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HANDBOUND
AT THE

ALBANIAN GUN-FLINTS, &c.

THE

JOUKNAL

OP THE

^ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE

GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

VOL. XVI.

LONDON:

PUBLISHED FOB

ka! Institute 0f §reat grittam anb

TRUBNER & CO., 57 & 59, LUDGATE HILL.

1887.

LONDON :

HABEISON AND SONS, PBINTEES IN OEDINAKY TO HEE MAJESTY.
ST. MAETIN'S LANE.

GN
2,

CONTENTS.

PAGE
I. On Recent Designs for Anthropometric Instruments. By

FEANCIS GALTON, M.A., F.E.S., President . . . . 2

II. Exhibition of Anthropometric Instruments. By HOEACB

DARWIN, M.A 9

III. The Cephalic Index. By J. GK G-AESON, M.D 11

IV. The International Agreement on the Classification and

Nomenclature of the Cephalic Index. By J. Or. G-ABSON,

M.D 17

V. Description of a Skull from an Ancient Burying Place in
Kamtchatka. By ALEXANDEB MACALISTEE, M.D.,
F.E.S., Professor of Anatomy in the University of
Cambridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

VI. On Australian Medicine Men ; or, Doctors and Wizards of

some Australian Tribes. By A. W. HOWITT, F.G.S. . . 23
VII. Notes on the Numeral System of the Yoruba Nation. By

ADOLPHTTS MANN 59

VIII. On the Flint-Knapper's Art in Albania. By ABTHUB J.

EVANS, M.A., F.S.A 65

IX. Notes upon a few Stone Implements found in South Africa.

By W. HENET PENNING, F.GKS 68

X. Notes on Prehistoric Finds in India. By E. BETTCE FOOTE,

F.GKS 70

XI. The Present Condition of the Native Tribes in Bechuana-

land. By C. E. CONDOE, Captain E.E 76

XII. On the Origin of Agriculture. By H. LING EOTH . . 102

XIII. Notes on the Sengirese. By Dr. S. J. HICKSON . . . . 136

XIV. Notes on Permanent Colour Types in Mosaic. By F.

G-ALTON, M.A., F.E.S., President 145

XV. Exhibition of a Nicobarese Skull. By Professor W. H.

FLOWEB, LL.D., F.E.S., P.Z.S., Vice-President .. . . 147
XVI. Notes on some South African Skeletons. By Professor :

A. MACALISTEE, F.E.S 149

XVII. Notes on a Skull from New Ireland. By Professor A. •

MACALISTEE, F.E.S. 150

CONTENTS.

XVIII. On American Shell-work and its Affinities. By Miss A. W.

BUCKLAND

XIX. On the Maldive Islands, more especially treating of Male

Atol. By C. W. EOSSET

XX. Introductory Remarks at the opening of the Anthropological
Conferences on the Native Eaces of the British Possessions.

By F. G ALTON, M.A., F.E.S., President

XXI. Eemarks on some of the Eaces of South Africa represented
at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition. By Dr. E. J.

MANN

XXII. On some Objects of Ethnological Interest from South

Africa, exhibited by C. D. WEBB

XXIII. On the Natives of the Gold Coast. By Sir JAMES

MARSHALL, C.M.G

XXIY. Note on the African Tribes of the British Empire. By

JOSEPH THOMSON, F.E.G-.S . .

XXY. On Archaic Survivals in Cyprus. By E. HAMILTON LANQ
XXVI. Introductory Eemarks at the Opening of the Conference on
the Native Eaces of America. By F. G-ALTON, F.E.S.,
President

XXVII. On the Eaces of the West Indies. By E. F. IM THTJRN . .

XXVIII. Eemarks on the Caribs. By GK H. HAWTAYNE, C.M.G. . .

XXIX. Eemarks on the Natives of British North America. By

Dr. JOHN EAE . . . .

XXX. The Australian Natives. By JAMES BONWICK, F.E.G-.S.
XXXI. On the Natives of New Zealand. By F. W. PENNEFATHER
XXXII. On the Natives of Fiji. By the Hon. J. E. MASON, C.M.G.
XXXIII. On the Native Eaces of the Straits Settlements and Malay

States. By F. A. SWETTENHAM, C.M.G.
XXXIV. On the Natives of British North Borneo. By W. B.

PETER, C.M.Z.S

XXXV. Exhibition of Ethnological Casts. By Professor W. H.

FLOWER, LL.D., F.E.S., Vice-President

XXXVI. An Interpretation of one of the Copan Monuments,
Honduras. By Dr. E. T. HAMT, Corr. Member Anthrop.

Inst

XXXVII. The Aborigines of Hispaniola. By HY. LING EOTH
XXXVIII. On the Tribes of the Eastern Soudan. By DONALD A.

CAMERON, H.B.M. Consul for the Eastern Soudan
XXXIX. Exhibition of West African Symbolic Messages. By G. W.

BLOXAM, M.A., F.L.S., Assistant Secretary
XL. On the Eaces Inhabiting Sierra Leone. By T. E. GRIFFITH,

Colonial Secretary at Sierra Leone. .

XLI. Papuans and Polynesians. By the Eev. GEORGE BROWN. .

XLII. Notes on Songs and Songmakers of some Australian Tribes.

By A. W. HOWITT, F.G.S., Corr. Member Anthrop. Inst.

CONTENTS. V

PAGE
XLIII. Music of the Australian Aborigines. By the Eev. G. W.

TORRANCE, M.A., Mus.D 335

XLIV. A few Particulars concerning the Aborigines of Western
Australia in the early history of that Colony. By E.

H. BLAND 340

XLY. The Aboriginal Tribes of Manipur. By Dr. GEOEGE WATT,

M.B., C.M., F.L.S., C.I.E 34G

XLVI. The Egyptian Classification of the Races of Man. By

REGINALD STUABT POOLB, LL.D., D.C.L. Univ. South. . 370
Annual General Meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38O

Address delivered at the Anniversary Meeting of the Anthropological
Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, January 25th, 1887. By
FRANCIS GALTON, F.R.S., President . . . . . . . . . . 387

ANTHROPOLOGICAL MISCELLANEA.

On a New Craniophore for Use in Taking Composite Photographs of

Skulls. By JOHNS. BILLINGS, M.D., U.S.A... ' 97

On American Family Peculiarities in the 18th Century. By the Rev.

JONATHAN BOUCHER .. . . 98

Romano-British Mosaic Pavements . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

The Legend of Narcissus. By J. G. FRAZER, M.A. 344

Sketch of Nguna Grammar. By SIDNEY H. RAY 409-

On the Nationalities of the United Kingdom. By Sir JOHN LTJBBOCK,

M.P., F.R.S 418

Psycho-physical Research in America. By JOSEPH JASTOW . . . . 422

Prehistoric Remains in South Africa. By Miss A. W. BFCKLAND . . 423

Australian Tunes. By HY. LING ROTH . . . . . . . , . . 425

Introduction a Petude des Races Humaines : Questions Generales. Par

A. De Quatref ages 425

The Royal Ethnographic Museum at Dresden . . . . . . . . 42&

INDEX .. .. 427

ILLUSTRATIONS.

PLATES.
I. Albanian Gun-flints, &c. . . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece

II. New Craniophore of Dr. Billings and Dr. Matthews . . . . 97

III. Sculptured Stone of Copan, Honduras 246

IV. West African Symbolic Messages 295

vi CONTENTS.

PAGE

V. Group of Kaupui Nagas .... . . 353

VI. Group of Tankhul Nagas 365

VTII 1 Profiles fr°m Ancient Egyptian Monuments . . 376

WOODCUTS.

Artistic forms of Stone Implements from the West Indies . . . . . 194

THE JOUENAL

OP THE

ANTHEOPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE

GEEAT BEITAIN AND IEELAND.

FEBRUARY 9th, 1886.

FKANCIS G ALTON, Esq., M.A., F.E.S., President, in the Chair.
The Minutes of the last meeting were read and signed.

The following presents were announced, and thanks voted to
the respective donors : —

FOR THE LIBRARY.

From H. H. PRINCE EOLAND BONAPARTE. — Note sur les recents

Voyages du Dr. H. Ten Kate dans 1'Amerique du Sud.
From the AUTHOR. — Mensuration des cranes des Grottes de Baye.

Par P. Topinard.
Die Capacitat und die drei Hauptdurchmesser der Schadel-

kapsel bei den verschiedenen Nationen. Von Hermann

Welcker.
From the STATE BOARD OF HEALTH, Ac., MASSACHUSETTS. — Sixth

Annual Eeport. Supplement, 1884.
From the GOVERNMENT OF NEW ZEALAND. — Statistics of the Colony

of New Zealand for the year 1884.
From the DEUTSCHE GESELLSCHAFT FUR ANTHROPOLOGIE. — Corres-

pondenz Blatt, 1885. Nos. 11, 12.
From the BERLIN GESELLSCHAFT FUR ANTHROPOLOGIE. — Zaitschrift

fur Ethnologic. 1835. Heft 5.
From the ARCHJIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AGRAM. — Viestnik hrvatskoga

Arkeologickoga Druztva. Godina VIII. Br. 1.
From the ACADEMY. — Atti della Eeale Accademia dei Lincei. Vol.

I, Fas. 28., Vol. II, Fas. 1.
From the ASSOCIATION.— The Journal of the Eoyal Historical and

Archaeological Association of Ireland. No. 60.
VOL. XVI. B

2 FRANCIS GALTON.— On Recent Designs

From the CLUB.— Proceedings of the Berwickshire Naturalists'

Club. Vol. X, No. 3.
From the SOCIETY.— Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal

Society of Canada for the year 1884. Vol. II.
Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, 1886.

Journal of the Royal Geological Society of Ireland. Vol.

VI, Part 3. New Series.
Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. Vol. XIII,

Journal of the Society of Arts. Nos. 1730-1733.

Bulletin de la Societe Imperiale des Naturalistes de Moscou,

1884. No. 4.
VII. Jahresbericht der Geographischen Gesellschaft von Bern,

1884-1885.
From the EDITOR.— Nature. Nos. 846-849.

Science. Nos. 152-155.

— Revue d'Anthropologie, 1886. No. 1.

Revue d'Ethnographie, 1885. No. 5.

- L'Homme. Nos. 23, 24.
Materiaux pour 1'Histoire de l'Homme, 1886, Jan.

The election of the following new Members was announced : —
Professor OTIS T. MASON, of the Smithsonian Institution,
Washington ; Professor J. RANKE, of Munich ; Dr. L.
MANOUVRIER, of Paris ; and Professor J. KOLLMANN,
of Basel, as Honorary Members; and the Rev. W.
BIRKS, of Wanstead Villa, Villier's Road, Southsea;
J. G. BLUMER, Esq., of Satis House, Darlington ; F. H.
COLLINS, Esq., F.L.S., of Churchfield, Edgbaston,
Birmingham; I. SPIELMAN, Esq., of 3, Westbourne
Crescent ; and T. L. WALL, Esq., of Leyland, Preston,
as Ordinary Members.

Mr. HORACE DARWIN exhibited several Anthropometric
Instruments made by the Cambridge Scientific Instrument
Company.

M. COLLIN, of Paris, exhibited a Traveller's Box of Anthropo-
metric Instruments.

Professor A. MACALISTER, F.R.S., exhibited a skull from an
ancient burying ground in Kamtchatka.

The following Paper was read by the President : —

On RECENT DESIGNS for ANTHROPOMETRIC INSTRUMENTS.
By FRANCIS GALTON, F.R.S., President.

IT is rather more than a year since I submitted, for criticism and
discussion, the instruments that I employed in my temporary

anthropometric laboratory at the International Health Ex-
hibition, South Kensington, in 1884. Since then, further
experience of their use, and the results of your discussion of
them, have led to modifications and new designs. These I again
desire to- submit to your helpful criticism. They are made by
the Scientific Instrument Company in Cambridge, whose two able
directors, Mr. Horace Darwin and Mr. Dew Smith, have kindly
acted as members of the small committee who superintended
the measurements made with my instruments during the past
year at Cambridge. They are therefore well qualified to design
and carry out improvements in them. The other instruments on
the table are those recommended by M. Topinard, Professor of
Anthropology in Paris, for the use of travellers, and described
by him in his Anthropome'trie Gene'rale. They are very
ingeniously made and packed into a portable box, but with the
exception of a. dynamometer to test the strength of squeeze,
they refer wholly to linear measurements of the body and its
parts.

I have received numerous letters concerning the establish-
ment of anthropometric laboratories at various places, and on
the addition to laboratories that already exist, of apparatus to
measure various faculties. A frequent desire is also expressed for
instruments and instructions to measure the head. It is to
these points — measurements of the faculties and measurements of
the head — that I principally desire to call your attention now.

First of all, let us consider the cui bono of making any
measurements- at all. The chief object of them, as it seems to
me, is to define the individual or the race, and to show in what
way, and to what extent, he or it differs from others. So far as
the individual is concerned, measurements teach him to know
his own powers at any given time. The second important object
is to keep watch over the development during the period of
growth, and to give timely warning if it does not proceed
normally. Just as the examinations in books, with which every
student is now only too familiar, test the amount and progress
of his intellectual acquirements, so these other examinations
test his strength and swiftness, his keenness of sight, hearing,
and touch ; his colour sense, his power of distinguishing slight
differences in musical notes, his quickness of response to
stimulus, and not a few other elementary psychical facts.

The sort of letters that I receive may be best shown by examples.
One that reached me about six weeks ago came from a Japanese
professor in the University of Tokio, who had been educated
and taken his degree at Cambridge, stating that his Japanese
students had subscribed a sum of £36 for the outfit of an
anthropometric laboratory, and he asked me to order such

4 FRANCIS GALTON. — On Recent Designs

instruments as I thought most suitable. The list that he
enclosed of the desired objects of measurement, contained those
of which I have just spoken.

Professor Giuseppe Sergi, of the University of Eome, writes to
say that he desires to add to his anthropological cabinet a
specimen set of instruments for use in schools. He enclosed a
pamphlet in which his views on their utility are set forth, and
desired me to select a list for him.

M. Topinard, professor of anthropology in Paris, whose
experience of the art of measuring the linear dimensions of the
living human body, and those of the skull and other bones, is
unsurpassed, writes to me to the following effect upon what I
have called the measurement of faculties :

I have written nothing as yet concerning physiological instructions
to travellers, awaiting a convenient moment for doing so. I am
disposed to take directly yonr system, and will ask to have all your
apparatus sent to me. We possess no samples of colours for hair
and eyes beyond the polychromatic table of Broca, which the
Anthropological Institute employs, but I am about to undertake
new work of this kind, and intend shortly to have some samples
made ; but not many of them, probably five for eyes and five for
hair. My present difficulty is to select the exact shades and tints ;
if you have yourself made any such sets, I should be much obliged
if you would let me have one.

I have also very lately received letters from two gentlemen
who have just joined our institute, one of whom, Mr. Spielman,
is already commencing a series of observations on a large scale,
and both of whom are establishing anthropometric laboratories.

It is therefore obvious that a decision cannot be delayed as to
the best instruments procurable for the above-mentioned pur-
poses, in respect to facility of use, accuracy, portability, and
cheapness. There is no finality in any design ; I hope we shall
always go on improving ; but what is requisite now is to find
the most satisfactory design that already exists or can at once
be suggested, and to recommend its use until it shall be super-
seded by something distinctly better.

I will first ask your attention to the measurement of the head.
Its object is to show, indirectly, how much and up to what age
the brain continues to grow in bulk in different individuals,
especially with a view of comparing the uneducated classes with
those who are educated. It is well known that the size of the
caps worn by university students much exceed that of the
uneducated population, and it is therefore a matter of much
interest to learn both generally and individually at what age the
growth of the brain comes to a standstill under different circum-
stances. Unfortunately the measurement in question is difficult

to make with completeness. Craniologists, who are able freely
to manipulate a skull, and have no trouble about varying thick-
ness of skin and density of hair, and who see all the markings
of the skull, have been long in coming to a general opinion, even
if that is already reached, as to the best way of measuring it.
Much less is it to be hoped that any general consensus will be
arrived at soon as to the best way of measuring the living
head. The maximum breadth of the head is easily taken
by calipers or by sliding bars, if they are furnished with blunt
teeth like a comb, in order to penetrate the hair and reach the
skin. The maximum length of the head is also easily to be
taken if we start from the glabella (the point between the eye-
brows) or from the smooth spot above it. Probably it would be
thought worth while to make both measurements. That from
the glabella alone seems objectionable, because the frontal sinus
grows rapidly in early adult life, and so far as it does this, a
measurement that includes it would give an erroneous idea of
the contemporary growth of the brain. The measurement of
the height of the head is the great difficulty. It has to be taken
at right angles to some very clearly defined plane of reference ;
and the question is, what plane of reference should be selected ?
The instrument I have used was made by Mr. H. Darwin
and lies upon the table. It takes measurements from the plane
that passes through two pairs of symmetrical points, namely,
the two earholes and the upper and inner edges of the orbits,
the latter affording an excellent catching place to hold a slight
projection at the bottom of the instrument, without any risk of
hurting the eyeball. The earholes are less satisfactory. It is a
question whether a better plane of reference might not be found
in that which passes through the upper edges of the orbits as
before, and through the occipital tuber (or the inion), and to
measure the height of the head by a perpendicular to that plane
which crosses the earhole, or the middle of the tragus (the small
portion of the external ear which covers the earhole as with a
flap).

On these points I hope that the eminent craniologists present
will favour me with their opinions and advice.

[The subject was subsequently discussed by Professors Flower,
Macalister, and Thane, and by Dr. Garson, who all agreed that
a plane of reference passing through the lower and outer edges
of the orbits and the earholes was a good one, if the instrument
was pressed firmly down against the edges of the orbit, by a
band under the chin or otherwise. Mr. H. Darwin would alter the
existing instrument so as to adapt it for this purpose. It was also
agreed that the occipital tuber was not a good point of reference.
— F. G.]

6 FRANCIS G- ALTON.— On Recent Designs

Standards of <ooloitr for eyes and hair. — Printed tints, like
those of Broca and of Chevreuil, fade, and it is very difficult to
compare the colour of hair with any flat tint. I have suggested
the use of glass in small discs for comparison with eyes, and the
same glass spun by a glass-blower for comparison with hair.
Mr. H. Darwin is preparing specimens of these.

Dynamometer. — The common dynamometer for squeeze of hand
is untrustworthy, because the maximum power of the squeezo
much depends on the size of the object, at the moment of maxi-
mum strain, being convenient to the grip. In the ordinary
instrument a strong man soon brings the handles so nearly
together that his maximum, strain is exerted very disadvan-
tageously to his muscles. Mr. H. Darwin has devised a new
instrument to ^remedy this, but it is not completed.

Sight. — I lay on the table the pattern of the instrument I
used for testing acuteness of sight, but shall not say anything
now about it, as -I understand that it has been criticised at Cam-
bridge, and I hope that those objections will be re-stated here,
and so far as possible remedied.

Last spring the interesting question of the relative acuteness
of sight among civilised and uncivilised people was forcibly
brought forward by Mr. Brudenell Carter, and it was hoped that
some very simple tests, such as travellers might successfully
apply to wholly uneducated and suspicious barbarians, could be
devised. A small committee of the Institute, including Mr.
Brudenell Carter, considered the question on several occasions,
but it was not found at -that time possible to frame sufficiently
simple tests that should cover all the points in which the total
efficiency of the sight of a savage might be deemed to depend.
For my own rpart, I am prepared to conform to the adage of " a
half-loaf being better than no bread," and to content myself
provisionally with an inquiry into the relative facility with
which a single black dot near the corner of a square white card
could be seen by men of various races, the position of the dot
and the size both of the dot and of the card being specified.
The test would be to expose the card as it rested on any one of
its sides, and to require the observer to indicate in which of its
corners the dot lay. Sometimes, -as a so-called " puzzle case,"
the blank oack of the carol would be exposed. This test could
be easily applied, and it would at all events tell us some-
thing ; though it would not fully solve the question whether the
efficiency of sight among savages in detecting distant objects was
or was not generally superior to that of the civilized traveller
who tested the card himself at the same time and under the
same circumstances.

Colour-sense. — Mr. H. Darwin is engaged on a simple instru-

for Anthropometric Instruments. 7

ment for testing the colour-sense. A singularly instructive
account of a vast number of varied experiments made by
another apparatus has just been published in Brain, and will, I
understand, appear with very full details in Mind, by Dr.
Cattell, a young American, who is now assistant in Professor
Wandt's laboratory at Leipzig, The apparatus is in principle
what photographers would call a drop shutter ; its object is to
give a very brief but measurable exposure of a colour of one or
more letters, or numerals, or of a word. The instrument is applied
to many purposes ; that which now concerns us is the colour-
sense. It appears that every object, whatever may be its colour,
seems grey when looked at for a time a little less than one-
thousandth of a second. When the exposure is prolonged the
sense of colour begins to be excited, but it requires a longer ex-
posure to see some colours than others. Measured in ten-
thousandth parts of a second the averages are as follows : —
Orange requires an exposure of 8 ; yellow of 10 ; blue of 12 ;
red of 13 ; green of 14 ; and violet of 23, or nearly three times as
much as orange. A very large number of experiments were made
on seven persons, and in each case the figures were constant, but
the individual differences were large. I find, in reducing Dr.
Cattell's figures, that the relative sensitivity for red and violet
also differed considerably among these 7 persons, and to the
following extent: 1 case in which it was 14 ; 3 cases of 16 ; 1 of
17 ; 1 of 20 ; and 1 in which it was 23. Thus out of seven
persons, one was relatively twice as sensitive to violet, as com-
pared with red, as another. This instrument might, therefore,
perhaps serve as a test of colour-sense, but it has physical adapta-
tions as well. In the first place, it shows how many letters,
numerals, or lines can be grasped by consciousness during a
brief exposure, and this proves to be a very variable gift, cer-
tainly in some way connected with the general grasp of the
mind, but this has to be experimented on further. In the second
place, it seems that this instrument may perhaps afford a much
desired measure of general nerve fatigue — it certainly affords
one of eye fatigue, as the exposure has to be increased con-
siderably after the eye becomes wearied. It is very probable
that Dr. Cattell's instrument, in perhaps its rudest form, without
an electro magnet, will be found of much future anthropometric
service for general use.

Sound. — I wrote to Dr. Cattell, asking him what good instru-
ments existed, to his knowledge, in Germany or elsewhere for
giving a sound of standard loudness. He replies : —

As far as I know, no sound of standard loudness has been
agreed upon. When I wished to specify the sound used in cer-
tain experiments, I let a ball of a given weight fall from a given

8 FRANCIS GALTON. — On Recent Designs

height, the material of the ball and the nature of the surface
on which it fell being also given. The loudness of the sound in
this case is not in proportion to the height from which it fell,
multiplied into the weight of the ball, and into a constant de-
pending on the material, as has been assumed. Yierordt (Zeitsch,
f. Biologie, 1878) gave the formula i=p V "H ; Overbeck (Wieder-
manns Annalen XIII) i =p h -641. New experiments from our
laboratory are about to be published.

Mr. H. Darwin has designed an instrument emitting a faint
sound, suitable for testing the acuteness of hearing.
Distinction of Notes.— Dr. Cattell says : —

We have in the laboratory two excellent pieces of apparatus for
testing the power of distinguishing notes. The one is an organ
arrangement, which gives the notes at intervals of four vibrations
from 32 to 1024. This is made by Appunn in Hanau a/M. and
each octave costs, I think, about £20. The other apparatus is a
set of tuning forks made by Konig, in Paris. Pairs of tuning
forks are taken, one always gives the same note, the other (by
means of weights) can be so regulated as to give a note a little
lower or higher. Experiments on this subject are being made
by three groups of students, and the results will be published
(in Wandt's Studien) during the year. In one case, memory of
notes is being especially investigated.

Mr. H. Darwin will submit a much less costly instrument
than either of these, for the purpose of ordinary anthropometry.

I will now call upon him to explain the instruments in order,
and will ask you to discuss each in turn.

Discussion.

Mr. BRTJDENELL CARTER said he feared his objection to the pro-
posed test for sight was a fundamental one. He regarded it not
at all as a test of acuteness of vision, which was the thing
desired, but only as a test of the acuteness of perception of slight
differences in the intensity of light. The perceptive surface of
the retina might be described as a mosaic composed of hexagonal
elements, and he would assume, for the purpose of illustration,
that the image of the entire card covered six of these elements.
In that case, one retinal element would receive the image of one-
sixth of the card. If the superficial area of the spot were one-
twentieth of that of one-sixth part of the card, one of the six
retinal elements would receive an image one-twentieth part less
luminous than the images received by the other five elements ; and
thus, although the spot itself might not become an object of
vision, its position on the card would be revealed, supposing that
the retina was sufficiently sensitive to small differences of light for
a difference of one-twentieth between adjacent parts of the whole
image to be perceived. He contended that nothing was an accurate

for Anthropometric Instruments. 9

test of acuteness of vision, unless it called upon the person tested
to see the separateness of two or more objects, such as spots, which
were separated from each other by intervals equal to their own
diameters. The separateness of such objects did not become visible
until their retinal images were so large that the image of the in-
terval between them completely covered a single retinal element.
Until this coudition.was fulfilled, two or more dots, although their
position might be discoverable as a matter of luminosity, as in the
familiar case of double stars, discoverable as single ones by the
naked eye, could not be said to be either objects or tests of vision,
properly so called. He hoped that the labours of the Committee
on the subject were not concluded, and that they would be able to
arrive at some simple and practical test composed of two or more
dots or other objects.

EXHIBITION of ANTHROPOMETRIC INSTRUMENTS.
By HORACE DARWIN, Esq., M.A.

Mr. HORACE DARWIN apologised for the incomplete state of
the apparatus exhibited. He first showed an instrument for
testing the keenness in distinguishing small differences in the
pitch of a musical note. An organ pipe giving about the middle
C was blown by a bellows. Its pitch could be altered by a
known amount by changing its length. Constancy of air pressure
is of considerable importance, and could easily be obtained with
a more perfect bellows.

The next instrument shown was a chronograph made according
to the design of the President, Mr. F. Gallon, for measuring the
quickness with which a person can press a lever after a sound
signal is given. A wooden rod is supported at its upper end by
a detent, and can be released at will. The rod then falls freely in
space passing through a hole in a fixed diaphragm. A weight in
the form of a ring, larger than the hole in the diaphragm, rests
on a collar near the top of the rod. Thus, after rod and weight
together have fallen a definite distance, the weight is caught by
the diaphragm and makes the signal sound, while the rod still
continues to fall. On hearing the signal sound the person to be
tested presses down a lever, thereby releasing a spring clamp
which grips the falling rod firmly. The interval of time between
the signal sound and this operation is measured by the space the
rod has fallen through, and is read at once in hundredths of a
second from graduations on the rod itself.

The third instrument shown — designed at the suggestion of
the President — was for measuring the relative sensitiveness of
the eye to various colours in different persons. An object, such
as a card, on which numbers are printed in diamond type, is fixed

10 H. DARWIN. — Exhibition of

against the side of a box and is viewed through a small hole in
the opposite side of the box. The various colours are obtained
by placing pieces of coloured glass in front of the hole. The
diffused light falling on the card passes through an adjustable
aperture and through a translucent screen at the end of the box
The illumination of the card can be varied by the adjustable
aperture, and is proportional to its area.

To use the instrument, the person looks at the card through a
piece of coloured glass, moves the adjustment till he can only
just read the numbers, and notes the area from a scale. He does
the same with any other coloured glasses. Now if daylight be
used for illuminating the apparatus, the numbers obtained from
the scale obviously depend on the brightness of the day. It is
therefore necessary either to use a standard illumination, or if
daylight be used, to reduce the numbers to ratios. In this case
it would be convenient to consider the observation with one
particular colour as 100 and to reduce all other observations so as
to maintain the original ratio.

The following instruments of Mr. Galton's design were also
exhibited :

Apparatus for testing the judgment of the eye in estimating
squareness, also for testing the power of dividing a line into two
equal parts.

Head-spanners, for measuring length and breadth of the head
and the height of the head above the plane passing through the
holes in the ears and the ridge of the frontal bone above the
eyes, to which reference has already been made.

Discussion.

Mr. BRUDENELL CARTER inquired whether Mr. Darwin was
acquainted with Professor Forster's instrument for the purpose of
testing the acuteness of light perception. It consisted of a box,
the interior of which contained a series of broad stripes, alternately
black and white, as objects, and was illuminated either by lamp-
light or daylight through a square opening which could be in-
creased in area from one to sixteen hundred square millimetres.
This instrument was useful in ascertaining the soundness or other-
wise of the retina in cases in which vision was too much impaired
to be tested in the ordinary way.

Mr. JOSEPH JACOBS remarked that in all experiments with in-
struments for measuring sensation, variations are likely to arise
owing to subjective differences of nerve fatigue, &c., in the subject
at different times. Thus the same man might appear to have a
limit of clear vision at 21 inches on one occasion, and at 24 at another.
No improvements in instruments could obviate this source of error,
which could be only eliminated in each individual by taking the
average of a series of observations between different individuals
b taking the observations under the same conditions. He would

Antliropometric Instruments. 11

observe that the instrument for measuring quickness of hearing
did not directly achieve its purpose, for a certain appreciable
time ("reaction time" the physiologists call it) elapsed between
the hearing and the pressing down of the lever which arrested
the fall of the rod. There was variation in "reaction time" as
well as in quickness of hearing. Mr. Galton's instrument was only
intended to measure the sum of these variables. To ascertain the
quickness of hearing the " reaction time," to be ascertained by the
method of Exner or other means, would have to be subtracted.

Dr. BAYNER said that he had an instrument for taking
measurements of the skull and head, which, in addition to the
graduated horizontal bar, with two sliding graduated vertical limbs,
had on each of these last a smooth pointed traveller projecting
one inch and reversible, so that interior measurements could be
taken.

Professor FLOWER, Mr. C. ROBERTS, and Professor THANE, also
took part in the discussion.

The following Paper was then read by the author :

The CEPHALIC INDEX.

By J. G. GARSON, M.D., E.Z.S., M.A.I., Mem. Corresp. Etm.
Soc. d'Anthrop. de Paris. Lecturer on Comparative Anatomy,
Charing Cross Hospital; Eoyal College of Surgeons of
England.

THE cephalic index expresses in percentage the relative pro-
portion which the breadth of the skull bears to the length, and
is thus an exact method of indicating the general form of the
skull in those two relations. Depending as it does on the
measurement of length and breadth, it is at once evident that
if a skull is to give the same index in the hands of different
observers these diameters must always be measured in exactly
the same way. Skulls being termed dolichocephalic, mesati-
cephalic or brachycephalic according as the cephalic index is
low, medium, or high, it is likewise necessary, in order that
these terms may always indicate the same form of skull, that
each should have a certain fixed limit, otherwise a skull which
is dolichocephalic according to one nomenclature may be
mesaticephalic by another system, and vice versa. Till lately
great differences in measuring the length and breadth, and of
classifying the cephalic index have existed among anthro-
pologists. With the advancement of anthropological science
these differences are disappearing, and the time has come when
we may hope to have an uniform system of measurement and of
nomenclature. To obtain this great efforts are being made by

12 J. G. G ARSON. — The Cephalic Index.

leading anthropologists in France and Germany, and it appears
desirable that we in this country should do our best to assist
them. For this purpose the Council of this Institute requested
me to ascertain the views of anatomists in this country and
to communicate with Prof. Topinard of Paris on the subject.
As a result of these communications we have drafted a scheme of
measurement and nomenclature which we have every reason to
believe will be generally acceptable. It has been arrived at by
mutual agreement and concession, and cannot be said therefore
to be the system of one person or nation, as modifications have
been proposed by one side and by the other, and the methods
and divisions of all anthropologists have been carefully con-
sidered in order to produce a result which would harmonise with
the ideas of anthropologists generally. The questions which have
had to be considered in relation to the subject are three in
number, viz. : 1st, the standard of measurement to be used ; 2nd,
the method of measuring the length and breadth ; and 3rd, the
division and nomenclature of the index. The draft agreement
we have arrived at on each of these I shall now proceed to
explain and submit to your criticism.

In all linear measurements the metric system is to be adopted.
This is now almost universally done by anthropologists as well
as other scientists in this country. To secure uniformity, how-
ever, it was necessary to indicate our adherence to the inter-
national standard of linear measure, of all departments of
science. The cephalic index to be estimated from the measure-
ments of maximum length and breadth of the skull. The maximum
length to be measured from the most prominent point on the glabella
in front to the most prominent point of the occiput behind, in the
mesial plane. The maximum breadth to be measured between
the most prominent points on the lateral walls of the skull, wherever
these points may be situated, except cm the mastoid processes, the
points being in the same horizontal plane and at right angles to the
length-axis.

The measurements of length and breadth have of late years
been made for the most part as above defined in this country
as well as by those who have followed Broca's system and
the Frankfurt agreement. Several anthropologists in England
used, however, to calculate the cephalic index from the length
measurement between the ophryon in front and the most
prominent point on the occiput behind. When calculated from
this measurement of length the index is higher in most skulls,
particularly those of males, than when the glabella is included.
This proceeding has, I think, now been abandoned.

In measuring the maximum length care must be taken that the
length axis is in the middle plane. It sometimes happens that

J. G. G ARSON. — The Cephalic Index. 13

the two lateral halves of a skull are perceptibly unsymmetrical,
and that the greatest length is situated not in the middle line
but to one or other side of it, the actual maximum length of
such a skull is not the maximum mesial length and consequently
is not to be used in calculating the cephalic index, which in all
cases must be calculated from the latter. In measuring the
maximum breadth some care and practice are required to hold the
calipers in the proper position while finding the points of
maximum width — that is, transversely to the length-axis and also
at right angles horizontally to the mesial plane of the skull.

The cephalic index to be divided into groups each containing
five units. Seven of these groups to be named and to have the
following limits. Mesaticephalic from 75 up to 80, Dolichocephalic
from 70 up to 75, Brachycephalic from 80 up to 85, Hyperdolicho-
cephalic from 65 up to 70, Hyperbrachycephalic from 85 up to 90,
Ultradolichocephalic from 60 up to 65, Ultrabr achy cephalic from
90 up to 95.

NOTE 1. — In cases where the cephalic index is beyond these
groups, others, consisting of five units, may be formed at each
or either end of the named series.

NOTE 2. — The termination of each group is exclusive of the
number indicating its highest limits ; thus the termination of the
mesaticephalic group is 79'99, the brachycephalic group includes
. skulls with an index of 80.

Anatomists agree in regarding 77 as the mean cephalic index
of the human skull, and both in England and Germany the
mesaticephalic group has been defined for some years past as
ranging from 75-80. More recently anthropologists in France
have, through the exertions of Prof. Topinard adopted these
limits also.

This generally accepted central group we propose to take as a
convenient starting point for other divisions of the cephalic index.
The practical convenience of having all of these groups of the
same dimensions — that is, including the same number of units —
recommended itself so strongly that there was no doubt as to
the advisability of adopting this principle and applying it to all
classes into which it might be considered necessary to divide the
index. The next question which naturally had to be considered
was the number of divisions it was desirable to make. In
previous classifications the number has varied from three to five.
Tor merely classifying the skulls of any race according to the
average cephalic index, five divisions would be amply sufficient
to indicate the general form of the skull in the race as a whole.
But several anthropologists have shown that more minute study
of the cephalic index is necessary, as important information
can be derived from analyses of its variations in each particular

14 J. G. GARSON. — The Cephalic Index.

raoe as is done by the system of seriation1. This indicated to
us that in our classification we should adopt, if possible, such a
system as would admit of a combination of the synthetical and
analytical methods of examination. For this purpose five
divisions, each including five units, is inadequate, as anthro-
pologists who have had much to do with very dolichocephalic or
brachycephalic skulls can testify. The quinary divisions require
to be extended as far in each direction as there are indices to
classify. Normal skulls with indices as low as 53 and as high as
98 have been recorded, so that to include these extreme forms
the divisions of the index would require to extend from 50 to
100. As skulls with indices below 60 and above 95 are very rare,
it has been considered unnecessary to give distinctive names to
any groups beyond these limits. Analyses of the indices of
skulls outside these groups may be efficiently made by stating
the limits of the quinary division in which they come, or the
number of the group above or below the central one. The
nomenclature applied to the seven groups named is simple and
not likely to lead to confusion, the first group below and above
the mesaticephalic being termed dolichocephalic and brachy-
cephalic respectively. The second group on each side has the
prefix Hyper added to the words dolichocephalic and brachy-
cephalic which will be sufficient to indicate their respective
positions, while the last-named or third group on either side is
called w^radolichocephalic and ^?*dbrachy cephalic respectively.
The following is a list of these groups and their limits arranged
in tabular form : —

TABLE I.

3. Ultra-dolichocephalic .... 60 to 65 excl. i.e. 64'99

2. Hyper-dolichocephalic .... 65 to 70 excl. 69'99

1. Dolichocephalic 70 to 75 excl. 74'99

0 Mesaticephalic 75 to 80 excl. 79'99

1. Brachycephalic 80 to 85 excl. 84'99

2. Hyper-brachycephalic .... 85 to 90 excl. 89'99

3. Ultra-hrachycephalic .... 90 to 95 excl. 94*99

These divisions which we purpose to adopt correspond very
closely with the divisions of the index which have been made
recently by anthropologists in Germany, particularly those of
Professor Eanke, the chief difference being that in the German
divisions the dolichocephalic indices are not subdivided into
groups as we have done, all skulls with indices below 75 being
classed as dolichocephalic. I think the probable explanation of
this is that most of those who have taken an active part in
arranging the nomenclature of the cephalic index in Germany
have had chiefly to deal with brachycephalic skulls, consequently

1 See Table II.

J. G. G ARSON. — The Cephalic Index.

while recognising the importance of having several groups for
these skulls, they have not been brought face to face with the
necessity of having a corresponding number of groups for
dolichocephalic skulls. The anthropological collections of England
and France contain large numbers of skulls of this latter form
as well as of the brachycephalic type, consequently we see
more forcibly, perhaps, the necessity of having symmetrical
groups on both sides of the central divisions, not only for
analytical examination, but also for averages. I cannot adduce
better evidence of this than by inserting the following table
drawn up from statistics given in Professor Topinard's Elements
<$ Anthropologie GS'nSrale. The table will also indicate the
method of analysis of the variations of the cephalic index,
the frequency of skulls of each race in the several groups being
expressed in percentage.'

TABLE II.

66 Long
Barrow
Skulls.

74 Bound
Barrow
Skulls.

1000
Parisians.

1000
Bavarians.

100
Eskimo.

Ultradolichocephalic

Hyperdolichocephalic-

28-8

—

•2

—

35-0

Dolichocephalic. .

62-2

13-7

•8

51-

Mesaticephalic . . .

31-2

41-2

16-3

10-

Brachycephalic . .

—

41-9

357

52-7

—

Hy pe rbrachycephali c
Ultrabrachy cephalic

22-9

9-8
1-8

26-9
3-1

—

95-100 excl. .. . .

" •""

•1

•2

—

As the principle of dividing the index into equal groups,
including five units, seems to have been adopted by Professor
Eanke in his system of nomenclature, and also in that of the
Frankfort Agreement,1we are led to hope that our fellow- workers
in Germany may see the advantage to be derived uniting with
us in establishing an international system of division and
nomenclature of the cephalic index. At the desire of the
Council of this Institute I have forwarded to Professor Ranke, as
General Secretary of the German Anthropological Society, a
copy of this draft scheme for the consideration of the Society.

Discussion.

Professor FLOWER made the following observations : —
To the first principle laid down in the scheme submitted by Dr.
Garson, that of using the metric system, I have always adhered.

The third also coincides as far as the most important divisions
are concerned, i.e., boundaries of the mesaticephalic, dolicho-
cephalic, and brachycephalic groups, with that advocated and adopted

16 J. G. GAKSON. — T/ie Cephalic Index.

in my catalogue of the crania in the museum of the Royal College
of Surgeons, and I am quite willing to adopt the further divisions
of the two latter now suggested, in order to distinguish extreme
forms of variation from the average.

As to the measure of length, if the glabella is adopted, as it seems
to be, by the great majority of French and German craniologists,
it will be necessary for the sake of uniformity to join, although I
do so under protest. I have hitherto followed E/olleston and
Barnard Davis, in taking the length from the ophryon in front, ex-
cluding the glabella, an accidental prominence caused by thick-
ness of bone and development of air cells within, and having no
relation to the true form of the cranium. All agree, when taking
the so-called maximum breadth, to neglect the mastoid processes
and supra-mastoid ridges, if they should be developed, as occasion-
ally happens, so largely as to pass beyond the breadth of the
cranium proper. To be consistent, the glabella, a prominence of
exactly similar character, should be also excluded. Its inclusion
gives a false appearance of greater length to certain races, as the
Australians, and to male skulls over females, to old skulls over young
ones, which does not exist in the real form of the brain cavity. It
is urged that there is a difficulty in fixing the ophryon as an exact
point to measure from, and this undoubtedly occurs in a few skulls,
but these are quite exceptional. However, it is a case in which
uniformity is so desirable — as upon this measurement the most
important index depends — that the minority must, I suppose, yield
to the majority.

Professor THANE said he had no hesitation in accepting in prin-
ciple the three points submitted to the meeting by Dr. Garson.
especially as they had received the approval of such eminent and
representative anthropologists as Professors Topinard and Ranke.
He considered that the ophryo-occipital length was preferable to the
ylabello-occipital for the calculation of the breadth -index, since the
latter was a compound of two factors, both of which were variable,
viz., the length of the cranial box and the prominence of the gla-
bella, and the comparison of the form of the cranium in different
individuals and races was rendered simpler and more correct if the
glabellar prominence were excluded. On the other hand, it is
stated by observers of much experience that at times practical diffi-
culty and uncertainty are met with in obtaining the ophryo-occipital
length, and in view of this circumstance and of the fact that the
glabello-occipital length is universally adopted in France and Ger-
many, as well as by many workers in this country, it seems that
uniformity can only be attained by our accepting the standard pro-
posed. With regard to the mode of classification, the most im-
portant point is the determination of the mesaticephalic group,
and then the question of the number and range of the other groups
becomes one of expediency only. As to the position of the middle
group, there is now a general [consensus of opinion among anthro-
pologists, and an uniform division into groups of five units each is
obviously convenient and appropriate. It is desirable, however,

J: Gi G ARSON. — The Cephalic Index. 17

that better and more distinctive terms should be foand for the
extreme groups.

Dr. BEDDOE heartily approved of the lines on which the proposed
agreement was drawn, and particularly of the application of the
leading divisional names (dolichocephalic and brachycephalic) to
the numbers 70-75 and 80-85 respectively, and the abolition of
such terms as sub-brachy cephalic. He pointed out that Dr.
Grarson's scheme confined the unmanageably long words to the
rarest cases, which was really a practical advantage.

Professor MACALISTER also joined in the discussion.

