A careful study of the native arts of the American continent, in subsequent chapters, will bring under our notice the intellectual efforts of man in a purely savage state, and so help to a determination of what is implied in certain partial manifestations of mimetic design. This is the true corrective of any tendency to an undue estimate of the general progress implied by such evidence. It will be seen that a rare aptitude is shown among certain tribes for mimetic drawing and carving; yet it is of limited application, and accompanied by little superiority to surrounding tribes in the employment of the arts for the general requirements of savage life. Even in such cases, however, it is an evidence of latent powers, capable of development under favourable circumstances. The Esquimaux have been stimulated by the necessities of Arctic life to great ingenuity in the fashioning of their weapons, and in all other appliances of the chase, on which their very existence depends; but they are skilful, as a savage people, in the ornamental, as well as the useful arts. Their skin and fur dresses are fashioned and decorated with great taste; and many of their ivory and bone implements are beautifully carved. There is in the Museum of the University of Toronto a set of Esquimaux children’s toys, including miniature men, dogs, sledges, and objects of the chase, all carved in ivory with ingenious skill. The Thlinkets of Alaska, lying on the borders of the true Esquimaux region, make ladles and spoons from the horns of the deer, the mountain sheep, and the goat, which are special objects of the chase, and carve them with elaborate ingenuity. Grotesque masks of wood, paddles, knife handles of bone, bodkins, combs, and other personal ornaments, chiefly of walrus ivory, are all carved with great variety of design, though scarcely in a style of high art. [Illustration: FIG. 44.—Tawatin Ivory Carving of Whale.]