German anthropologists[1] among the wilder peoples of eastern Brazil give us a fair idea of designs in a few localities. As previously noted, we find here the designs peculiar to cane basketry in all parts of the world; however, some textile work exists in which simple striped designs occur, though on the whole the designs are similar to those upon basketry. Painted decorations upon bark and wood are also found which have a geometric character; but these are almost entirely made up of triangles.
In the northwest Amazon country there is an identity between pottery designs and those used in body painting.[2] The colors are laid on in large masses, but in the form of true textile designs. A similar style of body painting has been reported for Panama.
This relatively brief survey of New World art reveals some interesting general characteristics. The experience of anthropologists shows that by generalizing design characteristics we can consistently differentiate a few centers of development and influence. These prove also to be centers of specialization in industrial art. For example, the tribes of California are lamentably deficient in everything but basketry. Again, we see that geometric art and realistic decoration tend to be antagonistic to each other in the sense that wherever one predominates the other adjusts itself to it. But while this is so strikingly true of the centers we find many intermediately situated peoples practising the two or more special arts of the nearest centers, but less successfully. In North America particularly, we find a tendency for women to produce the geometric art and men the realistic. That this has an important psychological basis is unlikely since the distinction is clearest among the groups where hunting is the chief work of the men. Here the textile arts fall to the women, who thus find their activities limited. Among the Pueblo peoples on the other hand, where the men wove, we still find geometric art.
Finally, we must not forget that we have been but skimming over the surface of a very complex problem. Each small territory presents its own particular characteristics. Art, too,