Sir WILLIAM TURNER, who could not be present, sent the follow-
ing observations : —

I have read the paper "On the Cephalic Index," by Dr. Garson-
With much of what" he has written I agree, as it is in conformity
with what I have been in the habit of doing in the craniometric
researches which I have conducted ; as may be seen in my
Report on the Human- Crania collected during the voyage of
H.M.S. " Challenger"" (Zool Chall. Exp., Part xxix, 1884). As
regards his proposed division of crania into seven groups, each in-
cluding five units, based on differences in the cephalic index, I
would state that, in my opinion, any such proposed, grouping ought
to be qualified by the remark, that the divisions and the numbers
selected as their respective limits are purely arbitrary. I would
further state that if assent is to be asked for from craniologists
to the propositions made in the paper, it should be accompanied
by the proviso that this is only expected to be given so long as
the subject retains its present aspect, but that each investigator
is to hold himself free to develop the subject in such directions
as may seem to him to be most likely to yield fruitful results.

[The following, paper, read before the Anthropological Insti-
tute, on May 11, 1886, forms a sequel to Dr. GARSON'S preceding
communication, and is printed in advance with the sanction of
the Council, in order that the whole subject may be laid before
the reader in a complete form.]

The INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENT on the CLASSIFICATION and
NOMENCLATURE of the CEPHALIC INDEX.

By J. G. GARSON, M.D., F.Z.S., M.A.I. Lecturer on Comparative
Anatomy Charing Cross Hospital ; Eoyal College of Surgeons
of England.

IN February last I had the honour to submit to this Institute
for the criticism of its members the draft of a scheme for the
classification and nomenclature of the cephalic index1 which, as
I then explained, was the outcome of negotiations on the subject

1 See the preceding paper.

18 J. G. GARSOK. — The Cephalic Index.

with Professor Topinard of Paris. These were undertaken by
me, at the request of the Council, in response to a letter
addressed by him to our President pointing out that it was very
desirable that an agreement between anthropologists in Britain
and France should be come to regarding the cephalic index.

In order that any agreement arrived at regarding this
important subject might, if possible, become international instead
of being confined to the two countries, the Council thought it
desirable that as soon as negotiations between Professor Topinard
and myself had proceeded so far as to permit of a scheme
being drafted, I should communicate our proposals to Professor
Eanke, General Secretary of the German Anthropological
Society, through whom negotiations might be conducted with
the signatories of the Frankfurt Verstandigung, which I did with
much pleasure. At the meeting of our Institute in February I
was able to state that I had received a letter from Professor
Eanke in which he said that personally he could fully agree
with the proposed scheme and had submitted it to those who
had drawn up and signed the Frankfurter Verstandigung. The
draft was submitted by Professor Topinard to the Societe
d'Anthropologie of Paris, about the same time as I brought it
before this Institute.

The criticisms of the draft scheme by members of this Institute
with which I was favoured were forwarded for consideration to
Professors Eanke and Topinard, and those of the signatories of
the Verstandigung were forwarded to me by Professor Eanke, so
that in finally determining upon an international agreement we
have had before us the opinions of, I think I may almost say, all
the leading anthropologists of Europe. From these being almost
unanimously favourable to the scheme, there has consequently
been little difficulty in determining its final form which is as
follows : —

1. The metric system to be used exclusively in all linear
measurements.

2. The cephalic index to be calculated from the maximum
length and maximum breadth of the cranium ; the maximum
length being the distance between the most prominent point of
the glabella of the os frontis in front, and the most prominent
point of the os occipitis behind, in the mesial plane. The
maximum breadth is the width across the broadest part of the
cranium wherever that may be, except on the mastoid processes
and the supramastoid ridges, measured vertically to the median
plane, the points of measurement lying opposite to one another
in the same horizontal plane.

3. The cephalic index to be divided into groups of equal
dimensions, each containing 5 units and arranged symmetrically

J. G. GARSON.— TJie Cephalic Index. 19

on each side of a median or central division corresponding to -the
mean of the human species,

4. The central group to b.e denominated the Mesaticephalic
division and to include indices from 75 to 79*9.

5. The quinary division below and above the central group
to be termed Dolichocephalic and Brachycephalie respectively,
the former having the limits of 70 to 74'9, the latter of 80
to 84-9.

6. The second quinary divisions — those on either side of
the last two — to be termed Hyper-dolichocephalic and Hyper-
Irachycephalic with the respective limits of 65 to 6 9 '9 and
85 to 89-9.

7. The third quinary divisions to be called Ultra-dolicho-
cephalic and Ultra-l)r achy cephalic respectively with limits of 60
to 64-9 and 90 to 94*9.

8. The quinary division of the cephalic index to be extended
in each direction as far as there are indices to classify. These
divisions may be designated by their limits or by the number of
quinary divisions they .axe removed from the mesaticephalic
division, that being considered zero, Q.

Collected in a tabular form the divisions &nd nomenclature
agreed upon is as follows : —

.3. Ultra-dolichocephalic . 60;to65excl.

Hyper-dolichocephalic
1. Dolichocephalic . .

0. Mesaticephalic

1. Brachycephalie

2. Hyper-brachycephalie

3. Ultra-brachj cephalic

65 to 70
70 to 75

.75 to 80
80 to 85
85 to 90
90 to 95

I learn from Professor Topinard that anthropologists in
France have -received the agreement favourably. Adherence to
it has been signed by ,60 out of .the 6 7, who signed the Frankfurt
Verstandigung, five of those who signed this latter being since
dead, and one having withdrawn his name from it. I am glad to
say that all anthropologists in this country with whom I have com-
municated have intimated their willingness to accept the scheme,
notwithstanding the exception taken to some of the details,
when the draft was submitted to them in February last. The
objections raised then have been carefully considered, as already
stated, along with those of anthropologists of other countries
who have favoured us with their criticisms. In conclusion I
now propose to say a few words regarding those recommended
alterations which it has not been thought advisable to accept for
various reasons. Professor Flower took exception to the measure-
ment of length from which it was proposed and has now been
finally decided to calculate the cephalic index. He stated

c 2

20 J. G. G ARSON. — The Cephalic Index.

that he considered the ophryo-oceipital length preferable to the
maximum length. In this view he was only supported by
Professor Thane in this country and Professor J. Lenhossek,
of Buda-Pesth. In the face of the unanimous opinion of
French anthropologists, of 59 German, Austrian and other
anthropologists who have signed the agreement, and of the
majority of anthropologists in this country, it was impossible
to come to any other opinion than that we must adhere to the
method of calculating the cephalic1 index defined in the draft
scheme, except that the supramastoid ridges have been excluded
as well as the mastoid processes.

The only other point regarding which there was a difference of
opinion expressed in the Institute was the denomination of the
two extreme groups — the ultra-dolichocephalic and ultra-brachy-
cephalic. In place of these names, Professor Macalister recom-
mended the revival of designations proposed by Professor
Huxley several years ago, for extreme forms of crania, namely,
Mechistocephalic and Brachistocephalic, on the ground that the
term hyper, applied to the second group from the centre on each
side, and ultra meant the same thing. This similarity of
meaning has also been pointed out by Professor Thane and
Professor Sergi, of Eome. Strong opposition was offered to the
revival of Professor Huxley's terms in France, and it was
thought preferable to adhere to the prefix " ultra," already pro-
posed, than to introduce new words. The terms .hyper and
ultra, it will be observed, are used as prefixes, not as parts of
compound words, and the difference of meaning intended to be
conveyed by them will be readily appreciable, even by those
who are not craniologists.

Professor Welcker has taken exception to several points of
the scheme, and is the only anthropologist who does not see his
way to accept the agreement He proposes that the limits of
the central group which are 75-79'9 be altered to 77-81-9, in
other words, to make it include four units, and he then applies
this module to the division of the other groups. The reasons why
the module of five units was fixed upon and has been retained
is very clearly and carefully pointed out by Topinard, in the
Bulletin de la Soc, d'Anthropol. Seance du 18 Fev. 1886, to
which I would refer those interested in the subject, and from
which it will be seen that it was impossible to accept Professor
Welcker's amendment.

I trust those anthropologists whose recommendations the
committee have not seen their way to give effect to, may be
convinced that we acted without prejudice, and have, in the
agreement now registered (if I may use the term), the almost
unanimous opinion of anthropologists on each point in question.

A. MACALISTER. — Description of a Skull from Kamchatka. 21

Description of a Skull from an ANCIENT BURYING PLACE in
KAMTCHATKA.

BY ALEXANDER MACALISTER, M.D., F.K.S., Professor of
Anatomy in the University of Cambridge.

THROUGH the kindness of Dr. -Guillemard, I have received for
the Cambridge Museum an interesting skull from Kamtchatka,
obtained by him in 1882, on his visit to that country, with Mr.
Kettlewell, in the yacht " Marehesa."

This skull had been washed out of an ancient 'burying-place
during a freshet of one of the torrents flowing on the slopes of
the Klutschewsk Volcano, and was picked up by ,a Kussian
medical man who presented it to Dr. Guillemard.

Comparatively few Kamtchadale skulls have been described,
and this is peculiar in many respects. It is that of a female
adult and has very loose coronal and squamous sutures, while
the two parietals are completely united by a synostosis of the
sagittal suture. In capacity the head is microcephalic. In shape
it is tapeino-mesaticephalic, very slightly prognathous, mega-
seme and leptorhine.

The measurements are subjoined —

Capacity, estimated with shot
Greatest length, ophryo-occipital

„ breadth, interparietal

„ height, basio-bregmatic
Basi-nasal line
Basi-alveolar line
Orbital height
Orbital width. .
Nasal height ...
Nasal width ..
Diameter between pterion and pterion

„ „ stephanion and stephanion

,. „ asterion and asterion . .

Length from opisthion to glabella . .
Minimum interorbital width
Facial breadth, at zygomatic point of maxilla
,, „ at external angular process

„ ,, maximum bijugal ..

Height of posterior nares
Greatest width between the internal pterygoid
plates

INDICES.

Height index
Orbital „
Alveolar ,

.747

919

1032

Breadth index
Nasal

1290 com.
174
134
130

93-5

20
108
110
105
132

•97
114

770

476

22 A. MACALISTER. — Description of a SJcull from Kamtcliat'ka.

Of other peculiarities the following are noteworthy. There is a
very " capsular " occiput, and the skull in norma verticalis, is
pentagonal, ill-filled. The frontal bone is flat browed with a
short trace of a frontal suture, a supraorbital hole on each side.
A transverse green band of staining crosses the bone above the
frontal eminences from stephanion to stephanion, as if the skull
had been crossed by a copper band. The interorbital part of
the frontal is singularly flat.

The union of the two parietals is- nearly perfect, a slight
superficial trace of the sagittal suture above the lambda being
its only relic. There are two parietal foramina, one on each
side, and a spheno -parietal suture of 9 mm. on each side.

The occiput has two large holes worn in its supra-occipital
portions on each side of, and behind the foramen magnum, each
nearly as big as the foramen. The condyles are worn, as if
ground off, so is the prominent jugular process, and the small
mastoid process of the temporal.

The posterior nares are particularly small and oblique. The
palate is long, medially ridged.

The only remaining teeth are the first and second molars of the
right side which are much worn; the others have fallen out.

We have not much information as to the race characters of
the inhabitants of N.E. Asia. The available sources known
to me are from the records of Capt. Cook's last voyage, Kennan's
" Tent-life in Siberia," and Rettich's " Ethnographic Eussland."
From these we gather that the inhabitants of the Peninsula are of
three tribes: to the north are the Tschuktches, supposed to
number about 7,000, a braehycephalic race with oval faces,
prominent occiputs, and projecting brows. In the middle region,
south of Cape Pokatchanik, the inhabitants are Koriaks (Kora=
reindeer) a smaller bat still broad-headed people, with large
heads and mesoseme orbits. To the south of these live the true
Kamtchadales, a people quite distinct from their neighbours, who
call themselves Itelm, (= the people) and disown the nickname
Kamtschale ( = dirty, in Koriak). They are described as a
rapidly diminishing people. The adventurer, Beniowsky,who led
their revolt against the Russians in 1771, says that there were
70,000 Itelm when Atlasoff subdued them in 1699, and that
they had become reduced to 11,000 in 1771. In 1853 they
were said to number 7,331, and this number had become still
further reduced to 5,846 in 1870, The facial appearance of this
skull quite Agrees with Capt. Gore's account, that the females
are of pleasing countenance.

A. W. Ho WITT. — On Australian Medicine Men. 23

FEBRUARY 23RD, 1886,

FRANCIS GALTON, Esq., M.A., F.E.S., President, m the Chair.
The Minutes of the last meeting were read and signed.
The following presents were announced, and thanks voted to
the respective donors :-. —

FOR THE LIBRARY.

From the AUTHOR.^ — The Bushmen and their Language. By

G. Bertin,Esq.
- The recent progress of Obstetric and Gynaecological Medicine.

By Thomas More Madden, M.D.

— Die Masken in der Volkerkunde. By Richard Andree.
From Messrs. LONGMANS, GREEN, AND Co. — The Book of Genesis.

By Fran£ois Lenormant. Translated from the French.
From DEUTSCHE GESELLSCHAFT FUR ANTHROPOLOGIE. CorrespondeDz-

Blatt, 1886. Nos. 1, 2.
From the SOCIETY. — Mittheilungen der Anthropologischen Gesell-

schaftin>Wien.. XV Band, 2 Heft.

•• Journal of the Society of Arts. Nos., 1734-1 735,

From the INSTITUTION.— Journal of the Royal United Service

Institution. No. 132
From the EDITOR. — Nature. Nos. 850, 851..

Science. Nos. 157.

L'Homme, 1886. No. 1.

The American Antiquarian, 1886. January,

The election of Dr. H. RAYNER, of the Asylum, Han well, was
announced.

Mr. JOSEPH THOMSON exhibited a collection of photographs of
Africans in the district of the Niger.

The following paper wa» read by the Secretary :• —

On AUSTRALIAN MEDICINE MEN ; or,. DOCTORS AND WIZARDS
OF SOME AUSTRALIAN TRIBES* By A. W. Ho WITT, Esq., F.G.S.,
Cor. Mem. Anth. Institute.

Introduction.

IN these notes on the Doctors and Wizards of some Australian
tribes, I deal with instances taken from the Kurnai of Gipps
Land, the Murring of Maneroo and the south coast of New
South Wales, the Wolgal of ' the Tumut and Upper Murrum-
bidgee Rivers, the Wirajuri lower down the latter river to Hay,

24 A. W. Ho WITT.--- On Australian Medicine Men.

the Wotjobaluk of the Wimmera Eiver between Horsham and
Mallee Scrubs, north of Lake Hindmarsh, the Jupagalk of the
Itichardson Eiver and the Woiworung of the Yarra Kiver. It
will 'be seen, therefore, that my facts cover so large a portion of
the south-eastern part of Australia that they may not unrea-
sonably be held to apply in all probability, mutatis mutandis, to
those parts which are left out, as, for instance, part of north-
eastern and south-western Victoria. In these notes I have
thought it best to record that- information which I have collected
myself, and to leave the large mass of facts which my corres-
pondents have obligingly contributed as to the magical beliefs
and customs which are found in other parts of Australia.

The tribes which I have named above have been the subject
of previous memoirs communicated to the Anthropological
Institute.

I have adopted the term Medicine Men as a convenient title
for this memoir, but the term '''Doctor" or "Blackfellow
Doctor " is always used in Australia for those men in a native
tribe who profess to have supernatural powers. This term is,
however, not strictly correct, if by the word "doctor" we mean a
person who uses some means for curing diseases. The powers
which these men claim are not solely those of healing, nor even
those of causing disease, but also such as may be generally
spoken of as magical. Thus the doctors are in this sense
magicians or wizards. In this paper I shall endeavour to dis-
tinguish between doctors and wizards ; but I must point out
that there -are further subdivisions — so that, for instance, the
wizards may be either men who profess to perform certain acts
upon or for their' fellow men (as, for instance, placing them
under or relieving them from fatal spells), or men whose
magical functions act upon the elements, as, for instance, in
producing storm or rain during periods of drought.

I may roughly define doctors as men who profess to extract
from the human 'body foreign substances, which, according to
aboriginal belief, have been placed in them by the magic of
other doctors, or wizards, or supernatural beings, such as Brewin
of the Kurnai, or Ngarang of the Woiworung.

There then remains a class of men who are wizards proper,
but who do not all profess to have the same powers or to
exercise the same arts, and who may be said to follow different
branches of the magical profession. Very near to these are
rain-makers, the seers or spirit-mediums, such as the biraark of
the Kurnai, and also those bards who employ their poetic
faculties for purposes of enchantment— such as the Bunjil
Yenjin of the Kurnai tribe.

Some men devote themselves to one branch, some to another,

A. W. HOWITT. — On Australian Medicine Men. 25

of the art of magic, and thus arise what would be called amongst
us " specialists," such as doctors who especially extract quartz
crystals, or wizards who use them to injure other people.

At first sight the subject of these notes may seem to be a
simple one, in so far that it might be -said that the practices of
the "Blackfellow Doctors" are no more than the actions of
cunning cheats by which they influence others to their own
personal benefit. But on a nearer inspection of the subject it
becomes evident that there is more than this to be said. The
doctors and wizards believe more or less in their own powers,
perhaps because they believe in those of others. The belief in
magic in its various forms, in dreams, and in omens and warn-
ings is so universal -and is so intimately mingled with the daily
life of the aborigines that no one, not even among those men
themselves who practise deceit, doubts the powers of the black-
fellow doctors, or that if men fail to effect their magical pur-
poses the failure is due to error in the practice, -or to the
superior strength and power-of some adverse wizard.

Allowing for all conscious and intentional deception on the
part of the wizard class, there still remains a certain residuum
of faith in themselves which requires to be noticed, and if
possible to be explained.

It is in this aspect that .the question has shown itself most
difficult to me. The problem has been, how to separate false-
hood from truth, cunning imposture horn bond fide actions, and
deliberate falsification from fact. The statements which I have
made in these pages are the result of long-.continued inquiries
as well as personal observation. I must say for my aboriginal
informants that I have found them truthful in their statements
to me whenever I have been able to cheek them by further
inquiries, and in only one instance did I note any tendency to
enlarge the details into proportions beyond their true shape.
Even this instance was very instructive. The man's information
as to the customs of his tribe, and especially as to the initiation
ceremonies, I found to be very accurate, but it was when he
began to speak of the powers of the old men of the past genera-
tion that I found his colouring too brilliant, and more especially
as regarded his tribal father, the last great warrior-magician of
the tribe. In his exaggeration of the exploits of these men one
might see an instructive example how very soon romance begins
to gather in an heroic halo round the memory of the illustrious
dead.

II.

The Supernatural Powers claimed by the Doctors and Wizards.
The wizards were everywhere credited with the power of con-

26 A. W. Hownr. — On Australian Medicine Men.

veying themselves through the air, or of being conveyed by the
ghosts from place to place, or from earth to sky. Numerous
accounts have been given to me by blackfellows of the " going
up " of these wizards. As might be expected, it occurred always
at night, and the return of the wizard was frequently by means
of a tree, down which he was heard to descend and finally to
jump on to the ground. At times he returned attended by the
ghosts, whose muffled voices and the sound of whose footsteps
could be heard by the listening tribespeople. I need not enlarge
on this subject here, as I shall have to return to the subject
later on.

There is a belief in all the tribes I refer to that men of the
wizard or doctor class (and therefore over at least a very large
extent of south-eastern Australia) can project substances in an
invisible manner against their victims. One of the principal
projectiles is said to be quartz, especially in its crystallized form.
Such quartz crystals are always carried as part of the apparatus
of the blackfellow doctor, and are usually carefully concealed
from sight, especially of women..

When travelling in the Darling Eiver back country, before it
was settled, I saw a very good instance. A blackfellow doctor
accompanied me during a day's journey, and alarmed my two
black boys by seemingly causing a quartz crystal to pass from
his hand into his own body. Such sleight of hand as his is
evidently indicated by the account given later on of the manner
in which Muri- Kangaroo was trained for a wizard..

These quartz crystals are exhibited by the wizards at the
initiation ceremonies. I have described this already elsewhere
and need not repeat it.1 Of all magical substances the crystal
of clear and translucent quartz hold& the first rank in the
estimation of the Australian aborigines.. Yet in the central
clans of the Kurnai tribe the black stone called bulk 2 is more
regarded, and as far as this particular community is concerned,
it is only among the Brataua Kurnai and the eastern Krauatun
Kurnai, who adjoin the Kulin and Murring tribes respectively,
that the quartz crystal is held in dread esteem.

The account which I shall give of the manner in which the
Brataua Kurnai named Tankli became a blackfellow doctor
brings the belief in the magical powers of the quartz crystal
into full view.

Connected with the throwing of magical substances in an
invisible form is the belief that they can be caused to enter the
body of a victim by burying them in his footsteps, or even in

1 On Some Australian Ceremonies of Initiation (Journ. Anthrop. Inst., vol. xiii.,
1884) .

2 Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 251.

A. W. HOWITT. — On Australian Medicine Men. 27

the mark made in the ground by his reclining body. Sharp
fragments of quartz, glass, bone, charcoal are thus used, and
rheumatic affections are very frequently attributed to them.

Another form of this belief is seen in the practice attributed
to the western neighbours of the Woiworung of putting the
cone of the Casuarina quadrivalms* into a man's fire, so that the
smoke might blow into his eyes and cause him to become blind.

In all these tribes a general, I may say almost an universal,
practice has been to procure some article belonging to the
intended victim. A piece of his hair, some of his faeces, a bone
picked by him and dropped, a shred of his opossum rug, or at
the present time of his clothes, will suffice, or if nothing else
can be got he may be watched until he is seen to spit, when his
saliva is carefully picked up with a piece of wood and made use
of for his destruction (Wotjobaluk tribe).

The old beliefs are also adapted to their new conditions since
the settlement of Australia by the whites. The Woiworung
dreaded a -practice attributed to the aborigines living about
Echuca. It was said that they mixed pounded flesh of a dead
man with cut-up tobacco, and offering this to the unsuspecting
victim, caused him to fall under the fearful spell of death when
he smoked the mixture. The result was believed to be internal
swelling of the smoker until death ensued.

There is evidently a belief that doing an act to something
which is part of a person, or which even only belongs to him, is
in fact doing it to him. This is very clearly brought out by the
remark of one of the Wirajmri, who said to me, " You see, when
a blackfellow doctor gets hold of something belonging to a man
and roasts it with things, and sings over it, the fire catches hold
of the smell of the man, and that settles the poor fellow." This
belief is evidently world- wide, and has no doubt existed through-
out all time of human history. It culminated naturally in the
roasting of waxen images, which for aught I know has scarcely
yet died out in the British Isles.

The Kurnai practice is to fasten the article to the end of a
throwing stick, together with some eaglehawk feathers, and
some human or kangaroo fat. The throwing stick is then stuck
slanting in the ground before a fire, and it is of course placed in
such a position that by-and-by it falls down. The wizard has
during this time been singing his charm ; as it is usually
expressed, he " sings the man's name,"2 and when the stick falls

1 The idea seems to be that the eidolon of the hard rough jagged cone will
magically produce injury, such as the cone itself might do. This belief points to
an attempted explanation of the acute agony of ophthalmia.

2 The secrecy with which personal names are often kept from general know-
ledge, arises out of the belief that, an enemy who has your name, has something
which he can use magically to your detriment.

28 A. W. Ho WITT. — On Australian Medicine Men.

the charm is complete. This practice still exists. While writing
this paper one of the Kurnai, whom I have elsewhere men-
tioned,1 named Tankowilin, came to me -to request the loan of a
throwing stick which I "have, and which is regarded as being of
special power, having been used at an initiation ceremony.2 He
informed me that he wanted it in order to " catch " one of the
tribe who had married a relation of his, a widow, without the
consent of her kindred, and also far too soon after the death of
her husband : indeed, so soon after that it had " made all the
poor fellow's friends sad thinking of him." When I refused
him the loan of the mtirriwun, he said it did not matter, for
that he and his friends had made " a very strong stick to point
at him with by singing his name over it, and spitting strong
poison over it."

The sense of the word poison as used here is not as we use it,
but means "magic," or it might be expressed by the word
" medicine," as applied among the North American Indians.

The Gruliwill? — A good illustration of the practice of roasting
things is afforded by the Wotjobaluk tribe, and which will also
serve for their neighbours, the Joipagalk, and the more distant
Wirajuri. The only difference in practice is that with most
tribes the article is roasted attached to a throwing stick, while
Wotjobaluk use a peculiar apparatus called a guliwill, and the
Jupagalk a " yamstiek."

The guliwill consisted of several small spindle-shaped pieces
of Casuarina wood, on which marks were made, such as the
effigy of the victim, and one of the poisonous snakes. These
guliwill were tied up tightly together with human fat and the
article obtained from the intended victim, and then roasted for a
long time, or several times at intervals. After the whites settled
the country at the Wimmera river, the Wotjobaluk, who were

1 Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 247.

2 The Jeraeil of tl e Kurnai tribe. It is interesting to note that the throwing
stick (murriwun) is supposed to have inherent magical powers. It is not neces-
sary to anoint it with fat, human or animal, as is the case with spears or clubs.
I think the idea may be traced to the difference between throwing a spear by
hand and throwing it by means of the murriwun. The blackfellow perceives that
the murriwun gives the spear a surprising impetus, and not being able to explain
its mechanical action, he considers that it is magical. This is a good instance of
the manner in which the aboriginal mind works.

3 Apparently from Guli=ra,ge) anger, and not from Guli or Kuli = m&n ; as an
example, the following : —

Guli-yan, I am enraged.
Guli-yara, thou art enraged.
GHtti-yctt he is enraged.
Guli-yangal, we (two) are enraged.
Guli-yangno, we (all) are enraged.
Gidi-yanc/wul, you (two) ar? enraged.
Quli-yau-woijamvot, you (all) are enraged.

A. W. HOWITT. — On Australian Medicine Men. 29

employed on the stations, as I am told, found the great chimneys
of the huts, especially of that used as a kitchen, unrivalled places
in which to hang their guliwiU, so as to expose them to pro-
longed heat.

The following account was given me of the effects produced
by such a guliwill, or the belief in it, which is much the same
thing. " Sometimes a man dreams that some one has got some
of his hair or a piece- of his food, or of his 'possum rug, or indeed
anything almost that he has used. If he dreams this several
times he feels sure of it and calls his friends together, and tells
them that he is dreaming too much about 'that man/ who must
have something belonging to him. Sometimes the suspected
~bangal (wizard) being spoken to admits that he has something
that he is burning, but excuses himself by saying that it was
given him to burn, but that he did not know to whom it be-
longed. In such a case he would give the thing back, telling the
sick man's friends to put it in water, so as to wash the fire out.
In such cases the sick man would feel cooled, and most likely
get well ! "

There was- the same, belief in the tribes to the eastward of the
Wimmera river : for instance, the Jupagalk ; but the langal,
instead of using a guliwill, tied the objects by a string to a
yamstick stuck before a tire, and when the cord was burned and
they fell the charm was complete,

The omental fat. — Of all the arts attributed to the wizards,
that which was perhaps the most dreaded was the abstraction of
a man's fat. This is usually spoken of by the whites as the
taking of kidney-fat.1 This belief is a very widespread one. It
is not confined to those parts of south-eastern Australia to which
these notes refer, but is found throughout the continent in so
many places that I believe it to be universal. The Murring,
Ngarego, Theddora (of Omeo),, Wolgal and Wirajuri called this
practice by some form of the word ~bukin or lugin. The Kurnai
call it Iret-liLng, or "with the hand." The men who practised
it were called 'bura-btir'tjik or "flying," or also Iret-lting
mungar-w&rugi, or "with the hand from a long distance." They
were believed to throw their victim into a magical state by
pointing at him with the Yertting, which is a bone instrument
made of the fibula of a kangaroo.

In the Kurnai tribe, men have died believing themselves to

1 So far as I know, there is no ''kidney fat" in man, as there is, for instance,
in the sheep. The only fat near to the kidney seems to be in the folds of the
peritoneum on which it rests, as on a cushion, or fatty substance, as the supra-
renal capsules, which, however, are quite insignificant. The position in which
the victim is, as it seems, laid on his back, and the situation of the incision in
front and just below the ribs, clearly indicate the omentum as the source of the
fat taken.

30 A. W. HOWITT. — On Australian Medicine Men.

have been deprived of their fat, there being no signs of violence
whatever on their bodies. At the same time there is no doubt
that the fat-taking was actually practised. An informant, on whom
I can fully rely,1 tells me that when a boy he saw two old men
secretly roasting and eating fat taken from a .dead blackfellow,
and they observed to him that now they would have the strength
of the other man.

The effect of dreams, wherein the sleeper believed that he had
fallen into the hands of such wizards may be imagined, and it is
indicated by my Woiworung informant, who, speaking to me on
this subject said, " Sometimes men only know about having
their fat taken out by remembering something of it as in a
dream."

I have said that the Murring called the fat-takers lukin. The
belief extended with the same name in dialectic forms across the
Maneroo tableland to Omeo and down the Murray and Murrum-
bidgee waters. The Wirajuri greatly dread .the Wgin and
their practices., and attribute to them all kinds of supernatural
powers. They are generally believed to be the wizards of
neighbouring tribes. They are supposed to carry an instrument
made of the pointed leg-bone (fibula) of a kangaroo, having
attached to it a long cord of twisted sinews, ending in a loop.
Watching until the victim sleeps, the wizard is supposed to creep
to him, pass the bone under his knees, round his neck, through
the looped end of the cord, and thus having secured his victim,
to carry him away to extract his fat How this is done will be
seen by the account given to me by a Jupagalk man.

The lugin is believed to walk invisible, to turn himself at
will into an animal, as for instance a kangaroo. My Wirajuri
informant, in speaking to me of the "btigin, of whom he expressed
great dread, said as follows, " If I saw an old man kangaroo
come up hopping close and sit and stare at me, I should keep
my eyes fixed upon him, and try to get out -of his way, lest he
might be a btigin, who, getting behind me, would take me at a
disadvantage."

Moreover, the Itigin, when hardly pressed, is believed to be
able to turn himself into a stump or ,a log, or even to go down
into the ground out of sight — and thus escape his pursuers. A
very dangerous practice attributed to the bijugin is to get inside
of a tree, and then, when a blackfellow is climbing it, to cause a
limb, of which he has laid hold, to break off suddenly, so that he
falls to the ground, and becomes an easy victim.

When the Wirajuri feels his flesh twitch he knows that a
bugin is near ; and thus is of the opinion of the second witch in

1 Mr. James McAlpine, of Tarraville.

A. W. Ho WITT. — On Australian Medicine Men. 31

" Macbeth," who says, " by the pricking of my thumbs, some-
thing wicked this way comes."

Crossing from the Lower Murrumbidgee and the Murray
rivers to the Wimmera, about Lake Hindmarsh we find the same
belief in full force. Here is the account of the fat-taking powers of
the Wotjobaluk wizards as given to me by one of the old men of
the tribe.

The favourite plan is the usual practice of sneaking upon the
victim when asleep. Or the langal (wizard), if he is acquainted
with his intended victim, manages to arrive at his camp so late
as to be asked to remain all night. Pretending himself to sleep, he
watches until his host is in sound slumber, when he passes his
fatal " yulo " * under his knees, round his neck, and through the
loop, and so carries him a little way from the camp.

The old man also gave me an account of the manner in which
the fat was always taken, whether the victim were noosed by the
yulo, or knocked down by a blow of the brdpent2 on the back of
the neck. The victim was laid upon his back, and the wizard,
sitting astride of his chest, cut him open on the right side, below
the ribs, and thence extracted the fat.3 Then bringing the edges
of the cut together, and singing his spell, he bit them to make
them join, so that no scar should be visible. Then he retired to
a distance, leaving the man lying on Ms back. He sings a song,
which causes the victim to rouse up, and stagger about, won-
dering how he came to be " sleeping out there." This proceeding
is called cttking-ngdluk, or " open-side."

If the victim were a stranger, the wizard would not take so
much trouble, but would leave him lying. If he be some one he
knows, he does as above related, and moreover he is careful, when
laying him out preparatory to operating upon him, to place him
in that direction in which the dead of his totem are buried.4

The Miikjaraweint, a tribe which adjoined the Wotjobaluk to
the south, had a similar belief as to the fat-taking wizards. The
account given to me of their proceedings was almost identical
with that just noted, the only difference being, that unless the
bangal takes precautions, the victim will follow him when he
recovers his senses. He therefore hides until he sees him rise

2 Brepent is a club with a knot at one end.

3 The position in which the victim is here laid shows, as previously stated, that
it is the omental fat which is taken.

4 The Wotjobaluk have six principal totems arranged under two principal
classes, Krokitch and Oamutch. Each totem has a particular direction in which
its members are buried. For instance, Wdrtwut (hotwind) with the head a
little to the west of north, that is, in the direction from which the hot wind
blows in their country. O-ndui-ngaguli (belonging to the sun) to the east, that
is, towards the sunrise ; and so on with the others all round the compass.

32 A. W. Ho WITT. — On Australian Medicine Men.

and stagger towards him, when he turns him away homewards
by throwing some earth at him.

The time which will elapse before the victim dies is fixed by
the wizard walking along the nearest fallen tree trunk. Its
length in strides fixes the number of days he has to live. The
victim going home feels ill, does not know what is the matter
with him, but by-and-by, just before he dies, he dreams of the
man, or of the men, if there were more than one, who have
taken his fat, and so is^ able to tell his friends, who make up a
party to revenge him.

This belief in a sort of clairvoyance just before death seems
to be very general among the aborigines. I have found it in
the Wirajuri, where a man, just before his death> said to his
friends who were standing round him, " Go on one side, so that
I may be able to see who it is that has caught me."

It occurs in Gippsland also. A few years ago one of the
Kurnai died from the effects partly of drinking and partly of
exposure. When so near death that he was lying speechless in
his camp, his great friend Tankowilin, whom I have before men-
tioned, besought him earnestly to tell him who it was that had
caused his death, and was inconsolable because the sick man
died without being able to tell him.

The belief in the abstraction of fat by wizards, and its
magical powers, was also held by the Jupagalk.. An account
has been given me by a very intelligent man of this tribe of
what he saw as a boy. His account is as follows : —

" When I was a boy about ten years old I went out one day
with some of the men to hunt. We were all walking in a
line, when one of them hit the man in front of him on the
back of the neck with his club and knocked him down. Two
or three of the men held me tight, so that I could not run
away, for I was very frightened. Then the man cut open the
one he had knocked down, by a little hole in his side below
the ribs, and took out his fat. After that he bit the two edges
of the cut together and sang a song to make them join, but
he could not succeed. He then said that he could not do this
because someone had already taken this man's fat before, as he
could see by the marks upon his liver, and that whenever a man
had been opened and closed up no one could do it again. As
they could not wake the man up they buried him. They
smoked the fat over a fire, and took it away tightly wrapped up
in a cloth. They wanted it to carry with them to make them
lucky in hunting."

The Yulo. — The bone instrument, which I have several times
mentioned, was also used in all the tribes for other magical
purposes, as, for instance, injuring people by pointing it at them

A. W. Ho WITT.' — On Australian Medicine Men. 33

from a distance, when, as in the case of the quartz crystal, it
was supposed to enter them and produce death.

The Wotjobaluk called it, when used in this way, yulo-
witcliinvjelli,* or " the flying yulo," because it was not only
pointed, but also magically thrown at a person. The wizard
having sneaked to such a distance that he could see his victim's
camp fire, and thus distinguish him by its light, was sup-
posed to swing the yulo round his head and launch it at him.
The yulo was believed to dart into the victim invisibly, and
then compel him to come out to the wizard, who, throwing him
over his shoulder, carried him off.

A Jupagalk man explained the way in which this kind of
yulo was made magically powerful. In his tribe it was called
yulo, and the practice was called wdnjertip, or " pointing." The
yulo, or bone, was the fibula of a kangaroo, pointed at one end,
and having at the other the sinews still attached, out of which
— and strips of human skin taken from a corpse — a cord was
twisted. The instrument, when completed, was about twelve
inches in length, and the cord thirty-six inches. To render it
deadly, it was smeared with the fat of the corpse from which
the skin was taken, and with the juices dropping from the stage
upon which the corpse was laid to dry.2 The instrument was
rubbed with ruddle.

As in the Wotjoballuk belief, here also the wizard was
thought to swing the yulo-jinert* round his head, and then
launch it at his victim. People who fell ill were often asked
by their friends, " Have you not dreamed of the man who has
pointed the bone at you ? "

The belief that a victim could be caused to leave his camp
by means of the " flying yulo " is paralleled by the belief of the
Kurnai that men called bunjil barn could cause their victims
to walk to them by reason of their enchantments. I have de-
scribed these at length elsewhere,4 and need only add here that
the pieces of wood from which they received their name were in
shape like the guliwil of the Wotjobaluk, and, like them, made
of the Casuarina. Their magic fire round which they danced,
singing the name of their intended victim, is exactly the
magic fire (tdlmaru) of the Murring initiation ceremonies, and
the bunjil barn being rubbed over with charcoal, followed the
custom of the initiation.

The Lesser Magic familiars. — The doctors or wizards, of whose

witchin = feather.

2 The first witch in " Macbeth " also believed in the magical power of " grease
that sweaten from the murderer's gibbet."

3 Jinert = sinew.

4 Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 252.

34 A. W. HOWITT. — On Australian Medicine Men.

practices against mankind I have now given some account, were
the greater practitioners of magic, but there were also men who
practised the lesser magic. These are credited with magical
powers less in degree and usually different in kind from those of
the doctors and wizards whom I have described.

I take an instance from the Kurnai. One of the Brataua
clan dreamed several times that he had become a lace lizard,1
and as such had assisted ata"corroboree" of those reptiles. Thus
as it was believed, he acquired power over them, and he had
actually a tame lace lizard in his camp, while his wife and
children lived apart in a camp close by. The lizard accom-
panied him wherever he went, sitting on his shoulders, or partly
on his head, and people believed that it informed him of danger,
assisted him in tracking his enemies or young couples who had
eloped, and, in fact, was his friend and protector. As might
have been expected, people also believed that he could send his
familiar lizard at night to injure people in their camps while
they slept. In consequence of this comradeship with lace
lizards, and probably because he was in some manner one of
them, he received the name of Bunjil Bataluk.

I remember, many years ago, before I took any critical notice
of these aboriginal beliefs, that there was an old Bidweli woman
who was much feared because she had a tarne native cat which
she carried about with her, and which was believed to injure
people during sleep at her wish.

Rainmakers. — Eainmakers and weather-changers must not be
forgotten in an account of the lesser magic of these tribes. In
Gippsland the rainmakers were not usually benevolent indi-
viduals who called up refreshing rains after periods of drought
as did their analogues in the dry northern districts, but
malicious persons who raised storms of wind and rain and floods
which did injury and prevented the Kurnai from following their
daily vocations in hunting and fishing.

These rainmakers were called Bunjil- Willing? and it is said
of them as of the other Kurnai wizards, that they obtained
their powers during dreams. I have before spoken of one
of the Braiaka headmen who was credited with the power of
calling up the furious west wind, whence he derived his name
Bunjil-Kraura.3 He, as all others of these men, used songs,

1 Hydrosaurus varius, commonly called the Iguana, called by the Kurnai
MtaluJc. Mr. McAJpine remembers the man here spoken of well. He describes
him as a very reserved, quiet-tempered man, who kept very much to himself.
He had a great reputation for magical powers, and was the father of the Tankli
spoken of in this paper.

2 Will&ng=nan. The Kurnai say that the frogs, when croaking in chorus
in the swamps, are " singing for the rain." and that the big sonorous bull-frogs
are the Bungil Willung.

3 Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 211.

A. W. Ho WITT. — On Australian Medicine Men. 35

which were often accompanied by some expressive pantomime.
One of the well-remembered Bunjil- Willung of the Brataua
clan used to call up storms of wind and rain by filling his
mouth with water and squirting it out towards the west, from
which quarter the storms came in Western Gippsland. This
he did to aid the charm which he sang. Even women acquired
these powers, and there is now an old dame who has a great
reputation for calming the storms by her songs, which speak of
the furious winds blowing the leaves off the trees.

Each Kurnai clan had a direction from which its Bunjil-
Willung called up rains. The Brataua and Braiaka sang
towards the west or south-west, the Tatung to the south, and the
Brabra and the Krauatun to the south-east. The fact is that
from these quarters come the prevalent rains which fall on the
country of the clans named. Thus, when a westerly rain fell over
the Brabra country, it was said that the Braiaka Bunjil- Willung
had sent it, and so on with the others.

It was also thought that the Bunjil- Willung could bring or
send thunder. Morgan, the headman of the Brataua clan, was a
Bunjil- Willung as well as in other respects a powerful wizard,
and could, they thought, bring thunder at will.

By reason of this power, and on account of his deep growling
voice, he received also the name of Bunjil-Gworun.1

Another instance of the beliefs as to rainmakers will suffice.
Among the Wotjobaluk these men were not necessarily bangal ;
in fact, as I learn, few of them were. The offices were distinct.
In order to produce rain he took a bunch of his own hair which
he carried about with him for the purpose. Soaking it in water
he sucked the moisture out and then squirted it to the westward.
Or he twirled the ball round his head so that the water flowed
out like rain. In this arid district the office of rainmaker was
much thought of.

The Yenjin, one of the most curious practices of the lesser
magic I have found in the Kurnai tribe, seems so far as I
yet know to have been peculiar to them. The men who practised
it were called Bunjil- Yenjin.2 The Yenjin is a song peculiar to
elopement, as the Gunyeru is a song which accompanied dances.

1 Gworun — thunder. The Kurnai had a curious telief about thunder. The
Spiny Ant-eater ("Echidna hystrix) is said by them to be the Guedbun (wife's
mother) of the thunder, and that in consequence whenever it hears the voice of
the thunder (its daughter's husband) it endeavours to hide itself by burrowing
in the ground. It is also interesting to note, as showing how beliefs in
tribes far apart are connected, that the Woiworung, who believed that thunder
was something which came from the Tharangalk, the country beyond the sky,
for the purpose of smashing up trees, also thought that the Echidna had com-
mand over it, for they have a legend of how Bunjil ordered it to smash up a
rock with its thunder within which a stolen child had been hidden.

2 In the Nulit dialect this was softened to Yenin.

D 2

36 A. W. Ho WITT. — On Australian Medicine Men.

There are now no Bunjil-Yenjin among the Kurnai, and probably
the office has been vacant for over twenty years. Before that time
there was at least one in each division of the tribe. Some men
were more celebrated than others, and of them Morgan whom I
have just mentioned had a great name.1

The following account is derived from the statements of the
Kurnai and partly also from those of two old residents of Gipps-
land, who in the early days were, as boys, much with the blacks
in their camps, and thus observed and now remember many
practices which are now obsolete.2

It seems from these statements that almost the last time when
the Bunjil-Yenjin exercised their office on a large scale was at
the holding of a Jeraeil? on the south side of Lake Wellington,
about 20 to 25 years ago. At it ten or a dozen young couples
" ran off " under the influence of love and the songs of the
lunjil-yenjin. Some few of the people who were there are still
living, and from them, and especially from one woman who
was a girl at that time and who then "ran off" with her future
husband, I have received very full accounts of what was done.

