Not less ephemeral than the literary subjects are the motives of primitive pictorial art. In Herr von den Steinen’s account of the Xingu tribes we can find some most typical examples of such explanatory designs by which the poetic and dramatic recitals of battles, travels, etc., are supplemented.[209] Owing to their fugitive character these simple manifestations can never be reduced to a scientific account. But there is reason to believe that in all parts of the world pictures have been drawn in the air or in the sand, of which there remain no more trace than of the gesture that is over or of the unwritten poem that is forgotten. It is evident, however, that in some instances at least there have remained traces of these ephemeral narrations. The picture might have been drawn on some piece of bark or cloth instead of on the sand, the pantomime might have been repeated even after its subject had lost its actuality, or the text remembered after it had served its immediate purpose in the narration. The fugitive recital, whether pictorial, mimic, or oral, which lives only for the moment might in this way have become a permanent work, conveying the contents of the narrative to future times. One would think that as soon as such a means of preserving a record of past events had been, intentionally or accidentally, discovered, it would have immediately been turned to account. There is, after all, but one step between the impromptu dance or poem, which tells of a recent occurrence, and the work of art, which forwards the memory of the same occurrence to consecutive generations. Ethnological science shows, however, that this distinction is by no means a theoretical one only. There are tribes amongst the lower savages in which the pantomimes and dances refer only to the most recent events. And if amongst these tribes some pictures or some dances have been preserved from older times, they appear to be quite isolated exceptions, the presence of which one is tempted to attribute to accident rather than design. It is only when we look to a higher degree of culture that we find a commemorative art, in the true sense of the word, appearing.