Marvin Amstey

Several other artifacts of these tribes contain bird images. The best known of these are the bird asmalyks. Here is a scan from a portion of a Yomud tent band fragment in my collection:

Louis Dubreuil

Hi Marvin

As usual in rug design it is very difficult to interpret complex motifs.
In the case displayed here it is tempting to see a group of birds, but it is also reasonable to se the motif as a plant stylized form , completing the ashik tree motif.

The kush motif is more clear and its genealogy is easy to follow.

Cordialement

Louis

Marvin Amstey

A plant??!! The birds have bird-feet.

Steve Price

Hi Marvin and Louis

A similar mini-debate is going on in one of our Show and Tell threads. I've copied this excerpt from it because I think it's relevant here, too:

Rich Larkin wrote, "I can only quote Pirandello, subject to the correction of Filiberto: It is so, if you think so."

I wrote, I think Pirandello's rule applies to many motifs on rugs. We give them names that describe how they look to us. ... literal interpretation of motifs in terms of the perceptions they elicit in us (is a trap). My favorite is Douglass's vision of prayer rug layouts as stylized male genitals (internal and external!).

Regarding the motif on Marvin's tentband, it makes me think of birds first, but vegetation isn't implausible. Spiders and scorpions come to mind, too. I'm sure I could envision other things if I think about it for awhile. Who knows if any of those are right? Not me.

One of the things I like very much about Louis' Salon essay is how well he separates the facts from his speculations about them. It's all too rarely seen in writings about motifs, their origins, and their meanings.

Regards

Steve Price

Louis Dubreuil

Hello Marvin

One of the arguments it could be not birds, is that generally (I say generally, but exceptions are known in ensis and asmalyks), the ashik tree motif is made to be seen with the "V branches" turned upward. In your picture the V branches are turned downward. So if we look at the "bird motif" placed upsidedown, it doesn't look like birds at all....
One can object that tent bands are not made to be seen vertically but more likely horizontally.....
Could it be possible to see more of this tent band in order to understand the general design organization ?

Ensi are clearly oriented rugs, so it is easier to read them with the correct direction.

It could be interesting also to study the genealogy of this type of ambiguous motifs, to see if at the begining it was animal or plant rendering, but datas are quite inexistant


Cordialement


Louis

Marvin Amstey

The fragment of tent band containing the previous image is about 4 feet long. It is a complete segment in that the opposite end of the segment has the identical image (of birds; I think) - but upside down. In the middle of this segment is this image - an obvious Tauk Nauska device complete with an animal. However, I won't get into a disussion about whether this is a goat or dog or???

Does this affect your conclusions?

Louis Dubreuil

Hi again Marvin

If I understand, the design is symmetrical and the two mirored devices join together at the "tauk nauska center". This can designate the part where the tauk nauska are as the base and the part with the ambiguous shape as the top. Then your picture is well upside down, and the "birds" have the heads and beaks at the place of the feet. So this motif is in my opinion more likely a plant form than an animal form. This hypothesis is reinforced by the presence of numerous flower devices all along the ashik tree, at the ends of the "branches" and on the "trunk". It is logical that a big "flower" blooms at the upper end of a plant stem.
We can also find real flowers with long curved and fine cylindrical devices that point downard from pieces of the corolla (in which some butterflies lick sweet nectar with very long rolled tongs) and with crenelated top parts of the corolla.


If the tauk nauska devices seem to be upsidedown compared with the direction of each ashik tree this maybe because the drawing represents a flat projection of a 3D "pedestal" on which the tauk nauskas ornate the sides. This is a current deformation on rug drawing. The total design can be a flat drawing of a kind of symbolic tree standing on the ground on a pedestal with tauk nauska "guardians" and with a big flower at the top (like our chrismas trees ). We have here, in my opinion, just a variant of the classical figure of the "animal tree". The symmetrycal transformation in a two ashiks device is logical in the case of a band that can be horizontally displayed and on which there is no "earth" and no "sky" like on an ensi.


Cordialement


Louis

Marvin Amstey

Curious

Louis Dubreuil

Hi Marvin

There are lots of animals that can be found in rug design : sheep, dogs, lions, tigers, rams, goats, chikens, hens, cocks, cranes, eagles, unknown birds, phoenix, peacocks, turtles, frogs, scorpions, snakes, dragons, spiders, men and women, but I don't remember to have seen any felix catus.....And I think this is very curious....


Cordialement

louis