The substance of these statements is as follows. It was the
business of a lunjil-yenjin to aid the elopement of young couples.
For instance, when a young man wanted a wife and had fixed his
mind upon some girl whom he could not obtain from her parents,
he must either go without her, persuade her to run off, or call in
the aid of the bunjil-yenjin. In this latter case he retained him
by presents of weapons, rugs, &c. The lunjil-yenjin then lay
down in or near the encampment, next to him was the young
man, beyond him his comrades. The Imnjil-yenjin then sang
his song and the others all joined in with him.4 The following
is one of the songs, .of which there are very many, used on such
occasions, and it is said to have been a most powerful one. My
Kurnai informant, whose wife had been one of the girls who
eloped at the Jeraeil I have mentioned, said, in speaking of it,
" That yenjin made the women run in all directions when they
heard it." '

Bara-ltirni. Wanynr.5 molla.

Eoll up the twine. jaw. down there.

1 Mr. McAlpine remembers that Morgan was one of the great singers of the
tribe.

2 Mr. J. McAlpine, of Tarraville, and Mr. W. Lucas, of Woodside.

3 Initiation ceremon}\

4 Mr. McAlpine remembers, as a boy, hearing these songs on several occasions,
and seeing girls going about the camp covering their ears with their hands.
In answer to his inquiries these damsels said that the young men wanted them
to run off, but that they did not want to do so.

5 Wangur = the Jaw, the girl's name. The name of course varies in each
application of the charm.

A. W. Ho WITT. — On Australian Medicine Men. 37

tdllo-burni. tallo. kdragan.

little twine. little. sweetheart.

ngella galli. karnang.

I go first. the hollow (to).

gdln. yinna.

before. you.

This performance — ceremony it might even be called — was
well known to all in the camp, for there was no concealment,
and if done at any little distance there was always some female
friend of the girl — some " sister, or a cousin, or an aunt " — to
carry her the news and say, " So-and-so is singing a yenjin
about you."

When the bunjil-yenjin thought his spell strong enough, he
ceased his song. In one case, where Mr. Lucas was present,
Morgan was the bunjil-yenjin, and the girl's parents covered
themselves up with their rugs as if asleep.

Before, however, the youth could avail himself of the spell
thus cast upon his "little sweetheart" something more had
to be done, and probably in the case mentioned by Mr. Lucas it
preceded the covering up of the parents. Another wizard had
to use his art to send them asleep. In the case of the Jeraeil
which I have mentioned, this man was the renowned Bunjil
Dauangun,1 and his proceeding was as follows : — Being paid by
the youth with weapons and 'possum rugs, he stuck his magical
throwing stick in the ground, slanting towards the camp of the
parents, and with such an inclination that after a time it would
fall down. By its side he placed his bulk,2 and at a little
distance his yertung,3 and beside it his gumbart* He then sang
his song, and when the throwing stick fell the charm was com-
plete, and the parents supposed to be wrapped in a magical
sleep.

The youth might now run off with his sweetheart, but only
after a formality which shows that the final choice rested with
her. Stealing round to the back of her parents' camp, in which
she was sitting, he touched her with a long stick, and she being
ready to run off, pulled the end as a signal. The young man
then left, and the girl having packed up her bag (batung) — in
fact, having her trousseau ready — flitted after him.

In this case which I am now describing the proceedings were
not yet over. After a time, according to my informant, the old
people woke up, and finding their daughter gone, the old man

1 Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 211.

2 Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 251.

3 A small instrument made of Kangaroo bone, in some respects the analogue
of the yulo.

4 The bone nose peg.

38 A. W. HowiTT. — On Australian Medicine Men.

summoned his kindred * to assist him in singing a song which
was believed would cause the youth's legs to become so weary
that he would not be able to make his escape. Finally, the
father took, his muriwun (throwing stick), and, holding it loosely
in his right hand, made blows with it towards different points of
the horizon. When it gave a sound like a crack it indicated the
direction in which search after the runaways was to be made.

Mr. Lucas tells me that he remembers being present when a
couple, who had run off by means of a bunjil-yenjin, voluntarily
returned after a time. One of the old women went out of the
camp and brought them in. Mr. Lucas is not aware what was
done to them, excepting that the young man had afterwards to
stand out and submit to an ordeal of weapons of some kind.2

III.

The Wizard as a Healer.

I have now spoken at some length of the manner in which the
blackfellow doctors have been accustomed, according to the
belief of the aborigines, to work ill upon them. It remains
to show these men in a somewhat more favourable light,
as alleviating suffering and shielding their friends from the
machinations of enemies or revenging those who had fallen
victims to other wizards.

One of the special functions of the blackfellow doctors is to
counteract the effect of spells wrought by others of their own
class.

Their method of procedure is so common among savage tribes,
and has so often been described that it may be dismissed with a
few words. The cure is effected by sucking the affected part

1 Descent with the Kurnai is in the male line. There are certain animal names,
Sea Salmon, Wambat, which go from father to children, and probably represent
former totems.

2 Many other particulars might be added, bearing upon the subject of
marriage by elopement as practised by the Brataua Kurnai, and as witnessed by
Mr. McAlpine in the early years of settlement in G-ippsland. But these state-
ments would be foreign to the purpose of this paper. Those which I have given
are connected with the Lesser Magic, and they fully confirm all I have elsewhere
said as to elopement having been one of the. recognised forms of marriage with
the Kurnai. The old people in the case of the yenjin winked at the elopement,
and yet punished the principal actors in it when they returned. I am now
satisfied that the explanation of this extraordinary state of affairs is to be sought
for in the restriction upon marriage which was produced by the combined action
of the widespreading archaic system of Kurnai kinships and the prohibition of
marriage within the local groups.

The prohibition arising thus from the prohibited degrees, and from locality,
rendered it next to impossible for a man to find any woman who was not in
some way related to him in such a manner as to become forbidden to him as a
wife. Consent of parents and relatives could only be obtained in the rarest
cases, hence recourse was had to the only possible alternative, namely elopement,
and the office of the bunnl-yenjin arose in time to lend a sanction to the
proceedings.

A. W. HOWITT. — On Australian Medicine Men. 39

and exhibiting, as having been extracted thereform, some foreign
body which had caused the ill ; or by sucking the place and
expelling the evil influence as a mouthful of wind ; or by
various manipulations, pinchings, squeezings, to allay the pain.
In some cases the " poison " as they call it now, is supposed to
be extracted through a string, or a stick from the patient to the
doctor, who spits it out in the form of blood.

Charms are also sung to cure people. A very good instance
occurred at the Jeraeii which I attended in February, 1884.
One evening I heard a most extraordinary song proceeding from
the camp of the second headman, Tulaba. I found him driving
away pains which were troubling his old wife. He told me
that he was singing a very powerful song which his father had
lately taught him while he slept. The words are as follows, with
a most extraordinary emphasis, when sung, upon the last word.

Minyan bulunma ndranke
Show belly moon to.

As an illustration of the methods generally used, I can give
the case of the Kurnai, Tankli, the son of the lace lizard man.
His method of cure was to stroke , the affected part with his
hands until, as he said, he could " feel the thing under the skin."
Then covering the place with a piece of cloth, he drew it together
with one hand, and unfolding it, exhibited within its folds a
piece of quartz, bone, bark, charcoal, even in one case a glass
marble, as the cause of the disease. The use of the cloth is
evident to any one but a blackfellow.

The curative powers of the wizards were, however, in many
cases of a much higher order. The following account was given
of a celebrated wizard of the Jupagalk by one of the men who
was present, and I subjoin it as nearly in his own words as
possible.

" A blackfellow was very bad, and about dusk King Barney
came to see him. At dark he went off for a time. By and by
we saw a light afar off, and as it seemed above the tree tops, it
looked first like a star in the east. Then it went round to the
west and kept coming nearer and nearer. At last we saw the
bangal walking along the ground carrying a piece of burning rag
in his hand. His legs were covered with something like feathers
which could be seen by the fire-light, and the people said it was
the ( bangal's feathers.' He sate down by the poor fellow, saying
he had been over to the Avoca Eiver, where he found a man who
had the rag tied on a yamstick roasting it before the fire. He
then rubbed the place where the man was sick and sucked out
of it some pieces of stone and glass. The man then soon got
better."

40 A. W. HOWITT. — On Australian Medicine Men.

In this tribe when a man died it was the office of the bangal
to go out with the relatives and watch at the grave, for it was
believed that during the night the spirit of the wizard who had
killed him would come and peep at the grave out of the bushes.
He having thus been seen by the bangal, the relatives of the
deceased were in a position to have revenge.

The Woiworung Wirarap.

In the Woiworung tribe the wizards (wirarap) besides making
use of the ordinary curative processes which I have mentioned,
practised also their art in extracting quartz crystals which
were believed to have been projected by other wizards or doctors
or by the supernatural being called Ngarang. The quartz crystal
was believed to be projected in the form of a small dust whirl-
wind against the victim. In describing this, my informant
Barak said as follows : " The man being struck felt cold, suffered
pains all over him, then shortness of breath. Some wirarap
seeing him might say ' Hallo ! there is a lot of mung (magic) in
you.' The cure was for several wirarap to watch the man until
they saw the mung escaping like a little dust whirlwind from
him.1 It was then going back to its owner, and the wirarap
would run after it and the one that caught it would break a
little bit off so that it could not leave him any more. Then he
would put it in his bag with his other things."

When a person believed himself to be under spme spell by a
person who had got something belonging to him, his resource
was to the wirarap. That which was thus acted upon was
called yaruk. He might suspect that some harm was impending
over him by having a dream, for instance, of a kangaroo hopping
towards him, and if he then became ill he would consult the
wizard. My informant gave me this as an illustration : —
" The Wirarap looking at him might say, ' Yes ! the fire is
up so high (pointing to his waist). It is well you came to me
in time, for the next time they burned that thing belonging to
you it would be up so high (pointing to his neck) and then you
would be done for.' The wizard was then supposed to go to the
place where the culprit lived, the next time the wind blew from
it. He would go through the air to the place where the yaruk
was concealed, pull up the throwing stick with it attached and
bring it back. Giving the yaruk to the sick man, he would say
to him something like this, ' You go and put this in a running
stream to wash all the mung out of it, and I will go up aloft and
put this throwing-stick in some water up there.' "

1 Brewin of the Kurnai is supposed to travel in such little whirlwinds. I have
heard the Kurnai say, when seeing such a little spiral of dust and leaver in the
forest, " Get out of the way, there is Brewin coming."

A. W. HOWITT. — On Australian Medicine Men. 41

The functions of the wirarap related also to the cause of
death in so far that it was his office to inform the relatives of
the deceased who had been the aggressor. In order to do this
he watched by the grave in order to see the spirit or " wraith "
of a culprit sneaking round to see where his victim had been
buried. When no wizard was available, the relatives in digging
the grave, sought for some worm-hole, or grub-hole in it, and
having found one poked a small stick or straw down it and by
the inclination learned the direction in which to seek the
culprit.

The power of the wirarap extended not only to the cure of
afflicted persons and to the discovery of the person who had
caused death by magic, but also, in some instances, at least to the
bringing back of the departed spirit. Such a man is said to have
been the Wirarap Doro-bauk,1 who lived near Mt. Macedon.
The following account was given me by a Woiworung man who
was present.

" Soon after the white men came to Melbourne, a blackfellow,
near where Heidelberg now is, was very nearly dead. His friends
sent for Doro-bauk, who, on his arrival found the man only just
breathing the least possible, and his murup (ghost-spirit) had
gone away from him. Nothing remained but a little wind.
Doro-bauk went after the murup, and by-and-by returned
with it under his opossum rug. He said he had been just in
time to catch it round the middle before it got near to the
karalk? The dead man was still breathing a little wind when
Doro-bauk laid himself down upon him and put the murup
back into him. After ^time the man came back to life."

The wirarap also in this tribe exercised supervision over the
youth who had been made jibauk (initiated). He could dream
of their actions. But the novice was also under supernatural
penalties if he broke the food laws or rules of conduct laid upon
him. Thus the Kulin of the Goulburn Eiver,who were the neigh-
bours of the Woiworung, and nearly allied to them, believed that
if the novice ate the spiny ant-eater or the black duck, he would
be killed by the thunder.3 If he ate of the female of the
opossum or native bear, he was liable to fall when climbing

1 Doro = & grub. ~Bauk=}iigh up.

2 Karalk is the briglit colour of sunset, and is said to be caused by the spirits
of the dead going into and out of Ngamat. Ngamat is the receptacle of the sun
beyond the western edge of the earth. It seems that the dead do not remain
permanently in Ngamat, for they are spoken of as returning, and are then
spoken of as Ngamajet. The white men were also called Ngamajet. The Kulin of
the Western Port District, neighbours of the Woiworung, used the word Taringura
as the equivalent of KaralTc. This is explained to me as being also the word
applied to a place on fire, as for instance an incandescent hole in the ground, out
of which a tree stiimp has been burned, such as may be seen after any bushfire.

3 See footnote, p. 35.

42 A. W. HOWITT. — On Australian Medicine Men.

trees, and so on for other similar offences. If the novice fell ill,
and his conscience pricked him, his only chance of safety would
be to present himself to the wizard or doctor.1 My informant
said that something as follows would occur: "The wirarap
looking steadily at the boy, would 'say, ' There is a lot of muny
(magic) in you ! ' After a pause he would commence to rub
the youth's leg, and after a little more time produce a small young
'possum and say, ' This has happened to you because you have
been eating 'possum too soon.' "

Precisely similar supervision is exercised by the wizards of
the other tribes after initiation over the novices.

I have before mentioned that the Woiworung believed that
men could be injured by an evil being called Ngarang, which
is in this analogous to Brewin of the Kurnai ; but the latter lived
in the sky, while the former was thought to live in the mounds
of earth which are so often to be seen around the swollen stems
of great forest trees. The Ngarang was described as being like
a man with a big beard and hairy arms and hands. They came
out at night in order to cast things at men passing incautiously.
Their magic acted by making the victim lame. The wirarap
was, however, superior, for lie could extract these substances by
his art, as quartz, bone, wood, or other rubbish. Of course, the
Ngarang was invisible to all but the wirarap.

The Murring Gommera.

Among the Murring of the coast, the wizards (gommera)
were the principal men, and in this the Murring differed some-
what from the Kurnai and the Woiworung, and probably from
other tribes among those I have mentioned.

I have before said that the Kurnai headmen were not neces-
sarily doctors or wizards. For instance, the principal man of
the northern section of the Kurnai, when Gippsland was settled
by the whites, was one Bruthen Munji,2 who was a fighting man
and orator. It is said of him as showing his eminence as a
warrior, that he had been known to run down a straggling
Brajerak blackfellow, and hold him until his brother Bembinkel
came up and knocked him on the head. With the Woiworung,
according to ray informant, Barak, the headmen were those old

1 Mr. Me Alpine, whom I have already mentioned, tell? me that about 1856-57
he had a black boy in his employment. The lad was strong and healthy, until
one day, when Mr. McAlpine found that he was ill. He explained that he had
been doing what he ought, not to have done, that he had " stolen some female
opossum " before he was permitted to eat it ; that the old men had found it out,
and that he should never grow up to be a man. In fact, he lay down under the
belief, so to say, and never got up again, and died within three weeks.

2 Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 212.

A. W. HOWITT. — On Australian Medicine Men. 43

men who "spoke straight and did not injure people."1 The
wirarap might be a headman, but was not necessarily such.
With the Murring, on the contrary, the headman must also be a
wizard. This comes out clearly in considering what the
gommeras and their powers were.

The power of a gommera was very great before the disorgani-
zation of the Murring tribes, although even now he directs and
is obeyed. He was the headman and wizard combined. He
was the biamban, or master, of all the people of the local group
to which he belonged.2 The oldest gommera was the liamban
of the other gommeras, who obeyed his directions. He directed
the proceedings of the Bunan and the Kuringal (initiation
ceremonies), and to judge from the one I have seen, maintained
a certain reserve and kept himself somewhat apart as being
superior. To be a " real gommera," a man must have certain
qualifications. He must be grey-headed, must speak several
dialects, or even languages, he must be skilful in arms, and
above all he must be able to " bring things up out of himself."3
At the initiations, where the wizards exhibit their powers, some-
times singly, sometimes all together, the substances which they
" bring up," and exhibit held between their teeth, are quartz
crystals, or pieces of veinquartz, pieces of blacks tone, white
substances (pipe clay, &c.), lengths of fresh intestine, pieces of
flesh, bone, &c. The accounts given of the Gommeras of the
past generation, say thirty years ago, if fairly trustworthy, show
that they were more clever than the men now living. One man
was described to me as having attended a great Bunan* coming
from Braidwon, who protruded from his mouth, while performing
his magical dance, a black substance about the size of a hand,
which hung down from his mouth, and could be withdrawn and
again protruded. It was believed that by exhibiting this to his
enemies he could render their sight dim, and then go up and
knock them on. the head with ease. At the same Bunan it
is said that another, during the dance at which the totem
name, meaning " Brown Snake/' is shouted, produced out of his
mouth a small live brown snake, which his tribesmen believed

1 Buckley says : " by my harmless and peaceable manner amongst them, I had
acquired great influence in settling their disputes. Numbers of murderous
fights I had prevented by my interference." — Morgan's " Life of Buckley,"
p. 101.

2 In these tribes the local organization had superseded the social organization.
The totems had lost their prominence and had sunk into " magical names "
rather than names connected with descent.

3 This expression refers to the belief that the wizards keep their magical
substances " in stock," so to say, within themselves, and can at will bring them
up out of their interiors, so as to produce them from their mouths.

4 The Bunan is the complete ceremony of initiation, at which a circular mound
of earth is made, within which some of the ceremonies take place.

44 A. W. HOWITT. — On Australian Medicine Men.

to be what we may call his " familiar." A third gommera is
said to have brought up a number of minute crystals of quartz,
which, being dropped from his mouth into a wooden bowl, were
given to the novices to swallow, in order that these crystals
might "breed" inside them, and thus in time make them
" clever men."

The gommeras were believed to go up aloft by threads, and
this also applies to the wizards of the Maneroo Murring, the
Ngarego, the Wolgal, and the Theddora of Omeo.

The ghosts were also, as elsewhere, in communication with the
gommeras.

It seems to have been a favourite practice of the gommeras until
quite recently to leave things lying about the kuringal (initia-
tion) grounds. The general belief is that these are the sub-
stances which they can project into people, such as quartz, bone,
&c. From one case which was related to me, it seems, however,
most probable that they actually did leave sharp pieces of bone,
which may have been poisoned. In the case I refer to, a young
man walking across a Bunan ground, trod upon a sharp pointed
piece of bone, became ill, and died. The symptoms described to
me suggest blood poisoning. One then comes naturally to think
of the statements which are made as to some of the South
Australian tribes, namely, that the wizards used pointed bones,
which had been left for a time in a putrid corpse, to kill people
by scratching them.1

The belief in the powers of these gommeras held by the
tribes people, and even by the younger men who have been
much with the whites, is well shown by the statement of one
young man to me. He said," These gommeras can put poison into
you, and also suck it out. I have seen one of them suck it out
in a good mouthful of blood from a man. They can also find
out who it is that has put poison into a person." The word
" poison " is very generally used by the aborigines as we should
use the word " magic " or " magical substance." Perhaps the
best equivalent is the North American term " medicine."

The Kurnai Biraark.

A peculiar feature in the Kurnai magic is the separation of
the functions of the seer and bard from those of the doctor and
wizard as herein described. The Kurnai liraark combined the
seer, the spirit medium, and the bard, for he foretold future
events, he brought the ghosts to the camps of his people at night,
and he composed the songs and dances which enlivened their

1 " Native Tribes of South Australia," Adelaide, 1879. " The Narrinyeri," by
the Kev. George Taplin. Sec. iii. p. 29. Neilyeri, or the poison revenge.

A. W. HOWITT. — On Australian Medicine Men. 45

social meetings. He was a harmless being, who devoted himself
to spiritual performances which resembled very strikingly those of
civilised " mediums." I have already written about these men,1
and a few words only now remain to be said of them.

One of the best remembered biraark was a man of the Brabra
clan, named Miindauin. It is related of him that he became a
biraark by having dreamed three times that he was a kangaroo,
and as such participated in a " corroboree " of those animals. In
consequence of this kindred he could not .eat any part of a
kangaroo on which there was blood. Nor could he even carry
one home which had any blood on it. Others did this and gave
him such pieces when cooked as he could eat. He said in
reference to this that if he were to eat any kangaroo meat with
blood on it, or touch the fresh blood of a kangaroo, the mrarts
would no longer take him up aloft.

Mundauin said that after dreaming of the kangaroos he began
to hear the ghosts drumming and singing up aloft, and that
finally one night they came and carried him away. A man who
was present in the camp on the occasion of one of his " mani-
festations," said as follows : —

" In the night his wife shouted out, 'He is gone up." Then we
heard whistling in the air, first on one side of us, then on the
other, and afterwards sounds as of people jumping down on the
ground. After a time all was quiet. In the morning he found
Miindauin lying on the ground near the camp, where the mrarts
had left him. He had a big log lying across his back. He
seemed as if asleep, and when we woke him up and took the log-
off him, he began to sing about the mrarts, and all he had seen
up above."

At another seance by Mundauin the ghosts said finally,
speaking in hollow, muffled voices, which my informant imitated
by holding his nose when speaking, " We must now go home, or
the west wind may blow us out to sea." In the morning the
biraark was found as before lying on the ground outside the
camp, and round about him were the marks of feet deeply
stamped into the soil, where the mrarts had alighted.

Besides learning news from the ghosts about absent friends,
and possibly present enemies, the biraarks were also material
benefactors to their tribesmen, as when the ghosts informed
them of a whale stranded on the shore. For it was thought that
the whales were in such cases intentionally killed by the mrarts
and sent ashore for the Kurnai.

At such times messengers were sent out, and all the surrounding
people from far inland collected to feast upon the " food sent by

1 Zamilaroi and Kuraai, p. 253.

46 A. W. HowiTT. — On Australian Medicine Men.

the gods." No doubt at such times the biraark was not for-
gotten.

Powers such as these of the biraark were also attributed to
the wizards of the Wotjoballuk and the Wirajuri, who were
believed to be able to bring down the ghosts to the camp at
night, so that the people could see their dim figures walking
about in the gloom.

Magical Chnens.

I have now noted the principal beliefs which have come to my
knowledge bearing upon the powers and the office of the wizards
and the doctors. A few words may conclude this section as to
the omens and warnings believed in, and which are in some
measure connected with magic.

I have several times mentioned a common belief that kangaroos
can give warning of coming danger. A Murring young man,
who served me as a messenger, in connection with initiation
affairs, had a bag of powerful charms (joea), which had been
given to him to take care of by a gommera, his relative, and by
other gommeras. Among these was one which he prized very
highly, and on inspection I found it to be the top of a cut-glass
stopper of some bottle. The use of these magical objects to the
young man was in the manner of protective charms. When I
asked him how they would protect him, he said, "If I were going
along, and saw an old man kangaroo hopping straight towards
me and looking at me, I should know that he was giving me
notice that enemies were about. I should get my spear ready,
and I should hold my joea bag in my hand, so that if the man
were to chuck something at me I should be safe." The throwing
of the joea is, in other words, the projection by some wizard of
a quartz crystal or other magical substance. In this case the
young man has the kangaroo for his totem (from his father). I
may note, that " getting his spear ready " is a mere figure of
speech for being prepared, for the Murring have long laid aside
their native weapon, the spear, for the white man's gun.

The Kurnai also believe in kangaroo warnings, and for one to
dream of a number of " old men kangaroos " sitting round his
camp, is to receive a serious warning of danger.

It was a practice with them to consult the crow in times of
danger, by saying to it, " Which way shall I go ? — north, south,
east, west ? " When the bird croaked " Nga-a-a " (yes) the oracle
had spoken, and the omen was accepted. One of the nightjars has
a note which the Kurnai say is " lorun-lorun" or "jag spear,
jag spear," and indicates that enemies are about. The note of
another bird — which I have now unfortunately forgotten —
indicates the arrival shortly of some one.

A. W. HowiTT. — On Australian Medicine Men. 47

A Kurnai hearing a cracking sound in the ground under his
head when lying in his camp by fire at night, would consider
that the ground was giving him warning against some danger
near at hand.

In all tribes with which I am acquainted, the lives and actions
of the people are much influenced by such omens as well as by
dreams.

Doctors' Fees.

It goes without saying that the wizards and doctors in all these
tribes did not exercise their powers gratis. Presents were given
them by people who had benefited by their art, and also by
people who feared lest they should suffer from it. They received
presents of weapons, rugs, implements — in fact, of all those
things which are of value to the aborigines, not forgetting a
share of the game caught. Especially did they reap a harvest
at the great gatherings. The Bunan gatherings of the Coast
Murring may be taken as an example. Before the people
separated to return home, a sort of fair or market was held, to
which people brought the weapons, rugs, implements, &c., which
they had brought with them for the purpose.1 From these
" fairs " the gommeras went away loaded with gifts.

IV.

How Men became Doctors or Wizards.

The subject of this section I have found to be one of almost
insuperable difficulty. The blackfellow doctors surround them-
selves with profound mystery and of course give the account of
themselves which best suits their purpose. The relation which
these statements, as current in the tribe, bear to the truth, is no
doubt the same as that of the proceedings at initiations given to
the women and children in relation to the true proceedings
What these latter are the reader can learn by reference to my
two communications to this Institute.2 The statements made to
the women are that Daramulun comes down in person and
knocks the boy's tooth out (Murring, Ngarego, Theddora, Wolgal,
Wirajuri), that Turndun comes down and makes the boys into
men (Kurnai).

On the Lower Lachlan and the Murray the novice is
said to meet Thrumalun, who kills him and brings him again
to life.

In one part of Queensland the sound of the Bullroarer is said
to be the noise made by the wizards in swallowing the boys and
bringing them up again as young men. The Ualaroi of the

1 This fair has fallen out of use at the present time.

3 " On some Australian Ceremonies of Initiation " and " The Kurnai Jeraeil."

48 A. W. HOWITT. — On Australian Medicine Men.

Upper Darling River say that the boy meets a ghost which kills
him and brings him to life again as a man.

So it is with the doctors and wizards. The tribes are full of tales
of the manner in which these men acquire their terrible powers.

As I have said, I have found the elucidation of this subject
most difficult, and I have not succeeded in working it out at all
to my satisfaction. The wizards of " the olden time " — that is, of
the time before the tribes became " tamed " by the whites — soon
die out blighted by our civilisation, or they linger on and either
shut themselves up within themselves or give themselves up to
rum and its consequences.

The second generation of blackfellow doctors loses much of
the old practice of magic, and by-and-by these die and the race
becomes extinct, and only shows now and then in some old man
who has partially retained some of the magical practices of the
old time. Such has now become within the last few years the
condition of the Kurnai, and it will be the same with every
Australian tribe as the wave of civilisation rolls over and
crushes it.

The Kurnai belief is that the doctors (Mulla mulluwg)
obtained their powers in dreams. Either the ancestral ghosts
visited the sleeper and communicated to him protective chants,
or they took him in spirit with them and completed his educa-
tion elsewhere. Tulaba is a case of the former,1 and Tankli,
the son of the Lace Lizard, is an instance of the latter, as I shall
relate further on.

The wizard of the Kurnai appears in the form of the liraark,
a harmless being who was the medium of communication between
the ghosts and the tribe. It will be seen that the account given
of himself by Tankli combines both the beliefs as to the manner
in which men became doctors or spirit mediums.

The Wotjobaluk believed that a man became a bangal
(wizard) by meeting with a supernatural being, called by them
Ngatje, who is said to live in the hollows in the ground in the
Mallee Scrubs. They think that the Ngatje opens the man's
side and inserts therein such things as quartz crystals, by which
he obtains his powers. From that time he can "pull tilings
out of himself and others," such as quartz, wood, charcoal, and
also from his arms " something like feathers " which are con-
sidered to have healing properties.

The Woiworung also believed that their wiraraps were in-
structed by the ghosts who conveyed them to the sky through a
hole to Bunjil, from whom they received their magical powers.

The Murring of the coast considered that it was Daramulun
who gave their powers to the gommeras, but at the same time

1 See p. 39.

A. W. HOWITT. — On Australian Medicine Men. 49

thought that a boy could be trained up " in the way he should
go " — that is, in magical ways. A great gommera, called by the
whites Waddiman, that is to say, " Tree climber," who died only
a few years ago, is reported to have said that he was trained up
as a boy by a very great gommera of that time. As Waddi-
man died at a great age, his training took place probably some
sixty years ago. He also said that he got his magical powers
from Daramulun.1

The Ngarego, Wolgal, and Theddora held the same belief as to
Tharainulun being the source of the magical power of their
wizard.

The Wirajuri wizards professed to go up to Baiame for their
powers.2 But the wizards also in this tribe trained up their
sons to follow in their steps. The account which I subjoin was
given to me by a Wirajuri of the kangaroo totem of the
Muri sub-class, and is an excellent example of the beliefs held in
such matters.

This narrative was given voluntarily during a conversation
I had with him about the initiation ceremonies of his tribe. He
had been careful not to betray any tiling unlawfully until he
found out from my answers to him that I was indeed one of the
initiated. He then became quite communicative and gave
me a full account of the Wirajuri ceremonies (burbttng), and in
many respects I was able to check his statements and found him
to be quite accurate. He then, when we were talking about the
magical exhibition of the wizards at the ceremonies, said, " I
will tell you about how my old father began to make a black-
fellow doctor of me." My impression is that his account
was bond fide, and from my experience I should say that it
would be an unheard-of thing for a man to falsify when speak-
ing of matters relating to such sacred subjects as the initiation
with an initiated person. I mention this because I have not
been able to verify his statements. Up to the present time I
have not succeeded in placing myself in communication with
the old man, his father, who is believed to be still living on
the Lower Murrumbidgee Kiver. I now give his account in his
own words as far as possible, and I leave it to my readers to
form their own opinion as to its value :

" My father is Yibai — Iguana.3 When I was quite a small
boy he took me from the camp into the bush to begin to train me

1 As to Daramulun see " On some Australian Beliefs," and " On some Aus-
tralian Ceremonies of Initiation," Journ. Anthrop. Inst., vol. xiii. p. 192,
432, &c.

2 Baiame is the analogue of Daramulun or Bunjil, or Munganngaura, the
supernatural being to whom the aborigines attribute the institution of their
social organization, and the invention of their arts.

3 Yibai = Ipai of the Kainilaroi.

50 A. W. HOWITT. — On Australian Medicine Men.

to be a wulla mullung (doctor or wizard). He placed two large
quartz crystals against my breast, and they vanished into me
I do not know how they went, but I felt them going through me
like warmth. This was to make a clever man * of me and able
to bring things up. He also gave me some things like quartz
crystals, in water. They looked like ice, and the water tasted
sweet. After that I used to see things that my mother could
not see. When out with her I would say, 'Mother, what is
that out there, like men walking ? ' She used to say, ' Child !
there is nothing ! ' These were the jir (or ghosts) which I began
to see.

" When I was taken to the Burbung 2 and had seen what all
the old men could bring up out of themselves, and when my
tooth was out I went into the bush for a time, and while
there my old father came out to me. He said, ' Come here to
me,' and he then showed me a quartz crystal in his hand, and
when I looked at it he went down into the ground and came up
all covered with red dust. It made me very frightened. He
then said, ' Come with me to this place/ and I followed him into
a hole leading to a grave where there were some dead men
who rubbed me over to make me clever, and who gave me
some quartz crystals. When we came out my father pointed
to a tiger snake, saying, ' That is your Biidjan.' 3 There was a
string tied to the tail of the snake. It was one of those strings
which the doctors bring up out of themselves curled up together.
He took hold of this string, and said, ' Come, follow him.' The
tiger-snake went through several tree trunks, which opened and
let us through. Then he came to a great Currajong tree4 a,nd went
through it, and afterwards to an immense tree with a great
mound round the roots.5 It is in such places that Daramulun
lives.6 Here the tiger-snake went down into the ground, and
we followed him and came up under the tree which was hollow.
There I saw a number of little Daramuluns. After he came out
again the tiger-snake took us to a great hole in the ground
which was filled by a lot of tiger-snakes, which rubbed them-
selves against me, but did not hurt me, being my Biidjan. They
did this to make me a clever man and a wulla mullung.

" My father then said we will go up to Baiame's camp. He got
astride of a thread and put me on another, and we held by each
other's arms. At the end of the two threads was Wombu the

1 To be a " clever man " is the phrase used for being a wizard.
3 Initiation ceremony.

3 Sudjan = totem. The tiger snake is his secret totem ; his own by inheritance
through his mother is kangaroo.

4 Brachychiton populneum.

5 See the Ngarang of the Woiworung.

' The Wirajuri say the Daramulun is the son, or one of the sons, of Baiame.

A. W. HOWITT. — On Australian Medicine Men. 51

bird of Baiame. We went through the clouds, and on the other
side was the sky. We went through the place where the doctors
go through, and it kept opening and shutting very quickly. My
father said that if it touched a doctor as he was going through
it would hurt his spirit, and when he returned home he would
sicken and die.

" On the other side we saw Baiame sitting in his camp. He
was a very great old man with a long beard. He sate with
his legs under him and from his shoulders extended two great
quartz crystals to the sky above him. There were also numbers
of the boys of Baiame and of his people who are birds and
beasts.

" After this, while I was in the bush, I began to bring up things,
but I became very ill, and cannot do anything since."

There are some things to notice in connection with this man's
statement which I shall defer until the concluding section of
this paper.

The account which was given me by Tankli of the manner in
which he became a wulla mullung is as follows. I have kept to
his own language as nearly as possible :

" When I was a big boy, about getting whiskers, I had some
dreams about my father. He came to me with a number of old
men. I was at that time camped with my people at Tarraville,1
and Morgan and other old men were there. When I first
dreamed my father and the other men who were with him stood
round me. They were all rubbed over with red ochre, and they
made me hold a cord made of sinews, and they swung me about
on it. After that when they came once or twice they were
dressed as if for the jeraeil? My father put a cord of sinews
round my waist and under my arms, and he and the old men
carried me by it over the sea at Corner Inlet, and set me down
at Wilson's Promontory in front of a big rock like the side of
a house. I noticed that there was something like a door which
opened and shut very quickly. My father tied something over
my eyes and led me into the rock. I knew this because I heard
the door make a sound of shutting to behind us. Then he
uncovered my eyes and I found that I was in a place as bright
as day, and all the old men were round about. My father
showed me a lot of shining bright things on the wall and told
me to take some. Then we went out again and he taught me
how to make these things go into my legs, and how I could pull
them out again. He also taught me how to throw them at
people. After that he and the other old men carried me by
the cord back to the camp and put me in the top of a big tree.

1 In South Gippsland.

2 Initiation ceremonies of the Kurnai.

E 2

52 A. W. HOWITT. — On Australian Medicine Men.

He said, 'Shout out loud, and tell the people you are come
back/ I did this and I heard the people in the camp waking
up and the women begin to beat their rugs. Then old Morgan
and the old men came out with firesticks, and when they reached
the tree I was down and was standing by it on the ground, with
the thing my father had given to me in my hand. It was like
glass and we call it kin (quartz). I told the old men all about
it, and they said T was a doctor. From that time I could pull
things out of people, and I could throw the kin like light in the
evening at people to hurt them. I have caught several in that
way. About three years ago I took to drinking and I then lost
my kin and all my power, and have never been able to do
anything since. I used to keep it in a bag of ringtail 'possum
skin in a hole in a tree. One night I dreamed that I was
sleeping in my camp and that my wife threw some kruk1 on me.
After that I never could do anything, and my kin went out of
the bag, I do not know where. I have slept under the tree
where I left it, thinking that my power might come back, but
I have never found the kin, nor can I dream any more of it."

V.
Conclusion.

The general belief of the aborigines as to the powers of the
wizard are much the same in all the tribes herein spoken of.
He is everywhere said to have received his dreaded powers from
some supernatural source, from the ancestral ghosts, or from
Da.rarnulun, Baiame, or Bunjil. In all cases he is credited with
the power of seeing man in an incorporeal state, either tem-
porarily or permanently separated from the body, as a ghost
which is invisible to other eyes.

He can, it is thought, ascend to ghost-land beyond the sky, or
can transport himself or be transported by the ghosts from one
spot of earth to another at will, much after the manner of the
Buddhist Arhat. The powers thus conferred upon him he can
use either to injure or destroy men, or to preserve them from
the secret attacks of other wizards. He can also, it is thought,
assume animal forms and control the elements. In these beliefs
as to the powers of the blackfellow doctors, we find a striking
resemblance to those which have been held concerning wizards,
sorcerers, and witches in the past in those parts of the earth as
to which we possess records, as well as to those beliefs common to
savage peoples all over the world at present. Nor can it be said
that they have altogether died out even in the most civilized
races.

1 Menses.

A. W. Ho WITT. — On Australian Medicine Men. 53

Some of the practices of the Australian wizards are not only
found in all the tribes I have dealt with herein, but they extend
throughout the Australian continent. For instance the use of
the quartz crystal and of human fat. The use of the transparent
crystals of quartz is also world-wide for magical purposes, and
may perhaps have been handed down from the most distant times
when our own ancestors were savage. It is difficult to say why
it should have been so universally fixed upon as peculiarly fitted
for the practice of magic ; but it is open to conjecture that it
may have been, as with the Australian savages, on account of its
peculiarly clear and waterlike appearance, which had attracted
attention and caused feelings of wonder.

The practice of fat- taking in the form in which the belief is
found, seems also most difficult to explain and account for.
After considering all the evidence before me, I have thought
that it may perhaps have been the outcome of the combined
effect of two beliefs, which are held by the blackfellows. One
is as to the nature of dreams, and the other as to the position
which fat holds in the human economy.

It has become pretty clear to me that many beliefs of the
Australian savage have arisen out of attempts by his ancestors
to account for phenomena which they have perceived both
around and within themselves. I have been forcibly struck
when travelling in the wide, open, and level stretches of the in-
terior of the continent by the apparently self-evident view
which the earth and the sky suggest of a flat surface and a
vaulted covering. The Australian savage holds this to be the
actual fact, and it cannot have seemed less patent or less reason-
able to his ancestors. He attempts to account for the space
between the earth and the sky by saying that at one time they
touched each other, that is to say, the sky lay on the earth, and
that the magpie,1 who was at that time a man, pushed up the
former with a stick so that the sun could commence his ceaseless
course.2 When the sun goes down at evening into the glow of
sunset, he explains the phenomenon by saying that he has gone
into a place resembling a glowing cavity, out of which a tree
stump has been burned.3 It is by such explanations that he
endeavours to account for natural phenomena which have ex-
cited his curiosity — a spirit of inquiry into the surroundings
which is inherent in man, and not only in him but in a de-
creasing amount as we trace back the chain of animated nature.

How such views as the above have been so strongly held by

1 In the Wotjobaluk language GoruTc.

2 The sun is a female, according to the Wotjobaluk, seeking daily for her
little boy whom she had lost wbiie digging lor yams.

3 Woiworung tribe.

54 A. W. Ho WITT. — On Australian Medicine Men.

our own ancestors, is well shown by the impress of primitive
thought upon language which has compelled me, at the time
unconsciously, to use words which in fact imply that the sun
moves from east to west, and sinks beyond the western edge of
the world :

" Then we upon our globe's last verge shall go
And view the ocean leaning on the sky.

When at night the blackfellow sleeps by his camp fire, and
has dreams, he explains them by saying that while his body
lies motionless, he himself is able to wander abroad, and to do
or to suffer. He even attempts to fix the precise time by ex-
plaining another phenomenon by saying that the human spirit
goes upon its nocturnal wanderings when the sleeper snores.1
When waking he is conscious that he exists, together with his
body, and he calls his self-consciousness by some name, such as
the Kurnai word " Yambo." During waking moments he and
his body are inseparable, but during sl^ep he can leave it and
wander abroad and then meet the spirits of other people, of
those he knows, of strangers, and even of the dead.

Thus this view of the reality of dreams, enables the
Australian savage to reach, by a natural stage of reasoning, a
conception of the individual apart from the body, not only
during life but also after death, as an immaterial, invisible being,
for who can see the Yambo leaving the sleeper ? Yet it is
visible to other sleepers as the experience of every blackfellow
will assure him.

No distinction separates this belief from another, namely that
some persons are even so gifted as to be able to see the disem-
bodied spirit sitting by the spot where its body lies buried, and
no longer able to resume its accustomed habitation. These
peculiarly gifted seers lead direct to the doctor and the wizard.

In dreams, the blackfellow visits the vaulted sky beyond
which lies the mysterious home of that great and powerful
Being, who is Bunjil, Baiame, or Daramulun in different
tribal languages, but who in all is known by a name the
equivalent of the only one used by the Kurnai, which is
Mungan ngaur, or " Our Father." In dreams he sees the dead
peopling that land of trees and streams, and he naturally
finds among them those old men who directed the tribe on
earth, and who now only remain there in reverential memory.

It seems to me that this belief in the reality of dreams, as
regards the human self-consciousness gives a key to many
universal beliefs which otherwise seem almost inexplicable.

1 Woiworung tribe. Mr. Fison tells me that this is also a South Sea belief,
where a peculiar snore denotes this state.

A. W. Ho WITT. — On Australian Medicine Men. 55

The second belief to which I have referred as having pro-
bably reacted with the notion of the reality of dreams in pro-
ducing the practice of Bukin is that as to the nature of human
fat. I find a general belief that there is some connection
between a man's fat and his strength and vitality. Health,
strength and fatness seem to be directly connected, and, there-
fore, the wasting of the body and disease to be the result of
the absence of fat, and perhaps followed by death. The belief
that a man's vitality and his fat have some connection, is shown
by the widespread practice of eating the fat of deceased persons
and of enemies slain.1 I have given an instance of such a
practice among the Kurnai. By eating a man's fat, and thus
making it part of himself, the blackfellow believes that also
acquires the strength of the deceased. So it is also that the
human fat brings in hunting, causes spears to fly true to
their mark, or the club to strike irresistible blows.

It is a common belief that when two things are associated
together any magical power possessed by one will be communi-
cated to the other. For instance, when returning from the
Murring Kuringal, I was the custodian of the teeth which had
been extracted from the novices, and the old men earnestly
besought me not to carry them in the bag in which they were
aware I had some quartz crystals. They pointed out that if I
did so, the magic of the quartz crystal would pass into the
teeth, and injure the boys. I might continue with a number of
such illustrations of the belief in the " spiritual " influence, if I
may use such an expression of one substance through another
upon a third.

The possession of human fat is, therefore, much desired by
the aborigines, especially those who feel age or disease, and
those who desire to be successful in magical arts.8 The desire
to obtain it leads to the killing of aliens, or even, in some cases,
of people of the same tribe. The practice of taking fat is a real
one, and as such would most certainly become part of the stock
of dreams of the blackfellow, who believes that the wizards,
especially those of inimical tribes, are always on the look out for
chances to take fat, either by direct violence or invisibly by

1 For instance see G-ason's remarks as to the eating of human fat by the Dieyerie.
" The Dieyerie Tribe" by Samuel Gason, Adelaide, 1874: also "Native Tribes of
South Australia " Wigg, Adelaide, p. 274.

