On the North Pacific coast of America the animal design, which is found in many other parts of the world, has associated itself firmly with the totemic idea, and has led to an unparalleled application of animal motives. This may also have helped to preserve the realistic character of this art. Among the Sioux the high valuation of military prowess, and the habit of exploiting deeds of war before the tribe, have been the causes that led the men to associate the decoration on their garments with events of war; so that among them a military symbolism has developed, while the women of the same tribe explain the same design in an entirely different manner (Wissler). It seems to me that in this last case we have no particular difficulty in following the line of thought that leads to the association between forms of decoration and military ideas, although in general our minds require a much more conscious effort than that of primitive man. The very fact of the well-nigh universal occurrence of decorative symbolism shows that this association must establish itself automatically and without conscious reasoning. In both mythology and art the tendency to give rationalistic explanations for the peculiar associations that have developed may be observed in those cases in which styles of art or myths are borrowed. The fact that decorative art among primitive people is almost everywhere symbolic does not preclude the possibility of designs, and even of the whole style, of one region, being borrowed from the people of another region. This has been the case, for instance, among the tribes of our Northwestern Plains, who have borrowed much of their art from their more southern neighbors; but they have not adopted at the same time its symbolical interpretations, but invented interpretations of their own. I imagine that this is the outcome of a mental process which set in when the designs were found pleasing, and, according to the general character of primitive thought, a symbolic interpretation was expected. This was then secondarily invented in accordance with the ideas current among the tribe.