language, it follows that the origins of design and those of writing are one. It even becomes clear that men commenced designing, not so much to fix upon wood or stone beautiful forms which charm the senses, as to translate his thought into matter (cf. Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, I, p. 405; Dorsey, Siouan Cults, pp. 394 ff.).
[365] See the cases in Taplin, The Narrinyeri, p. 63; Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 146, 769; Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 169; Roth, Superstition, Magic and Medicine, § 150; Wyatt, Adelaide and Encounter Bay Tribe, in Woods, p. 168; Meyer, ibid., p. 186.
[366] This is the case with the Warramunga (Nor. Tr., p. 168).
[367] For example, among the Warramunga, the Urabunna, the Wonghibon, the Yuin, the Wotjobaluk, the Buandik, Ngeumba, etc.