2 The desire to use the influence of those portions of the human body in which
the aborigines believe the vital strength to reside leads them to use, not only
fat but also other sources of strength which it is hardly possible to explain in
direct language. So far as I know at present, the practice I refer to occurs in
a Cooper's Creek tribe and also as lately described to me by Mr. C. M. King, the
Police Magistrate at Milparinka, in New South Wales, in the tribe at that
place. All that I can now say is that it seems to be connected with the peculiar
practice in some tribes of slitting the urethra.

56 A. W. HOWITT. — On Australian Medicine Men.

means of some of their terrible secret arts. A blackfellow
suffering from nightmare, dreams in accordance with his waking
beliefs and experiences. An evil ghost has seized his foot
and is about to drag him out of his camp, or the Bret-bung
has caught him at last and is about to extract his fat (Kurnai).
What can seem more horribly real than such subjective im-
pressions. A white man who has had nightmare, and has
dreamed that he has fallen helplessly into the hands of garotters
can realise how irresistibly truthful analogous dreams must
seem to the blackfellow and that sometimes he actually dies after
a succession of such dreams, from what seems to be nervous
collapse.

I think we may feel sure that the belief in the supernatural
powers of the wizards rests in part upon the effect of dreams
upon the aborigines, and partly upon the want of knowledge by
them of the true nature of disease. They naturally attribute
disease, which is not the normal state of the sound human body,
to supernatural influences, in their attempts to find an explana-
tion. A Kurnai suffering from bronchitis, and seeking for a
cause, finds one in the semblance of his sensations to what he
might expect to feel if his chest were stuffed up with the
charred dust which falls from the " fire drill." He says, there-
fore, that Brewin or some blackfellow doctor has filled him with
" Tundung." A Wotjobaluk who suffers from some form of
fever and who has delirious dreams, in which he sees the
fantastic actions of people conjured up by his fevered brain,
receives this as a clear proof that one of these people has
burned something appertaining to him. These instances will
suffice to illustrate my meaning, but they might be multiplied
indefinitely.

The most difficult question which I have had to deal with in
this inquiry has been to determine how far the doctors and
wizards believe in their own powers. All explanations con-
cerning them must be given by the tribes-people or by them-
selves, and if the latter one has to distinguish between those
explanations which are truthful and those others which are not,
and which have been made for the purpose of blinding the tribe.
Herein lies the great difficulty. The class of blackfellow doctors
is almost extinct in the tribes of which I have a personal know-
ledge, to which I have access and in which I am so well known,
that the old men do not, when questioned, shut themselves up in
a reserve which often successfully simulates dense stupidity.
The " real old gommeras " of the Murring became extinct when
Waddiman died a few years ago. The last biraark of the
.Kurnai was killed twenty-five or thirty years back. The
Woiworung and Jupagalk wirarap and bangal have been all

A. W. Ho WITT. — On Australian Medicine Men. 57

dead I do not know how long. There only remain, so far as I
can learn, two old men, wizards of the olden time, within that
part of Australia covered by the inquiries noted in this paper.
One of them wanders somewhere between the Wimmera and the
Murray rivers, the other on the Lower Murrumbidgee, the
Yibai-Iguana, whom I have already mentioned in these pages.
As yet I have failed to meet with them, and for all I know
these two old men may even now have gone from the land of
their ancestors to the "ghost-land" of Baiame.

The blackfellow doctors as a class naturally surround them-
selves with mystery. Their magical practices are not favoured
by too open examination, and the more that is left to the active
imaginations of their tribe, the better their assertions are
received. But within the inner circle of initiated I have found
so far that there is but a thin veil cast over the arts magic which
are performed in public.

The doctors and wizards in these tribes are, with few
exceptions, conscious pretenders and impostors. The very few
who believe that they are able to effect cures by charms
received in dreams are men like Tulaba. As for the others, I
have a good example in two old Murring men, who came to see
me some twelve years back, and who still have a great reputation
as being very powerful wizards and doctors. To me these men
do not profess to be able to do supernatural acts, but the tribes-
men have ocular evidence, for they have seen them '' bring up
things out of themselves" at the Kurin gal. As I have already
stated one excused himself for no longer having that rjower by
having "drunk too much grog" which had spoiled his joea
(magic) ; the other smiled and said that he had drunk too much
tea. When these men came to see me they brought a number
of the Murring. Being friendly with the Kurnai, they were also
much with them. One of these being ill consulted one of the
Murring doctors who, after manipulating him, sucked the
afflicted place, and exhibited a quartz crystal as being the cause
of the ill. He also told the patient that it had been thrown at
him by the other Murring doctor. The man got well, and the
reputation of the two old men was greater than ever. It was,
however, a very dangerous game to play, as had the man died,
the evidence would have been conclusive.

As to the two men, Tankli and Muri-Kangaroo, the case is
somewhat different, and they represent a class which was larger
in the tribes formerly. Granting all that can be said as to the
intentional fraud of the blackfellow doctors, and admitting that
many of them are mere cheats and frauds, there remain some
who really have a belief in their own powers as well as in those
of other men. I feel strongly assured that both the Kurnai and

58 A. W. Ho WITT. — On Australian Medicine Men.

Wirajuri men believe that the events which they related were
real, and that they actually experienced them.

As to Tankli, it seems to be most probable that his case has
been one of nervous exaltation combined with somnambulism and
that upon the " subjective realities " in that state he has built
up a structure of deceit in his practice of his curative art. That
he believes also in the reality of his dream which he says caused
him to lose his kin and his magical powers seems most
probable, when one considers that he has voluntarily relin-
quished the practice of an art which brought him great consider-
ation.

The case of Muri-Kangaroo seems to me to point to the
practice of some form of hypnotism among the old class of
wizards. The youth at the time of initiation is in a peculiar
and abnormal mental state. He is fed full of magical cere-
monies and beliefs. He has undergone fearful and impressive
ceremonies, and is in a condition which would be peculiarly
fitted for the practice of hypnotism.

One can understand that a youth who had passed through
such an experience could never doubt the reality of the magic
powers of others, even when himself conscious that he had no
such powers.

The difficulty I see in this view, is, however, that so far as I
know, persons who have been hypnotised, and thus brought
under the influence of waking dreams, do not afterwards remain
conscious of the subjective events of that state.

DISCUSSION.

Mr. LAWRENCE GOMME observed that although he had not ex-
pected, as a visitor, to be called upon to speak, yet he had noted
one or two facts which the paper had brought out and which it was
interesting to emphasize. lu the first place it must be noted how
the office of wizard or medicine man was distinctly an academic
office, if such a term might be used of camp society. He meant
by that expression that aspirants to the office had to undergo some
preparation or special training and had to possess special faculties.
This feature alone made a clear distinction between the supersti-
tions of witchcraft and the generally current popular superstitions
which did not depend upon specially appointed advocates. Mr.
Gomme noted that the Australian blackfellow doctor was supposed
to obtain his medicinal objects from his own stomach or inside,
whereas if the researches of Dr. Callaway in Africa were con-
sulted, it would be found that the Zulu wizard obtained his magic
medicines from the ground and that great skill and training was
supposed to be required to be able successfully to find these objects.
On the whole Zulu witchcraft was a much more systematic cult
than the Australian, and it was a question whether the Australian

MANN. — Numeral System of the Yoruba Nation. 59

really believed all he practised or had passed forward to the stage
of unbelief. Mr. Gomme thought that he really believed in his
own powers. Another feature prominently brought out by Mr.
Hewitt's paper, was the custom of repeating rhyming incantations.
This was a subject that Mr. Gromme said he had paid consider-
able attention to and had made large collections of examples and
it was curious how nearly everywhere much virtue was sup-
posed to exist in the formulae being in rhyme. Mr. Howitt's
paper was particularly valuable because it was the personal ob-
servation of a traveller, and his notes would form a substantial
addition to the already extensive literature of witchcraft.

Major E. CECIL JOHNSON, F.B.Hist.S., remarked that one of the
most interesting points in the paper was the allusion to crystal
as one of the substances supposed to be extracted by the " medicine
men" or "wizards" from the bodies of their victims. Crystal had
been associated from time immemorial in some mysterious way with
the assumption of supernatural powers. We find it mentioned by
medicinal writers in the black art as one important factor in the
unholy rites of witchcraft. We find it credited with magical
properties amongst the Jadoogars of India, we find it used by
Cagliostro in recent times, and by modern mesmerists in electro-
biological experiments.

Mr. RUDLER also made some remarks on the superstitions asso-
ciated with rock crystal. Pieces of crystal are occasionally found
in barrows, and seem to have been valued as amulets. He alluded
also to the divining ball of Dr. Dee, which was a sphere of rock
crystal now preserved in the Mineralogical gallery of the British
Museum (Natural History).

The following paper was taken as read ; —

NOTES on the NUMERAL SYSTEM of the YORUBA NATION.
By ADOLPHUS MANN, Esq.

OF late, the nations and languages of West Africa have largely
occupied the attention of the learned linguists of Europe, and
grammars and vocabularies are being published in considerable
number. By means of the laborious work of Mr. Eob. N. Gust
on " The Modern Languages of Africa/' the classification of the
four or five hundred languages has been advanced to such an
extent as could not, some years ago, have been expected. Perhaps
the following notes on the numeral system of the Yoruba nation
may interest the student of ethnology and languages, and may
be of some use in investigating the nature of the mind that can
form such an unusual, yet regular structure. A superficial
knowledge, with a slight attempt of praxis, suffices to understand
peculiarities in the arrangement of these numerals, to which

60 ADOLPHUS MANN. — Notes on the Numeral

analogies in other languages are but rarely found. We light, as
it were, on a building, which, when viewed from base to summit
is not behind our European systems in regularity and symmetry,
while the system surpasses them in the aptitude of interlinking
the separate members ; it stands to them in the same relation as
the profusely ornamented Moorish style stands to the more sober
Byzantine.

The numerals of all nations are formed on the basis of the
radical units, with one or two original terms, by the help of
addition and multiplication we get all we want. One added to
ten, and hundred and thousand properly joined together make
up a complete system. Very different is the framework of the
Yoruba, it can boast of a greater number of radical names of
numerals, and to a large extent makes use of subtraction, which,
in the Aryan languages we find employed only in the Latin
unde and duode viginti, &c., &c., and which could not find a
place in its Eomance sister-tongues, whilst only a few Greek
authors paraphrase subtraction with the verb £eo>, opus hdbeo,
indigeo ; as Svoiv Secure? Tseve^Kovia avSpes or ^aor^eovoais
el/coal vavaiv. Here subtraction is of a sporadic occurrence ; in
the Yoruba it enters so fully into the system as the third power
with addition and multiplication to make up the file of numbers
that we are tempted to ask, Where is division ?

As it is not intended to write a paragraph of a grammar but
rather an ethnological sketch, the language shall be introduced
as little as possible, but it cannot be left out altogether; how-
ever, the structure can be understood by the arithmetical com-
bination by which it is represented, and which in itself is very
interesting. I shall give first the names of the units, and, then the
nouns serving as numerals, and beg to observe that I. am using
the alphabet employed in the literature the language has attained
to.

1, Eni or oJcan ; 2, ej'i ; 3, eta1 ; 4, erin ; 5, arun : 6, efa ; 7, eje ;
8, ejo ; 9, esan; 10, erva ; further 20 oguti ; 30, ogbon ; 200, igba ;
400 irinwo or irino\ 2000 egba. Eni (1) enters only into the
formation of ekini (the first): in other compositions pkan is used;
the first syllable of these words is a prefix that can be thrown
off, and enters into contraction when a vowel precedes. These
words are radicals with the exception of egba 2000, which is a
compound, but it does service as if it were a radical. It would
be difficult to find out their meanings, the natives give none ;
the second syllable is in the form of the verb, but the first question
would not be What is the meaning of the verbal word ? but,
Which of three roots is it ? for we have three different tones on

1 e = einmet; 9 = ]aw.

System of the Yorula Nation. 61

the root of the same sound, jl,jit and ji low, middle, and high
tone. Even if this point were settled, strong doubt would still
fall on the connection between the meaning of the root in ages
past and present. As cardinals, these words convey to the
Yoruba ear and mind two meanings ; first, the number and then
the thing the Yorubas especially count, and this is money (shells)
Cypraea moneta; owo in Yoruba, cowries in English. If the first
syllable is emphasised, the meaning of the word is, 1, 2, 3, 4,
&c., cowries, therefore on the question How many cowries ? the
answer is given in these radicals. Other objects are counted
only in comparison with an equal number of cowries, for a nation
without literature and without a school, knows nothing of
abstract numbers. The ordinal numbers are formed as : ek-ini the
first, e is prefix, Jc stands for ka, to count ; but the numbers 20,
30, and all multiples of 10 do not take ek, but form the ordinal
by placing the number after the object counted. The adjective
numeral is formed by prefixing the number with mu (to take),
but the u is always thrown out ; ykan can not take m when
alone, just so 20, 30, and all multiples of 10, but when a unit
precedes 10, the unit takes the m as : eniam ejilelogun that means
twenty-two persons : but ogun enia twenty persons ; this m
explains the mej'i, mqta in the polyglottas of Clarke and
Koelle.

Proceeding now to the compositions, we meet the simplest form
in 11, 12, 13, 14 = 1, 2, 3, 4, plus 10. Here it must be observed
that the language has a great ability to reduce composite terms
of numerals to short ones, e.g., 1 plus 10 is in words okanleliewa
which turns out to be okanla, &c. We shall find 10 ewa making
an important figure as a long a.1 Between 14 and 15 a break,
as it were, takes place, 5 is never added to 10, but regularly
subtracted from the following next higher tenth, and 4, 3, 2, 1,
follow in its wake. We say therefore, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 = 5, 4,
3, 2, 1, minus 20 and so on in every case of 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, before
the next higher tenth, whilst 10, 20, 30 + 1, 2, 3, 4, are formed
by addition ; in both cases, addition and subtraction, the smaller
sum is preceding the larger one. The word for addition is le, to
be over, to be more: that for subtraction is di or din by dialectical
difference, to lessen. Both verbs throw off the vowel when a
vowel follows ; if the smaller sum is placed after the larger one,
it must be joined to it in a proper sentence with the verbal
pronoun, it is more, o le, it is less, o di ; the words for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
are never shortened with the exception of 5, in 15 and 25 where
arun 5 is replaced by e (like e in met) thus edogun for arun
dilogun ; by this rule we find that the numbers between every

1 In the words 50, 70, 90 ewadi (10 from) turrs ad.

62 ADOLPHUS MANN. — Notes on the Numeral

tenth are formed of a line of addition and one of subtraction.
We must now see how the tenths are built up. We proceed from
20. Ogun in composition og or og sometimes even o as the first
number that admits of multiplication ; going on thus : 20 x 2, 3,
4, up to 20 times 9 ; but we must ask how are the numbers
formed which are not even multiples of 10, such as 30, 50.
Here, again, subtraction steps in. We have 50 = 20 times 3 minus
10 ; (20 x 9)— 10 = 170 ; 50 adota = ewa diliogola=(20 x 3)— 10,
20 x 5 = 100 ; (20 x 6)— 10= 110, &c., but thirty has a word of
its own, namely, ogtyon ; of its etymology I could hear nothing.
With 80 = 20x4 compare the French quatre vingt, the only
instance of this form in the European languages.

With 185 we meet a new word, and with it a new factor of
multiplication: it is igba, 200, for we say, 185 = (200 — 10) — 5.
200 is a sum of money that owed its origin to the way in which
cowries are counted and collected (swept) together (gba means to
sweep, gbale, to sweep the floor, therefore igba is money that is
swept together). Here we may explain the origin of this some-
what cumbersome system ; it springs from the way in which
the large sums of money (cowries) are counted. When a bag-
ful is cast on the floor, the counting person sits or kneels down
beside it, takes 5 and 5 cowries and counts silently, 1, 2, up to
20, thus 100 are counted off, this is repeated to get a second
100, these little heaps each of 100 cowries are united, and a
next 200 is, when counted, swept together with the first. Such
sums as originate from counting cowries are a sort of
standard money, 20, 100 and then especially 200, and 400 is

4 little heaps each of 100 cowries, or 2 each of 200 cowries,
representing to the Yorubas the denominations of the monetary
values of their country as to us \d., Id., Zd., Qd., Is., &c.: from the
habit of counting 5 and 5 the fashion of subtracting may have
taken rise, from the first lowest sum of uniting 5 and 5, that is 20 =
5x4 that of multiplying 20 ; the nature of the action, joining by a
sweeping motion of the hands the 2 heaps of 200 each, suggested
the new term igba and a number of such heaps lying about on
the ground shows the fitness of multiplying 200 with smaller
numbers as an easy way to rise to higher sums. Moreover, it
must be borne in mind that in trade only sums which are
multiples of 5, 10, 15, 20, &c., may reasonably be asked as fixed
prices by which the reckoning is made up ; sums lying between

5 and 10 are not to be thought of, negotiations of higher values
e.g., of 600 cowries are carried on upon the same principle, as, for
instance, the seller will ask 1000 cowries, the buyer will propose
900, &c.: thus the inconvenience of cumbersome numerals is not
felt in trade affairs, and when intermediate sums are to be named
the expression in words always proceeds upon addition to or sub-

System of the Yoruba Nation. 63

traction from the next standard sum, e.g., 777 = (200x4) — 23.
We should expect a regular progress from 200 onwards. How-
ever, the first multiple of 200 (400) is not formed upon this rule ;
it is irinwo or irino. Unable to find a derivation of the word, I
suppose it is as much as qrin owo ; this cannot mean 4 cowries,
but can carry an allusion to the 4 heaps of cowries which are
counted, each having 20 x 5, or to the 2 heaps of 200 each, either
4 heaps of 100 or 2 of 200 each being united, for 400 is in
counting cowries a principal sum; 5 heaps of 400 make 2,000, or
in English one head, the chief standard sum by which cowries
are bought or sold against silver and gold. From 400 is derived
300 ; irino di qgorun becomes odun — 300, a sum that, as the
half more of 200, finds frequent application ; compare Is. Qd.
The tenths between 200 and 400 and 500, &c., are framed by
addition or subtraction 190 = 200—10 and 210=200 + 10: in the
words of the language the smaller sum precedes the larger one,
but the sound o (as in law) will not well afford a contraction
with fe=mpre, or efo'=less, therefore the composition with 300
(odun) would be 300 o le 10, &c., which sounds more fluent, e.g.,
355 would be framed thus : 300 o le (20 x 3)— 5, but we would
form 360 by subtracting 40 from 400, &c. In the same way the
tenths beyond 400 are given by addition, 400 + 10, 400 = 50,
but in 460 subtraction would be preferred, 500 — 40, in words 40
from 500 oji di ledeg^ta—40—(10Q—200 x 3). In the words
for 500, 700, 900, 1,100, 1,300, 1500, 1700, 1900, we have 100
deducted from the next higher multiple of 200 x 3, 4, 5, to 15.
As in 15 and 25 ed stands for arundilogun and arundilogbqn, so
in each uneven multiple of 200, ed stands for 100 froni 600,
800, 1000, 1200, &c. It is true the proper term would be od
= 100 from 600, 800, &c., (ogprund), but the strength of
euphony of sounds is so overcoming that e is preferred on
account of the ' following e., e.g. qdegbfta — ogqrun di igla-eta ;
with 200 x 10 we have reached the highest sum which 'is a
factor for a further rise in numbers, e.g., 200 x W = egba 2000,
from which the system forms 2000 x 2=4000 up to 20,000, but
3,000 and 5,000 are exceptions, because 15 and 25 give by
multiplication with 200 fluent words, and the sums occur very
often in trade: we have therefore 200 x 15 = 3000 and 200 x 25
= 5000; with 20,000 we have reached the highest compound
number, 2000 x 10 egbawa,or commonly called a bag of cowries,
qkq Jean (bag one) because this sum is a load which a man can
carry on the head. It is plain the receptacle of the sum pro-
vides the name for it ; at the same time it is an easy way to
express high sums, e.g., one bag= 20,000, 5 = 100,000, 50 bags=
a million. We observe that ed is used for different values
o, 100, and 1000. 5 less 20, 5 less 30, 100 less 600, 800, 1000,

64 List of Presents.

1,200, 1,400, 1,600, 2,000, and 1,000 less 8,000 = 7,000 &c.; ed
serves as an arithmetical formula, the value of which must be
found from the following factors in the compound numeral, thus,
as above : 5 and 20, from 30, 100 from 600, 1,000 from 8,000.

MARCH 9ra, 1886.
X EVANS, Esq., D.C.L., F.E.S., Vice-President, in the Chair.

The Minutes of the last meeting were read and signed.

The following presents were announced, and thanks voted to
the respective donors : —

FOR THE LIBRARY.

From Dr. "W. J. HOFFMAN. — A series of Chromolithograph por-

traits of Natives of Alaska. From water-colour sketches by

W. J. HOFFMAN, M.D.
From the CHIEF SIGNAL OFFICER, U.S. ARMY. — [At the request of

1st Lieut. P. Henry Bay.] Report of the International Polar

Expedition to Point Barrow, Alaska.

From the UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. Bulletin, Nos. 7-14.
From the COMPTROLLER OF THE CURRENCY, U.S.A. — Annual Report.

1885.
From the DEUTSCHE GESELLSCHAFT FUR ANTHROPOLOGIE. — Archiv fur

Anthropologie. Band XVI, Heft 3.
From the AUTHOR. Perak and the Malays. By Major Fred.

McNair.

- Les Cranes dits deformes. By Juan Ignacio de Armas.

- Place et importance de la Craniologie Anthropologique. By
Dr. L. Manouvrier.

- Die altesten Spuren der Cultur in Mitteleuropa, mit besonderer
Beriicksichtigung Osterreichs. By Prof. Dr. Johann N.
Woldrich.

Das Graberfeld von Hallstatt. By A. B. Meyer.

From the ACADEMY. — Atti della Reale Accademia dei Lincei. Vol.

11, Fas. 2, 3.
From the ASSOCIATION. — The Journal of the Royal Historical and

Archaeological Association of Ireland. No. 63, July, 1885,
— Proceedings of the Geologists' Association. Vol. IX. No. 4.
From the SOCIETY. — Journal of the Society of Arts. Nos. 1736,

1737.

From the EDITOR.— Nature. Nos. 852, 853.
- — Science. Nos. 158, 159.
Revue d' Ethnographic. 1885. No. 6.

A. J. EVANS. — On the Flint- Knapper's Art in Albania. 65

From the EDITOK. — Materiaux pour 1'Histoire de 1'Homme. 188G.

Feb.
L'Horame. 1886. No. 2.

- Bullettino di Paletnologia Italiana. 1885. Nos. 11, 12.

- Aimalen des K. K. Naturhistorischen Hofmuseums. Wien.
Band 1. Nr. 1.

The election of MACCULLOUGH BEY, of Cairo, was announced.

Dr. G ARSON exhibited and described some instruments for
Anthropometric research, upon which Mr. A. L. LEWIS and Prof.
THANE made some remarks.

Dr. JOHN EVANS, F.K.S., exhibited some worked flints from
Albania, and a collection of stone implements from India.

Mr. ARTHUR J. EVANS, F.S.A., exhibited some Albanian flints
and old English strike-a-lights.

Mr. W. H. PENNING, F.G.S., exhibited some stone implements
from South Africa.

The following paper was read by the author : —

On the FLINT-KNAPPER'S ART in ALBANIA. By ARTHUR J.
EVANS, M.A., F.S.A.

[WITH PLATE I.]

THE Albanian gun-flints and strike-a-lights that I am able to
exhibit will be of interest to anthropological students as the
most perfect existing representatives of what we may fairly
regard as the oldest of European industries. In the course of
several journeys through the Illyrian countries between the
Danube and Adriatic, I had often been struck with the beauti-
fully worked flints exposed for sale in the bazaars, and whether
I noticed them in Bosnia, in Servia, or Bulgaria, I was always
informed that the place of their manufacture was in Southern
Albania. .

During a recent journey through Epirus, I was so fortunate
as to observe in a street of Joannina an old Albanian flint-
knapper practising his truly elegant art. Squatting in Turkish
fashion on the pavement, he took a roughly broken flint out of
a small sack by his side, and having, with a small, stumpy, flat-
ended hammer, knocked off a fragment suitable to his purpose,
he proceeded, with a hammer of more attenuated form, to flake
the fragment into shape. The hammer used for this purpose —
a specimen of which I am also able to submit to this Institute —
was a small elongated section of a square, rudely beaten, iron
bar about 2^ in. long by £ in. broad, fitted by means of a hole

66 A. J. EVANS. — On the Flint- Knappers Art in Albania.

in the middle to what seemed a very slender handle. Using
this instrument with really marvellous dexterity, he now
chipped out the flake that was to form the nucleus of the future
gun-flint or strike-a-light into the requisite shape — a square or
oblong with slightly incurved sides. The requisite shape was
given by short, swift side-strokes of the hammer, and it is to be
observed that for this finishing process the blows were given,
not with the small flat end of the hammer, but with the sharp
side angles. The minute precision of the stroke must require
long practice, and the skill of the Albanian workmen will be
best judged by the specimens exhibited, which are by no means
exceptional in their finish.

I persuaded the old flint-knapper, whose name was Bekir
and who was a Mahometan Albanian from Tepelen to accom-
pany me to the place whence he obtained his flints. This was
a range called Gramenohoria, about two hours distant from
Joannina, not far from the village of Dobro. The flints were
mostly of tabular shape, scattered in profusion about the
summit of a limestone plateau, but though I searched diligently,
I was unable to discover any signs of their having been used
for manufacture in ancient times. So far as I am aware, no
flint implements of prehistoric date have been found either
in Epirus or Albania, though several polished stone axes of
diorite and, I believe, other materials have come to light. This
deficiency is the more surprising when it is compared with the
abundance of finely worked arrow heads and lance heads on the
opposite Italian coasts — the ancient lapygia, Messapia, and
Apulia — which were largely peopled, as we know from philo-
logical evidence, by immigrant tribes from the Illyrian and
Epirote mainland in prehistoric times. Speaking generally, I
may say that the few Neolithic remains with which I am
acquainted from the western part of the Balkan peninsula, in-
cluding Dalmatia, fit on to those of prehistoric Greece, including
parts of Asia Minor, and are characterised by the absence of
implements of flint. The celts discovered in this old Illyrian
region are generally stumpy, of nephrite and other materials,
and only in Northern Dalmatia, e.g., in a cave near the source of
the Cettina, about Nona, the ancient ^Enona, and in the Isle
of Osero in the Quarnera, have flint flakes been hitherto found.
It is possible, however, that a careful examination of the flint
producing districts of Albania may result in the discovery of
some site of ancient manufacture. At present the chief site
of flint-knapping industry is Valona and its neighbourhood,
notably the village of Drashovitza, where, according to an
informant of Von Hahn,1 the flint lies in layers at some depth

1 Albanische Studien, p. 72. A

Discussion. 67

beneath the surface and has to be procured by digging. Cer-
tainly it would be difficult to find a more appropriate site for
the manufacture of the ancient ceraunia than upon the flint-
producing soil of the Acroceraunian Mountains.

It will be seen that the strike-a-lights, as exposed for sale
are partially cased in ornamental lead sheaths, studded with
glass gems, and otherwise adorned with something not unlike
the ancient " honeysuckle " pattern. These aesthetic adjuncts,
as well as the highly-finished implements themselves, are very
characteristic of the Albanian race, which stands alone amongst
the Balkan peoples, and, it may be added, the primitive popula-
tion of Europe generally, in its love of ornament and display ;
the trade in gun-flints has indeed continued to flourish mainly
owing to the affection of the Albanian highland clans for the
old silver-mounted flint-locks. Trade, however, has become
depressed since the brigands of Pindus have taken to the
Martini.

Comparing the Albanian flints with those produced by our
Brandon flint-knappers, and with Old English, French, and
German forms, it will be seen that they show the peculiarity of
being uniformly chipped on both faces, instead of presenting
one flat side. They are not, like the English examples, so much
the result of two or three bold strokes, but are fashioned with
a minute care that recalls the " beautifully even surface
chipping " of neolithic times, justly described by Mr. Skertchley1
as, in Britain, a lost art.

Explanation of Plate I.

Fig. 1. Iron hammer-head used in Albania for dressing flints.
Figs. 2, 3, 4, 5. Gun flints and strike-a-lights, with and without

leaden sheaths. The characteristic ornamentation is shown

in figs. 4 and 5.
Fig. 6. Iron used for striking a light.

All the figures in this plate are of natural size.

DISCUSSION.

The CHAIRMAN pointed out the difference between the gun-flints
of Albania and those made in this country. In making our flints
a broad flake is first struck off, and this flake is then broken into
three pieces. Each piece is formed into a gun-flint by having its
edges dressed on an anvil. But in the Albanian method the two
faces of the flint are delicately chipped by a series of blows pro-
ducing surface-flaking, somewhat like that seen on some of the
ancient implements found in Denmark. The speaker described the

1 " Manufacture of Grun Fliuls," p. 41.

F 2

68 W. H. PENNING. — Upon a few Stone Implements

specimens that were exhibited to the meeting, and referred to the
notches seen on some of the old mounted flints of Albania as
evidence that they were nsed as strike-a-lights. The want of
regularity in the outline of certain flints is probably due to their
having been employed for this purpose.

Prof. RUPEET JONES congratulated the Institute on having re-
ceived an explicit account of the manufacture of elaborately chipped
flint implements by a native maker of gun flints and strike-a-lights,
from one who watched and understood the process, and who took
the trouble not only to secure tools and specimens, but to see where
the flint was obtained in the district. The style of workmanship
was interesting as bearing on the preparation of some French and
other highly- chipped flint implements from prehistoric localities.

The Secretary read the following notes : —

NOTES upon a few STONE IMPLEMENTS found in SOUTH AFKICA.
By W. HENRY PENNING, F.G.S., &c.

[Abridged.]

THERE is a striking general resemblance between many of these
implements and those of palaeolithic age found in Europe. The
stone axe found near Pretoria especially, might, from its
appearance, have been taken from the valley-deposits of Hoxne
or of Abbeville. But at the same time there are essential
differences in the mode of occurrence. The palaeolithic imple-
ments of Europe are embedded in ancient river-beds, while those
of South Africa are found on the surface, as are the neolithic
elsewhere. It might be assumed, therefore, that the African
examples of palaeolithic type are more recent than the European,
and consequently, that the tribes by whom they were made spread
southwards from Europe.

But this, although probable, is not certain because South
Africa has been continental for a very long period (the interior
probably since the close of the oolitic epoch) and was carved
into its present form long before the quaternary gravels of
Europe were in process of accumulation. The rivers, in pro-
portion to area, are few and insignificant, and during the more
recent periods there has been comparatively little denudation.
The resemblance, therefore, testifies only to a contact between
the races somewhere and at some time, but the disparity in
mode of occurrence affords no clue to age — that is, to the
direction of their migration.

The implements exhibit extreme weathering, some indeed,
look water- worn, but they can never have been subject to such

found in South Africa. 69

action. They are very numerous, also, in some localities. The
materials mostly used were quartzite, indurated shale, and trap-
rock ; and for the smaller weapons, hornstone, ribbon-jasper,
and chalcedony.

DISCUSSION.

The CHAIRMAN reminded the meeting that the subject of South
African stone implements had on several occasions been discussed
by the Institute. The implements found on the surface belong to
widely-separated periods, for while some are certainly not of remote
antiquity, others may probably be referred to the palaeolithic period.
Although the implements are commonly obtained from the surface,
yet there is more than one well-attested instance of their having been
discovered at considerable depths. Even if found on the surface
this fact would not necessarily militate against a high antiquity in
a country where sub-aerial denudation is not energetic. The speaker
compared some of the South African implements with those found
in East Anglia, and called attention to the similarity between
certain quartzite implements from Africa and those found in the
laterite of India.

Prof. RUPERT JONES remarked that Mr. Penning's paper was rich
with facts and inferences of great value. They would be still more
valuable if described with reference to some communications
already published by the Institute, so as to bring them under some
recognisable classification as to the forms of implements, and the
p'aces and modes of deposition. The source of the quartzite from
which many of the implements have been made should be defined if
possible. He also thought that the different styles of workmanship
did not necessarily imply the same relative antiquity for such imple-
ments in different countries. The author, in his account of the super-
ficial denudation and its results had not regarded, it seemed, the
great glaciation which South Africa had suffered in post tertiary
times.

Mr. BERTIN asked if care had been taken to ascertain the real
date of the stone implements, as the bushmen of the present day
still use stone implements in preference to others. If they use
metal it is as they found it, a nail, a piece of iron, &c. It is true
that for many centuries the bushmen have been using the same
kind of weapons, but ancient weapons would be exactly as the
modern ones, and could not prove anything.

Mr. A. L. LEWIS, remarked that the material of the axes exhibited
and the manner in which they occurred seemed to him to resemble
those found on the surface in the Cotes du Nord, France, and
considered — he hardly knew on what grounds — to be palaeolithic
rather than those of Abbeville ; but, even if the resemblance between
the South African and the French implements were greater than it
really is, he thought they would all agree with Professor Rupert
Jones in considering that the resemblance was no proof of any
connection between the makers of the implements in the two
countries. Major Feilden, who had exhibited to the Institute a

70 K. B. FOOTE. — Notes on Prehistoric Finds in India.

very large collection of implements of different types and different
materials from South Africa, was, he believed, quite opposed to the
idea of their being of anything like European palasolithic antiquity.
The effect of the rains in South Africa upon the surface of the
country was, he understood, very great, and might account for
water rolling and depositing at considerable depths.

Mrs. CAREY- HOBSON said that upon one of the Karroo flats, near a
permanent spring, she had come upon a factory of implements ;
they were there in all stages of manufacture, most of them small
for hunting purposes, and the stone used was almost black, indeed
some that she had found in a more distant part of the plain,
evidently polished by use, were perfectly so. The rock she believed,
was basaltic : there were two or three blocks at this place which
must have been brought from the mountain range thirty or forty
miles distant. Stone implements were also constantly turned up
by the plough on the Karroo farms, many of them being of a close-
grained stone of a light fawn or drab colour. She had never found
any flint implements. The flints used so much with the tinder
boxes were all imported.

Mr. PENNING has since sent the following note in reply to Prof.
Rupert Jones's enquiry : —

The Pretoria implements are made from quartzite beds of the
Megaliesberg Mountains ; the Orighstad implements from quartzite
of the surrounding hills. In. the Vaal River there is chalcedony,
and trap-rock occurs in nearly all localities in abundance.

The Secretary read extracts from several letters addressed by
Mr. Bruce Foote to Dr. John Evans, relative to recent discoveries
in India of which the following is the substance : —

NOTES on PREHISTORIC FINDS in INDIA.
By R. BRUCE FOOTE, Esq., F.G.S., Geological Survey of India.

IN the beginning of 1881 Mr. Foote broke fresh ground geo-
logically near Cape Comorin. The people in that region con-
sume an immense quantity of shell-fish collected on the coast
and carried many miles inland, but nowhere could the writer
find any accumulations comparable with the European kitchen-
middens, though he looked out for such deposits all round the
coast. The only object of archaeological interest discovered was
a small bone pendant washed out of the black mud of a sub-
merged forest at Valiumkkam, on the south coast of the Madura
district, about 25 miles west of Pamben Strait. The object has
a hole drilled in it, and is ornamented with simple incised
lines.

K. B. FOOTE. — Notes on Prehistoric Finds in India. 71

A few days previously to this discovery the author had made
an interesting find of cores of the Jubbulpore type, at a place
about fourteen miles south-west of Tutikorim. Here a hill of
blown sand had been denuded by the wind on its south-west side
to a depth of fifteen or sixteen feet below the present adjoining
level. The cores, with a number of flakes and some fragments of
red pottery, lay on the surface of a bed of dark red loam under the
moving part of the sand. All the cores and most of the flakes
are of reddish brown chert — a stone foreign to that part of the
Tinnevelly district. The other flakes consist of translucent
quartz, quite unlike any quartz which the writer had found in
that locality. The quartz is stained red from the oxide of iron
which abounds in the deep red blown sand that had covered
the flakes. The pottery is of fair quality, rounded at the
edges by the action of the sand-blast, and the largest fragment
shows traces of an indented pattern made by impressing the
end of a narrow wedge-ended stick.

The writer's next find was made in 1883, near the celebrated
diamond mines of Banaganpalli, in the Kurnool district. Here
he came upon either a village -site or a place where burial had
taken place, at which a considerable quantity of pottery of the
characteristic red and black glazed type had been buried,
together with a few good cores of the Jubbulpore type, some
iron implements, much rusted, and some pounding stones.
There were also found a large stone pestle and a slyking stone,
both well polished. The writer likewise found a good spindle-
wheel in pottery ; a bead of white shell; the right valve of an unio,
of which the lower edge had been ground away; and a few
comminuted bones, some of which may be human. The field
to the east of the pottery site yielded a good number of cores,
scrapers, and flakes, and a large quartz of jasper, chert, agate,
Lydian stone, &c., all foreign to the locality, and apparently,
brought together to be fashioned into flakes and scrapers.

The pottery was buried at a very small depth, and had conse-
quently been greatly broken by the trampling of cattle pastur-
ing over the spot. Many of the vessels, however, can be largely
restored by piecing the fragments together. Vessels of nearly
a dozen different forms were found and of these, two are not
represented among the antique pottery in the Madras museum,
derived from various old tombs and cromlechs in the south. Of
these forms, one is a deep drinking vessel with pointed oval
base, evidently meant to be held in the hand or rested on a
pottery ring. Several of the latter, but of a larger size, were
found.

The other form was like a flowerpot with a small base and
very large mouth. Among the iron implements are three

72 E. B. FOOTE. — Notes on Prehistoric Finds in India.

unquestionable arrow heads, barbed on one side only, and an im-
plement like a very thin palstave, with one sharp-edged rounded
end. The occurrence of these iron implements and pottery,
with the chert, agate, and jasper cores is very interesting, and
as far as the writer knows, gives the first clue to the real age of
the cores. He got about 120 cores, many of them capitally made.
The agates used are from the Deccan amygdaloidal traps, and
must have been brought from the bed of the Kistna, a distance
of over forty miles.

Early in 1884, while hunting for coal, to the east of Hydera-
bad in the Deccan, Mr. Foote came across traces here and there
of neolithic work, in the form of broken implements (celts).
At two places he found old village sites clearly indicated by
great quantities of broken pottery of the glazed red and black
type. Unluckily he had not time to explore them. At the
second place, some twelve miles west of Khummummett, he got
a broken stone cylinder of polished sandstone, a sort of rolling
pin. On a hill of granitic gneiss, some thirty miles east of
Hyderabad the writer found at least a dozen highly polished
grooves, eight to ten inches long, worn into the rock probably
in giving an edge to celts. A few miles off he found the ground
thickly strewn with old flakes, amongst which was the first half
of a good sized rough celt, similar to some he had found near
Bellary with polished celts, about which he wrote a letter to
the Geological Magazine which was published in the February
number for 1873. These celts he exhibited at the Vienna
Exhibition, and finally presented to the Calcutta Museum.

In December, 1885, Mr. Foote revisited Bellary, and looked
up the localities where he had found the celts, both chipped
and polished. He got several more in the north hill at Bellary,
and a few days after found a large settlement of the celt-makers
on the north side of the Peacock Hills, the south side of which
he visited in 1872, with Mr. Frazer, C.E.,the original discoverer
of the Bellary celts.

Mr. Foote's reasons for regarding many of the localities at
which he got numerous celts and other implements as old
settlements or village sites of the celt-makers are the following :
Wherever the celts and other implements were found in large
numbers, the hills on which they were found showed many
signs of human habitation. Many small terraces had been
raised among the great blocks of granitic gneiss of which all the
hills but one consist.

Many of the terraces were evidently constructed with reference
to the convenient proximity of rock shelters, and in most cases
they lie on the eastern flanks of the hills where they obtained
early shelter from the blazing afternoon sun. On the terraces

R. B. FOOTE. — Notes on Prehistoric Finds in India. 73

and flats are large quantities of flakes produced by the manu-
facture of the implements, and implements in all states of
completion, from the roughest to the highly polished. As the
great majority of the celts and most of the other implements
are made of dark greenstone or other hornblendic rock, these
flakes and implements present a strong contrast in colour to the
pinkish and greyish granitoid masses forming the hills.

The made ground on the terraces and under the rock shelters
is largely made up of broken pottery (all of antique type where
the shapes are recognizable) mixed up with much ash, more
charcoal, and occasional bones and teeth (mostly bovine).

Where the celt manufacture was most energetic many sur-
rounding convenient flattish rocks show shallow pan-shaped
hollows, evidently worn by the grinding of the implements.
Many of these are in groups of fours and fives, indicating that
the polishers were sociable, and squatted together while at
work. In one place about twenty in a space not fifteen yards
square. The well preserved and little weathered celts seem to
have been covered up to a great extent, and probably for long
ages, and only lately exposed by the action of heavy rains.
Most of the polishing places were on solid rock, but a few were
on large or medium-sized blocks, the latter generally broken.

The edging hollows such as were described on the hill east of
Hyderabad are not common in the Bellary country, but Mr.
Foote noticed some capital examples close to a flat broad pan
on the north hill at Bellary. He procured celts. &c., from twenty-
five different places of which twenty-two are on hills. In every
case but one the greenstone of which the implements were made
had been brought from a distance, and often for many miles.
In the one case where the greenstone had been taken from a
large dyke cutting through the middle of the settlement the
manufacture had been carried on on the largest scale, and the
writer procured very large numbers of rough implements.
Many, though quite rough, are of capital shape, even when of
very large size, and if finished would have made noble celts.

The chippers evidently had an eye to saving themselves
labour, and collected suitable fragments from the surfaces of
dykes yielding fit stone. In several cases they had brought
rough fragments of distinctly " celty " shape from distant dykes
on to their granitic gneiss fastnesses and had not put them to
use.

All the hills on which the principal settlements occur were
places of great strength and well defensible against great odds]
All rise abruptly from two to six hundred feet out of the nearly
dead level- plains now covered by the bare cotton soil plains for
which the Bellary country is notorious.

74 E. B. FOOTE. — Notes on Prehistoric Finds in India.

Mr, Justin Boyd, Manager of the Madras Bank (branch) at
Bellary, is carefully exploring the two settlements at Bellary,
and it is hoped will get much out of the pottery and ash heaps.
He has half a large perforated hammer stone of the type figured
on page 204 of Mr. Evans's " Ancient Stone Implements."

The group of settlements of the celt-makers lies within the
limits of the old Bellary district, lately divided into two,
Bellary and Anantapur. The greater number of the settlements
lie within a triangle of which the Madras Eailway between
Bellary and Gooty (Gutti) is the hypotenuse and Uderpy Droog
the apex of the opposite angle. A smaller group of settlements
lies to the west of Bellary, but is not of any less interest.

