ABORIGINAL ART. Strictly speaking, the art of the aborigines, that is, of the original inhabitants of any region; and hence by exten sion, any primitive or savage art unaffected by the contact of a foreign and superior culture. In this sense the term is used without regard to the question of whether the people prac tising the art are true aborigines or not. The art of the savage tribes of our own time is included under this designation, and is studied carefully for the light it throws on primitive conditions, industries and conceptions. Yet the art of modern savage tribes must be con sidered as representing rather an early-arrested development than a truly primitive culture. The oldest known products of human industry are the flint and bone implements and the paint ings of the prehistoric cave-dwellers of West ern Europe, which in many respects, especially in the fine arts of drawing and painting, far surpass the most advanced works of modern savages. These works date from an antiquity estimated at 25,000 to 30,000 years. While in delineation of animal life they are thus superior to modern savage fine art, they reveal nothing of proficiency in the industrial arts of pottery and weaving or basketry, which are prominent in modern savage art. Indeed, basketry and pottery and the applied arts of carving and stamping constitute the chief artistic activi ties of modern savages. Of these pottery repre sents the more advanced development cultur ally. Primitive metal-working is met with in Africa and in some other regions. The ancient art of Central America, Mexico, Bolivia and Peru is aboriginal only in the sense of belong ing to the most ancient inhabitants of whom we have exact knowledge in those countries ; it exhibits many evidences of a civilization many stages removed from primitive savagery.
The primitive origins of art have been much discussed by anthropologists and philosophers. The earliest human works known, found in caves in the provinces of Dordogne, France, and Santander, Spain, include artistically shaped flint tools, carved bone handles, pictures engraved on bone, and paintings of animals on cave walls and roofs. But between this vividly
realistic prehistoric art of 30 millenniums ago and modern savage art there is a great gulf, in kind as well as time. Modern savage art is almost wholly decorative, seldom realistic. It is so largely fetishistic that some writers derive the primitive artistic instinct wholly from ani mism— the ascribing of animate magic powers to inanimate objects, and to representations of them and of animals. (See ANIMISM). Others think it is first awakened by the processes of basketry, weaving, string-lashing, etc., which produce certain regularly recurring motives or patterns. Others again find its root in personal adornment by tattooing, smearing with color, etc. Probably all three origins are in a measure correct. The decorative instinct once awakened develops more and more intricate combina tions, and this development continues until arrested by the cultural limitations of the people or region. Besides these forms of decorative plastic art, certain "savage" cultures have de veloped the art-instinct in other directions, such as primitive forms of poetry and drama, music (songs or chants), and the dance. In all these the idea of rhythmic form predominates over substance or content, and it is rhythmic repeti tion, with or without alternation, that charac terizes also all savage ornament, which is never realistic except, perhaps, in certain Australian rock-pictures and bushmen's drawings. Savage decoration, especially that of New Zealand and some other Polynesian islands, displays a keen sense of decorative values in space-filling, and infinite patience of execution. See ART; DECO RATIVE ART.
Bibliography.— Balfour, H., (The Evolu tion of Decorative Art' (London 1893) ; Grosse, Beginnings of Art' (New York 1897) ; Haddon, A. C., (Evolution in Art' (London 1895) ; Hamlin, A. D. F., (A History of Orna ment, Ancient and Medieval' (New York 1916) ; Osborn, H. F., of the Old Stone Age' (New York 1915) . • Tylor, E. B., Culture' (New York 1889).