Читать книгу Evolution in Art: As Illustrated by the Life-histories of Designs - Alfred C. Haddon - Страница 21

Table of Contents

The occurrence of scrolls and spirals in South-East New Guinea, and their general resemblance to certain Maori patterns, have led several observers to believe that there may have been intercourse between New Guinea and New Zealand. As this problem raises some interesting questions I have thought it desirable to discuss it, but to do so adequately would take far more room than can here be spared.

Mr. Goodyear makes out a good case for the view that some, at least, of the spiral scroll motives in Malaysia are due to Mohammedan influence; but he probably goes too far in ascribing all the scrolls of the decorative art of the Malay Archipelago to that source. “The ornamental system of India was in the first instance, as known to us, Buddhist, under Greek influences; second, Arab-Mohammedan. The spiral scroll ornament of modern India is a mixture and survival of the two. (The more formal classic style of old Buddhist ornament has disappeared in India.) This is the ornamental system of the Malay Archipelago.... The present ornamental system of Malaysia is mainly the Mohammedan-Arab, which is derived from Byzantine Greek. The Malay alphabet, the Malay ornament, the Malay religion, and the Malay culture are all derived from India.... The spiral scroll is absolutely foreign to the ornamental systems of Polynesia.

“There only remains the case of New Guinea and New Zealand. Not only does New Guinea border directly on the Malay Islands, but it is geographically part of Malaysia. [Mr. Goodyear is wrong in this statement, as in its geology,[13] fauna, and flora New Guinea is essentially Australian.] The princes of the Island of Tidore have actually been the potentates of the Northern Coast of New Guinea. The New Guinea ornamental system shows degraded and barbaric forms of the Mohammedan spiral scrolls of Malaysia. From these once more are derived the spiral scroll ornaments of New Zealand.”[14]

The problem is by no means so simple as the reader might infer from Mr. Goodyear’s remarks. It does not appear that he sufficiently allows for ethnic influence in decorative art. My contention is that we must first try to obtain a definite conception of the racial elements in a given people before we can expect to thoroughly comprehend their art. According to my experience, the more backward the people, the less they borrow artistic motives. Why should they? Their ornament has to them a significance and associations which foreign decoration lacks; the latter appeals to them no more than does Mexican or Mangaian ornament to us. From their mental attitude they are far less likely to copy foreign designs than are we. I have already (p. 65) adduced an interesting example of this when I compared the art of the Motu folk with that of the Gulf Papuans.

Malaysia is peopled by various races, of which the Malay stock is undoubtedly predominant, but the latter is regarded as having been, comparatively speaking, a late wave of migration, and probably the advent of the Malay was the disturbing cause which initiated the wanderings of the Polynesians (or Sawaiori, as Mr. A. H. Keane terms them).

Even in Oceania the problem is complicated by the now generally received fact of an earlier population of many of the islands by Melanesians. Personally, I believe we can find distinct traces of their artistic skill in the decorative art which we are accustomed to put down as “Polynesian”; indeed, I suspect that most of the Oceanic wood-carving is due to Melanesian influence, although it now illustrates Sawaiori mythology.

I have not yet studied the decorative art of the Malay Archipelago; but as my friend, Professor Hickson, has, I will quote what he has said on the subject:—“From collections in museums it might be supposed that the Malays are very artistic; this is perhaps due to the fact that collectors frequently will only obtain implements and the like that are ornamented with curious coloured designs and figures, and leave behind all the spears, shields, and the like that are not so ornamented; the result being that an unfair proportion of ornamented things appear in the cabinets of the museum. I am inclined to believe that the Malays are not artistic, and that the few ornamented designs of their own are very poor and primitive.”[15] After alluding to the ruined temples in Sumatra and Java, and the complicated patterns on the people’s costumes, he continues, “but this is not Malay art. It is the art that was brought by Buddhist priests in the third century, according to Fa-hien, the Chinese pilgrim from Further India.

“Nor should we judge of Malay art from the specimens obtained in Timor, Aru, Timor Laut, and Ceram, for in these islands there is undoubtedly a very great influence from the mixture of the race with the Papuans. In Celebes, South Borneo, and the Moluccas, there is very little art; and this is due, I believe, to the fact that there has been very little Buddhist influence and very little Papuan influence.

“The chief character of Malay art, if it can be so called, is the absence of any good curves. Nearly all their designs are angular, and those that they have copied from other races have a tendency to become angular.” The implements, weapons, cloths, etc., “of the people are frequently, if not usually, unornamented, in striking contrast to similar things among the Papuans. Nothing could be more impressive than the contrast in this respect between a Malay and a Papuan village.”

There can be no doubt that the decorative art of North-West New Guinea has been affected by influences from Malaysia; but it is very doubtful whether this has penetrated very far inland, or even very far down the coast.

It must be remembered that the Papuans, and Melanesians generally, are a fierce people, and there is, as a rule, very little intercourse indeed between various tribes, in fact there is an almost continual condition of inter-tribal war. In a country containing great mountain ranges, dense jungles, or extensive swamps, with no roads, and innumerable tribes speaking different languages, and at enmity with one another, it is difficult to see how artistic motives could readily travel. There are only two possible routes, rivers and the coast-line.

I have elsewhere[16] stated that the Fly River “has been to a certain extent what may be termed a ‘culture route,’ and that the natives of the higher reaches have indirect communication with those of the north coast of New Guinea.”

If any one will take the trouble to study the evidence I have collected, it will, I think, be incontestable that the scroll designs of the extreme south-east point of New Guinea and of the adjacent islands could not have come overland. With the possible exception of the central region of the Fly River, about which we at present know very little, I can see no traces of “Malayan” culture in the decorative art of British New Guinea.

The evidence at our disposal certainly points to the conclusion that the bulk, at all events, of the natives of the Louisiades, D’Entrecasteaux, and neighbouring islands and mainland are sea-borne immigrants. And if their scroll designs have not been developed in the district where they now reside, we must seek for their origin in the ancestral home of these travellers. I have discussed this question in my Memoir (pp. 258-269), and have stated it in a more concise form in Science Progress, vol. ii. (1894), pp. 91-95, and have come to the conclusion, which is shared by Mr. S. H. Ray, on linguistic grounds, that no Malay influence can be shown, but that the people came from the great chain of Melanesian islands which stretches from the Admiralty Islands to New Caledonia, and possibly from the Solomon group. Nowhere in the Melanesian Archipelago do we find scroll designs comparable with those of the district of New Guinea now under consideration. The conclusion, then, seems inevitable, that until further evidence is adduced we must regard these scroll designs as having originated in this district, and in the manner I have demonstrated—i.e., from birds’ heads.

To pass on to New Zealand. Although we have innumerable specimens of the beautiful and very characteristic wood-carving of New Zealand in our museums and in private collections, yet no one has seriously studied the art, or has offered a satisfactory explanation of it.

It is generally admitted that there was a Melanesian population on the group before the Maoris arrived some six hundred years ago. The latter probably came from some of the islands between Samoa and Tahiti, probably mainly from Rarotonga.

The scroll designs have no resemblance to the patterns from the Rarotongan region of Oceania. The only examples of this particular technique occur in one or two weapons from Fiji; these are of typical Fijian shapes, but the carving is in the New Zealand manner. One of these is in Baron von Hügel’s collection in Cambridge, and another is in the British Museum. I have no explanation to offer for these facts that is satisfactory to myself. Apart from one or two isolated Fijian specimens, the wood-carving of New Zealand is unique.