In the western group several settlements show a special
feature not noticed in the easterly ones, namely, large accumu-
lations of a light yellow scoriaceous slag. The most remarkable
of these slaggy heaps, some fifteen miles west of Bellary, has
been described as a volcanic cinder cone, but when Mr. Foote
visited it in 1872, he found a celt and some rubbing (mealing)
stones and pounders in the midden-stuff between layers of the

His second visit, early in 1885 quite confirmed his ideas that
this- must be a settlement, for he found several more pounding
stones washed out by the rains which have scored the mound
pretty deeply. This is the mound he referred to in a letter
printed in the Geological Magazine for April, 1873. Mr. Foote
found smaller heaps of similar slag at three other localities still
further west of Bellary. In these cases the origin of the slag
heaps was even more distinct, for among the slag and under
it were large numbers of mealing and pounding stones, broken
pottery, and a fair number of celts in various states of comple-
tion, and withal a considerable number of bones of oxen. A
large slag mound of similar character near the ruins of Vijnya-
nager, still further west, is the subject of an old legend which
states it to be the result of the cremation of a wicked giant
" Bali," killed by Eama on his way to Ceylon.

The southern celt-makers were probably not one whit
inferior to those of central India, any more than are the living
Dravidians behind their northern neighbours. As far as Mr.
Foote's observation goes the southern folks are in every way
equal to the more be-praised Bengali and Hindu tribes.

DISCUSSION.

The CHAIEMAN described certain Indian stone implements which
were exhibited to the meeting. Some of these, of palaeolithic type,
wrought in reddish quartzite, were obtained by Mr. Foote in the
laterite deposits of Madras. Three polished celts from Central India

List of Presents. 75

were compared with similar implements from Ireland. Attention
was called to some well-shaped jasper cores, from which flakes had
been struck ; one of the cores being so perfectly symmetrical as to
have been mistaken for a fossil fruit. A characteristic type of stone
adze from Burmah, presenting a tang and a square shoulder, with a
long bevelled edge was exhibited and described. Its shape is some-
what like that of an ordinary plane iron.

Professor RUPERT JONES alluded to the probably great antiquity
of the quartzite implements first found in the laterite, as they were
regarded as having been deposited on the shallow sea-bed of the
coast, subsequently raised up as land. He did not clearly under-
stand what relationship as to probable age and mode of deposit
those now described had to the others. He enquired how far the
quartzite tools found in Devonshire resembled those of India and
South Africa.

MARCH 23RD, 1886.

HYDE CLARKE, Esq., Vice-PTesident, in the Chair, which was
afterwards taken by C. H. E. CARMICHAEL, Esq., M.A.

The Minutes of the last meeting were read and signed.

The following presents were announced, and thanks voted to
the respective donors : —

FOR THE LIBRARY.

From the GOVERNMENT OF MADRAS. — Administration Report of the
Government Central Museum for. the year 1884-85.

Prom Dr. W. J. HOFFMAN. — Notes on certain Maya and Mexican
Manuscripts. By Cyrus Thomas.

From the AUTHOR. — Flint Implements from the North-east of
Ireland. By W. J. Knowles.

Effigy Mounds in Iowa. By T. H. Lewis.

On Jadeite Ornaments from Central America. By F. W.

Putnam.

Ethnographische Karten von Richard Andree.

From the VEREIN FUR ERDKUNDE zu LEIPZIG. Die Seen der
Deutschen Alpen. By Dr. Alois Geistbeck. Mittheilungen,
1884.

From the K.K. AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN, WIEN. Sitzungs-
berichte, Philosophisch-Historische Classe. Band cvii, Heft
1,2; Band cviii, Heft 1, 2, 3 ; Band cix, Heft 1,2: Mathe-
matische-Naturwissenschaftliche Classe. I. Abthlg. 1884, No.
6, 7-10; 1885, No. 1-4; II. Abthlg. 1884, No. 6-10; 1885,
No. 1-3; III. Abthlg. 1884, No. 3, 4, 10; 1885, No. 1, 2.
Register XI. Almanach, 1885.

76 C. K. CONDER.— The present Condition of the

From the ACADEMY. — Atti della Eeale Accademia dei Lincei. Serie
Quarta. Vol. II. Fas. 4.

Bulletin de 1'Academie Imperiale des Sciences de St. Peters-

bourg. Tom. XXX. No. 3.

From the INSTITUTE — Proceedings of the Canadian Institute.
Third series. Yol. III. Fas. 3. No. 144.

From the INSTITUTION. — Journal of the Royal Institution of Corn-
wall. Vol. VIII. Part 4.

From the SOCIETY. — Journal of the Society of Arts. Nos. 1738,
1739.

Proceedings of Society of the Antiquaries. Second Series.

Vol. X. No. 3.

From the EDITOR.— Nature. Nos. 854, 855.
—Science. No. 160.

L'Homme. 1886, No. 3.

The following paper was read by the author : —

The PRESENT CONDITION of the NATIVE TRIBES in
BECHUANALAND.

By C. E. CONDER, Captain E.E.

THE subject on which I have been invited by the president to
read a paper before you is that of the present condition of the
native tribes in Bechuanaland. During the recent expedition
under Sir Charles Warren, my duties, as Boundary Commissioner
and otherwise, led me- to study, to the best of my ability, the
character and condition, especially of the Batlaping and Baro-
long divisions of the Bechuaria Kafirs ; and in addition to the
result of personal enquiry, I obtained a good deal of information
from such residents as have longest dwelt among these tribes,
especially from the Eev. W. Ashton, a friend of Dr. Livingstone,
who has lived in Bechuanaland since 1843, and from the Eev.
J. Mackenzie, who dwelt for many years at Shoshong, the chief
place of the great Bamangwato chief, Kama. Very valuable
information has also become lately available, in the voluminous
Blue-Book on Native Laws and Customs, published by the
Government of Cape Colony. From such sources I collected
information, which I will endeavour to put in such a form as to
afford an answer — so far as I am able to render one — to the
majority of the questions contained in the valuable " Anthro-
pological Notes and Queries," prepared by the Committee of the
British Association.

Before proceeding, however, to the main question, a few words
may be said concerning the surrounding tribes ; and as to the
present proportions of the various divisions of the Bechuana.

Native Tribes in Bechuanaland. 77

The new Crown colony of Bechuanaland, of which I laid down
the eastern boundary, is situated west of the Transvaal, and
north of Griqualand West. It includes the territory of the Bat-
laping and Barolong tribes of the Bechuana, and that of the Bat-
laros, lying further west, near the border of the Kalahari Desert.
North of the colony, a large country, inhabited by the Bang-
waketse, the Bakwena, the Bakatla, and the Bamangwato,
stretches towards the Zambesi. The remnants of the M,akalaka
(akin to the Basuto) intervene between the northern Bechuana,
and the Matabele (a Zulu race), who occupy a rich country,
north of the Transvaal. North-east of the Matabele is Mashona-
land, a country rich in minerals, extending to the Zambesi.
Bechuanaland itself is a pastoral country, consisting of a great
plateau, 4,000 feet above the sea, with a fine climate, and grazing
lands, said in some cases to be among the finest known in South
Africa. Within the limits of the Crown colony there is but
little bush, and the country is certainly very superior in fertility
to the colonial possessions south of the new colony. The
principal drawback is the insufficiency of water ; but the rain-
fall is in many years plentiful, and a small expenditure in public
works would greatly improve the country in this respect. The
streams during the summer rains become impassable rivers, but
the water soon rushes off to the Yaal River, or is lost in the
Kalahari Desert.

It is extremely difficult to obtain reliable statistics, as to the
numbers of the native population in Bechuanaland. War has
not materially affected the question, and the large native
families, under a polygamous system, tend to give a rapid in-
crease in numbers. On the other hand, recent famines, and
increasing disease, tend to reduce these numbers ; while the
inroads of white men lead to migrations, which result in decrease
of native numbers in the south and east, and corresponding
increase in the north and west. It was part of my duty to
collect such statistics as were available, but the results were
very rough. The fighting men of the Batlaping may, I think,
be stated at some 3,000 in all. The Barolong within the colony
have, perhaps, 2,000 fighting men ; those within the Transvaal
were more numerous, but are now dispersing in all directions.
Of the northern tribes, the Bamangwato is the largest, and
Kama, their chief is said to have 500 mounted men armed with
rifles. In addition to the Bantu races, just enumerated, there
were till quite lately some 5,000 Korannas, inhabiting the neigh-
bourhood of Mamusa, now within the Transvaal. This settle-
ment has been attacked by the Boers since the return of the
expedition. The chief (David Massouw) and 100 men of the
Korannas are said to have been killed, and many virtual slaves
(or apprentices as they are called) have been made. The settle-

C. R. CONDER. — The present Condition of tlu

ment seems, in fact, to have been broken up and the land
reserved to the natives to have been confiscated.

A rough table of the population would give the following
results : —

Within the Crown f Batlaping about 18,000 souls,

colony of Bechuanaland \ Barolong „ 15,000 „

North o'f the Crown colony.

C Bangwaketse . .
1 Bakwena
| Bamangwato .,
[_ Smaller tribes

20,000
30,000
40,000
60,000

33,000

150,000
183,000

I see reason, however, to suppose that these proportions will
further be modified by the disappearance of numbers of the
Batlaping,1 in consequence, partly of migration, partly of starva-
tion, from which this unfortunate tribe was suffering when last I
visited them at Taung.

As regards the Korannas, they are a Hottentot people, and I
only came in contact with them in their locations in Barkly
West and at Christiana, in the Transvaal. I was very much
struck with the strongly Turanian type of the race. The broad
cheek bones, the small eyes, wide apart and slightly oblique,
the small mouth (somewhat projecting) and short nose, and even
the colour, which is much lighter than .that of the Kafirs, called
to my mind both the Japanese and also the Turkish peasantry
of Asia Minor.

I have heard it stated that the practice of excision, which
occurs among the Copts and, I believe, among the Abyssinians, is
also existent among the Korannas, as well as circumcision.

Both sexes color their hair with black lead, their faces with
red lead, even when wearing European clothing. They consider
that this renders them more beautiful, like the Zulus who paint
themselves white for the same reason.

As regards the Matabele my duties did not permit of my
visiting their country. A mission under Lieut. Haynes, R.E.,
was sent to the capital Gobilawayo to visit the Matabele king,
Lobengula, with a letter from Sir C. Warren. This officer
would, I think, be able — judging from my conversations with
him — to give valuable information as to this' warlike and
important tribe.

The Matabele were originally Zulus, who, being unsuccessful
in war, under Mosilikatse, were afraid to reappear before the

1 Sir Q-. Campbell called attention in discussion to the sparsity of the popu-
lation, a fact which, of course, ought to render it all the easier to find lands for
both natives and white men.

Native Tribes in BecJiuanaland. 79

terrible Chaka. They settled in the Transvaal and were driven
thence to their present country by the Boers. Their name in
Sechuana means " naked " and is due, not to the fact that they
are lightly clad, but because they offend Bechuana ideas of
decency, not wearing the small fur apron which men and boys
always wear among the Bechuana, even when they have no
clothes. The Matabele on the contrary wear a wooden box like
that of the Zulus. The numbers of the Matabele have been
recruited by the education of slaves from among the Makololo,
Makalaka and even Bamangwato. The old Zulu type is rapidly
dying out through this infusion of Basuto and Bechuana blood,
and the warlike prowess of the Matabele is also decaying, so that
a regiment defeated near Lake N 'garni was not ashamed only
last year to return to the King. It is probable that the great
chief Kama is strong enough, if supported, and protected from
Boer encroachments, to keep the Matabele at home. The latter
are moreover well affected to the English.

I now turn to a description of the Batlaping and Barolong,
basing my observations on the British Association Queries so
far as I am able to deal with them. I was, however, unable to
take any measurements of natives or any exact notes concerning
colour, anatomy, or physiology. There is great variety in the
shades of colour, but it seems that those of the purest blood are
the darkest, judging from the chiefs. It is said also that the
colour of the northern tribes is deeper than that of the southern,
and the eyes larger. As regards odour I can attest that this
increases in consequence of violent exertion.

The language of the Bechuana tribes is well known as a
branch of the Bantu group. There are no clicks in Sechuana,
but the Batlaping on the south are said to have contracted the
habit of introducing clicks in some words in consequence of
Hottentot influence. The sound represented by Tl as in Tlapi,
" a fish " (whence Batlaping or " fish people ") approaches a click. '
The name as will appear later may be connected with a former
worship of the fish. The greatest peculiarity which I noticed
was, however, the intonation of the language, which is only
caught after long residence, and which contrasts strongly with
the energetic enunciation of Orientals. Sechuana is a very
melodious and liquid language, and the speech of the natives is
full of poetic imagery, which is admired so much as to form a
distinct feature in their public speaking.

Their confusion of the letters D, L, and R, is also remarkable.
They can distinguish B and P which to an Arab sound the same,
but which the Turks distinguish. The Sechuana P, indeed, is
highly emphatic, resembling that of the Irish as in their pronunci-
ation for instance of the word " ppig "; but the Sechuana word for

80 C. R. CONDER. — The present Condition of the

God may be written Modimo, Morimo, or Molimo, and the blue
wildebeest (or gnu) is called Phudomo, Pulomo, or Puromo
either sound being recognised by a native. It must be remem-
bered that even the early Greeks did not always distinguish
L from R, and the hieroglyphic sign is the same in Egyptian for
these two letters. In the east however, D is confused with T
rather than as among the Bechuana with L or R.

The Sechuana language, I am told, does not possess any true
numerals above six. Seven is " shupa," meaning " look out,"
and being the name of the forefinger. The word for eight means
•' two fingers down," nine is " one finger down." Ten is
" completion," eleven " completion one finger up." When
therefore we come to twenty eight we get the clumsy form " two
completions two fingers down."

The. traditions and customs of the Bechuana point to their
migration from the north-east. The old tribe of the Bahrutsi
is still, I believe, not extinct, and an offering of first fruits
by Bechuana chiefs to the chief of this tribe seems to show
that they are acknowledged as the parent stock. The Barolong
have inhabited their country from time immemorial. The stone
krantzes which they erected as fortifications against the Zulus
under Chaka, I have found all along the present border of the
new colony. One division of the tribe migrated into the Orange
Free State and returned thence within the memory of middle-
aged men ; first inhabiting Taung, which now belongs to the
Batlaping, who originally lived further west ; and afterwards
under Moshette, settling at Kunana, a very large native town
now placed in the Transvaal. This town is again being deserted
by the Barolong.

There seems reason to suppose that the physique of the
Bechuana tribes in the south is steadily deteriorating. This is
due clearly to the influence of the whites — to the breaking up
of the old social system, the laws and customs of which were
well adapted to native life ; and to the introduction of bad
brandy and syphilis. It is thought that the adoption of
European clothing has affected the health of the people, but
there are clear indications that the asthma, consumption and
lung diseases from which the natives suffer are congenital, and,
I think, they should rather be ascribed to the excesses of the
parents on whom the white men have had a disastrous influence.
We have been told lately that the natives are only allowed to
buy " ginger pop." If this is the case, I can only say that
ginger beer in South Africa produces symptoms indistinguish-
able from those due to the consumption of brandy ; and I have
seen brandy drunk by natives in quantities which white men
could not consume.

Native Tribes in BecJmanaland. 81

As regards the morality of the people, their indifference to
the conduct of the women is very astonishing to any traveller
accustomed to Orientals. Some missionaries admit that the
morality of mission stations is inferior to that of the old Pagan
days. There is a simple explanation of this, as shown by the
Blue-Book above noticed. Some missionaries discountenance the
old native custom of giving a certain number of cows to the
father of a bride, which they regard as equivalent to buying
the wife, though this is not the native view. The consequence
is that the native girls have no longer a market value, and the
control exerted over them by their parents, and especially by
the mothers, is relaxed. The morality of the natives after mar-
riage is, on the other hand, probably improved by the influence
of the very able and energetic men who accompanied and suc-
ceeded Dr. Moffat. The natives are said to be affectionate and
fond of their children, and they certainly possess a love of
justice and fair play and ideas of right and law which should
commend them to Englishmen. Unfortunately, the colonial
population have not upheld British reputation in this respect,
and the natives draw a sharp distinction between the British —
chiefly known to them as soldiers or missionaries, and the
colonials — traders and speculators. The prohibition of the sale
of spirits is strictly enforced by such chiefs as Montsiwa and
Kama who have learned that the introduction of brandy means
the destruction of the tribe. This wise prohibition is clearly
due to missionary influence.

Under the head of psychology I may note that the Bechuana
appear to be an intelligent people. They easily learn when
taught, to read, write, and cypher ; they are even able to draw
maps (I possess a sketch of country by one of the Barolong)
and Sechele, chief of the Bakwena, sent his sons to Cape Town
to school, and introduced convict labour in his country in imita-
tion of Cape laws. They are, however, slow in their mental
operations, as in their movements, and ponder long before
answering, thus forcibly contrasting with Oriental volubility.
That they are courageous has often been proved ; they are, how-
ever, neither honest nor truthful as a rule, and small thefts are
common. They are fond of giving long and rambling disserta-
tions on trivial subjects and their deliberations in council are
endless.

As regards astronomy, they appear to conceive of a firmament
like that of the Babylonians, and they say that the sun travels
under the earth at night. Some old people still alive have, I
am told, heard the noise which the sun makes during this noc-
turnal journey. They have, it appears, a native calculation of
the year, though I am unable to say whether this is lunar or

82 C. E. CONDER. — The present Condition of the

solar. They have ceremonies connected with the new moon,
and on moonlight nights they sit in the kotlas or village yards
singing and dancing and drinking Kaffir beer. They also have
harvest festivals with dances.

The ordinary native food is a sort of porridge, made of mealies
or of Kaffir corn. They do not appear to make bread. They are great
flesh eaters, and in addition to game will, when hungry, eat
almost any kind of dead animal. I have seen them eating a
mule which died of pneumonia. The Kaffir corn makes a sort
of stupefying beer, but can only be indulged in by chiefs, except
at the great feasts. The natives often ask for tobacco, and
smoke short European pipes. They are also said to smoke a
kind of hemp. I believe none of the Bechuana tribes eat fish
even when living near rivers.

Mr. Ashton gave me information as to the eating of locusts
by the Batlaping. The natives go by night with great bags to
catch the sleeping locusts. They boil them in large iron pots,
then lay them out to dry. When dried, the locusts are win-
nowed, the wings, legs, and head being blown away like chaff.
The bodies can be kept for a considerable time. The eating of
locusts is said to give a peculiar smell to those who devour
them in quantities, but the natives are so fond of this food that
a visitation by locusts, which ruins the white man, is rather
welcomed by the Bechuana.

The frequent droughts in Bechuanaland often reduce the
smaller tribes to living on berries of the Moretlwa (G-rewia
flava) and Mohatla (Tarchonanthus). The Makalahari (or
" poor men ") and the bushmen who are slaves of the Bechuana
in the towns live on game and on roots. Their tribute consists
of skins, and of certain parts of animals killed.

A number of the Barolong and the Bakwena and Bamang-
wato now profess some kind of Christianity. I think that it is
certain that in some cases — as, for instance, the great and
honest Kama — this profession is sincere. The Batlaping at
Taung are pagans, and Montsiwa, chief of the Barolong of
Maf eking (or more correctly, Mahiking), remains a pagan, though
tolerating Christianity among his people.

Previous to the introduction of Christianity, the Bechuana
appear to have had only very vague religious ideas, and their
attention was chiefly occupied by the detection of wizards
and witches. The word Morimo for God (also used in the
plural to signify the Manes, of the dead) appears to have
meant a great and angry personage living in " the great hole
in the North." Morimo sends the lightning — which in
Bechuanaland is continuous for hours in summer, the storms
being very violent, and the lightning unusually magnificent

Native Tribes in Bechuanaland. 83

and destructive. The Hottentot Heitzi Eibib, who lives in a
great hole, seems akin to Morimo. The Sechuana word for
soul is Moia, meaning " breath," but they do not seem to have
any expectation of future immortality. The ghosts of the dead
are, however, believed to haunt the living, and to watch over
their descendants. No idols or fetishes appear to exist among
Bechuana tribes, and indeed Dr. Livingstone has remarked on
this difference between the Bantu tribes and the negroes
whom he encountered further north. As regards festivals, the
harvest feast, as I saw it at Kunana among the Barolong, was
celebrated with dances, songs, and drinking of Kaffir beer or
brandy. The men assembled in a circle blowing on reed pipes
and jumping round in a slow ungainly fashion. The women
marched round outside, clapping their hands.

The initiatory rites of boguera (for boys) and boyali (for girls),
will be well known to this Society. They are still practised
among the northern tribes at least. Both girls and boys are
organised in regiments, each regiment consisting of those within
a few years of the same age. The boys of a regiment are
circumcised when the chiefs son, who commands them, is about
13 years of age. The beating of these boguera candidates with
rods of Moretlwa (G-rewia flava) was observed at Molepolole,
capital of the Bakwena, by officers of the recent expedition.

Ordeals are noticed by Dr. Livingstone, namely, the Muavi,
or drinking of goho juice by women, but on this point I gathered
nothing new. As regards wedding ceremonies, there is one of
casting an arrow into the hut by the bridegroom, which is
worthy of notice as symbolic.

Among superstitions I may mention that of the " evil foot,"
which seems to correspond to the evil eye. After a birth no
man is allowed for some days to enter the hut, and an infant
is said to have died from the " evil foot " of a man so entering.
It appears that tree worship exists among the pagan Bechuana.
Mr. Mackenzie notices the habit of praying before the largest
tree in a thick bush. A native entering a village on business
will place a stone in the branch of a tree near the road, in order
to obtain success in his affairs. I have seen these stones in
trees. The custom is no doubt akin to that of Arabs and other
Orientals of making cairns under trees, each visitor or passer-by
adding a stone to the cairn.

The idea of the Totem may also, perhaps, be traced among
these tribes. Many tribe names are derived from those of
animals, as Batlaping from Tlapi " a fish," Batuana from Tao " a
lion," Bakatla from Katla " a monkey," Bakwena from Kwena a
" crocodile " The tribe is said to Una or dance before its sacred
animal, and at the great council held by the Bakwena to meet

G 2

84 C. R CONDER. — The present Condition of the

Sir C. Warren the assembly shouted Makwen or " 0 crocodile
man " at each point of the chiefs speech. The crest of Sechele,
chief of this tribe, is, I am told, a blue crocodile carved in stone.
Mr. Mackenzie mentions that certain bushmen Una the common
goat. It is unlucky for them to gaze on one, and renders them
impure. The Bakwena also may not look at a crocodile and
Livingstone tells us that they may not look at a zebra or quagga
(Pitsi). A man bitten by a crocodile is exiled, yet the Bakwena
will eat the flesh of the zebra.

The Puti or duiker, a kind of antelope (Cephalopus mergens)
is sacred to the Bamangwato, whose chief, Kama, is named from
another species, the hartebeest (Bubalus caama) ; and the hippo-
potamus of the Zambesi is said to be sacred to the Matabele.

There are also superstitions connected with fire. Mr. Mac-
kenzie notes that if the rains are late all fires are extinguished
and relighted by the lingakas or witch doctors, who make fire with
the fire drill. These doctors are still powerful among the
northern tribes. One was seen at Mafeking arrayed in necklace
of teeth and hung with charms. They are distinguished
from the moloi or wizards as practising white instead of black
magic.

Some moloi were found in 1885 trying to bewitch the
boundary line between the Bakwena and the Bamangwato. The
latter made them swallow the liquor they had brewed, and
with which I believe the boundary cairns were to be wetted.
The unfortunate wizards died of their own poisons.

Mr. Mackenzie mentions the " digging of the garden of rain "
a heathen ceremony. Charmed seed is planted in the corner of
a garden before the sowing begins and the lingaka mount to the
hill tops, blow horns and light fires and whistle and shout to
bring the rain. They objected that the church bells of Kuruman
kept away the rain. Sir Charles Warren on the other hand is
held always to bring rain with him, and the rains were more
plentiful in 1885 than for several previous years.

When the garden of rain has been sown it becomes unlawful
to fell trees save at dawn or sunset, and a grave offence to bring
a green bough of the Hackthorn (Acacia detenens) into the
towns by day during the rainy season.

The lingaka (pi. of ngaka) receive presents of oxen in
recompense for their labours. They are robed in baboon skin,
and may sit on hyena skins. Children are frightened by being
told that the moloi come unseen by night riding the hyena to
carry them off. Among other unlucky things is the calling of a
lion by his name Tao ; he is called " the boy with the beard."

As regards birth, marriage and death, I have gathered little
beyond what has just been. said. There is a ceremony oi

Native Tribes in Becliuanaland, 85

purification after childbirth. Levirate marriage exists as among
the Zulus, and exogamy seems the common practice resulting in
a great mixture of tribal relations. The successor is the eldest
son, I believe, in all cases save that of a chief, when " the son of
the great wife " succeeds. The great wife may be declared at
any time before death. Her son is not of necessity that of the
chief. Thus Moshette, by native law, is senior to Montsiwa,
being his nephew, son (by law) of the elder brother. I gather
however, that Moshette was son of the widow only of the elder
brother, and of a common man whom she married some years
after the chief died. It is not considered proper in Bechuana
society to speak of such a second husband, and the first child of
such an union is always supposed to be the heir of the chief. As
far as I can gather, this law does not apply to any but chiefs of
tribes.

Polygamy and the paying of dower for wives do not seem to
be customs attended with any great evils among the natives of
Bechuanaland. All the women are married, and I fear it might
be said that all (save those influenced by the missionaries) are
as unfaithful to their husbands as are the husbands to their
wives. As regards dower it should be noted that it forms a sort
of marriage settlement. If a husband unjustly sends back a
wife to her own people, she receives the cows paid for her as her
portion. If she is justly divorced the cows are returned to the
husband. The cows for the first wife are provided by the bride-
groom's father ; those for a second he has to get by his own
exertions. A marriage " on credit " is however often possible,
one or two cows being paid on account, the rest as the husband
gets richer.

If a woman have an illegitimate child before marriage, the
father pays so many cows, which when she marries are deducted
from her dower. The native mothers are, however, vigilant,
and in the old native society illegitimate children before mar-
riage were few.

As regards burials, the chiefs I am told are sometimes buried
vertically with bow and arrows and calabash of water. There
are no sacrifices at burials, but pottery is broken by the widow
over the grave. This I find is also a Chinese custom. No
cemeteries are found near towns, for the grave is hidden. In
some cases chiefs appear to be buried in their cattle kraals.
These seem to be sacred places, and women are not allowed to
enter a kraal while the cattle are in it. Among Zulus the
spirits of dead chiefs inhabit serpents near their tombs, but this
I have not heard of among the Bechuana tribes. Widows and
widowers remain in huts outside the village, as being impure
for a certain time after the death.

86 C. E. CONDER. — The present Condition of the

Polygamy is said by missionaries to be decreasing, but this
(except among converts) may be due to the decreasing prosperity
of the tribes. Formerly, a man became richer the more wives
he had, because they used to hoe his mealies. Now, however,
ploughs have been introduced and the men take pride in
driving a team of eight oxen in a plough. They are also
proud of their wagons of sixteen oxen. The women are there-
fore less active in agriculture. It used to be a common sight to
see a company of women hoeing a field, advancing in a line and
singing in the intervals of labour. I have, however, very rarely
seen women hoeing mealies.

The Bechuana system of government is somewhat akin to
constitutional monarchy. The chief has certain counsellors
representing each a village or section of the tribe, and each the
head of a local council. The younger or less celebrated members
speak first : the chief sums up. His decision is much influenced
by the opinions of the counsellors who represent the popular
wishes ; but there is no voting and his decision is final. A good
chief finds his tribe continually increased by families which
desert the station of a cruel or incompetent ruler. The great
fault of the system seems to lie in the power given to the chief,
since, if a chief takes to drinking — which is too often the case—
disorganisation and ruin ensue among the tribesmen — as in the
case of the Batlaping, whose chief, Mankoroane, has illegally
signed away the lands of his people, under the influence of drink
given to him by white speculators.

The land laws are simple. The land belongs to the chief.
He divides it among his head men, and they in turn among
their people. There is no division of grazing land. The mealie
fields are practically the property of their cultivators so long as
they are tilled. 1 found each patch to belong to an individual,
and to be divided generally by untilled land from the next
patch. The fields have to be left fallow every third year at
least, as the crop exhausts the soil, no manure being used. A
chief can only legally assign untilled lands to new members of
the tribe, whether white or black. The law as to theft is also
very practical. The whole village is responsible. The head
man must assist the person robbed, and the responsibility can
only be evaded by proving that the spoor (for it is generally a
case of horse, cattle, or wagon theft) extends beyond the village
lands to those of another village. Thus the whole tribe becomes
interested in detecting the thief.

As regards punishments I gathered nothing, but it is certain
that white men have even been tried for their lives before
Baralong chiefs. As a rule the legal and political proceedings
of the Bechuana are remarkable for a love of justice and fair

Native Tribes in Bechuanaland. 87

play, not always found among races higher in the scale of
civilisation.

Native trade in Bechuanaland has now been ruined by the
incursions of the white races. The evidence taken before a
committee of which I was a member showed that before 1880,
the Batlaping and Baralong carried on a considerable trade with
Kimberley and Barkly in wood, skins, corn, and mealies. Even
the Makalaka travelled south to work in the diamond mines
until they had earned the price of a wife, and I have seen poor
natives on their way to Kimberley, their only provision being a
bottle of water. The trade is now extinct, and even the
employment has fallen off through the misfortunes of the mining
companies.

There is a good deal of hospitality between the tribes. Thus,
the Batlaping, who were starving at Taung, went with their
families in 1885 to visit Maf eking when the Baralong had a
good harvest. These visitors were fed for a month and sent
home with bags of mealies in their wagons.

The use of European clothing has become usual among the
Bechuana, even up to the most northern part of the Bamang-
wato country, but in the small outlying villages the women still
wear karosses, and carry their small naked children on their
backs, tucked up in the skin. They commonly tie a bright
handkerchief over their heads. In Mahiking the women wore
print gowns and tartan shawls, and the men often wore the
knitted bonnet of the Scottish lowlanders. Among the Bat-
laping, I am told the women continue, even under their skirts,
to wear the heavy rows of beads round their waists ; and they
wear beads round their ankles looking like blue socks. There
is much variety in fashion. One year all the women wear blue
beads, but on another (perhaps just when a trader has laid in a
stock of blue beads) the women all refuse to wear any colour
but yellow. Just now very small black pot hats are worn by
the men. Some years ago, huge felt hats, like that of Eip van
Winkle, were in fashion. The stores are full of these hats now
unsaleable. The children wear no clothes, but the girls have a
fringe of leather reaching to the knees, and the boys a little skin
apron.

I should note that the peculiar straw hat of the natives is
still worn by men in some parts of the country. It is of very
small size, like that of a Swiss woman, but much smaller. Some-
times it is even worn by young dandies set well on one side of
the head.

The Bechuana are said to differ from the Zulus in living
together "in large towns with a few outlying villages or cattle-
posts, instead of being distributed in many villages of smaller

88 C. R QONDER.— The present Condition of the

size. Kunana, the largest of the native towns which I visited,
contains perhaps 2000 huts, all of about the same size and all of
one plan. The native hut is round, but sometimes a horse-shoe
shape is now used, and square buildings erected in imitation of
the white man. The roof is of grass on rafters of branches
resting on a rough centre pole. The Barolong huts are much
better built than those of the Batlaping ; they are made of sun
dried bricks covered with red mortar. The Batlaping use a sort
of wattle of stakes and mud. The Barolong in the north make
mudwalls to the yards, the Batlaping use scarrums of brushwood
very neatly constructed to keep out the sand of the dust storms.
The Barolong huts are very clean inside, and Mahiking, among
its green trees and rocks, is a clean as well as a picturesque-
town. The towns of Kanya and Molepolole are still more
picturesque, but, I understand, very dirty. In these towns a
trader's house or tin shed may always be seen, and generally
there are several,

The native fortifications consist of stone krantzes or walls,
generally on the sides of Kopjes. We found Mahiking so forti-
fied and Kunana as well; and the old krantzes of Chaka's
time have been already noticed in this paper. These walls are
thoroughly effective in absence of artillery fire. The native
word for such defences is Litaku or " walls." It is curious to
note how complicated some of these systems of walls may be
made, allowing of desperate resistance after the fashion of
street fighting even if the enemy should gain the first line of
defence.

The towns are, however, in native estimation, still better
defended by the charms of the Lingaka. Mr. Mackenzie
mentions in his interesting work, "Ten years North of the
Orange Eiver," that lipeku or charms are placed on the roads
outside the towns. These are generally horns of antelopes set
up. This may perhaps only apply amongst Bamangwato, whose
sacred animal is the antelope, puti. The lipeku ox is also
sacrificed, being prepared some time previously by having its
eyelids oewn together.

The Batlaping are perhaps the most degraded tribe of the
Bechuana, and are despised by the Basuto who are more war-
like and independent. Indeed, the Basuto are as yet an
unconquered people. Nevertheless the Batlaping also can fight
desperately as was shown by their refusal of the terms of peace
offered, I am told, by Sir C. Warren, and by their subsequent
desperate resistance at Takun or Litaku, a place named from its
stone walls.

The Bechuana are now in possession of European fire-arms.
The Barolong have a few good rifles — express or Westley-

Native Tribes in Becliuanaland. 89

Richards — but not always the necessary cartridges. I have seen
them parade with an extraordinary assortment of guns, from an
elephant gun downwards. Some were the proud possessors of a
cartridge belt for some sixty rounds, containing, however, only
perhaps a single cartridge.

The old native arm was the chaka, or battleaxe. They never
possessed swords, I am told. The shield was an oval of 18
inches by 12, not the long shield of the Zulus and Matabele.
The use of bows and arrows among the bushmen, in the western
part of Bechuanaland, still continues. The arrows, I learn, are
poisoned with the milk of the spurge (Ettphorbia), or by being
left in decaying animal matter, or — according to others — by the
poison of snakes. The arrow has a long and fine iron blade,
sharp as a razor. The varieties of native arms may be studied
in Mr. Mackenzie's book above mentioned.

Turning from war to the chase, it may be noted that among
the Bangwaketse and other more northern tribes, the hopo, or
game trap, described by Dr. Livingstone, is still in use. 1 found
old game pits further south, but near Korwe (a place named
from the hornbills which abound in the vicinity) I found one
recently prepared. Game is gradually disappearing south of the
Molopo, though it is still abundant in the west and north. The
lion still occasionally ranges as far south as Taung (a place
perhaps named from this beast), and the spotted cheetah is still
common in the west, but the elephant and the giraffe are not
found in the new colony. The wildebeest, hartebeest, quagga
koodoo, stein-buck, duiker, riet-buck, gems-buck, springbok,
blesbok, and occasionally, I believe, the rooibok (pala) are
still found in numbers in the less frequented parts of Bechu ana-
land. The hopo which I saw consisted of forty pits arranged
in fours, the length of the trap being in the direction of the
drive, which was cleverly constructed of thorns — a sort of hedge
not conspicuous, but difficult to pass. The pits were 3 feet by
4 feet, and 4 feet deep, with narrow ridges between. I am told
that a cavalry horse was disabled, in another part of the country
occupied by the expedition, having been ridden into a buck pit
during a hunt.

Bechuana society may be considered to consist of four grades
beneath the chief. The rich men — sons of chiefs or counsellors
— generally of the chief's family, live in the native towns and
possess herds of oxen, mealie fields cultivated by their retainers,
and wagons driven by their servants. Beneath them comes the
agricultural population, also living in the towns, engaging in
trade and in native manufacture. The herdsmen, who keep the
herds at the cattle posts, are again a lower class, and the poorest
are the Makalahari,who are nomadic hunters, living chiefly in the

90 C. E. CONDER. — The present Condition of the

west, and considered in the light of serfs of the chief. These
Makalahari are, in condition, similar to the bushmen, but the
true bushmen are not Bechuana, but Hottentots, or akin to the
Hottentot, judging from the linguistic evidence. Even the Bat-
laping still claim authority over bushmen living on the borders
of the Kalahari Desert.1

The chief native manufactures are in leather and in metal.
The native smiths are said to be skilful. They use a bag
bellows, like that used by gipsys all over the world, which I
have seen in Italy and in Syria. They draw copper through
holes in a stone to a fine wire. I have, however, never come
across any smiths. The Mashona, living in a metalliferous
region, north-east of the Matabele, are famous for their metal
work, and for the copper ornaments of the women. In the
south, Europeans are now employed to mend the ploughs and the
wagons of the natives.

The manufacture of karosses continues to be one of the great
industries of the Bechuana, and these skins are retailed at a high
profit by traders in Kimberley market. The tiger skins are
brought from the north, but deer skins, blesbok, koodoo, or more
commonly springbok, may be obtained anywhere. Jackal skins
and cat skins are among the softest. The skins are suppled in
milk, they are tanned with mimosa bark, and the sewing is
remarkably neat, a button-hole stitch being used (as I am told
by Mr. Ashton) the sewing material being a fine sinew of the
animal. Every shot hole or spear mark is carefully patched,
and this is often so well done as to be invisible on the outside.
Sheepskins are also made into karosses, and form excellent beds.
It is usual to wear the needle used in sewing karossses suspended
round the neck, in a wooden case as an ornament.

Stone implements in South Africa seem to be chiefly re-
presented by the " bushmen stones," which have often puzzled
explorers, being found in deserted settlements. It appears to
be thought that these were used as weights on the sticks or
stakes used by the bushmen in digging for roots, but they do
not seem to be now in use. The stone is globular, and the
perforation is shaped so as to be smallest in the middle. This
may perhaps result from being bored on both sides.

As regards education, considerable progress is made by in-
dividuals. Schools have been established by missionaries, and
appear to be well attended. A native newspaper has long been
published at Kuruman. The nephews of Montsiwa were able
to speak, read and write English, and even to understand a map,
and draw a rough plan of the roads, with names of places

1 Bushman pictures are to be found in Bechuanaland, east of Vrijberg, but I
was unable to visit the spot.

Native Tribes in Bcchuanaland. 91

written in English characters. I have no doubt that their
education extended even further, but confine myself to personal
observation. The sons of Sechele, I am told, have even com-
posed hymns in their native tongue, but this has not prevented
them from falling into habits of intemperance. They were
educated in Cape Town, but a native can now receive an
elementary European education even at Shoshong. Dutch is
more spoken, however, than English, especially by the natives
near the Transvaal, but there are many natives who can speak
the three languages — including their own.

Native children are a cheerful race ; and indeed, in spite of
war and famine, the Bechuana are a cheery people, always ready
to laugh and sing, and easily forgetting their troubles. The
children do not appear to have many regular sports, but are
found in every village riding on sticks or cracking whips. They
also make little toy huts and kraals ; and one officer brought
back a small ox made of clay and very fairly formed. These
oxen they place in their miniature kraals.

One of the last questions in the text book which I have
followed, relates to conservatism and variation. Concerning
this, I may say that the natives of South Africa, like the Arabs,
are by no means blind admirers of civilisation. They have
their own opinions, both as regards individual white men, and
also respecting individual white customs or inventions. They
regard their own customs generally as being best fitted for them-
selves, but are willing to accept such improvements as commend
themselves on the score of utility. Thus, the wild Bedawin
of Syria have adopted firearms, cigarettes and matches, but have
not taken to European clothing, or to tall hats. The Bechuana
have adopted ploughs, wagons, firearms, hats and European
clothing, also brandy, and gold, silver or copper coins. On the
other hand, they are attached to their old system of land
tenure, and do not always desire to be converted into individual
independent farmers under government. Neither do they
always recognise the superiority of the Christian religion over
their own cruel and stupid superstitions. Nor again do they
desire only to have one wife. They regard the payment of
dower as a mark of respectability; and the physique and
morality of the race — though the latter has never been good —
have deteriorated, in consequence of the loss of self-respect and
of the decay of the native system of society.

In conclusion, I would venture to assert that our present
treatment of the native race in Bechuanaland reflects little
credit on us as a nation. It is true that we do not — until
attacked by the natives — destroy their villages, nor do we
shoot their women and carry their children captive as the Boers

92 Discussion.

still do, but the native outbreaks are, as a rule, the result of
oppression and injustice on the part of white men. Starvation
and the illegal seizure of native lands are, perhaps, slower, but
not more justifiable, methods of securing that retreat of the
black man before the white which Colonial politicians seem to
regard as a mysterious action of natural law.

Were such action followed by material development of the
resources of the country, we might perhaps regard the result
with more satisfaction, but Lord Wolseley was certainly right in
saying, only the other day, that the Boer is little above the
native in the scale of civilisation. He is, indeed, in some cases
lower, for he does not, like the Bechuana, desire improvement,
and the extension of trading operations. Were it possible for
independent Englishmen to take up the settlement of native
questions, on the basis of equitable recognition of all claims
irrespective of race, we should, I think, hear little of native
outbreaks : and if the Bechuana chiefs were supported in their
attempts to keep brandy out of their towns, we should not have
to chronicle the final disappearance of the race of which I have
thus offered you a slight contemporary sketch.

DISCUSSION.

The CHAIRMAN (Mr. HYDE CLARKE) after referring to the services
and claims of Captain Conder, said that it had been an object of the
former President, General Pitt- Rivers, that the Anthropological
Institute like other learned societies, should in the course of its
session have papers on the topics of the day. He considered that
if anthropology was to be made a popular study, so also it must be
shown to have its practical aspect. These meetings had been
inaugurated by the late Sir Bartle Frere in the President's house
in a discourse on South Africa, which was a fitting prelude to this
paper of Captain Conder. It was more than possible that the
observations of Dr. Bleek and others had some foundation, and that
clicks, tones and intonations were connected in the origin of
language, with the same causes of differentiation, which produced
tones in the Chinese and Indo-Chinese languages. Such were not
to be considered as having been invented by the Chinese.

Mr. CARMICHAEL, having taken the Chair vacated by Mr. Hyde-
Clarke, observed that among the various points of interest which
struck him in Captain Conder's account of the Bechuana and neigh-
bouring tribes one was that of their superstitions and folk-lore,
and in connection with that topic he desired to mention, besides
the Blue book referred to by Captain Conder, the interesting draft
Penal Code for the Transkei, of which an account was given in a
recent number of the Cape Law Journal (Grahamsbown) for June,
1885. That code was, he thought, probably the only existing: code
to which we could turn for an authorised statement of the folk-lore

Discussion. 93

and superstitions (e.gr., witchcraft) of uncivilised races in so far as
they touch upon social order. We had had, and it might be said,
still had plenty of superstitions in England, and occasionally, as
in the case in which William Rufus is known to have sneered at
his English subjects for their superstitiousness, the facts have got
on record in our history. Mr. Carmichael wished to know, with
regard to the dances mentioned by Captain Conder, whether he saw
any evidence of their having any astronomical counecoion, like the
dance at the return of the Pleiades, stated to be a ceremony among
the bushmen, and with regard to the expressions used concerning
the whole tribe as being interested in the apprehension of a thief,
whether he might take that to mean that collective responsibility
was a Bechuana institution. In moving the thanks of the meeting
to the reader of the paper, Mr. Carmichael referred to the pleasure
which it gave him to have that opportunity of thanking Captain
Conder for his valuable services in the cause of scientific exploration,
of which he had, on a previous occasion heard him give an interest-
ing account, at a conference at South Kensington in connection
with the Survey of Palestine.

