Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

442 DECORA TI VE ART
torm of these designs is said to be the charm on
the arrow - quivers against lightning (see p. 400).]
The quivers in the Berlin Museum usually show
from five to seven triple ring-line groups, just about
equi-distant from one another ;
where
there are six
groups there is often a wider space left in the
centre (see Illustrations). Apart from the number of
groups, these two kinds correspond in fact to the
commonest arrangement of the panels on the tubes
and combs, and even quivers D and E might be
here reckoned. Even a simple ring-line group, pos-
sessing no specific import, acts as a general charm
against Diseases (quivers B, C). There then follow
single and double hatchings within the groups of
ring-lines, the panels themselves being left vacant
(quivers G, Mi to M3, blowpipe No. 50, etc.).
Lastly, the same simple figure may occur in all panels
or in the second panel of any particular pattern
(quivers I, O3, Ti, blowpipes t^Z^ 47, 49, etc.). This
fact may remind us either of the charcoal stripes
with which sick persons bedaub the diseased parts
of their body in order to recover, or the special
signs which the Puttos employed in like fashion
(see above), and which may be regarded as forming
the series of ring-lines, which appear to be greatly
multiplied here, without any clear object. As
soon, however, as the work of differentiating the
patterns of particular panels is approached, our
difficulties begin, as positive data are completely
wanting, and no panel (with the exception of the
middle one) is in any way more prominent than the
others.
The undivided patterns intended as charms against
serious Diseases, which cover the whole tube, seem