The first hypothesis is well illustrated by von den Steinen’s description of the chain figures of the Bakaïri. He says, “As the rhyme often suggests the thought, so an outline already familiar may suggest a motive”; the meagre suggestions which satisfy savages in such cases “is evident in most of the figures which adorn their necklaces, strung between seeds, shells, and nuts. It matters not what is the material—a bit of the spiral of a rose-coloured snail shell with an irregular outline does duty as a crab; from the shell of the _Caramujo branco_ (_Orthalicus melanostornus_) they cut birds and fishes;... bits of green and black mottled stone are fishes when flat and birds when rounded, and sometimes Nature is assisted in carrying out these resemblances. Fruit, too, was used which bore an accidental resemblance to some sort of bird.”[590] But Brazilian plastic art includes the other type as well; they mould figures in wax and in the edible clay which furnished their forefathers with food. As a man held a lump of clay in his hand the impulse may have been aroused by some accidental resemblance, and thus give rise in a purely playful manner to the custom which von den Steinen has called “only a skilful method of storing the material.... Black wax was most beautifully moulded by the Mehinakú into excellent animal forms and suspended around the neck or laid away in a basket until wanted.”[591] That this was a playful habit is proved by the maize figures of the same tribe. These were usually bird forms almost as large as turkeys, and hung from the roof on long ropes, “A strange spectacle to the traveller who thinks at once of idols or fetiches, but these fine birds are in reality nothing but well-filled ears of corn in the natural husks.”[592] We can not here go into the higher forms of primitive sculpture, but it may be mentioned in passing that even such aboriginal tribes as the Indians of central Brazil often make use of their plastic skill for symbolic decoration. Thus the Mehinakú adorn the upper end of their wooden spades with the carved head of a mud wasp, because they too dig in the ground and throw up the dirt as the Indian does with his tool.[593]