Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/48

42 the fingers, their general plan being unaffected by the presence of the wrinkles. By a more careful study of the papillary ridges it will be seen that they are often discontinued, reinforced by new ones, forked or, in a few cases, looped, and that in certain spots the usual course is interrupted by the insertion of a figure or 'pattern,' as it is technically called, in the form of a spiral, a whorl or a loop. Such patterns are of constant occurrence in the balls of the fingers, while the palm usually, though not always, possesses from one to four or five of them, located in certain definite localities, as at the base of the fingers or upon the raised, pad-like outer side of the palm, the hypothenar area. In rare cases such a pattern is met with upon the thenar area, at the base of the thumb (Fig. 6, a) but the fine parallel wrinkles almost always found in this region render it difficult to see.

It will be seen, now, by turning to the figure, that each of the above details has been indicated by the Micmac artist, not literally, as we should do it, but symbolically, that is, by something to suggest each detail. Thus in the drawing there are two sets of palmar lines; the foundation or background, consisting of fine lines approximately parallel, and evidently indicative of the papillary ridges, and the superimposed angular ones with little or no system, which represent the wrinkles. As for patterns, it is possible that the little curve near the outer margin may represent the hypothenar pattern, which, though not a constant element, is of frequent occurrence; and, at all events, the patterns at the finger tips are well indicated save in the case of the index finger where the omission is probably accidental. Here also the difference in the form of the separate patterns is well shown; that of the thumb is a spiral, a usual form for that digit, those of the third and fourth fingers are whorls and the curious cross or mark like the Arabic number four, found upon the little finger, may represent certain of the components of that form known as a loop.

Turning from Indian anatomy to Indian morphology, from the observation of facts to the construction of explanatory theories, we have the followng remarkable passage in one of the reports of the Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie as cited by Col. Mallory, in connection with the figure of the hand and representing a conversation with one of the Bella Coola Indians of British Columbia.

The frequency with which partial representation of the eye are met with appeared to me so striking that I requested Mr. Jacobsen to ask the Bella Coola Indians whether they had any special idea in employing the eye so frequently. To my great surprise the person addressed pointed to the palmar surface of his finger tips and to the fine lineaments which the skin there presents; in his opinion a rounded or longitudinal field, such as appears between the converging or parallel lines, also means an eye, and the reason of this is that originally each part of the body terminated in an organ of sense,