Mr. W. MORRISON, called attention to the chiefs being darker in
colour than their subjects. As a rule the governing class of a
tribe were lighter, not being so much exposed to the sun. Was
there any other example of the D being confused with L and K- ?
The confusion of L and R is common in the Pacific Islands.
Another example was Lima, which the early conquestadores wrote
as Rimac.

Mr. BERTIN said that he should like to call the attention of Captain
Conder to the ethnological differences between the bushmen and the
Bantus which Captain Conder in his most interesting paper seemed
not to take sufficiently into account. He spoke of the Bechuanas
for instance as having the hair in tufts, which is a bushman
characteristic ; the clicks also were, according to Bleek, Professor
Keane, and others, bushman in origin. As for the tones found in
Hottentot and other African languages in the South as well as in the
Niger region, they could hardly be taken as a proof of relationship
of two races, for we know how and when they were developed in
Chinese : and, as noticed lately by Professor Terrien de la Couperie,
tones were now being independently developed in Tibetan to
compensate phonetical losses. Of course the intermingling of the
populations was so considerable in South Africa that Captain Conder
had had many difficulties to overcome in his interesting and
thorough study of a race, which, if it did not pass away would, in
course of time, be so completely modified that for the ethnologist
and philologist it would have practically disappeared.

Mr. CHESSON, after thanking Captain Conder for his interesting
paper, which he said had been pervaded by a true spirit of humanity,
referred to Secheli's desire to establish a prison in his territory for
the punishment of criminals. He remarked that the late Bishop
Colenso had informed him that Cety wayo, on the eve of the Zulu
war, was meditating the introduction into Zululand of a similar

94 Discussion.

institution. Generally speaking", a savage chief, not knowing what
to do with his criminals kills them, but the fact that both Secheli
and Cetywayo conceived the idea of largely substituting imprison-
ment for capital punishment, showed a great amenability on their
part to civilised ideas of justice. He was glad to hear what Captain
Conder had said about the purchase of wives for cattle among the
Bechuanas. He could, however, assure him that that system in
Natal and elsewhere was fruitful of great evils, and that it often
placed young women, whose affections were otherwise engaged, at
the mercy of old and wealthy polygamists. He thought that in
countries which came under British rule the system ought to be
gradually abolished. With reference to intoxicating drinks, he
hoped that the Bechuanas had the same power of moral recovery
as the Basutos, who after having yielded to the insidious tempt-
ations of Cape brandy, and apparently lost all self-control, suddenly
awoke to a sense of their degradation, and expelled the brandy
bottle from their country. After referring to the cruelties of the
Boers to the Korannas, and especially to the neglect of the wounded
after the capture of Mamusa, Mr. Chesson thanked Sir Charles
Warren and Captain Conder for the good work they had done in
Bechuanaland.

The Rev. J. MACKENZIE, expressed the great pleasure which he
felt in finding an assembly of learned men in London discussing the
subject of Captain Conder's paper. And he was especially gratified
with the clear manner in which Captain Conder had put together the
observations contained in his paper, which abundantly proved that
he was both an able and a trained observer. He might be allowed
to supplement, or explain further, one or two matters. In Bechuana-
land the cattle paid by the bridegroom under native law to the bride's
father was the only way in the olden time of establishing the
validity of the marriage and the legitimacy of the children. With-
out the payment of cattle the father could not establish before
natives that the children were his. But Christian natives were
getting accustomed to the marriage register in the native church
as a still better proof of marriage, of the consent of the father-in-
law and other relatives, and of the legitimacy of the children. The
morality of mission stations was higher than that of the heathen
towns ; only cases of immorality were observable in the former,
while unnoticed in the latter. There was no point to be made out
in favour of the English as such or the Boers as such. The
difference was one of education ; the stock or race was one and the
same. It was as if two sons of the same parents had chosen
different courses— one remaining among educative and civilizing
influences, while the other shouldered his rifle and went into the
wilderness. It was quite true that so far as we knew there were
not 200,000 people in Bechuanaland from the Cape Colony to the
Zambesi. And yet in some parts of the country natives might
suffer hardship through loss of their cultivated lands. But under
wise administration and control it was certain that there was land
in Bechuanaland not only for the natives but for a considerable

Discussion 95

population of Europeans also ; and the advantage to all parties
would be very great if the English Government assumed the
management and control of this wide area of unoccupied land. The
question had just been put if it was absolutely indispensable that
strong drink should be sold at Mankorrane's town. He was not
aware of any necessity for this. The Administrator was free to
decide either for or against it. The law in the new colony on the
whole was that of the Cape Colony. But there was no colonial
law compelling the sale of liquor or the licensing of canteens,
although such houses might be legalized under certain restrictions.
It was not according to colonial practice to issue a licence to sell
drink within a native town. In the Free State they had no canteen
licences whatever. If nothing but ginger beer were for sale in
Taung the missionary would not have attended the licensing court
to protest against the issue of the licence, nor would the magistrate,
the son of Dr. Moffat, have thought it necessary to explain that in
this matter he had consulted the Administrator and that the licence
to sell spirits in Taung was issued by the desire of the Adminis-
trator himself. At the same time he would not have them believe
that the Bechuanas were a drunken people, or that natives generally
were dying out in South Africa. This was not so, from all the,
information which he could obtain. Although the natives had no
large idols as in other countries, they had smaller fetiches which
they wore or placed in their dwellings, and in which they trusted.
They believed in the after-life of man, and were ancestor-
worshippers.

Sir GEORGE CAMPBELL, and Mr. C. ROBERTS also joined in the
discussion.

Captain CONDER, in answer to the questions raised in discussion
spoke as follows : — The dances to which I alluded are not of certain
antiquity ; I do not think they have any discoverable astronomical
origin. Both men and women moved round, not with, but against
the sun. As regards the size of the chiefs (to which Mr. Morrison
alluded) the chiefs are generally much stouter than other natives,
chiefly, I suppose, because they are better fed. As regards the
word Turanian, I wish to say that I used it in the present restricted
sense as referring to the Altaic race which is certainly known to
have existed in Babylonia as early at least as 2,500 B.C.

I am, of course, aware that the Bantu Hottentot races are quite
distinct. It is possible that the tufted hair of some of the Bechuana
may be due to an admixture of Hottentot blood.

The chief questions raised in discussion referred to trade,
sparsity of population, drink and disease, and to the treatment of
the Korannas by the Transvaal Boers. I think that there is a good
deal of misapprehension in England on each of these questions
which affect the future of the natives of Bechuanaland.

As regards trade, that of the natives has ceased entirely since
the incursions of the filibusters from the Transvaal ; and the Bat-
laping having been deprived of all their best lands are now not
only without the means of carrying on such trade but even without
the means of subsistence. The white trade with the interior was

96 Discussion.

almost entirely in the hands of Englishmen. This also has been
mnch injured by the filibustering incursions, but may revive.
That of the Batlaping natives is, however, quite ruined.

As regards sparsity of population the natives are collected in
towns chiefly. There is much fertile land capable of cultivation if
wells, cisterns, and water furrows were made. This the natives
have never learned to do. There would be plenty of room for both
whites and natives if the latter were allowed to retain their
cultivated lands round the natural sources of water supply, but
from many of their lands they have now been driven off and are
over-crowded on the small remaining part of their original
lands.

It is quite certain that Cape brandy is now being very largely
consumed by the natives within the Crown colony. The rule of
Montsiwa, Kama, and other chiefs was formerly so strong that the
white traders did not dare to deal in spirits as they would have
been expelled and would have lost all their other trade had they
been found to deal in spirits. The drunkenness of the southern
tribes is far more general than that among the northern.

The disease to which I referred (syphilis) is fearfully prevalent
among the Mari Batlaping. It is also wide-spread among the
Batlaping of Taung. In the north among the Barolong, it appears
less general. It is generally attributed to the white people. The
congenital diseases of the children appear to be such as would
result from the parental syphilis, and these congenital diseases are
said by old residents to be much increased. The climate is very
healthy, and is specially recommended to consumptive Europeans
so that the lung diseases do not seem to be due to climate.

The treatment of the Korannas by the Boers during the present
year is notorious. This is, however, a political question. Moshette,
the Barolong chief at Kunana, is said to be already marked out by
the Boers as a victim, and the future treatment of this chief should
be noticed by those who may feel interest in the question.

It was not my intention, however, to do more than refer to well-
known facts in the recent history of the Bechuana in a paper of a
scientific character.

Journ. Anthrop. Inst., Vol. XVI., PL II.

FIG. 1.

FIG. 2.

FIG. 3.

FIG. 4.

NEW CRANIOPHORE OF DR. BI LINGS AND DK. MATTHEWS.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL MISCELLANEA.

On a New CRANIOPHORE for USE in TAKING COMPOSITE PHOTOGRAPHS

of SKULLS.1

By JOHN S. BILLINGS, M.D., U.S.A.
[WITH PLATE II.]

AT the meeting of the National Academy of Sciences in April,
1885, I described an extemporized contrivance for taking com-
posite photographs of sknlls, and announced that the construc-
tion of a more convenient apparatus was in contemplation. Snch
an apparatus has since been constructed, under the direction of Dr.
Washington Matthews, U.S.A., and has been employed by him in
taking a number of composite photographs of crania.

The apparatus itself, of which figures are presented in Plate II.,
consists of an object stand, with four hinged frames, and a cranio-
phore, with two different attachments for holding the skull.

The object stand (fig. 1) is of walnut, 3 feet 5 inches high.
The top is 18 inches square and 2 inches thick, with a hole in
the centre, through which the main screw of the craniophore
descends. Four frames, bearing fine cross wires, are attached to
the top by hinges in such a manner that they may be raised and
lowered.

The craniophore (fig. 2) is of brass. It has a large screw, to
elevate and depress the skulls. This screw is worked by means of
a long tubular nut, fixed on a frame. The latter slides on two
.round bars, and is moved by a smaller screw, which works in nuts
fixed to the bottom of the frame, and secures thereby lateral adjust-
ment. On the summit of the screw is a ball and socket joint. In
the top of the ball is a hole, or well, which receives the pin at the
base of each attachment, and thereby holds the latter in place.

One attachment (fig. 3) is for supporting the skull, base down-
ward, when the facial, lateral, and occipital views are taken. It
has a cone, which enters the foramen magnum, and a jointed arm,
elongated telescopically, which supports the palate.

The other attachment (fig. 4) is for holding the skull when the
basal and vertical views are taken. It has two arms extending
horizontally. On each of these is a vertical bar — moveable, in order

1 This article is reproduced, by permission, from '' The Photographic Times
and American Photographer," of New York, for January 15, 1886 ; and the
illustrations forming Plate II. have been obligingly contributed by the editor of
that journal.

98 Anthropological Miscellanea.

that skulls of different widths may be accommodated. On each
vertical bar is a short horizontal, obtusely pointed bar, which fits
into the auditory meatus, and moves freely on the vertical bar.
These moveable parts are provided with binding screws. The
horizontal bars are attached to a plate which slides on a frame ; this
arrangement secures the antero-posterior adjustment necessary to
insure coincidence of the selected horizontal plane with the lateral
vertical wires.

To operate : The skull is placed in the desired attachment ; the
latter is secured by the pin at its base to the ball in the joint. The
joint is tightened by its screw to such a degree that it will move
by gentle force, but not by the mere weight of the ill-poised skull.
The frames are raised and maintained in their upright position by
hooks fastened into eyes on the top of the table. The skull is
adjusted on the four sets of cross wires. Then the anterior frame
and the lateral frame next to the window are lowered ; a black
velvet background is hung on the posterior frame ; a large white
cardboard is hung on the frame further from the window ; the brass-
work is occluded with small velvet screens, and the picture is taken.
When the work of the day is done all the frames are folded down,
fastened by buttons to the legs of the table, to secure them from
injury, and the craniophore is covered.

Explanation of Plate II.

Fig. 1. Object stand for the craniophore of Dr. Billings and Dr.
Matthews.

„ 2. Craniophore on stand with the folding frames raised.

„ 3. Arrangment for supporting skull when photographs of the
facial, lateral and occipital views are taken.

,, 4. Arrangement for supporting skull when photographs of
the basal and vertical views are taken.

On AMERICAN FAMILY PECULIARITIES in the 18rm CENTURY. By the
Rev. JONATHAN BOUCHER.

The following extract from the unpublished autobiography of an
observant and well informed settler in America upwards of a
century ago, has been communicated to me by Mrs. Arthur Evans,
of Oxford. It deserves publication on account of its intrinsic
interest, and because it may induce American anthropologists to
inquire how far those family peculiarities that were so evident to
Jonathan Boucher, may through prepotency or perhaps in some
rare cases through a continuance of family intermarriages show
persistent traces down to the present day.

FRANCIS GALTON.

Anthropological Miscellanea. 99

Extract from the AUTOBIOGRAPHY of the Rev. JONATHAN BOUCHER.
(Unpublished.)

" Americans, in general, I have thought eminently endowed with
a knack of talking. They seem to be born orators. I remember a
whole family (of the name of Winslow, in Hanover county) who
were all distinguished as speakers ; and so were the Lees, and many
others. And there is this further peculiarity observable in those
countries, that the first settlers having usually taken up large
tracts of lands, these have since, from time to time, been divided
among and allotted to their descendants in smaller portions ; so
that by this means, and by intermarrying, as is very much their
custom, with one another, certain districts come to be settled by
certain families and different places are there known and spoken of
not as here, by any difference of dialect (for there is no dialect in
all North America) but by their being inhabited by the Fitzhughs,
the Randolphs, Washingtons, Careys, Grimes, or Thorntons. This
circumstance used to furnish me with a scope for many remarks,
such as do not so often occur here. The family character, both of
body and mind may be traced through many generations, as for
instance— every Fitzhugh has bad eyes, every Thornton hears
badly, Winslows and Lees talk well, Carters are proud and
imperious, and Taliaferros mean and avaricious, and Fowkes
cruel."

Jonathan Boucher was born at Blencogo in Cumberland, March 1,
1738.

In 1 759 he went to Port Royal, Virginia, where, as well as in
Maryland, he held various livings until in the year 1775 he was
forced to fly from America. He then held a curacy at Paddington,
and finally the living of Epsom, where (I believe) he died.

See also Gent. Mag. June, 1804, and Chalmers Biog. Diet., also
" An American Loyalist," Notes and Queries, 3rd Series, ix., 75, 282 ;
5th Series, i., 102, v., 501, vi., 81, 141, 161.

ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAIC PAVEMENTS.

Those anthropologists who include archaeology within the range
of their studies may be glad to have their attention directed to a
work on "Romano-British Mosaic Pavements," by Mr. Thomas
Morgan, F.S.A., recently published by Messrs. Whiting and Co.,
of Sardinia Street, W.C. The author has not only collected within
moderate compass the scattered notices of these interesting relics
of ancient art, but has introduced into his work much original
matter. The numerous tessellated pavements of Britain are
described in topographical groups, county by county, beginning
with the well-known example at Woodchester, in Gloucestershire,
ending with the fine pavements unearthed by Mr. J. E. Price

100 Anthropological Miscellanea.

and Mr. P. G. H. Price at Morton, near Brading, in the Isle of
Wight.

The mythological significance of many of the subjects represented
in the mosaics of this country is discussed with much fulness.
The popularity of mosaic decoration among the Romans became so
great that in the time of Seneca he was considered a poor man who
could not afford a tessellated floor. Tesserae and sectilia were
imported into this country for the purpose of carrying on the
manufacture. Glass, though occasionally introduced into our
work, was but sparingly used, while in the African and Asiatic
mosaics cubes of vitreous materials were largely employed.

Not the least attractive feature of Mr. Morgan's work is the
series of admirable engravings by which it is illustrated. Many of
these are exceptionally fine examples of colour-printing, the more
notable being copies of the Woodchester, Bignor, and Morton
pavements. Several mosaics from Asia Minor and North Africa,
now in the British Museum, are also well illustrated.

An appendix to the work gives the text of the Itinerary of
Antoninus, so far as regards Britain. This is accompanied by a
map presenting a general view of the directions of the roads by
which the Roman engineers connected the main ports and for-
tresses. Some of the finest specimens of mosaic, as might be
expected, have been found along these roads, and it is likely that
in their vicinity other mosaics may, in the course of time, be brought
to light.

The most numerous examples of mosaic pavements have been
furnished by the south-western counties. Mr. Morgan believes
that remains of many mosaics may still exist beneath the early
religious houses in this country. " The Roman pavements had,
of course, to be done away with on account of the allusions on
their face to the old mythological worship ; but it is probable that
if we were to dig beneath the old tithe-barns of the monasteries,
which are often extensive and well preserved, we should find that
they were not unfrequently built over mosaic pavements of old
Roman times ; for this reason, that the hypocaust below them, and
their solid construction, rendered them impervious to damp, and
therefore well adapted for granaries ; and they seem to have been
used as such in the middle ages, from the frequent remains of
wheat found upon the surface of mosaics."

THE JOUENAL

OF THE

ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE

GEEAT BEITAIIST AND IEELAND.

APRIL 13th, 1886.

Professor A. H. KEANE, B. A., Vice-President, in the Chair.
The Minutes of the last meeting were read and signed.

The election of ABKAHAM HALE, Esq., of Kinta, Perak, was
announced.

The following presents were announced, and thanks voted to
the respective donors : —

FOR THE LIBRARY.

From the AUTHOR. — History of Paganism in Caledonia. By Thomas

A. Wise, M.D.
On the origin of the Greek and Latin Languages. By N. A.

Aykamebura.
Tiber die Wirbelkorperepiphysen nnd Wirbelkorpergelenke

zwischen dem Epistropheus, Atlas und Occipitale der Sauge-

thiere. By Prof. Dr. Paul Albrecht.
tlber die morphologische Bedeutung der Pharynxdivertikel.

By Prof. Dr. Paul Albrecht.
Sur la non-hoinologie des Poumons des Vertebres pulmones

avec la vessie natatoire des Poissons. By Prof. Dr. Paul

Albrecht.

Zur Zwischenkieferfrage. By Prof. Dr. Paul Albrecht.

Epiphyses entre 1'occipital et le spheno'ide chez l'homme ; Os

trigone du pied chez Thomme ; Epihallux chez 1'homme. By

Prof. Dr. Paul Albrecht.
From the OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS. — The Melanesian Languages.

By E. H. Codrington, D.D.
VOL. XVI. I

102 H. LING BOTH.— On the Origin of Agriculture.

From the U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. — Mineral Resources of the

United States, 1883 and 1884. By Albert Williams, jun.
From the REGISTRAR-GENERAL OF VICTORIA. — Patents and Patentees.

Vol. XV.
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pologia e la Etnologia. Vol. XV. Fas. 3 ; Quadri Statistic!.
From the AKADEMIJA UMIEJETNOSCI (KRAKOW). — Zbior Wiadomosci

do Antropologii Krajowej. Tom. IX. Dodatek do Tom. IX.
From the BERLIN GESELLSCHAFT FUR ANTHROPOLOGIE. Zeitschrift

fiir Ethnologic. 1885. Heft 6.
From the ACADEMY. — Atti della Reale Accademia dei Lincei. Vol.

II. Fas. 5, 6.
From the CLUB.— Transactions of the Essex Field Club. Vol. IV.

Part 1 ; Appendix to Vol. VI; Journal. Vol. IV. Part 1.
From the PUBLISHER. — Essays in the study of Folk-Songs. By the

Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco.
From the SOCIETY.— Proceedings of the Royal Societv. Vol.

XXXIX. No. 241.
Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

1884-85.
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. Vol.

XXIII. No. 121.
Bulletin de la Societe d'Anthropologie de Paris. 1885.

July to Dec.

Bulletin de la Societe de Borda, Dax. 1886. Part 1.

Journal of the Society of Arts. Nos. 1740-1742.

Annual Report of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society.

1885.
From the EDITOR. — Nature. Nos. 856-858.

Journal of Mental Science. 1886. April.

• L'Homme. 1886. No. 4.

• Revue d'Ethnographie. 1886. No. 1.

Bullettino di Paletnologia Italiana. Tom. II. N. 1, 2.

Science. Nos. 162, 163.

American Antiquarian. Vol. VIII. No. 2.

The following paper was read by the author : —

On the ORIGIN of AGRICULTURE.
By H. LING ROTH, Esq.

Introduction.

At first sight it may appear strange that hitherto so little
has been done to investigate the Origin or early days of Agricul-
ture, for while almost every other branch of man's early history
has been well studied, this branch alone seems to have been for-
gotten. The late Mr. Darwin, Mons. A. de Candolle, Dr. Picker-
ing, Mqna. N. Joly, Mr. E. B. Tylor, and Dr. Daniel Wilson have

H. LlNG KOTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture. 103

certainly given the subject some attention, but they have hardly
treated it from an anthropological point of view. One reason
for the neglect of this study may lie in the general indifference,
if not contempt, with which tillers of the soil are usually re-
garded. Indeed, history is full of the scorn with which manly
or warlike races look down upon husbandry. Gibbon tells us
that the agricultural class among the Huns was despised by its
fellows (" Decline and Fall" III, xxvi, 152) and that the epithet
of Cruitnich or wheat-eater, expressed the contempt or envy of
the carnivorous Highlander (ibid., Ill, xxv, 107). Sir A. H.
Layard describes (" Nineveh and Babylon," abrid. ed., p. 131) how
it is that the Shamar and Aneyza tribes have no cattle or sheep,
" those animals being looked upon as the peculiar property of
tribes who have forgotten their independence and degraded
themselves by the cultivation of the soil." Mr. Eug. Schuyler
(" Turkestan," I, p. 37) states that the Khirghiz look down with
contempt on those engaged in agriculture. According to
Herodotus (Thalia 22) the Icthyophagi showed their contempt
for bread by alluding to it as dirt. And we have evidence to
this day of the disdain with which an intelligent nation treat their
peasantry (Jour. Stat. Soc., xlviii, 83). These facts may explain
to a limited extent why travellers tell us so little about the culti-
vation of the soil amongst savages. The allusions to it in their
journals are frequent enough ; we are told that its state is good,
bad or indifferent, but with regard to the details of the methods
employed we are supplied with very scanty information. Yet1 a
full knowledge of this peaceful art is quite as necessary for
estimating the stage of progress at which a wild or semi-savage
tribe has arrived, as are the minute particulars we get of their
warfare and warlike preparations. The other cause of the neg-
lect may lie in the fact that few of our anthropological students
have anything to do with farming so that the fellow feeling, if
we may so term, it, called forth in other investigations, is here
wanting.

At this late hour it is of course out of the question to
attempt to describe definitely how agriculture originated, but we
can at least form some satisfactory idea as to the manner in
which early man became a tiller of the soil.

Before proceeding with our investigation, we will see what
savages or semi-barbaric nations believe to have been the creators
of agriculture, and then briefly summarise the theories held by
learned men on the question.

Savage Views.

To ascertain the views or ideas of savages on this subject we
cannot do better than to pick out from their numerous deities

I 2

104 H. LING BOTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture.

those whose good cr ill will affected in any way the cultivation
of the soil. The Nahua nations had a god of cereals — Centeoti,
and a goddess of provisions — Chicomencoatl, to whom they made
offerings, and in whose honour they fasted once a year for four
days (H. H. Bancroft, " Native Eaces of the Pacific States," New
York, 1875, II, 317). The Mayas had innumerable agricultural
gods, among whom were Chac and Yzama, the gods of the corn-
fields (ibid., 691) Ekchuah and others, the patron gods of the
cocoa- planters, and Chichac Chob and others, the gods of plen-
tiful harvests (ibid., 701-3). But the great god or goddess of
this part of the world was Centeoti — the goddess of agriculture
in whose honour very great festivals were held (ibid., Ill, p. 349).
The Peruvians evidently regarded the Sun as a great god of
agriculture (Lasso de la Vega, Eoy. Com. Pt. 2, Bk. vii, p. 257).
At his festival tjie Inca himself presided (Prescott " Hist. Conq.
Peru," London, 1878, p. 63), and turned the soil in order to show
what a worthy occupation that of the husbandman is. At
Sennaar, James Bruce tells us (" Travels in Abyssinia," Nimmo's
Pop. ed., p. 255), the king was obliged once a year with his own
hand to plough and sow a piece of land. Evidently among
these people and the Peruvians, agriculture was held in ex-
ceptional respect. The Finns are said to have been taught
agriculture by Wainarnoinen, the son of the lord of the vault of
air (A. Lang, " Custom and Myth," p. 163). The Lingga Dyaks
have a good spirit, Pulang Ganah, who gives fertility to the earth,
and " to him are addressed the offerings at the feasts given while
preparing rice cultivation " (Spencer St. John, " Life in the Forests
of the Far East," 1862, I, p. 60). They say rice was the gift of
heaven, and describe how it came to be cultivated (ibid., p. 202).
Some of the African agricultural tribes offered pombe' and some-
times a goat or a fowl to their crop-protecting idols (V.L Cameron,
"Across Africa," 1877, I, p. 330). The Eev. W. Ellis informs us
that at Tahiti there was a god of agriculture, and he gives a
circumstantial account of the mythical origin of the bread-fruit
tree ("Polynesian Eesearches," 1831, 2nd Ed., I, p. 68), while from
Mr. Im Thurn ("Among the Indians of Guiana," 1883, p. 252) we
learn that the British Guiana Indians originally obtained cassava
from heaven. According to Herodotus (Mel. 5) the Scythians
believed they had obtained the plough from the same sphere.
And Mr. E. B. Tylor mentions that Pheebee Yau, the Ceres of the
Karens, " sits on a stump and watches the growing and ripening
com ; " and that the Khonds worship " Burbi Pennu, the goddess
of vegetation, and Pidzu Pennu, the rain god. Among the Finns
and Esths, it is the earth-mother who appropriately undertakes
the task of bringing forth the fruits, &c., (" Primitive Culture," II,
p. 278). The hill tribes of Goomsur and Boad have an earth

H. LING BOTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture. 105

goddess to whom they offered living human sacrifices (John
Campbell, "Personal Narrative of Thirteen Years' Service among
the Wild Tribes of Khondistan," Lond., 1864, pp. 51 and 56).
According to H. M. Stanley (" Through the Dark Continent," I,
pp. 345-6) the Waganda appeared to have believed that their
ancestor Kintu brought the art of agriculture with him when he
entered and settled in the country. There is, in fact, no limit
to the list of gods of agricultural peoples.

That all tribes or races who have made some progress in the
art of cultivation of the soil should have imaged a deity or
deities whom they worship for the sake of protection or aid in
their labours was to have been expected. But the Scythians,
Dyaks, Tahitians, Guiana Indians, and Peruvians, appear also to
believe that their gods taught them or supplied them with a
knowledge of the element of agriculture. This fact might be
construed to mean that there exist traditions among these races,
of heroes, who in past times taught their ancestors the art in
question ; in other words, that agriculture did not originate with
them but was introduced. Unfortunately, as Sir J. Lubbock has
pointed out (u Pre-historic Times," 1878, p. 437), tradition at best
" is untrustworthy and shortlived."* So much then for savage
explanation.

Modern Views.

We now come to contemporary views on the subject, held by
men who have given this question their attention, or, who have
otherwise studied the development of early man. Dr. Dan.
Wilson, in the first edition of his "Pre-historic Man" (1862, II,
p. 466), speaks of agriculture " following closely in the wake
of the domestication of animals by pastoral man," and
C. G. Anton (" Qesch. der Teutschen Landwirthschaft," Gorlitz,
1799, pp. 10 and 11) seems to incline to a similar belief. As
we have already seen, the pastoral tribes of the old world look
upon agriculture with positive contempt. But perhaps we
are not wrong in saying that the idea is generally entertained
that the origin of agriculture is intimately connected with the
domestication of animals. We cannot, however, find any evi-
dence to warrant such a belief.

Mr. Bailey describes the tamed buffalo and dog in use by
the Wild Veddahs (" Wild Tribes of the Veddahs of Ceylon,"

*In "The Trustworthiness of Early Tradition," by Brooke Herford (pp. 158-
169, vol. lii, Atlantic Monthly, 1883), an attempt is made to prove that in pre-
historic times traditions were most carefully handed down by men regularly
employed in teaching younger members the songs of their forefathers. Amongst
races who have attained a high state of civilisation without however attaining to
the art of writing we may accept tradition as more or less correctly handed down
to us, but our knowledge of savages certainly does not in any way lead us to
conclude that their traditions are similarly to be relied upon.

106 H. LING ROTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture.

Trans. Ethnol. Soc., 2nd Ser., II, pp. 286-288) but all accounts of
the Village Veddahs (Knox, Tennent, Davy) are silent as to the
domesticated animals of these semi-agricultural tribes. The
ancient Peruvians domesticated the llamas but only to use them
as beasts of burden and not as draught-cattle (Lasso de la Vega,
op. cit., Bk. 8, ch. xvd and xvii). The agricultural tribes of
Brazil have tame birds in large quantities (A. E. Wallace,
"Narrative of Trav. on the Amazons," 1853, p. 305), but
according to Mr. H. W. Bates ("Naturalist on the River
Amazons," 1863, I, 191) the Brazilian aborigines, even those
who cultivated the soil had " no notion of domesticating animals
for use." Most of the North American tribes seem to have had
domesticated dogs ; the inhabitants of Terra Florida (F. de
Soto, Vol. ix, Hakluyt Soc., pp. 49, 56, 61) had domesticated dogs
and fowls ; and the Nahua nations domesticated several species
of animals and birds (H. H. Bancroft op. cit., II, 353). The
Bushmen and Australians have also domesticated dogs (Darwin,
" Variation Anim. and Plants under Domestication," 2nd Ed.,
I, p. 24). Indeed, excepting only the Andamans (E. H. Man,
" Aborig. of Andaman Is." 1885), it is doubtful whether any
savages have existed to our knowledge without having domes-
ticated animals or birds of some sort. Sir John Lubbock
(" Pre-historic Times," 1878, p. 600) considers it " most pro-
bable that the dog was long the only domesticated animal."
He enumerates the uses to which the dog was put thus
(ibid., p. 571) : " The Esquimaux forced him to draw the sledge ;
the Chinook kept him for the sake of his wool ; the South Sea
Islanders, having no game, bred the dog for food ; the Chonos
Indians taught him to fish [and to catch birds] " and so on. Here
we have the earliest known domesticated animal put to a variety
of uses by people who are, and by people who are not tillers of
the soil. We have thus examples of early domestication of
animals without a coeval husbandry, but no examples (as far as
we can ascertain) of an early agriculture without a co-existent
domestication of animals. It is therefore probable that while
agriculture followed domestication there is no connection between
the two arts. But their order of rotation indicates the steps of
mental progress involved. The taming of an animal is quicker,
and therefore easier, of accomplishment than the cultivation
of a crop and it is therefore to have been expected that the
domestication of animals should precede agriculture. In other
words we may say that the agricultural state did not necessarily
arise out of or succeed the pastoral state, but that the former is
merely indicative of greater advance towards civilisation than
the latter.

In his " Prehistoric Annals of Scotland " (Lond., 1863, 1, 490),

H. LING BOTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture,. 107

Dr. Wilson says : " In every step of human progress tools have
been the first requisite ; and efficient implements are so indis-
pensable for any extensive culture of the soil that we can have
little hesitation in assigning the birth time of true agriculture to
an early epoch in the period of the metallurgic arts/' Is this
so ? Mr. T. Williams (" Fiji and the Fijians," I, p. 63) describes
the Fijian plough as "a stick not larger or longer than the
handle of an ordinary hay fork. The bark is kept on, except at
the end which is used for digging, and which is tapered off on
one side after the shape of a quill toothpick." In New Zealand
where " the field rivals any in Europe," E. Dieffenbach (" Travels
in New Zealand," II, 123) states that the land is " dug up with
a pole, which has a foot piece firmly attached to it, and which is
used in the same manner as our spade ; " he adds, " sometimes a
hoe is used, formed of Lydian or green stone fixed to a handle."
Amongst the Nahua nations (Mexicans, etc.) three instruments
were used in cultivating the soil : one " was a kind of oaken
shovel or spade, in handling which both hands and feet were used,"
a second " was a copper implement with a wooden handle, used
somewhat as a hoe. etc," but " a simple sharp stick, the point of
which was hardened in the fire, or more rarely tipped with
copper, was the implement in most common use " (H. H. Bancroft
op. cit., II, 248). Lastly, according to Lasso de la Vega (op. cit,
xlv, p. 8) the Peruvians had an implement or spade which was
simply a sharp pointed stake, traversed by a horizontal piece
and worked by six or eight men. These instruments were all
efficient, that is to say, the natives carried out their work 'suc-
cessfully, and by their means the agriculture in which the tillers
were employed was already of a high standard. With the ex-
ception of the Nahuas, the nations using them were still deep
in the stone age.

Monsieur Joly("Man before Metals," 1883, p. 253) says:
" In order to discover the first distinct traces of the culture of
the fields, we must go back to the time of the builders of the
lake cities of the neolithic age." Dr. Pickering (" Kaces of Man,"
1851, ch. xix, Origin of Agric.) was more interested in throw-
ing light on the question : Where did agriculture originate ?
a question generally considered to be of more importance than
the one immediately before us, How did agriculture originate ?
He believed that agriculture had its origin on the tablelands of
Mexico, Peru, Thibet and Abyssinia, apparently on account of
the freedom from forest and the regular climate, for he says (p.
309), " Supposing a useful plant to be discovered, its cultivation
would require a clearing which seems too complex an idea for a
first suggestion. On the other hand, the aridity of most open
countries precludes cultivation, unless with the aid of irrigation."

108 H. LING EOTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture.

But it does not follow that the discovery of a useful plant
should lead to its cultivation. Were this the case the men who
planted could not be in the low state implied, and the cleaning
of the land or a system of irrigation would not present diffi-
culties.

Mr. E. B. Tylor ("Anthropology," London, 1881, p. 214) does
not consider agriculture an out-of-the-way invention ; he be-
lieves that " the rudest savage, skilled as he is in the habits of
the food plants he gathers, must know well enough that if seeds
or roots are put in a proper place in the ground they will grow,"
and he considers that it is " rather from roving life, bad climate,
or sheer idleness, that so many tribes gather what nature gives,
but plant nothing/' Undoubtedly, every savage knows the
edible fruits and roots in his district, that they have their locali-
ties and seasons but from what we shall see of his mental in-
activity it is to be doubted whether he ever thinks at all about
the conditions of plant reproduction. The state we describe
as his idleness has also much to do with his neglect of agri-
culture, but then to a certain extent, this defect is compensated
for by the extra amount of labour he imposes on his woman.
Perhaps we have misunderstood Mr. Tylor's meaning, but to
speak of a bad climate is, if we may be permitted to say so, to use
an unhappy term, its meaning being too relative to apply to the
question before us. If a climate be so bad as to prevent the
first growth of any edible plants, then, of course, man could not
be expected to grow them, but we have here not to deal with
impossible conditions, and we may take it for granted that
wherever a plant is indigenous, the climate, however bad, would
not prevent its cultivation. We hope also to show that in the
early days of agriculture roving habits were not necessarily
obstructive factors.

Mr. Darwin's theory (" Variation of Animals and Plants, etc.,"
2nd ed., 1885, I, pp. 326-7) may be condensed thus: "The
savage inhabitants of each land having found out by many and
hard trials what plants were useful .... would after a time
take the first step in cultivation by planting them near their
usual abodes," and he quotes Livingstone andDu Chaillu as having
seen wild fruit trees which had been planted by the Batokas and
other savages. " The next step in cultivation, and this would
require little forethought, would be to sow the seeds of useful
plants," then " an unusually good variety of a native plant "
being grown on the manured soil near the hovels " might attract
the attention of some wise old savage ; and he would transplant
it, or sow its seed." Mr. Darwin considered that " transplanting
any superior variety, or sowing its seeds, hardly implies more
forethought than might be expected at an early and rude period

H. LING EOTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture. 109

of civilisation," and he quotes as possible evidence in this direction
the West Australian law mentioned by Sir George Grey " that
no plant bearing seed is to be dug up after it has flowered "
("Journals of Exped. in N". and KW. Australia," 1841, II,
292). The law mentioned by Sir George Grey loses consider-
able importance when read by the following statement of Mr.
A. C. Gregory, the well-known explorer, in reference to that
law amongst these same Australians : " A native discovering
a Zamia fruit unripe will put his mark upon it, and no other
native will touch this ; the original finder of the fruit may rest
perfectly certain that when it becomes ripe he has only to go
and fetch it for himself" (see Appendix I). This would lead one
to suppose that Grey's law was a local one in the early stages
of the development of property rather than one intended to
affect the general future welfare of the tribe.*

Monsieur A. De Candolle, judging by the Australians and
Patagonians ("Orig. of Cultivated Plants," Lond., 1884, p. 2),
says that the lowest savages do not entertain the idea of culti-
vating plants if they consider that the plants are not productive
and easy to rear ; he also considers as other necessary conditions
" a not too rigorous climate ; in hot countries, the moderate
duration of drought; some degree of security and settlement;
lastly, a pressing necessity, due to insufficient resources in
fishing, hunting, or in the production of indigenous and nutri-
tious plants."

Dr. Pritchard (" Eesearches into the Physical History of
Mankind," vol. v., p. 301), agreeing with Mr. Gallatin, says that
the art of agriculture " was not communicated to the Americans
from the Old World. This opinion is based on the fact that
maize, the staple of American agriculture, is indigenous to the
New World, supported by the fact that the despotic system in
vogue there was favourable to its origin.

The Conditions Necessary for a Predisposition to Cultivate the Soil.

When we examine the intricate conditions under which agri-
culture is carried on amongst us at the present day, it becomes

* The Lampongs, a settled agriculture race, have a similar method of marking
wild dammar trees and thereby becoming owners thereof (H. O. Forbes, " Natura-
list's Wanderings," Lond., 1886, p. 136), and of the wild hunting Kubus in Sumatra
the same author tells us, " When traversing the forest, if one of them, on finding
a bee-infested or a dammar-yielding tree, clear the brush around it, make one or
two hacks in the bark, and repeat a form of spell, it is regarded by the others as
his possession, which will be undisputed. This is the only property, if such it
may be called, that they possess" (ibid., p. 242).

Among the Abipones (Dobrizhoffer " Gesch. d. Abiponer," Vienna, 1783,
vol. ii, p. 138) animals or birds caught, or fruit found, belonged to him who first
caught or found them.

110 H. LING BOTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture.

a matter of no small difficulty for us to imagine a period when
man should have raised food from the soil without any of the,
to us apparently essential, pre-suppositions having been com-
plied with. With us, apart from the primary indispensability
of a suitable climate and soil, we see that the farmer requires
security from domestic and foreign foes, in other words a reliable
government, a certain amount of capital and labour, freedom
from animal pests, a fixed settlement and — that primary in-
centive to toil in civilisation — want. Eliminating capital and
labour, we will proceed to ascertain how far these conditions are
fulfilled among agricultural savages at the present day, and to
what extent they were likely to have been fulfilled at the period
when man discovered how to cultivate the soil, or when circum-
stances so developed themselves that man passed insensibly
into the agricultural age. If we begin with the obstruction to
cultivation caused by the ravages of animals and vegetable
parasites and thieves, we find that some of these pests can
be overcome, but that in the presence of others, man appears
to be helpless. Caillee ("Travels through Central Africa," 1830,
I, p. 308) calls attention to the fact that the Foulahs, an ad-
vanced nation of husbandmen, "bring their fowls with them
into the fields to eat up the insects," E. Dieffenbach mentions
that the Maories collected the caterpillars which destroyed their
crops (" Travels in New Zealand," II, 124), and Captain Speke
(" Journey of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile," p. 93)
says that at Karague the natives in order to save themselves
from starvation caused by the depredations of sparrows, " were
obliged to grow a bitter corn which the birds disliked." On
the other hand, there are pests which savages have not been
able to overcome. Dr. H. Barth (" Travels and Disc, in N. and
C. Africa," IV, 319 and 323) refers to the destructiveness of
the black and red worms. On the Amazons (Mr. H. W.
Bates, op. cit., I, p. 128), the Saliba ants are so destruc-
tive that the inhabitants said " it was useless trying to grow
anything thereabouts," and Mr. Thos. Belt (" The Naturalist in
Nicaragua," 1873, p. 77) gives a similar account of the leaf-
cutting ant at St. Domingo. Mice are also heavy tax-gatherers
(Livingstone, "Second Journey," Lond., 1875, Pop. ed., p. 164).
Eats and mice are so destructive to rice-fields that the Dyaks
have to select new ground every four or five years (C. Bock,
" Head Hunters of Borneo," p. 201). Neither is man free from
the larger pests. At Ehetilla, Sir S. Baker (" Nile Tributaries
of Abyssinia," new ed., 1880, p. 173) describes how the elephants
destroyed the dhourra crops, and Capt Cameron (op. cit., I,
p. 322) records that where a "large herd of elephants had
passed, the scene of destruction was amazing." Finally Bradley

H. LING EOTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture. Ill

Travel and Sport in Burmah, &c.," 1876, p. 123) tells how the
inoceros, as well as elephants and buffalo, " often nearly ruin
he villagers by breaking into the rice and maize fields," and he
also mentions that tigers were in one district so destructive to
human life as to drive the husbandmen to seek fresh quarters
(p. 66).* There is no end to examples of this class, and as
these hindrances to agriculture still exist in semi-civilised and
sparsely-populated countries, as well as, to a limited extent, with
us at home, it is not unreasonable to infer that the efforts of man
from the time of his earliest attempts to grow crops have been
similarly obstructed.

We come then to the conditions of general absence of
security to life and property from foreign foes. Throughout
the early part of his narrative Captain Speke refers, page after
page, to the ravages committed by the Watuta ; Bates (op.
tit., II, p. 124) speaks of the destruction of the plantations
of the Mundurucus by the Pararuates, and Capt. Bruce (op. tit,,
p. 188) tells us how the Abyssinian agriculturists had been
driven to the mountain tops. Livingstone describes ("First
Exped.," Pop. ed., p. 36) how the agricultural Bakalahari were
hunted south, and (" Second Journey," Pop. ed., p. 397) how
the country was destroyed by the Ajawas. Mungo Park
(" Travels in the Interior of Africa," ch. viii, p. 87) refers to
the utter destruction caused by African wars, and Capt. Cameron
(op. cit., pp. 278-9) tells a similar story. Spencer St. John
(op. cit., II, p. 29) refers to the annihilation of agricultural dis-
tricts by the Kay an head hunters. The pages of Dieffen bach's
" Travels in New Zealand " give us similar pictures. In Fiji
and Tahiti (Williams, op. cit., pp. 43 et. seq.) matters were
not much better. There is, in fact, hardly a book on travels
in savage or barbarous countries which does not bear evidence
of the destruction to agriculture by invading tribes, and yet,
in spite of them all, agriculture has continued to progress.
Indeed Mr. H. H. Johnston ("The Kilima-njaro Expedition,"
London, 1885, p. 405) gives us a graphic description of the
manner in which a warlike race, the Masai, after turning the
country into a wilderness, have almost, in spite of themselves,
taken again to agriculture.

