Abstract
LONDON. Royal Anthropological Institute, December 9.—H. Balfour: The origin of the art of stencilling in the Fiji Islands. The use of stencils in the Fiji Islands, for decorating bark-cloth, does not appear to have been introduced into the group from the outside, and it was suggested that the stencil designs, which are cut in leaves almost invariably, may very probably have been suggested by leaves which have been tunnelled by insect larva? while still in the tightly rolled up state of the budding leaf. The leaves, when they unroll in the course of their development, exhibit transverse alignments of regular perforations, which bear a striking resemblance to some of the simpler Fijian stencil designs.
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Societies and Academies. Nature 115, 34–35 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/115034b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/115034b0