all the way from a small piece of cloth to the elaborate robes made of
highly colored cotton and woollen goods. The Celts were noted for
their highly colored garments and the artistic arrangement of the same.
The Greeks displayed a grace and simplicity in dress never yet
surpassed by any other nation. Yet the dress of early Greeks, Romans,
and Teutons was meagre in comparison with modern elaborate costumes.
All of this is a method of expression of the emotions and ideas and, in
one sense, is a language of the aesthetic.

Representative art, even among primitive peoples, carries with it a
distinctive language. It is a representation of ideas, as well as an
attempt at beauty of expression. The figures on pottery and basketry
frequently carry with them religious ideas for the expression and
perpetuation of religious emotion and belief. Even rude drawings
attempt to record the history of the deeds of the race. Progress is
shown in better lines, in better form, and a more exquisite blending of
colors. That many primitive people display a high degree of art and a
low degree of general culture is one of the insoluble problems of the
race. Perhaps it may be attributed primarily to the fact that all
artistic expression originally sprang from the emotional side of life,
and, in addition, may be in part attributed to the early training in
the acute observation of the forms of nature by primitive people upon
which depended their existence.

_Music Is a Form of Language_.--Early poetry was a recital of deeds,
and a monotonous chant, which finally became recorded as language
developed. The sagas and the war songs {132} were the earliest
expressions which later were combined with dramatic action. The poetry
of primitive races has no distinguishing characteristics except metre
or rhythm. It is usually an oft-recurring expression of the same idea.
Yet there are many fragmentary examples of lyric poetry, though it is
mostly egoistic, the individual reciting his deeds or his desires.
From the natives of Greenland we have the following about the hovering
of the clouds about the mountain:

"The great Koonak mountain, over there--
I see it;
The great Koonak mountain, over there--
I am looking at it;
The bright shining in the South, over there--
I admire it;
The other side of Koonak--
It stretches out--
That which Koonak--
Seaward encloses.
See how they in the South
Move and change--
See how in t