Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/532

 518 YRJO HIRN : others, have derived additional support from every fre^h examination of primitive systems of decoration. The isolated researches which have been carried on within the department of primitive literature and drama all point in the same direction. Wherever ethnologists have the opportunity of gaining some insight into the inner life of a savage tribe they are surprised at the religious or magical significance which lies concealed behind the apparently most trivial of amusements. And it is to be remarked that they have learned to appreciate this esoteric meaning, not by a closer examination of the manifestations themselves, but through information acquired by intercourse with the natives. There is often not a single feature in a savage dance which would give the uninitiated any reason to suspect the non- aesthetic purpose. When North American Indians, Kaffirs or Negroes perform a dance, in which all the movements of the animals they hunt are imitated, we unavoidably see in their antics an instance of primitive, but still purely artistic drama. It is only from the descriptions of Catlin, Lichten- stein and Eeade that we learn that these pantomimes have in reality quite as practical a purpose as those imitations and representations of animals by which hunters all over the world try to entice their game within shooting distance. According to the doctrine of sympathetic magic it is indeed an axiomatic truth that the copy of a thing may at any distance influence the thing itself, and that thus a buffalo dance, even when it is performed in the camp, may compel the buffaloes to come within range of the hunters. But the deceptive appearance of disinterestedness, which in these cases might have led one to mistake a mere piece of hunting magic for a specimen of pure dramatic art, is apt to make us cautious about accepting as independently aesthetic any manifestations of primitive man. In the songs and dances by which savages exhort them- selves to work and regulate their exertions we find an aspect of utilitarian advantage which is real and not imaginary. It is also evident that it is this advantage, and not any independent aesthetic pleasure, which is intentionally or unintentionally aimed at in the war-pantomimes, the boat- ing songs, dances, etc. And it is no doubt for this reason that music and dance have attained so surprising a develop- ment in the lower stages of culture. In trying, therefore, to explain the historical development of art, we are compelled to take into account that foreign purpose which is never acknowledged in art-theory. If every work of art were really a Selbstzweck, standing