The great ability of the Eskimo and their southern neighbors, the natives of northwest America (Koliushes, Thlinkits, etc.), in representative art is well known and needs no further insisting. Among all primitive peoples they have made the greatest advances in the conventionalization of figures, which indicates long practice in painting. The totem figures, carved both in stone and in wood and tattooed on the body, show severe conventionalization and have perfect heraldic value. Ismailof, one of the earliest Russian explorers that came in contact with the Koliushes, relates that European paintings and drawings did not strike them with the least awe. When a chief was shown portraits of the Russian imperial family he manifested no astonishment. That chief was accompanied by his painter, who examined everything very closely, in order to paint it afterward. He was able in particular “to paint all manner of objects on wooden tablets and other material (leather),” using blue iron earth, iron ocher, colored clays, and other mineral colors. Among these peoples, too, painting is employed as a substitute for writing, in order to record memorable things.
Far below the artistic achievements of the Eskimo and of the natives of the American northwest (Haida, Thlinkit, etc.) are those of the redskins east of the Rocky mountains. They are, however, very productive in figure drawing; nay, that art has advanced to a kind of picture writing, which, it is true, is not distinguished by artistic finish. That “fling” which, depending on good observation of nature, appears in the drawings of Australians, Bushmen, etc., and the good characterization of the figures, are lacking among the Indians; and though, as is frequently the case, their animals are better represented than the men, yet they can not compare with the animal figures of the Eskimo or Bushmen. Dr. Capitan, who had drawings made by the Omahas shown in 1883 in the Jardin d’acclimatation of Paris, says concerning them: “It is singular to note that by the side of very rudimentary representations of human figures the pictures of horses are drawn with a certain degree of correctness. If the Indians take pains in anything it is in the painting of their buffalo skins, which are often worn as mantles. On red-brown ground are seen black figures, especially of animals; on others, on white ground, the heroic deeds and life events of distinguished Indians, represented in black or in other colors. You see the wounded enemies, the loss of blood, the killed and the captives, stolen horses, all executed in the peculiar manner of an art of painting still in the stage of infancy, with earth colors black, red, green, and yellow. Almost all the Missouri tribes practice painting on buffalo skins; the most skillful are the Pawnees, Mandans, Minitaris, and Crows. Among the Mandans, Wied met individuals who possessed “a very decided talent” for drawing.”
The same author, in the same connection, reasserts the old statement that there is an established difference in artistic capacity between the so-called mound-builders and the present Indians, so great that it either shows a genetic difference between them or that the Indians had degenerated in that respect. This statement is denied by the Bureau of Ethnology, but the point to be now considered is whether it is true that the historic North American Indians are as low in artistic skill as is alleged.
The French traveler Crevaux, as quoted by Marcano (g), says that he had the happy idea of giving pencils to the Indians, in order to see whether they were capable of producing the same drawings. The young Yumi rapidly drew for him sketches of man, dog, tiger; in brief, of all the animals of the country. Another Indian reproduced all sorts of arabesques, which he was wont to paint with genipa. Crevaux saw that these savages, who are accused of being absolutely ignorant of the fine arts, all drew with extraordinary facility.
The same idea, i. e., of testing the artistic ability of Indians in several tribes, occurred to the present writer and to many other travelers, who generally have been surprised at the skill in free-hand drawing and painting exhibited. It would seem that the Indians had about the same faults and decidedly more talent than the average uninstructed persons of European descent who make similar attempts. An instance of special skill in portrait painting is given by Lossing (a), where a northern tribe in 1812 made a bark picture of Joseph Barron, a fugitive, to obtain his identification by sending copies of it to various tribes. The portrait given as an illustration in the work cited is very distinct and lifelike. This, however, was a special task prompted by foreign influence. While the Indians had no more knowledge of perspective than the Japanese, they were unable or indisposed to attempt the accurate imitation of separate natural objects in which the Japanese excel. Before European instruction or example they probably never produced a true picture. Some illustrations in the present work, which show a continuous series of men, animals, and other objects, are no more pictures than are the consecutive words of a printed sentence, both forms, indeed, being alike in the fact that their significance is expressed by the relation between the separate parts. The illustration which at a first glance seems to be most distinctively picturesque is Fig. [659], but it will be noticed that the personages are repeated, the scene changed, and the time proceeds, so that there is no view of specified objects at any one time and place.
Fig. 1254.—Moose, Kejimkoojik.
Fig. 1254 shows two drawings from Kejimkoojik, N. S., reduced to one-fourth, each supposed to represent a moose, though possibly one of them is a caribou, and the mode of execution vividly suggests some of the examples of prehistoric art found in Europe and familiar by repeatedly published illustrations.
Fig. 1255.—Hand, Kejimkoojik.