So pronounced is this technical bias that delineations of a
particular creature--as, for example, a bird--executed by distant and
unrelated peoples, are reduced in corresponding styles of fabric to
almost identical shapes. This conventionalizing force is further
illustrated by the tendency in textile representation to blot out
differences of time and culture, so that when a civilized artisan,
capable of realistic pictorial delineation of a high order, introduces
a figure into a certain form of coarse fabric he arrives at a result
almost identical with that reached by the savage using the same, who
has no graphic language beyond the rudest outline.

A number of examples may be given illustrating this remarkable power
of textile combination over ornament. I select three in which the
human figure is presented. One is chosen from Iroquoian art, one from
Digger Indian art, and one from the art of the Incas--peoples unequal
in grade of culture, isolated geographically, and racially distinct. I
have selected specimens in which the parts employed give features of
corresponding size, so that comparisons are easily instituted. The
example shown in Fig. 338 illustrates a construction peculiar to the
wampum belts of the Iroquois and their neighbors, and quite unlike
ordinary weaving. It is taken from the middle portion of what is known
as the Penn wampum belt. The horizontal series of strands consists of
narrow strips of buckskin, through which the opposing series of
threads are sewed, holding in place the rows of cylindrical shell
beads. Purple beads are employed to develop the figures in a ground of
white beads. If the maker of this belt had been required to execute in
chalk a drawing depicting brotherly love the results would have been
very different.

[Illustration: FIG. 338. Figures from the Penn wampum belt, showing