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Show 258 BASIS OP AMERICAN HISTORY [ 1500 pottery- making group, for example, should possess a type of decoration and design sharply differentiated from that in use where pottery is unknown. There is nevertheless a wide distribution of certain types of design which requires notice. \ Primitive art in general serves a useful as well as a strictly aesthetic end, and the fact that ornamentation, apparently purely decorative, often has a significance of another sort is now universally recognized, ^ h e development of geometrically symmetrical patterns from pictorial designs has been much discussed in recent years, and the art of the American Indian is a good example of the process. In many cases the realistic element in the patterns is no longer traceable, while the design yet carries a meaning easily recognized by the native. \ This symbolic^ character of Indian art is its most striking feature. In many cases the symbolism is undoubtedly read into the design, while in others it has developed through a gradual course of conventionalization. The art of the west is much richer than that of the east, and it is on the north Pacific coast, the plains, and in the southwest that we find the most considerable aesthetic \ development; The northwest coast art is uniqufe. . Ji- sxhibits itself both in carving and in painting, as well as, to some extent, in weaving. In this region realism is never entirely lost sight of, and in the portrayal of animals, which form their motives, a certain resemblance is always |