With regard to the protection afforded to private property as
an inducement to cultivate the soil, this is a question which
hardly affects our inquiry, for in early days it is doubtful
whether there existed an individual right in agricultural pro-
duce. " Judging from the evidences in so many countries of the

* In Java villages are also sometimes deserted by the inhabitants owing to
tiger attacks, (see Arthur Adams, " Travels of a Naturalist in Japan and Man-
churia," p. 49).

112 H. LING ROTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture.

existence of village communities holding land in common," Sir
John Lubbock (" Orig. of Civil.," 4th ed., p. 456) concludes that
"there seems strong reason to suppose that in the history of human
progress the individual property in land was always preceded
by a period in which moveable property alone was individual,
while the land was common. It is difficult to imagine that
since the land was common, that the produce was not likewise
common." As evidence in this direction we may cite the case
of the Australians who divide the spoil of the chase or the gin's
vegetable collections without any reference to the individuals
who obtained them. The North American Indians, the Peru-
vians, the Chittagong Hill Tribes, the Borneans, and the South
Sea Islanders, all appear to have cultivated in common, and to
have possessed common rights in the produce.

Then as to a settled abode. When we look into history we
find nations were apparently ever given to wandering. After
a while wanderings become restricted. The Khirghiz, ancient
nomads, are now bound in the steppes by certain limits, beyond
which they cannot roam without coming into collision with
other hordes (E. Schuyler, op. cit., I, p. 37) ; they have also fixed
summer and winter quarters. Of the Kurdish tribes (the
Kochas) Mr. A. H. Layard (op. cit., p. 191) says they change
encampments according to season; they go to high peaks in
summer, and to the low grounds of Tigris and Zab in the winter.
The Wahumba, a branch of the great Masai nation, move, accord-
ing to Capt. V. L. Cameron (op. cit., I, 121), "from place to
place in search of pasture " for their cattle. Brough Smyth, in
his work on "The Aborigines of Victoria" (Melbourne, I, p. 123)
says " it is necessary for a tribe to move very frequently from
place to place, always keeping within the boundaries of the
country which it calls its own — now to the spot where eels can be
taken, often to the feeding grounds of the Kangaroo," &c., &c., and
Sir George Grey (op. cit.) in describing the roots eaten by the West
Australians says, " some of these are in season in every period
of the year, and the natives regulate their visits to the different
districts accordingly." The Obongos (Du Chaillu, "A Journey
to Ashango Land," 1867, 322-3) similarly wander in search of
vegetable foods and wild animals. The Negritos, the supposed
aborigines of the Philippines, have no fixed abodes " but shift
from place to place within a circumference of four or five leagues "
(Sir John Bowring, "A Journey to the Philippine Islands,"
1859, p. 171). In Borneo we have the wandering Pakatau and
Punau,who move to a new spot "when they have exhausted the
jungle around of wild beasts and other food " (Spencer St. John,
op. cit., I, p. 45). To go to the New World, we find that the
Abipones roam from one district to another accordingly as they

H. LING EOTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture. 113

found their food (Dobrizhoffer, " Gesch. der Abiponer," Vienna,
1783, Vol. II, 139). The Nehannes spend the summer on the
coast and the winter inland (H. H. Bancroft, op. cit., I, p. 125).
The Haidahs have temporary dwellings for the summer, besides
permanent well-guarded villages (ibid., p. 169), and the same may
be said of the Nootkas (ibid., p. 183). The aborigines of Florida
were, according to De Vaca (" Hist, of America," W. Robertson,
1822, II, p. 386), great wanderers, and Capt. R W. Coppinger
says the Fuegians have seasonal changes of dwelling (" Cruise of
the Alert," 1883, p. 195).

In all the above, cases — and there is no end to them — the
tribes wander either for the sake of food for themselves or for
their flocks. We can understand their doing so well enough.
But it astonishes us not a little to meet with tribes who cultivate
the soil, and who if not exactly wanderers like the Fuegians
and Australians, are at least wanting in what we call fixed
settlements. J. Pallme ("Travels in Kordofan," 1844, p. 88)
tells us that owing to the scarcity of water " there are certain
districts in Kordofan, the agricultural population of which in-
habit two different villages in the year," one in the wet season for
cultivation, and one in the dry season to be near the wells, and
Mr. H. M. Jenkins, F.G.S. (privately communicated) informs us
that something very similar to this exists in Norway arid Sweden
to this day. The Coroades in the Brazils who cultivate the soil,
" very commonly quit their abodes and settle where new fruits
are ripening, or where the chase is more productive (Spix
and Martius, " Travels in Brazil, II, pp. 248 and 257). Mr.
Im Thurn (op. cit., p. 252) refers to the periodical desertion
of their fields by the Indians, and which movement he ascribes
to superstition. According to D'Albertis ("New Guinea,"
Lond., 1880, 1, p. 218) some of the natives of New Guinea on the
death of the head of the family, forsake house and plantation and
build a new house and prepare a new plantation some distance
away from the old home. Some of the Maories were nomadic
agriculturists (Dieffenbach, op. cit., I, p. 120). The Ainos, we
are told by Miss I. Bird ("Unbeaten Tracks in Japan," 1881,
II, p. 62), are continually exhausting and clearing fresh land.
The Dyaks do not desert their farms because the land is
exhausted, but because it is less trouble to cut down fresh
jungle than to eradicate the weeds which have sprung up after
the padi has been gathered ("Sarawak," by H. Low, 1848,
p. 231). Sir Emerson Tennent ("Ceylon," II, 443) states that
" the Village Veddahs, who hold a position intermediate between
the Rock-, or Wild-, and the Coast- Veddahs, are still migratory in
their habits, removing their huts as facilities vary for cultivating
a little corn and yams." Of the Chittagong hill tribes, Capt. T.

114 H. LING BOTH — On the Origin of Agriculture.

H. Lewin ("Hill Tribes of S. India," p. 40) tells us: "The site
of the village is changed as often as the spots fit for cultivation
in the vicinity are exhausted." The Tsawkoo Karens abandon
both villages and plantations after three years' cultivation (A.
R McMahon, p. 279, " The Karens of the Golden Chersonese,"
London, 1876.) The Lepchas are nomadic agriculturists
who remain as long as three years in the same locality
(E. T. Dalton, "Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal," 1872, p. 101).
The Juangs (ibid., p. 154) " are still semi -nomadic in their
habits, living together in villages during a portion of the
year, but often changing the sites, and occupying huts in the
midst of their patches of cultivation, whilst crops are on the
ground." Finally, the Santals are so fond of the chase that
" when through their own labour, the spread of cultivation has
effected this denudation [of the forests] they select a new site,
however prosperous they may have been in the old, and retire
into the backwoods " (ibid., p. 208).

There are more explanations than one of the continued
existence of wandering habits among semi-agriculturists. The
roving disposition may be due in part to the old customs of a
passing state in which perhaps search for food and superstition
in connection with death, on which occasion many tribes think
it necessary to shift their quarters, may have much to do. But
it is probably rare that cultivated land is deserted on account of
its arriving at the state described as "exhausted," i.e. when
crops can no longer be grown in consequence of the withdrawal,
through too much cultivation, of their food constituents, for
savages do not cultivate on such an intense system as to bring
about that state of the soil. Indeed, Sir John Lawes (see
Appendix IV) says well when he tells us that exhaustion means
more particularly that weeds have choked the growing crop.
In some parts of Sumatra it would appear that the alang-alang
grass takes possession of the cultivated ground, and drives the
Lampongs to clear forest land which does not give such good
crops of rice as the other level lands (H. 0. Forbes " Naturalist's
Wanderings," p. 131). But there appears to us to be consider-
able justification for believing that savages may have searched
for fresh lands when their soils have arrived at that condition
which farmers express by stating that for particular crops the
soil loses its productive power. This condition is due to un-
natural causes brought about by cultivation, and which a brief
reference to Darwin's " Variation of Animals and Plants under
Domestication" (2nd ed., 1885) may help to explain. Darwin has
pointed out that in natural selection the variation is for the
benefit of the plant or animal undergoing change, whereas with

H. LING EOTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture. 115

cases of selection by man the variation is brought about for
man's benefit and not for that of the creature that man for the
time being is tampering with, and that as a consequence a
weakened constitution may attend such domestication (op. cit.,
II, 232). This is the reason why at the present day crops of
turnips or clover cannot be grown consecutively on the same
land, a reason which is confirmed by the fact that agricultural
chemists do not consider the unsuccessful continuous growth of
these crops to be due to withdrawal of the proper food consti-
tuents. It may be objected, how is it then that wheat can be
grown tolerably well continuously on the same soil ? The answer
is that wheat, having been cultivated so many thousand years
— over 5000 at least (we are unable to trace the original
wild species) — has, through time, to a considerable extent over-
come this weakness, whilst the turnip, which has barely been an
agricultural crop for two hundred years, has not yet had time to
adapt itself in the same degree to altered circumstances as
wheat has. To continue, Darwin was inclined to think that
when cereals were first cultivated the ears and grain may have
" increased quickly in size in the same manner as the roots of
the wild carrot and parsnip are known to increase quickly in
bulk under cultivation" (op. cit., I, 338). Therefore, when culti-
vation had already become a fixed art, the crop cultivated
improved in quality, but then came the weakened stage during
which the more enlightened savage agriculturist, giving way
also to old tradition, forsook the old soil and searched for
new.*

We now come to a very potent factor, and one to which
most people would ascribe the savage's first attempt at culti-
vating the soil — namely, want of food. We are so accustomed
to look forward to the morrow that it becomes difficult for us to
conceive the existence of a people who give it no thought. To
us it seems strange that any man knowing he has no food for
the next day should either devour the whole of his present
stock or not take any other precaution towards securing the
necessary supply until the necessity makes itself painfully
apparent.

* The preference of the savage for forest as against prairie soil has different
explanations. Sir John Lawes (Appendix IY) tells us that the prairie soil is the
richer of the two. This would imply that the savage does not know how to
make the best of his surrounding conditions. It may be so ; but the preference
has a very reasonable explanation. We must remember that the burning of
dense forest, leaves the ground comparatively much cleaner than burned grass
land, and whilst on the former, vines and undergrowth spring up slowly and do
not at first obstruct the crop to any extent, on the latter the grass comes up
thicker than be/ore, and people unfurnished with the broad or more modern hoes
cannot cope with it. The Dyak explanation previously referred to is therefore
a good one.

116 H. LING BOTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture.

Whatever may be our preconceived notions, we shall now see
that savage man does not trouble about his to-morrow's meals,
any more than does a beast of the field. Mr. E. M. Curr, who
spent some twenty years in daily contact with native
Australians, emphatically records his opinion (" Eecollections of
Squatting in Victoria," 1883, p. 262) as follows:— "It is a note-
worthy fact connected with the Bangerang, and indeed, as far as
I am aware, with the whole aboriginal population (notwith-
standing what Captain Grey asserts to the contrary in connection
with the blacks of West Australia) that as they neither sowed
nor reaped, so they never abstained from eating the whole of
any food they had got, with a view to the wants of the morrow.
If anything was left for Tuesday, it was merely that they had
been unable to consume it on the Monday. In this they were
like the beasts of the forests. To-day they would feast — aye, gorge
— no matter about the morrow. So also they never spared a
young animal with a view to its growing bigger." Dr. Eobertson
(op. cit., II, p. 97) quoting from Dr. Edward Bancroft, who
visited Guiana at the close of the seventeenth century, says of
the Indian, who then, as now, cultivated yams, "he is then
least solicitous about supplying his wants when the means of
satisfying them are most precarious and produced with the
greatest difficulty." The testimony of a traveller two hundred
years later proves that that Indian is still the same improvident
being (Im Thurn, op. cit., p. 253). De Vaca, who spent nine
years among the savages of Florida, describes how these
wanderers were always in want of sufficient food (Eobertson,
II, p. 386). Of the Hottentots, who had been taught something
already by the missionaries, W. J. Burchell ("Travels in Interior
of South Africa," 1822, 1, p. 365) complains, " Some of the people
cultivate a little corn, but so foolish and improvident are they,
that as soon as the harvest is gathered in, they eat, I may
almost say, night and day, till the little they have is devoured."
He adds that they are always either in a state of feast or fast.
Of the Bachapins he says (ibid., i, p. 588), " that although agricul-
ture is considered important, it is not carried far enough to put
the natives in plenty, and they often suffer want." Speaking of
an agricultural tribe of Arabs, James Hamilton (" Wanderings
in North Africa," 1856, p. 115) bewails a similar want of fore-
sight. In a description of the Columbians (H. H. Bancroft, op.
cit., I, 267) we are told, "Life with all these nations is but a
struggle for food." Yet it was the missionaries who introduced
agriculture among them, and the same author in an account of
the wild tribes of Central America (ibid., I, 722), tells us : " No
regularity is observed in eating, but food is taken at any hour,
and with voracity; nor will they take the trouble to procure

H. LING EOTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture. 117

lore, until the whole stock is consumed and hunger drives them
from their hammocks. The Poyas and Guajiqueros seem to be
the only tribes who have any idea of providing for the future."
The New Mexicans (Apaches and others) making more or less
pretensions to agriculture, seldom " raise a sufficient supply for
the year's consumption (ibid., 1, 487)." Even the Mexicans were
an improvident people and want was no stranger to them (ibid.,
II, 347). Although agriculturists, the Malays, " as in all parts ol
the interior, have barely enough food for their own consumption
. . . ." (C. Bock, op. cit., 1881, p. 118). Major W. F. Butler
("The Great Lone Land," p. 362) reports on the half-breeds of
Manitoba : " Even starvation, that most potent inducement to
toil, seems powerless to promote habits of industry and agricul-
ture ; " he refers to the great privations these men undergo,
and adds that like the Indians, " they refuse to credit the
gradual extinction of the buffalo, and persist in still depending
on that animal for food." Although the dying out of the
bread-fruit trees with the Tahitians, their staff of life, was
pointed out to the natives by the missionaries, the Eev. W. Ellis
(op. cit., I, p. 33) informs us that they could not be induced to
plant fresh ones. Finally Livingstone, records how foolish the
African tribes thought him when he occasionally deposited "date
seeds in the soil" ("First Expedition," Pop. ed., 1875, p. 176).

On the other hand, we have a few instances where a mini-
mum of forethought concerning food is exhibited. Mr. Darwin
noticed (op. cit., I, p. 327) " that the Fuegians when they find a
stranded whale bury large portions in the sand." And we have
the case of the Poyas and Guajiqueros already referred to.
The Esquimaux store up large quantities of meat for winter's
use, and the Wapato and other Hyperboreans (Bancroft, op. cit.,
I, p. 234) to some extent, preserved nuts, berries, &c., also for
winter's food. The Wild Yeddahs were said to preserve flesh in
honey in hollow trees hermetically sealed with clay (R. Knox,
"An Historical Relation of Ceilon," 1681, p. 63.) Mr. Darwin
(op. cit., I, p. 325) quotes Sir Joseph Hooker and Sir Andrew
Smith in order to show how savages occasionally suffer from
famine, but there is no instance on record in which a savage race
was driven to cultivation by want of food, nor are we likely to
discover such an instance.

In a case of vegetable and fruit famine, when the otherwise
neglected wild food begins to affect man and beast, savages
commence to poach on their neighbours' grounds, and, being
repulsed, take to eating the weaker members of their own tribe,
as is done to this day in Australia. A succession of famines,
or even a prolonged one, necessarily leaves more available food
afterwards for the survivors and hence any lurking idea that

118 H. LING BOTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture.

there exists a necessity to cultivate the ground would be success-
fully dissipated. Allowing that a savage, wiser than the rest,
had an inkling that the cultivation of vegetable fruits might
help to avoid disastrous dearth, it is very doubtful whether he
would have the power to enforce his views, for, after all the
chiefs of savage races such as the Australians, Fuegians and
Bushmen, can exert little influence over their co-members
beyond the enforcement of tribal customs. The question of a
sudden introduction of agriculture can in our view be only con-
nected with a state of comparatively high mental activity in
the savage. It will, therefore, be useful to glance for a moment
at his mental state.

In his detailed account of the life of the Fuegians (" Fitzroy's
Journal of the Voyage of the Beagle," III, ch. xi, p. 239)
Darwin says : " We can hardly put ourselves in the position
of these savages to understand their actions," the difficulty being
due partly to our want of knowledge of these people, and partly
to the fact that they apparently cannot or do not reason. We
are told of the Bushmen (W. J. Burchell, op. cit., I, p. 365) "that
whether capable of reflection or not, these individuals never
exerted it," and Spix and Martius say, unfortunately the Indian
is so unaccustomed to exercise his intellectual qualities that it
is very difficult to obtain satisfactory information from him. As
final and thoroughly reliable evidence regarding the inactivity
of the savage intellect, we may accept the conclusions arrived at
by Sir John Lubbock, in his introductory chapter to the " Origin
of Civilisation." On page 7 he states, " Though savages always
have a reason, such as it is, for what they do and what they be-
lieve, their reasons often are very absurd;" and on page 9,
" Again, the mind of the savage, like that of a child, is easily
fatigued, and he will then give random answers to spare himself
the trouble of thought." Hence a savage mind is not likely to
grasp the real position which would arise from cultivation of the
soil, and which would be the inducement to turn to husbandry.
So that if we allow that famine or forethought for food induced
the savage to turn agriculturist we should be crediting him with
a power of immediate adaptation to circumstances which he does
not possess.

The Position of Women and their Connection with the Soil.

Amongst the rudest tribes we find a well defined division of
labour between the sexes. The men do the hunting and fishing,
and the women the cooking and the general work which goes
under the name of drudgery. The women, being the weaker
sex, are also terribly knocked about. Sir John Lubbock, in

H. LING ROTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture. 119

summing up the evidence of travellers on the position of the
women, says : — " Their wives, or dogs, as some of the Indians
[of North America] call them, are indeed well treated as long
as they do all the work and there is plenty to eat ; but through-
out the continent, as indeed among all savages, the domestic
drudgery falls to their lot, while the men hunt and make war,
&c." ("Prehistoric Times," p. 562), and on page 582 he refers to
" the harsh, not to say cruel treatment which is almost universal
among savages." There are a few exceptions to this rule. The
Veddahs appear to treat their women with some sort of decency,
and the Maori women held a not unsatisfactory position (ibid.,
p. 479). Mr. H. Hale says that the Caroline Islanders, known
for their peaceable disposition, treated their women almost as
equals (" United States Exploring Expedition," 1846, VI, pp.
72-3), and according to Serpa Pinto (" How I crossed Africa,"
I, p. 341), the Ambuellas treat their women with some con-
sideration, but, he adds, that as a rule among other tribes the
women are the most abject slaves of their husbands. Mr.
H. 0. Forbes (op. tit., p. 400) bears witness to the miserable
position of the women among the Alefurus. However, the con-
sensus of opinion regarding the bad treatment and the slave-like
position of the women among savages is so clear that we nee"d
make no further quotation.

The chase, snaring, and fishing are undoubtedly more pleasant
pastimes than digging up yams or diving for sea eggs. There is
an important savage pastime which we must not omit to men-
tion. The letting of blood and the watching of the wretched victim
as it shivers out its existence are pleasures in which savages revel.
We have had to deal with aboriginal Australians and South Sea
Islanders in Queensland, and have caught them in the act of
playing with their prey in a very much crueller manner than a
cat plays with a mouse. We have further evidence of this love for
blood in the tortures the North American Indians inflicted on
their prisoners ; in the horrible religious rites of the Mexicans ;
in the Dyak head hunting expeditions ; in the cannibal feasts
of Haitians, Maories, Fijian s and Tahitians, and in the blood-
thirstiness which is met with in all parts of Africa. The men,
being the stronger sex, reserve these pleasures to themselves,
and to the women is thus left the work necessary to the welfare
of the tribe, and in which, according to the men's notions, there
is no fun. In one of his numerous works ("Oneota," Lond.,
1845, p. 82) on the North American Indians, Mr. Schoolcraft
says : " It is well known that corn planting and corn gathering,
at least among all the still uncolonised tribes, are left entirely to
the females" and children, and a few superannuated old men " ;
and, he adds, that this labour is not compulsory, but is looked

K 2

120 H. LING BOTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture.

upon as a just equivalent for man's labour in the chase and
defence. We would, however, be inclined to think that the
men had very much the better part of the bargain. When a
party or tribe of blacks on the coast range of Queensland shift
camp, the men, women, and children spread out in a long line
or semi-circle, driving all before them. No woman, excepting
perhaps an old gin, will dare to throw her waddy at a started
wallaby or kangaroo-rat, but she will call the attention of the
nearest man or boy to its presence ; and vice versd if a man pass
an edible root, he will tell the woman next to him to dig it up.
A man will pick berries to eat as he goes by, or climb a tree
after an opussum, but when it comes to touching the soil, that is
the woman's work. In other cases the women are sent out
alone to gather vegetable food, while the men go out on the
chase, or remain at their ease preparing for it, i.e., repairing and
making spears, &c.

As the women appear everywhere with the savage in his
lowest known stage to be told off for all work in connection
with the collection of vegetable food, it is more than probable
that they rather than the men were the first to make tentatives
towards acts which may be regarded as originating agriculture.

The First Step.

In speaking of the West Australians, Mr. A. C. Gregory
explains that in digging up the wild yams, the natives "in-
variably re-insert the head of a yam, so as to be sure of a future
crop, but beyond this they do absolutely nothing which may be
regarded as a tentative in the direction of cultivating plants for
their use" (see Appendix II). This step towards cultivation among
savages is the earliest of which we have any knowledge, but it
can hardly be considered to be the first step. How the women
discovered that the yam heads alone would suffice for pro-
pagation is left open to conjecture. The heads might not have
been so palatable as the full body of the yam, and to save them-
selves the trouble of carrying the whole to the camps the
women probably left the cut off heads on the ground or in the
holes, and these tops have then grown into good edible roots.
For a considerable period, doubtless, the women would not take
much notice of this fact, but (had not European immigration
interfered) it is easy to imagine how to save themselves the
further trouble of having to hunt for fresh yam fields, they
would have poked the yam head into the holes, and later on
kicked a little of the disturbed soil over them. Some of the
Sakeys of the Malay Peninsula have arrived at this possible
stage. They content themselves with poking the tubers of the

H. LING EOTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture. 121

various vegetables consumed by them into soil which appears
propitious without any previous preparation (" Perak et les
Orang Sakeys," by B. de St. Pol Lias, Paris, 1883, p. 279). In
this case cultivation, if one may so term it, has already become
of some importance and the sort of the soil has become a con-
sideration. These people have maize, which they do not appear
to cultivate, and it is, of course — owing to maize being indigenous
to America — of late introduction.

The first attempt or rather step towards the cultivation of
grain may have arisen in a similar way to that of the West
Australian yams. It is, however, probable that when man
began to harvest and carry the crop to the camp many seeds
were scattered on the track, and thus there would be some
foundation for supposing that the cultivation of the edible
grasses began near the home for the time being. The lowest
form of the cultivation of seed-propagated crops is to be found
among the Juangs (Dalton, op. cit., p. 154), for with them the
seed is " all thrown into the ground at once to come up as it
can." But this stage of cultivation, crude as it is, records
already considerable progress. In the harvesting of self-sown
edible grasses, many of the seeds would be trodden slightly into
the ground or covered with dust and being thus to a small
extent preserved the ensuing crops would probably be improved
ones, if not in quality at any rate in quantity. Later on the
women might purposely cover up the seed or scratch it in with
their digging sticks. And still later, as the Borneans do (Spencer
St. John, op. cit., I, p. 320) they would go a step further and
put the seed in a hole made with a pointed stick, which act, in
fact, amounts to dibbling. Further progress is exemplified by
the Lepchas (Dalton, op. cit., p. 101), who already scratch the
upper layer of vegetable mould for the reception of the seed,
and lastly real tillage is arrived at by digging the ground over,
as we see it done by the Mandans with their hoes made of
buffalo or elk shoulder blades (Geo. Catlin, " Illus. of the
Manners and Customs of the North American Indians," 1866,
II, p. 121). This development of the art of agriculture thus
appears to proceed smoothly enough, but in practice it must
have been an exceedingly slow one, for every progressive step,
from the sole harvesting of the seed to its first rude sowing,
means an advance in the mental powers of the savage adopting it.
To this day some of the North and West Australians reap
annually thousands of acres of panicum and grind it into meal
(Gregory, see Appendix II), but they do not in any way
cultivate this cereal. Dr. Ch. Pickering was astonished that
" on the Sacramento Eiver of California, where, by a singular
approximation to the use of grain, minute seeds of grasses

122 H. LING BOTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture.

and other plants constitute an article of food, the natives,
nevertheless, have not advanced beyond gathering the spon-
taneous crop " (" Baces of Men," p. 310). The Mongols of Ala-
Shan rely for a very important portion of their sustenance on
the sulhir grass (Agriophyllum Gobicum), which grows on the
bare sand, and which Prezhevalsky ("Mongolia, the Tangut
Country," &c., 1876, I, pp. 233-5) calls the gift of the desert,
but it is not cultivated. We need not be astonished at those
people in not cultivating edible grasses which are of such great
importance to them, for we find even well advanced tribes and
nations relying upon similar wild growing food. Some of the
Maories largely consumed the amylaceous seed covers of the
Macocarpus hinau (Dieffenbach, op. cit., I, p. 399) and although
agriculturists, they did not cultivate the plant, and Dr. H.
Barth (loc. cit., Ill, 447), mentions that among the Bagirmi,
a settled agricultural nation, " rice is not cultivated, but collected,
in great quantities after the rains."

Again the first step towards tillage of the soil would much
depend on the nature of the plant which is the subject of the
first experiment, if one may so term it. " When portions of the
stem or tubes of the taro (Arum esculentum), are thrown away
by the side of streams, they naturalise themselves easily " (Be
Candolie, op. cit., p. 73). Cocoa nuts, when strewn about strike
root and thrive (Dr. Karl Scherzer, " Voyage of the Novara," II,
ch. i, p. 31). And we think a curious light is thrown on the
manner in which plants successively became cultivated, by the
Guiana Indian's statement (recordedsby Im Thurn, op. cit., p. 252),
that when cassava was originally given them they tried at first
to grow it by sowing the seeds and planting the tubers, and
only succeeded in its cultivation by discovering at last that
cuttings must be stuck into the ground. From this account
we may infer that these Indians had already cultivated plants
propagated by their seed or their tubers.

The Rotation in which Plants became Cultivated and the
Homes of Agriculture.

The foregoing naturally leads to the question : Did the cultiva-
tion of edible seed-yielding plants precede that of edible root-
plants ? or perhaps it would be better to ask : Were plants which
are propagated by their seed domesticated before plants which
are propagated by tubers, cuttings, or suckers ? We may not
be able to answer this question, but we can throw some light
upon it. The Aztec's chief agricultural products were the cacao-
tree, maize, the banana, and the aloe (W. H. Prescott, "Hist,
of Conq. of Mexico," 1878, ch. v, p. 66). The two first were

H. LING EOTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture. 123

propagated by the seed, the latter two by suckers. De Candolle
(op. cit., p. 310) says Prescott was misinformed about the
banana which came from Southern Asia. The North American
Indians appear to have cultivated maize only, but they also
gathered what is called a white turnip (G. Catlin, op. cit., 1,
p. 56). The Peruvians cultivated maize, a grain resembling
rice, the banana, the aloe, cassava, the potatoe, &c. (Prescott,
" Hist, of Conq. of Peru," 1878, ch. iv, pp. 66-68), or in other
words, plants propagated by seeds, suckers, cuttings and tubers,
but not by sets. The British Guiana Indians (Im Thurn, p.
251) cultivate a large variety of plants ; they appear to lack
maize, but they possess other plants propagated by seed, such as
tobacco. The aborigines on the Amazon (A. E. Wallace,
op. cit, 1853, p. 483) cultivated a similar variety of plants.
According to Spix and Martius (op. cit., II, p. 257) the Coroados
had plantations of maize, mandioca, beans, etc.

De Candolle (op. cit., pp. 380-382) considers sorghum to have
its home in Africa, and to this day, where maize, wheat, or rice
have not 'penetrated, sorghum continues to be the staple culti-
vated vegetable food of the Africans. We have not been able
to ascertain that the aborigines of Africa ever cultivated any
esculents but those propagated by seed.

Until the introduction of the potato, the Indo-Europeans
seem to have contented themselves chiefly with cereals. But
the Singhalese and Chinese, besides rice, must also have culti-
vated the yam, since that vegetable is supposed to have come
originally from either of their homes (De Candolle, op. cit.f
p. 438).

In the South Seas we have the Fijians who cultivate yams,
sweet potatoes, taro (Arum esculentum) qai or masawe (Draccena
terminalis), the banana and plantain, the bread-fruit tree, and
the sugar cane (Th. Williams, op. cit., I, pp. 60-63), none of
which are grown from the seed. Maize, tobacco, and the papaw
were of course late introductions. The chief articles of veget-
able diet of the Tahitians were the bread-fruit tree, the taro,
the yam (Dioscoria alata) , the sweet potato, and other roots (W.
Ellis, op. cit., I, pp. 41-47), and the cocoa-nut. The Maories'
original vegetable foods consisted of taro, fern-root (Pteris escu-
lenta), the vegetable berries of the Dacrydium excelsum, the pulp
of a fern- tree (Cyathea medullaris), the sweet root of the Dra-
caena indivisa, &c. (Dieffenbach, op. cit., II, p. 18), but travellers
do not appear to have reported whether the natives cultivated
any of the above except the taro and Draccena. Mr. Thos.
West (" Ten Years in South-Central Polynesia," 1865, ch. vi)
gives some valuable information regarding the agriculture of the
Friendly Islanders, whose cultivated plants resemble those of

124 H. LING EOTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture.

the Tahitians. Thus, with the exception of the cocoa-nut, the
South Sea Islanders appear to be wanting in esculents which
are propagated by the seed, a fact which inclines to the supposi-
tion that in this part of the world agriculture had an inde-
pendent origin.

For similar reasons we may infer that America, Africa and
Asia-Europe were the original homes of separate systems of
an indigenous agriculture, based on the manner of propagation
of the various plants referred to.

To see how far and in what way a knowledge of agriculture
may have spread, we must, for a moment, turn to the relations
which existed, or which still exist, among independent savage
races.

The Spread of Agriculture.

We are told that when Columbus landed at Cuba " all the in-
habitants fled as he approached the shore " (W. Eobertson, op,
cit., I, p. 129) ; the same at Hayti, where the inhabitants fled
in great consternation towards the woods (ibid., I, 132). At
Dominica, Marigalante, Guadeloupe, Antigua, Puerto Eico, and
several other islands, the Spaniards "never landed without
meeting such a reception as discovered the martial and daring
spirit of the natives" (ibid., I, 157). When Juan Ponce de
Leon tried to land in Florida he was vigorously opposed (ibid.,

I, p. 272), and Juan Diaz de Solis lost his life in making a de-
scent on Eio de la Plata (ibid., I, p. 292). When Cordova dis-
covered Yucatan he endeavoured by small presents to gain the
goodwill of the people. The people invited him with every
appearance of cordiality, but they set an ambush and attempted
to destroy him and his followers (ibid., I, 328). On the river
Potonchan, near Campeachy, he and his sailors were attacked
by the natives and almost completely annihilated (ibid., I, 330).
Captains Behring and Tschiriko on their voyages of discovery
in the year 1741 both touched separately on the north-west coast
of California, " each set some of his people ashore ; but in one
place the inhabitants fled as the Eussians approached, in another
they carried off those who landed and destroyed the boats " (ibid.,

II, p. 40). To come to other more uncivilised portions of the
world, we find that in Ceylon the Veddahs are to this day averse
to meeting with strangers (Sir E. Tennent, " Ceylon," II, p.
437). When Chatham Island was first discovered by Brough-
ton (Capt. G. Vancouver's "Voyage of Discoveries," 1798, Vol.
I), the natives behaved treacherously, and Ca,pt. Fitzroy remarks
on the treachery of the Fijians (op. cit., II, ch. xxiii, pp. 560-
561) quoting La Perouse on this subject, with whom he evi-
dently agrees. The Andaman Islanders are noted for their>
hostility to strangers (E. H. Man, op. cit.). Tasman was driven

H. LING EOTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture. 125

away by the Maories in 1642 ("An Account of several late
Voyages and Discoveries/' London, 1694, pp. 134-5 and 141),
and he mentions that when, twenty-seven years previously,
Capt. W. Schouten discovered Moa, that navigator was similarly
attacked. In the records of Australian discovery it is the same as
in America, the natives run away or fight. J. M. Stuart, who made,
five important expeditions into the interior (during one of which
he succeeded in crossing the continent), met with the natives
forty-four times, yet owing to fear on their part he was able to
communicate with them only thirteen times ; on thirteen other
occasions they were hostile, and in July, 1860, they compelled his
expedition to return (see Appendix I). Mr. A. C. Gregory gives
the following account (see Appendix II) of the position
Australians take up where strangers are concerned : " Natives will
occasionally attack whites without any provocation. Once the
party was attacked in a part of the interior of the west coast
where previously no European could possibly have penetrated,
and after the fight the natives acknowledged that they had seen
some bacon fat in the camp which they wished to possess, and
that they would not have made an attack had they deemed the
Europeans so powerful. As the whites push out, however, the
pioneers being often men of reckless character, troubles with
the gins (females) and retaliation by means of a night surprise,
are more often the cause of native attacks than otherwise ; but
even when all acts of offence have been avoided by the whites,
the aggressive character of the aboriginals has always led to
war between the diverse races." Im Thurn, in classifying the
Indians of British Guiana, refers to "the degree of mutual
hostility between the various groups" (op. cit., p. 162), and
says though every group ignores all others as far as it can,
and, when perforce it must meet others, regards these as hostile,
yet this feeling of aversion is greater between the tribes of dif-
ferent branches — for example, between true Caribs and Arawaks
— than between two of the same branch — for example, Macusis
and Arecunas. Bock (op. cit., p. 76) refers to the voluntary
isolation in which the Poonans live. All this would tend to
show that savages are, as a rule, averse to meeting foreigners
of whatever nation or of whatever stage of civilisation. Con-
cerning the general state of warfare in which savages live,
we have already spoken. On the other hand, we have a few
instances on record where savages have treated strangers in
a truly friendly spirit; thus the Pelew islanders succoured
Captain Wilson and his party (G. Keate, "Narrative of the
Shipwreck of the 'Antelope,'" London, 1796) and the Fuegians
behaved more than humanely to the crew of the lost " Wager "
(Byron's "Loss of the ' Wager,'" London, 1751).

126 H. LING BOTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture.

Whether this active or passive hostility on the part of savages
towards strangers is due to some unexplained ideas bearing on
self preservation is immaterial to our enquiry. We have only
to deal with its effect, an effect which is necessarily a great bar
to progress, as exemplified by the exchange of ideas and com-
modities, and, in so far as it interests us at present, to the spread
of agriculture.

It may be objected that exogamy and slavery to a very great
extent neutralise the effect of the isolation brought about by the
fear of strangers. In his highly interesting work on " Custom
and Myth" (Lond., 1884), Mr. Andrew Lang concludes that the
transmission of myth would be aided by slavery and exogamy
(p. 24) and he points out (p. 102) that the diffusion of tales is
undoubtedly due to exogamy. It has, however, yet to be seen
whether man in a low state keeps a slave long enough for the
prisoner either to learn the new language or to communicate his
own and whether, indeed, apart from keeping females for wives,
any slaves are made at all. According to Spix and Martius
(op. cit., p. 508), the roving Macus attack the settled Indians
to kill and eat them. Amongst the Fuegians, after an encounter
" those who are vanquished and taken, if not already dead, are
killed and eaten by the conquerors (" Prehistoric Times/' p. 554).
The Kukis (Dalton, op. cit., p. 44) in their wars spared only the
children whom they adopted and the savage Kayans of Borneo
("Primitive Culture," i, p. 414) make slaves in order to kill
them at funerals. As Mr. Tylor aptly remarks, their system is
" a great impediment to an intercourse with them." The Tring
Dyaks also make captures partly " for slavery and ultimate death
by torture" (Bock, op. cit., p. 218). The Australians never make
slaves of captives, they eat them or destroy them for the sake
of their kidney fat. The Bushmen of South Africa apparently
make no slaves. The Koniagas, classed by Bancroft as wild,
held only women in thraldom : " The male prisoners of war
they either killed immediately or reserved for torture " (pp. cit., I,
p. 80). The Thlinkeets had slaves and although not agriculturists
were well advanced in the arts (ibid., I, p. 107). The Tacullis
had slaves (ibid., I, p. 124) but they were also great traders. The
same may be said of the Columbians (ibid., p. 168). Amongst
some tribes of Calif ornians slavery " in any form is rare" (ibid., I,
p. 338) and amongst others doubtful. The New Mexicans, who
were incipient agriculturists, had slaves (ibid., I, pp. 489, 501,
510). The Chinooks held slaves without being agriculturists, but
according to Pickering (op. cit., p. 18) they showed " greater advance
in the arts over the hunting tribes of North America." The
Hawaians (W. Ellis, op. cit., IV, p. 161), the Tahitians (ibid., Ill,
p. 95) and the Maories (ibid., Ill, p. 343) all made slaves for the

H. LlNG KOTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture. 127

purpose of obtaining aid to till the soil, the last-named requiring
them also for their feasts. Commander J. E. Erskine (" Journ.
of a Cruise .... Western Pacific," 1853, p. 182) refers to the
fact that the Fijians will not sacrifice their slaves, if others for
sacrifice are obtainable, as these islanders are careful agriculturists
(ibid., p. 171). Hence we conclude that savages in the lowest
known scale make no slaves, but eat or sacrifice their captives,
that tribes who have made some advance in the arts, even
without becoming husbandmen, commence to make slaves of
prisoners of war, and that agricultural tribes make slavery an
institution.

We have seen how savages treat their women. It is not to be
expected that they would treat their slaves any better, although
there were exceptions, as for example, the New Mexicans, who
appear to have treated their prisoners well (H. H. Bancroft, I, p.
510). Nor is it likely that men in the unhappy position of a slave
to a savage would wittingly teach their masters new methods in
the arts. On the contrary, the dissemination of anecdote, myth,
&c., is explicable on the ground of the pleasure it gives captives
to recount the exploits of their favourite heroes, or to sing their
praises of and to worship their own fetiches, &c. Unwittingly,
slaves could spread information by performing their tasks their
own way, but, considering the contempt in which a slave's
doings are held, it is not likely that the owners would profit
thereby, even supposing the newly introduced method were an
improved one. So while it is not likely that agriculture was
spread by means of slavery, the children may have picked up
the slave's romances.

With regard to the influence of exogamy on the spread of
agriculture, the conditions are very different. Notwithstanding
the numerous examples of doing work differently which are con-
stantly before the eyes of a captive woman's child, the mother's
influence must make considerable impression on the female
children, and if the mother belong to an agricultural tribe some
of her knowledge of cultivation may pass to her girls. But
this is not the only way in which such applied knowledge would
spread. Accustomed to a certain routine, the newly captive wife
might, as a matter of course, commence to till the ground or sow
the seed in her new quarters, of course after her own fashion.
From what we have shown above it is probable that exogamy
preceded slavery, consequently a man would be able to trust his
woman and would not be in continual expectation of her running
away as in the case of a slave. Having some knowledge of
the habits of her tribe, he might command her to procure for him
the vegetables she was in the habit of obtaining for her tribe
in her original home. It is, therefore, far from unlikely for the

128 H. LlNG ROTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture.

spread of agriculture to be due to the system of wife-capture.
Indeed, in North America we have all the elements for the
spread of agriculture by this means. Exogamy was almost
universal amongst the Indians, and amongst them we find
agricultural and hunting tribes living side by side while agri-
culture was in every stage of development.

The Development of Digging Implements.

When savages commenced to advance beyond the stage of
dibbling and required to loosen the soil in some way the
simple digging stick became an inefficient implement. Soil can
be broken up or pulverised in three ways. It is accomplished
in one method by pegging away at the soil with a simple
pointed stick in a vertical up and down motion ; another
method is to drive a stick into the ground obliquely and to
raise the soil by leverage ; the third method is to drag a sharp
tool over the surface of the soil. The two latter methods are
probably merely developments of the first.

The first system can be seen in operation to this day in the
greater part of Australia, and is described by Sir Geo. Grey, who
says the natives " carry a long pointed stick, which is held in
the right hand, and driven firmly into the ground, where it is
shaken so as to loosen the earth, which is scooped up and thrown
out with the fingers of the left hand " (op. cit., II, p. 292). The
natives of Tanna (New Hebrides) dig up the soil in the same
way, but instead of using the right hand only, two men work it
with both hands. So also the Tahitians, before the advent of
Europeans, appear to have used a plain point-hardened stick in
the same fashion (W. Ellis, op. cit., I, pp. 138-9). The digging
stick itself used in this manner seems incapable of development.

The second method, that of digging as we understand it, was,
until lately, the one pursued by the Fijians. The tool used is
the digging stick with the digging end " tapered off on one side

after the shape of a quill toothpick When preparing a

piece of ground for yams, a number of men are employed, divided
into groups of three or four. Each man being furnished with a
digging stick, they drive them into the ground so as to enclose a
circle of about two feet in diameter. When by repeated strokes
the sticks reach the depth of eighteen inches, they are used as
levers, and the mass of soil between them is thus loosened and
raised. Two or three lads follow with short sticks, and break
the clods, &c." (T. Williams, op. cit, I, pp. 63-4). D'Albertis
describes a similar mode of preparing the soil in New Guinea,
but in this case the men stand in a row (op. cit., p. 325). It is
also like the method described by Lieut. Kittoe to have been in

H. LING ROTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture. 129

vogue in Orissa in 1838, excepting only that with the tribes
there the men worked independently of each other (John
Campbell, op. cit., p. 7). In one direction this method leads to
the development of the spade which is to be seen in an inter-
mediate form amongst the Maories. Thus Dieffenbach says
of New Zealand, the land " is dug with a pole, which has a foot
piece firmly attached to it and which is used in the same
manner as our spade " (op. cit., II, pp. 123-4). In the other
direction this method has probably led to the makeshift
plough of Chiloe, described as follows by Capt. Fitzroy :
" Two poles of hard wood (luma) about three yards long and
proportionately large, trimmed to a sharp point at one end and
rounded at the other, are held by the middle, one in each hand,
and pointed very obliquely in the ground ; in this direction they
are forced forward, by pressing against the blunt end with the
abdomen, which is defended by a sheepskin, . suspended in the
form of an apron. After these have penetrated twelve or four-
teen inches in the soil, a second person, generally a woman or a
boy, places a stout stick under the poles, ' or lumas/ as they are
called, close to the earth to form a solid support for them. The
large ends are then forced down, the ground turned up, and the
lumas pushed forward again, while the woman uses her stick to
turn the clods over, to the right and left alternately. These clods
are afterwards broken up by a wooden tool in the shape of a
pickaxe . . . ." (op. cit., I. 286).

