It was in connection with ideas of magic and of demons that _formative art_ or, as it would perhaps be truer to say, the elements from which this art proceeded, was developed. Such art was not unknown even to the primitive peoples of the pretotemic age. If anywhere, it is doubtless among the primitive tribes of Malacca and Ceylon that we can, in some measure and with some certainty, trace formative art to its earliest beginnings and to the causes back of these. The Bushman must here be excluded from consideration, since, as we shall see, he was clearly affected by external influences. The Veddahs, as well as the Senoi and Semangs, are familiar with only the simplest forms of linear decoration. Yet this makes it evident that simple lines, such as can be produced by cutting or by scratching, form the starting-point of almost all later development. Here again it is the bamboo that is utilized, its wood being a material suitable for these simple artistic attempts. Its connection with art is due also to the fact that it is used in the manufacture of implements and weapons, such as the bow and the digging-stick, and, later, the blow-pipe and the flute. As important objects of adornment, we find the combs of the women, which, among the Malaccan tribes, are extremely rich in linear decorations. At first, the dominant motive is the triangle. Just as the triangle is the simplest rectilinear figure of geometry, so also is it the simplest closed ornamental pattern. The weapons not infrequently have a series of triangles included within two parallel straight lines. This illustrates in its simplest form the universal characteristic of primitive ornaments, namely, uniform repetition. The pattern later becomes more complicated; the triangles are crossed by lines between which there are spaces that are also triangular in form. Such figures are then further combined into double triangles having a common base, etc. These are followed by other forms, in which simple arcs take the place of straight lines. For example, an arc is substituted for the base of each triangle, again with absolute uniformity. Finally, the arc, in the form of the segment of a circle, is utilized independently, either in simple repetition or in alternation. These simple designs then become increasingly complex by the combination either of the forms as a whole or of some of their parts. This multiplication of motives reaches its most artistic development in the women's combs found among the tribes of the Malay Peninsula. The comb, in some form or other, is a very common article of adornment among peoples of nature. But it is just in the form in which it occurs among the Senoi and Semangs that the comb gives evidence of having originally been, at most, only incidentally an article of adornment and of having only gradually come to be exclusively a decoration. In shape, it is like the women's combs of to-day. The teeth are pointed downwards, and serve the purpose of fastening the hair.