Sociology

I have always associated mountains with some kind of grandeur or royalty.  It rules over the vastness of creation.  Those from below look up to it as if in worship.  Just like me the Chinese and the Andeans each have their own symbolisms of a mountain.  Most Chinese paintings depict mountains and waters like seas, rivers, brooks or lakes.  I believe that this comes from their ideal of balance in everything, including nature.  High and low or up and down is their yin and yang. The mountain stands for that which is above and the water as that which is down below.    The Qollahuaya Andeans understand Mt. Kaata in terms of the human anatomy.  They see the mountain as a human form with head, crotch and legs.  They also see it as territorial divisions from the top to the middle to the bottom.  I can see that the Andeans have a better use for mountains other than just a part of human nature in that they were able to subdivide their communities amicably without much political trouble.
The Masato chomo is a clay pot with designs from nature which is used for the storage and fermentation of wine by the Shipibo-Conibo tribe in the eastern part of Peru.  This is used in the celebration of a girl turning into a woman.  For the Wee people of Liberia and the West Coast the Gela Masks are those with the combination of the elements of man and animal.  They believe that these masks brings both the good and bad, such as forces of nature like thunder and lightning and also solutions to the problems of the community.  The forests were important to the Wee, they got their medicinal plants from the forests and with these they make pastes to apply to the Gela masks to heal sickness.  Paintings by the Pintupi nomads and other aborigines of Australia depicted Dreaming or the belief that the living are being protected by their ancestors.  Dreamings had basic geometric forms representing trees, fires, water and sand dunes.  I find that these cultures love nature to the point of reverence.  Anything that one would give the highest respect to, they take care and preserve like they do with human lives.

Where I come from, the art of Yoruba comes from the appreciation of nature, from what is beneath and what is beyond.  This can be seen in paintings, sculptures, textile designs and beadworks.  The Igboo tribes in southeastern Nigeria had Alusi Shrine figures which they call as guardian symbols.  They were basically into selling goods and food in the markets.  The Alusi were lined up in the markets for prosperity and abundance.