The third or dragging method, that of the plough, originated
from the hoe (E. B. Tylor, " Origin of the Plough," Journ.
Anthrop. Inst., x, 77), which, according to Mr. Tylor, is a de-
velopment of the implement known as the Swedish hack. This
hack is probably the ancestor of a variety of instruments, among
which are the plough, the hatchet, and the adze, the two last-
named being the same implement with their blades set in different
planes. Indeed, Mr. Tylor has called attention to a Kafir axe,
with a moveable blade, so that the implement is at times an
axe, and at others an adze. George Keate (op. cit., p. 312) and
Spencer St. John (op. cit., I. p. 74), call our attention to similar
implements in use in different parts of the savage world. But
the development of the hoes is manifold. Major Serpa Pinto gives
illustrations (op. cit., I, pp. 129 and 161) of hoes in use in Bine*,
which have two handles both in the same vertical plane and Dr.
Livingstone ("First Expedition," Pop. ed., 1875, p. 275) describes
a two handled hoe, in which the handles are both in the same
horizontal plane, and which hoe is "worked with a sort of dragging
motion." Mr. Tylor has so well described the development of
the plough, that we need not go over the same ground, but shall
call attention to an error of Mr. Prescott's in the description given

130 H. LING BOTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture.

of the tilling implement of the ancient Peruvians. This imple-
ment Mr. Prescott called a plough and mis-translated ("History
of Conq. of Peru," London, 1878, p. 65) as a spade drawn
through the ground. As Mr. Tylor has already pointed out, and
as we have shown above, the action of the spade is out of the
line of the development of the plough. But Mr. Clements
Markham, in translating the same passage from Lasso de la
Vega's " Eoyal Commentaries of Peru " (Hakluyt Society, vol.
xlv, p. 8), shows the implement to have been a long-handled,
deep, narrow spade, worked by several men.

In the foregoing pages we have attempted to explain how the
Art of Agriculture may have arisen. We are aware that certain
links in the chain of evidence are somewhat weak, and if we
have not succeeded in dealing with this question as completely
as we could have desired, we shall be satisfied if our endeavours
should lead to more interest being taken in a subject which
hitherto has been much overlooked.

APPENDIX I.

The Journals of John McDouall Stuart. Edited by W. Hardman,
London, 1865.

Extracts showing the number of times Stuart and his party in
their five Australian expeditions actually came in contact with the
natives : —

June 25, 1858 The natives would not approach.

April 26, 1859 Much frightened.

„ 29, „ Stole a blanket.

May 11, „ Would not approach.

„ 13, „ Frightened, but friendly.
June 26, „ „ „

Nov. 16, „ Took to flight.

Dec. 17, „ „ and remained watching.

April 6, 1860 Took to flight.
May 22, „

June 13, „ Hostile.

„ 23, „ Friendly.

„ 26, „ Drove back the expedition.

July 17, „ Took to flight.

Feb. 14, 1861 Set fire to grass to drive expedition back.

Mar. 6, „ Afraid but plucky.

April 20, „ Would not approach.

May 26, „ Attack.

Aug. 23, „ Set fire to grass to drive expedition back.
May 13,1862

June 26, „ Followed and set fire to grass.

H. LING ROTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture. 131

July

1, 1*

^62

„

2, ,

3, ,

Aug.

3, ,

4, ,

65 ,

8, ,

12, ,

13, ,

15, ,

25, ,

30, v

55 55

Sept.

6, „

13, ,

„

15, ,

29, ,

Oct. 2,

„ 10,

Afraid but friendly.

55 5»

Ban away.

Bold and doubtful.

Set fire to grass.

Followed and set fire to grass.

Set fire to grass.

Took to flight.

One black begged for fish-nooks.

Friendly.

Set fire to grass.

Followed at safe distance.

Two blacks friendly.

Set fire to grass.

Afraid, but approached.

Armed and doubtful, and afraid of horse.

Took to flight.

Set fire to grass.

Took to flight.

12,

25,

Tried to frighten expedition by incantations in

order to get at water- hole.
Afraid but inquisitive.
Took to flight.

The tracks and other signs of the presence of natives were daily
visible, but of forty -four opportunities for intercourse with the
natives, the expedition were only able practically to communicate
thirteen times.

APPENDIX II.

Memoranda on the Aborigines of Australia.
By A. C. Gregory, Esq.

[About the year 1882, I interviewed Mr. A. C. Gregory, C.M.G.,
etc., the well-known explorer. He was kind enough, not only to
allow me to take notes of the information he imparted, but also to
correct them afterwards. The MSS. of these notes have been handed
to the Council of the Anthropological Institute in whose possession
they now are. H. L. B.]

" The natives on the West Coast of Australia are in the habit
amongst other things of digging up yams as a portion of their
means of subsistence ; the yams are called ' ajuca ' in the north
and 4 wirang ' in the south. In digging up these yams they in-
variably re-insert the head of the yams so as to be sure of a future
crop, but beyond this they do absolutely nothing which may be
regarded as a tentative in the direction of cultivating plants for
their use. They are not destructive — that is to say, they do not des-
troy for destruction's sake — but only to obtain necessaries ; they
often, however, in their battues destroy very much more game than
they can consume. A native discovering a Zamia fruit unripe will
put his mark upon it and no other native will touch this ; the

132 H. LING BOTH. — On the Origin of Agriculture.

original finder of the fruit may rest perfectly certain, that when it
becomes ripe he has only to go and fetch it for himself.

" There appears to be a tacit understanding that except on invi-
tation no tribe should infringe on the lands of its neighbouring
tribe and also that no individual of a tribe should hunt on the lands
belonging to others of the same tribe without consent, although
young men frequently infringe upon this law. Each tribe has its
own district in which it reigns supreme ; such district is again sub-
divided into portions belonging to the individuals of that tribe, the
children inherit and females share equally with the males in the
distribution of landed property.

" On Cooper's Creek, the natives reap a Panicum grass. Fields of
1,000 acres are there met with growing this cereal. The natives
cut it down by means of stone knives, cutting down the stalk half
way, beat out the seed, leaving the straw which is often met with
in large heaps ; they winnow by tossing seed and husk in the air,
the wind carrying away the husks. The grinding into meal is done
by means of two stones — a large irregular slab and a small cannon-
ball-like one ; the seed is laid on the former and ground, sometimes
dry and at others with water into a meaL On the Victoria River and
the west coast this grass is not found in such large quantities as
in the interior.

" The natives know when the rainy season is about to set in by the
constellations ; they have an astronomical mythology, something
like that of the ancients, each star being the abode of some great
man amongst them, who was more or less distinguished in the past,
and of some animal or bird. On the west coast they know the ap-
proach of the wet season when the star Sirius is near the
meridian early in the evening — the months of May, June, and July
being their wet season. They can foretell tolerably accurately also
at other seasons the approach of rain or storms by the prevailing
winds and the form of the clouds, but much of this naturally
depends on the locality — in some parts of Australia weather fore-
casting being more reliable than at others. A change of weather
being always more or less favourable to hunting they naturally come
to note the characteristics of impending weather changes.

" The stories they tell of the stars are probably traditional, and
though possibly subject to verbal variations and embellishment, they
have sufficient power of imagination to improvise on the moment's
notice, and hence their yarns if not absolutely repetitions would
always bear reference to events or stories they had either ex-
perienced or heard of on previous occasions such as corroborees or
camp fires.

" Their weapons, implements, &c., depend very much on the
local requirements. Thus, at Cooper's Creek there is little game,
hence they have no skin bags, but make bags out of woven
grass. On the west coast they have hardened wood spears, but on
the north-west coast where rocks would soon destroy the point, the
natives make use of stone-headed spears. The only implement of
one exact pattern universal throughout Australia is the boomerang,

Appendix III. 133

Bows and arrows are only used on the coast near Cape York, and
are not Australian, but imported from New Guinea. They
make use of a digging stick which may be compared to a short
stumpy spear about 6 to 7 feet long, the head slightly flattened,
and about 1J inches broad, charred and scraped.

" Exceptionally intelligent natives are occasionally met with, some
of whom show remarkable pluck, but the intellectual powers and
characters of the aboriginals vary as much as in any other race.

"Natives will occasionally attack whites without any provocation.
Once the party was attacked in a part of the interior of the west
coast, where previously no Europeans could possibly have penetrated,
and after the fight the natives acknowledged that they had seen
some bacon fat in the camp which they wished to possess, and that
they would not have made an attack had they deemed the Euro-
peans so powerful. As the whites push out, however, the pioneers
being often men of reckless character, troubles with the gins
(females), retaliation, by means of a night surprise, are more
often the cause of native attacks than otherwise. But even
where all acts of offence have been avoided by the whites the
aggressive character of the aboriginals has always led to war be-
tween the diverse races.

"Natives probably are occasionally destroyed by floods, by in-
sufficient foreknowledge, or want of care the same as animals.
On one occasion a party of three natives were destroyed by a
fire of their own lighting — the fire closed round behind them in
the scrub, and their only chance of escape lay in their going
through the flames the consequences of which act cost them their
lives.

" The importance of the native coloured drawing published by
Grey, in his 'Travels,' is much exaggerated. The colours are by no
means so bright as printed, and the drawings are, generally of a very
primitive kind, more or less crude outlines of hands or weapons
placed on the face of rocks, and lines marked round the edge of the
object. The colours are charcoal red, yellow, blue, and white
clays, without any special preparation."

APPENDIX III.

A Few Notes on the Farming, etc., of the Kafirs and Basutos. By

H. E. Rouquette, Esq.

[At my request, in January, 1885, Mr. Rouquette, nearly six years
resident in South Africa, was kind enough to write out these notes,
which have likewise been handed to the Council of the A.I. —
H. L. B.]

" THE soil chosen for cultivation is nearly always low lying,
alongside streams and rivers, and sheltered, if possible, from the
south-west or cold winds. Here the ground is usually very rich
from the alluvial earth constantly washed down from the surround-
ing mountains and hills by the heavy rains, and the vegetation in
consequence grows very rank. This is a point also considered, for
where a special kind of grass called ' tambooti ' grows luxuriantly
VOL. XVI. L

134 Appendix III.

the soil will always yield good crops. The ' tarabooti ' is a grass
growing about five or six feet high, and is extensively used for
thatching purposes both by the whites and blacks ; the stem is a
little thicker than wheat straw, and when dry is used by the Kafirs
for lighting purposes instead of candles ; the root has a sweet
scent, and is collected and dried, and, when required for use,
pounded and mixed with water for personal washing, in order to
give a perfume to their bodies.

" Before commencing to till the land the grass is always first
burnt off, and when the rains set in, in the spring, about October,
and the ground becomes sufficiently softened after the six dry
winter months, ploughing begins. After the first ploughing the
ground is allowed to lie for a year until the following spring, in
order that the roots may wither and rot ; it is then reploughed, and
if the earth is sufficiently broken up, the land is sown, otherwise it
is ploughed over again.

"Sowing is usually done by scattering the seed broadcast and
ploughing or hoeing it in. In gullies and places where the plough
cannot be used, or where the Kafirs do not possess ploughs, the
land is broken up with iron Tioes bought at the stores. The two
kinds principally used are J., the common English hoe ; and j5, a
circular disc with a digit projecting from the same plane.

"A is usually used by the more advanced Kafirs, and where
ploughs have first broken up the ground ; a thick stick for a
handle being put through the ring at the top. B is stronger than
the other, and is more used in the districts which are less civilized
and where the plough is not so frequently used. A handle is fixed
on by driving the point through the end of a stick at right angles
to it. Weeds grow very rapidly and soon choke the crops if the
land is not kept constantly hoed, until the mealies, &c. attain a
certain height. Frequently 'through the laziness of the Kafirs in
not attending to 'this and thinning the plants sufficiently, heavy
crops are a rarity.

" The natives thresh wheat, beans, and Kafir corn (amabele) a
kind of millet seed, by beating the ears with sticks or rubbing
them in their hands ; mealies by rubbing two cobs together.

"The grain is winnowed by pouring it from baskets to the ground
from a height, when the wind carries away the husks.

" The women do all the work with the exception of ploughing,
which involves the use of oxen, and the men only do this on
account of their superstition, which does not allow women to have
anything to do with the cattle.

" There are no fences, but the small boys of the kraal are
employed to herd the cattle from the growing crops, and they are
assisted in this by burning the grass off around their gardens.
When the Kafir corn is in seed, the women and girls are in the
gardens from early morning till eve to frighten the birds away.

" Besides the grain crops the Kafirs cultivate pumpkins, Kafir
potatoes, sweet potatoes (batata) or yams, and madumba — the latter
is a tuber about the size of a Brazil nut, and grows and has a leaf

Appendix IV. 135

like the coladium. It is poisonous, I was told, unless boiled and the
skin peeled off. The pumpkins are generally sown broadcast
amongst the mealies, partly to keep the weeds from growing up,
and partly for shelter from the hot sun. The Basutos are much
more advanced in civilization than any other Kafirs, and are the
only ones that cultivate wheat.

" Mealies and Kafir corn are universally grown by both Basutos
and Kafirs, but not other produce. When the mealies are
gathered they are stowed away in pits dug in the cattle kraal, each
pit holding about 10 cwt. ; this is for dryness and to keep them
from being attacked by the weevil, a small beetle.

" The implements used are mostly the American No. 75 plough
and the English hoe ; the latter can be bought for 2s. or 3s. at
the stores, and there are very few Kafirs who cannot save
money enough to buy one. In fact, a hoe is part of the dowry
given to a girl when she gets married, by the father or the
head of the kraal. Kafirs are very jealous of their tools, and
few will lend them, without payment, to another, the women
particularly so. The Kafirs still use stone and wooden imple-
ments in some part of the country, the latter for digging holes,
and in digging up roots, &c., and the former for hatchets, chisels,
&c. I have also seen a plough made by a Basuto, but I think
from the appearance of it, the native must have copied an
American plough. The mould-board was of wood, with a sharpened
stone attached to it for a share, the knife also was a stone
sharpened. The fastenings were raw hide and rope made from
the bark of creepers; the other parts being of wood.

" Cattle are not merely a sign of wealth, but are also kept for food.
Formerly the men used only to eat beef, and fowls were only eaten
by the children, pork never being eaten by any Kafirs. Now,
cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and fowls are eaten indiscriminately by
men, women, and children. Horse flesh is also consumed by
Basutos, but not by other Kafirs."

APPENDIX IV.

Letters from Sir J. B. LAWES, Bart., F.R.S., Rothamsted Park,
St. Albans, on the exhaustion of soils, on the comparative ex-
haustion by root or cereal crops, and on the comparative fertility
of forest and prairie soils.

(A) " Craig House, Dalmally, 13 Oct., 1885.

DEAR ME. ROTH,

We have grown forty-two crops of wheat without manure, and
the produce is now about fourteen bushels per acre, or more than
the average of the United States or Australia. A few years ago we
thought that the decline in the produce was a quarter of a bushel
per annum, but latterly the decline is very much less, still the
loss of fertility in the soil is measurable by chemical analysis. The
term exhaustion as ordinarily applied to soils means, I think, that
the weeds have choked the crop. I allowed a portion cf my four-

L 2

136 DR. S. J. HICKSON. — Notes on the.Sengirese.

teen bushels to seed itself, and I then left it to contend against the
weeds. In one year the crop was almost destroyed, yielding less
than one bushel per acre, while the produce of two bushels sown and
kept clean yielded fourteen bushels. The cereal grain crops possess a
power to find food in an unmanured soil which neither potatoes
nor turnips possess. I have an unmanured rotation which has
been going on for nearly forty years, turnips come in every fourth
year. The second crop of Swedes, although kept clean, ceased to
produce bulbs, and you may say the root producing power of the
land ceased for ever ; but fine crops of wheat and barley are still
being grown. We have recently published analysis of a number
of Manitoba soils showing what enormous stores of fertility exist
in those prairie soils. . . .

Yours truly,

J. B. LAWES."

" Craig House, Dalmally, 18 Oct., 85.
DEAR MR. ROTH,

We have grown unmanured potatoes for ten years, but for
twenty years previously the land had been growing wheat without
manure; the last crop of potatoes was 2| tons per acre. As a
general rule the soils under forest trees are much poorer than the
soils under pasture or prairie vegetation. I believe this fact is
well-known by experience in the United States, I have a wood
which I should think had been covered with oak trees for several
centuries, there is hardly any underwood or any green undergrowth
and the leaf fall must have rotted underneath. I made an analysis
of this soil a few years ago, and it was very much poorer than the
soil of my permanent pasture which had been mown for thirty
years, and had received no manure. Some of the Manitoba soils
almost equal the Russia Black soils in fertility.

Tours truly,

J. B. LAWES."

The Secretary read the following extracts from a letter
addressed by Dr. S. J. Hickson to Dr. E. B. Tylor, dated from
Talisse, North Celebes, Dec. 1, 1885 :—

NOTES on the SENGIRESE.
By Dr. S. J. HICKSON.

I/HAVE just returned from a most interesting trip to the Sen-
girese and Talauer Islands. The Sengirese race seems to be
an exceedingly interesting one and well worthy of further
investigation.

At Manganitu in Great Sengir I had opportunities of ob-

DE. S. J. HICKSON. — Notes on the Sengirese. 137

serving them and gathering information about them. I was for
three days in the house of the rajah and during that time in
constant converse with Mr. Steller, a German missionary who
has worked amongst them for twenty-eight years.

Firstly let me describe the house of the rajah and some of its
contents. It was built almost entirely of bamboo and stood
about 20 or 30 yards back from a very good and well-kept
street ; the paths, grass plot, and croton hedges being evidently
well and constantly attended to. In front of the house was
a verandah 5 J yards broad, and from that a staircase of five or
six steps led into the house. This was simply one large room
divided by 6-foot partitions into a large central compartment
and a number of small sleeping compartments, one of which
I shared for three nights with the Dominie of Menado.

Covering the walls and roof of the verandah, the hall, and
our bed room, were magnificent specimens of koffo, a great deal
of which had been made by the Queen (called here the Tuwan
Bohki). I managed with some difficulty to purchase a piece
of this and also a set of the weaving apparatus with a piece of
koffo in course of construction.

In the corner of the verandah I noticed a very curious time-
piece and mode of keeping the time. It consisted of three parts :
Firstly, a sand-glass made of two beer bottles placed mouth to
mouth containing some black volcanic sand which ran through
in just half-an-hour ; 2nd, a number of sticks strung on a piece
of string and notched with 1, 2, 3 . . . .12 notches, and a hook
which was suspended between the last hour struck and the
next one. At every half-hour (day and night) the sentry
reversed the half-hour glass, readjusted the hook on the string,
and if it were the full hour struck the number on the third
part of this complicated apparatus — the gong. I have got the
notched sticks, but I could not get the half-hour glass as
there was not another one in the village to replace it. I
have, however, made a drawing of it, and have instructed my
boy to make an imitation of it.

The Sengirese have evidently inhabited these islands for
many generations. Their language contains a very large
vocabulary, but I am unable to say how far it is related to the
local dialects of North Celebes or the Philippine Islands. I have
got a prayer-book and a book of psalms translated into Sengirese
by Mr. and Miss Steller, and the Gospel of St. Luke and
another prayer-book translated by Mr. Kelling.

The Sengirese were and are still great mariners, travelling
long distances in their sailing boats, many of which are capable
of holding 60 or 100 men, for the purposes of trade, the capture
of slaves, and fishing. It is a remarkable fact that Tahiti is

138 DR..S. J. HiCKSOtf. — Notes on the Sengirese.

the Sengirese word for " rain." As evidence of their qualities
as mariners, I may mention that they have 28 days each with a
different name, and that they have complete Sengirese names
for all the points of the compass. I have got a list written out
for me by a Manganitu man of all these.

The dress and coiffure of the Sengirese are such as I described
in a previous letter. The only women who wear gay-coloured
clothes seem to be the Christians and the concubines of the
Chinese. The name of the crescentic fringe of hair is PaJcoe.
The name of the knot of hair on the top of the head of the
women is Botto.

The Sengirese are not as tall as the inhabitants of Minahassa ;
they have fair complexions compared with the Malays, high
cheek bones, thick upper lips and oval-shaped eyes. Of their
hair, which is black and straight, I have got some specimens.

Their marriage customs are purely matriarchal, both in
endogamy and exogamy. The man always goes to the house of
his wife and becomes a member of her family. In exogamy
the woman comes to the village of her future husband once
before marriage to show her beauty, but the man must go to the
village of his future wife to be married, and must stay there at
least one year after marriage, after which he may return to his
own to see his friends or transact business, but must again
return to his wife's family and consider himself a member of
her family. The harta or dowry paid by the man to his wife's
parents is paid in tens, in plates, slaves, firearms, cotton
goods, &c.

The only persons who are free from the matriarchal system
are the sons of the rajahs, who do as they please about following
their wives.

The above was told me by Mr. Steller at Manganitu, and may
be relied upon as true.

I made, however, numerous enquiries of the rajahs, &c., and
I may as well give you the facts I gathered with their various
sources : —

1 Mr. Kouveray, formerly Controlleur of Sengir, told me
that the matriarchal system exists all over the Sengirese Islands,
but could give me no further details.

2. The rajah of Morong (in Talauer) said the husband in-
variably goes to the house of the wife and becomes a member
of her family. If there is a divorce (an occurrence which is
very common) the children go " where they don't cry." In case
of the adultery of the wife, the co-respondent has to pay a fine
to the parents of the woman.

3. The rajah of Pulutan (in Talauer) said that the man goes
to the house of the wife and remains there. The children of

DR. S. J. HICKSON. — Notes on the Sengirese. 139

the marriage, when they are old enough may choose the family
to which they will belong, i.e., whether they will belong to the
family of their father or mother.

4. The Eajah of Karatong (in the Nanusa Archipelago) said
that the man invariably went to the house of the woman, both
in endogamy and exogamy.

5. Mr. Gunther (the missionary at Manarang in Talauer) said
that the man follows the woman both in endogamy and exogamy ;
the reverse does occur, but is very rare. The harta or dowry
varies with the rank of the woman. For the daughter of a
rajah a man must pay 30 slaves, each valued at 45 fl.
Divorces are very common, and a rich man is constantly being
married to different women and divorcing them again.

6. The pilot, a Sengirese man, who now calls himself Peter
Elias, said, speaking of the Sengirese generally, the man always
goes to the house of his wife whether she lives in the same
village or not. In exogamy the woman only goes to the village
of her husband to show herself. The harta (dowry) paid for a
rajah's daughter is 12 slaves, 12 gongs, 12 silk (?) shirts, 12
china plates, 100 small plates, 12 swords and 1 katti of gold or
its equivalent in money. The children belong to the kampong
of the wife.

Other evidence of a similar character I obtained from mis-
sionaries, rajahs, &c., but it would be mere repetition for rne to
go over it all here.

A word or two about the inhabitants of the Talauer Islands
and the remote Nanusa Islands.

There is no doubt that there is a large intermixture with
Sengirese, and I daresay at many of the coast places a con-
siderable proportion of the population is unmixed Sengirese, but
I believe there is a true Talauer race, just as there is a true
Talauer language, but that many of them have been carried
away as slaves by the Sengirese pirates or driven to the remote
islands or less fertile parts of the larger ones.

At Pulutan, a remote village in Salibabu, one of the Talauer
islands, a rajah came on board with his principal people who
were strikingly different from the true Sengirese. Their hair
was wavy (not straight) allowed to grow long, and in one or
two cases plaited in long thin plaits, their upper lips and alse
nasi were thin, and they all had a fearful vacant expression
strikingly different from the sad but not unintelligent expres-
sion of the Sengirese.

At the Karatong kampong in Nanusa, the most remote islands
we visited, situated twelve hours steaming north-east of Sali-
babu, I saw plenty of men of the same type (although they had
nearly all completely shaved their heads). I asked the raj all

140 DR. S. J. HICKSON. — Notes on the Sengirese.

how long his race had inhabited the islands and he immediately
answered "Always," and stoutly denied that they had come
from Sengir. This Karatong kampong was one of the most
interesting I have seen. It was surrounded by a low mortar
wall. There were only eight very large houses, each capable of
holding four or five hundred people, and they were arranged in an
oblong to which there was, as far as I could see, only one entrance.
Each house had only one ladder and this was generally in the
middle of the house. Each house was built on piles ninety-one
inches high. After a careful examination of them externally
and internally, I am perfectly certain that these houses have
grown. That is to say, the houses have been added to at the
sides (both sides) as the family increased in size, I cannot say
that they are growing or will grow, as there is no more room in
the oblong kampong for their expansion.

Let me here digress a little to make a few remarks on the
growth of houses.

The houses of the Karatong kampong grew in two directions,
right and left of the ladder. In Lirung, a kampong in Salibabu,
they grow only in one direction, right of the ladder. In Man-
ganitu, in Petah, and in some of the Sengirese houses here in
Talisse, I have noticed that additions are made at the back of
the houses. The meaning of these different modes of growth is
obvious. The first two are adopted where there is room on
account of the greater facility in adding to the roof. The latter
mode was introduced when they began to build their houses in
streets as the Sengirese almost invariably do. A more impor-
tant point however than this is the gradual diminution, or to
use -a Dutch word, the " verkleining" of houses as the civilization
or -wealth of the inhabitants increases. This struck me particu-
larly in my return journey from Nanusa, as we gradually got
within touch of civilization and the wealth of the inhabitants
increased. The largest houses I saw were in Nanusa where
foreign vessels very rarely call. In Lirung the houses were
somewhat smaller, none of them I should think capable of
holding more than 200 persons. At Manarang, also in Talauer,
a kampong which contains 3,500 inhabitants, and carries on a
considerable trade, the houses were still smaller, but neverthe-
less some of them must have !been able to accommodate 60 or
100 persons.

In Taroena and Manganitu, the two most important places in
Great Sengir, and the centre of the cocoa-nut trade, places
where money is used and cocoa trees cultivated, &c., &c., the
houses were not large enough for more than ten or twenty persons
(except the houses of the rajahs, whose numerous followers
all claim shelter under their roofs). One step further in this

DR. S. J. HICKSON. — Notes on the Sengirese. 141

process and we arrive at mere hovels only capable of holding a
man, his wife, and two or three children, such as we find in such
a place as Menado, where natives and Europeans live and freely
trade and mix together.

If I am not mistaken there is something of the same kind
going on now in (lie suburbs of London and the other large
towns in England, where the demand for large well-built houses
seems to have nearly ceased, and rows upon rows of small houses
are springing up in all directions.

To return, however, from this digression to the house of the
rajah of Karatong in Nanusa.

When I -entered the house I found the rajah sitting with his
back to the central wooden pillar in the large entrance hall
surrounded by the president .rajah, the djoegoegoe, the Capitains
laut, and the other officials. A miserable lot they were too, all
of them ill-clad, ill-fed, with vacant expressions and helpless
appearance. Around the hall were the usual bamboo partitions
about five and a half feet high, which divided the rest of the
house into sleeping compartments for the various members of
the large family, and over these were to be seen the heads of the
half-naked women who seemed to be there in swarms. Hang-
ing on a long bamboo from the ceiling was a row of little
wooden praus .and one little pyramidal cage in which there was
a little wooden .figure. The praus, I learnt, are Jiung there for
protection against diseases, which are supposed to put to sea in
them and thus leave the island. I immediately opened nego-
tiations for the purchase -of these things. At first the rajah
would not allow them to be touched, but he afterwards, as my
prices went up, consented to let them go, and I have now got
them all with the exception of the best prau, which was taken
by the resident, and the little figure in the cage, which disap-
peared as the man was taking it down from the roof. We only
stayed a couple of hours in Karatong, so I was not able to do as
much work there as I should have wished. I am very sorry
our time there was so short, as I believe it is the best place for
enquiring about the original Talaurese, a race of men which I
believe would thoroughly rqpay the thorough investigation of a
competent anthropologist.

Slavery, as you will have gathered from what I have
said above, flourishes in >Sengir and Talaner, and the Dutch
Government have at present taken no steps to suppress it. In
Great Sengir there are three kingdoms, Taboekan on the east
coast, and Taroena and Manganitu on the west. In Manganitu
alone is slavery being gradually abolished, owing to the efforts of
Mr. Steller, the German missionary there. Some of the modes
of making slaves are not uninteresting.

142 DR. S. J. HICKSON. — Notes on the Sengirese.

In the manipulation of sago and rice, quantities of the
material are often left in an old prau in the woods until they
are ready for consumption. If during this process a man passes
by the prau, it is supposed that he takes away the spirit of the
sago or padi, or what not, and if caught he is at once seized by
the rajah, and he and his whole family become slaves.

When a man dies who has been accustomed, to fish in any
particular place, that place is often declared to be holy. It is
given over to the dead, in order that his ghost may come and
fish there as- he did when alive. It is " tabu " as they say in the
South Sea islands, or "pHih " as they say in Sengir.

If any one is seen by the family of the deceased to go there
in a canoe or to fish there/ he is at once* brought before the
rajah and becomes a slave of the family of the deceased.

There are many other ways of making slaves. Thus, when a
particular region is in mourning for any one, any person using a
parasol, wearing ornaments, or otherwise; breaking the laws of
mourning is made a slave:.

The facts which I have laid before you in these notes prove, I
think, that the Sengirese- race is a very olid one, and probably a
partially degenerated one: The Sengirese differ from the
Alfurs of Minahassa not only physically but also in their
customs and morality. In Sengir, as I have pointed out, there
is a true matriarchal system, among the Alfurs of Minahassa
the system is patriarchal (according to> Wilken). The morality
between the sexes is in the former case very strict, and in the
latter somewhat lax.. The Sengirese, were in former times
enterprising, daring, and war-like. I believe that the Alfurs of
Minahassa were not.

The question: then, naturally arises^ did the Sengirese come
vid Minahassa, Celebes, etc., or vid the Philippine islands from
Eastern Asia ? This question I cannot answer, and as I know
^nothing about the Philippine islanders I dare not speculate upon
it. I do not know that anyone has yet attempted to answer it,
but when we consider the geographical position of these islands
and the many interesting traits which their inhabitants show, I
cannot help thinking that it is one that is well worthy of
solution.

Names of the Days of the Month in Sengirese.
Nama-nama boelan di langit.

1. Tekale (New moon).

2. Xahoemata pakesa.

3. Kahoemata karoeane.

4. Kahoemata katelloene.

List of Presents. 143

5. Sehangoe harese.

6. Batangengoe harese.

7. Likoed'oe harese.

8. Sehang'oe lettoe.

9. Batangengoe lettoe.

10. Likoed'oe lettoe.

11. Awang.

12. Sehangoe pangoempia.

13. Batangengoe pangoempia.

14. Empaoese.

15. Limangoeng boelan.

16. Tepping.

17. Sai pakesa.

18. Saikaroeane.

19. Sai katelloene.

20. Sehangoe lettoe.

21. Batangengoe lettoe.

22. Likoed'oe lettoe.

23. Awang.

24. Sehangoe pangoempia.

25. Batangengoe pangoempia.

26. Empaoese..

27. Limangoen basa.

MAY lira, 1886..
FKANCIS GALTON, Esq., FiRSi, President, in the CJiair.

The Minutes of the last meeting were read and signed.

The following presents were announced, and thanks voted to
the respective donors : —

FOR THE LIBRARY..

From the GOVERNOR OF LAGOS. — Catalogue of Exhibits of the

Colony of Lagos, in.' the Colonial and Indian Exhibition,

1886.
From the ACADEMIA DE CIENCIAS ME"DICAS, HABANA. — Boletin de la

Sociedad Antropologica de la Isla de Cuba. Tom. I.

Nr. 1-6.
From the ARCKEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AGRAM. — Viestnik hrvatskoga

Arkeologickoga Druztva.. Godina VIII. Br. 2.
From the BERLIN GESELLSCHAFT FUR ANTHROPOLOGIE. — Zeitschrift

fur Ethnologic. 1886. Heft 1.

144 List of Presents.

Prom the DEUTSCHE GESELLSCHAFT FUR ANTHROPOLOGIE. — Corres-

pondenz-Blatt. 1886. Nr. 3.
From the LIBRARIAN OF THE MITCHELL LIBRARY, GLASGOW.— Report,

1885,
From the AUTHOR. — Die kiinstlicheii Schadelverbildungen ixn

Allgemeinen ; und Zwei kunstlich verbildete makrocephale

Schadel aus Ungarn ; sowie Ein Schadel aus der Barbarenzeifc

Ungarns. By Joseph von Lenhossek.
Die Ausgrabungen zu Szeged-Othalom in Ungarn. By Joseph

von Lenhossek.

Ancient and Modern Britons. By David MacRitchie.

Accounts of the Gypsies ,of India. By David MacRitchie.

- What is Consumption ? By G. W. Hambleton.

The Guesde Collection of Antiquities in Pointe-a-Pitre,

Guadeloupe, West Indies. By Otis T. Mason.
— Remarks on Indian Tribal Names. By W. J. Hoffman, M.D.

Note sur les Sacs Laryngiens des Singes Anthropoides. By

MM. Deniker and Boulart.

Les Cranes des Supplicies. By L. Manouvrier.

• Sopra alcuni cranii di negri conservati, nel Museo di Anatomia

Comparata della R. Universita di Napoli. By Michele
Centonze.

Sopra altri tre cranii Italo-Greci, uno dei quali plagiocefalo.

By Michele Centonze.

From the ACADEMY. — Atti della Reale Accademia dei Lincei. Vol.
II. Fas. 7, 8.

From the INSTITUTION. — Journal of the Royal United Service In-
stitution. No. 133.

From the SOCIETY. — Proceedings of the Royal Society. No. 242.

Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society. 1886. May.

Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 1885. Nos.

9,10.

Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. No. cclxvi.

- Journal of the Society of Arts. Nos. 1743-1746.

Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania.

1885.
VIII. Jahresbericht des Vereins fur Erdkunde zu Metz fur

1885.
Bulletin de la Societe Imperiale des Naturalistes de Moscou.

1885. Nos. 1, 2.
From the EDITOR.— Nature. Nos. 859-862.

Science. Nos. 165-167.

Materiaux potir L'Histoire de L'Homme. 1886. April.

Revue d'Anthropologie. 1886. April.

L'Homme. No. 5.

The PRESIDENT exhibited some cakes of Roman enamel
suitable for standards of colour to be used in anthropological
descriptions, and read the following notes on this subject : —

F. GALTON. — Notes on Permanent Colour Types in Mosaic. 145

NOTES on PERMANENT COLOUR TYPES in MOSAIC.
By F. GALTON, M.A., F.K.S., President.

DURING a brief stay in Eome, I recently made such inquiries
as I could, into the suitability of the material used in the
manufactory of mosaics, for affording permanent specimens of
standard colours for the description of tints of skin. The original
paintings by Broca, as well as the lithographs from them, have
already changed colour, and some more permanent standard is
needed; this I have little doubt, could be best obtained by
means of the material used for making mosaics. The general
result of what I am about to describe is that about a dozen
identical slabs should be made, each containing six small pieces
of mosaic material, lettered respectively, A, B, C, D, E, and F,
and severally brought into relation with corresponding tints on
Broca's scale. These slabs which need not be larger than letter-
weights, could be distributed among the existing Anthropological
Institutions and Museums, and would form practically un-
alterable standards of reference whence painted copies might
be made from time to time, as often as desired, for the use of
travellers.

The mosaic material is glass rendered opaque by oxides of tin
and lead, and is manufactured in flat cakes, circular or otherwise,
of usually about six inches in diameter, and a quarter of an inch
thick. Each cake is a hard vitreous mass, from which pieces
are chipped, of approximately the required shape, and which are
then ground on a lapidary's wheel to the exact size ; next they
are polished on the exposed side, and are afterwards cemented
into their proper places. Each cake is of uniform tint throughout,
except in rare cases where, possibly from over baking, I noticed
a rind of a lighter color. The material is inexpensive, costing
a very few shillings per pound weight. If I am not mistaken,
it is a very difficult matter to produce an exact tint to order.
The method employed appears to be to make a large number of
trial tints, and to sort and classify according to results.

There are upwards of forty thousand bins in the Vatican
manufactory, containing the proceeds of different attempts. Out
of these no less than 10,752 are classified ; they occupy 24 cases
in each of which are 16 rows of 28 samples. The flesh tints
appropriate to European nations (such as those which are found
in the second of the two pages of selections from Broca's tints,
which appear in the " Anthropological Notes and Queries ") are
about 500 in number. We may therefore conclude, that a
superabundance of material exists in the Vatican manufactory,
whence a series of standard tints, such as anthropologists desire,
admit of being selected.

146 F. G ALTON. — Notes on Permanent

There can be no question as to the persistence of the colours
of mosaic. I examined carefully some in St. Peter's that were
more than a century old, and was astonished at their freshness
throughout. They seemed to be brand-new. If the surface of
mosaic is dirty, it can be freely washed. If stained in any way,
the stain can be ground off. If the surface is roughened it can
be repolished.

M. Topinard informs me that as the original tints of Broca
have already changed colour, he is engaged in preparing a new
and much smaller series of only five or six tints, for hair-color
to serve as a fresh departure. These will of course be correlated
with Broca's numbers. I have written to M. Topinard, explain-
ing about the mosaics, and inviting him to send me the five or six
tints that he provisionally selects, in order that I may ascertain
how nearly they may be matched by existing mosaic material, and
I hope that if the difference is in no case considerable, it may be
found possible to make a compromise by adopting the mosaic
tints as the final standards. I would willingly charge myself
with the trouble and such small cost as there may be in obtain-
ing the mosaic material. At the same time I fear it is possible
from some former experience that an application to the Vatican
may not prove successful; that experience, which I may as
well put upon record is as follows :

Many years ago, having been much impressed by a visit to
the Vatican manufactory, and being equally impressed by the
then faulty nomenclature of colour, I wrote to the authorities at
South Kensington, suggesting that they should make application
to the Vatican for samples of their large collection of mosaic
material, and select therefrom a considerable scale of standard
tints. Also that a small and second selection from these tints
should be supplied to schools of art. This scheme, which I need
not now describe more minutely, was taken up by the South
Kensington authorities, and the late Lord Ampthill, then Mr.
Odo Eussell, our semi-official representative at the Papal Court,
was asked to inquire into the feasibility of bringing it into effect.
It was perfectly feasible in all respects save one, namely, that the
price asked by the Papal government was altogether excessive,
and so the matter dropped. Now, however, resulting not im-
probably from my then abortive suggestions, I find that such
samples are being produced. I saw one set in process of being
made.

If it should not be found easy to procure samples from the
manufactory in the Vatican, it may be possible to obtain them
from private dealers in mosaics, but after my inquiries at Koine,
I doubt if any of the private dealers possesses a collection of
tints comparable in variety and quantity to that in the Vatican,

Colour Types in Mosaic. 147

id it might prove difficult to obtain from them the exact tints
iat will be required. Anyhow, I propose to try what can be
done towards putting anthropologists in possession of standard
sets of permanent tints, and I shall of course communicate tl.e
results, if they prove favourable, to the Anthropological Institute.

DISCUSSION.

Mr. RUDLER exhibited some cakes of Roman and Venetian
enamels, and called attention to the permanence of tbeir colours.
The enamels may be regarded as opaque varieties of glass, consists
ing of various silicates, borates, and 'boro-silicates. The opacity
of an enamel is commonly obtained by the use of stannic oxide
(" putty powder," or binoxide of tin), which, being infusible, is
mechanically suspended in a finely comminated condition through
the substance of the glass, producing, if the vitrified base be
colourless, a dense white enamel. Colour is obtained by the use
of various metallic oxides, some of which remain suspended in the
vitreous vehicle, while others enter into chemical combination
with some of the constituents of the glassy flux and form metallic
silicates and borates. Many of the colours which are of interest
to anthropologists, such as the browns and reds, used to denote
tints of skin and hair, belong to the former class, being due to the
presence of peroxide of iron ; while the blue tints for eyes, being
furnished by the oxides of cobalt or of copper, belong to the latter
group. In either case the stability of the colours is beyond doubt,
fugitive pigments being quite unable to withstand 'the temperature
necessary for the fusion of the enamel.

Professor MELDOLA suggested that if, on account of expense or
other difficulties, it was not found convenient to get the mosaics
from abroad he had no doubt that some of our English manufac-
turers, such as Messrs. Doulton of JLambeth, might be found
willing to take the -matter up.

Professor FLOWER exhibited and described a skull from one
of the Nicobar Islands, and Mr. C. ROBERTS and Professor THA.NE
made some remarks upon the subject.

EXHIBITION of a NICOBARESE SKULL.

By Professor W. H. FLOWER, LL.D., F.R.S., P.Z.S., Vice-
President Anthrop. Inst.

PROFESSOR FLOWER exhibited a skull obtained by Mr. E. H".
Man on Nov. 19, 1885, in a native village ossuary in Teressa
Island (Nicobar) and presented by Mr. Man to the Zoological
Department of the British Museum.

148 W. H. FLOWER, — Exhibition of a Nicobarese Skull.

In reference to the specimen, Mr. Man observes in a letter
to Professor Flower, " the natives of that and certain other
islands of this group are in the habit of first burying their dead,
then, after six months or more, disinterring and cleaning the
bones (with the water of young cocoanuts ) and placing them for
twenty-four hours in the chief mourner's hut, after which 'they
are replaced in the same grave. This practice of disinterring
the bones is sometimes repeated two or three times, according to
the status of the deceased when alive, after which the remains
are conveyed to a certain spot in the jungle which may be
described as the village ossuary, as it is there that all the bones
of their dead have been from probably remote times deposited
and left to decay. This, I believe, is the first Nicobarese skull
yet sent to England, if not to Europe, which is due to the
jealous and superstitious regard paid by the people to their
dead, their dread ever being that any lack of respect to the
remains will enrage the departed spirit and ensure condign
punishment in the shape of sickness, death, or other misfortune,
to the offenders. And yet after the remains are disposed of in
their final resting place, no further notice of them is taken, the
spot itself being entirely neglected and uncared for."

The skull is that of a man, apparently past middle life,
although the only actual obliteration of suture is seen in the
lower end of the coronal. There are no teeth present in the upper
jaw, and the alveoli are very much absorbed, showing that many
of the teeth must have been lost, or at all events much loosened
during life. Complete sockets alone remain for the right incisors,
canine, and premolars. It is not impossible, however, that
rough usage of the skull after death may have had something
to do with this. In the lower jaw, sent with the skull, the two
posterior molars remain on both sides, and are well-formed,
white, and sound teeth. The third molar (wisdom tooth) is
on both sides (but especially the left) malplaced, being
tilted with its crown forwards, the upper surface resting against
the hinder surface of the preceding tooth. The rest of the
alveoli, except where they have been broken after death, are
complete, so that all the teeth must have been present. As the
condyles are both broken, it is difficult to be certain whether the
jaw belongs to the cranium, but as far as can be judged it fits
fairly well.

Though a small skull, it is heavy, dense, and thick- walled,
and probably that of a male ; the general surface is smooth, and
the ridges for muscular attachments not strongly marked. The
sagittal and coronal sutures are both simple; the lambdoidal
moderately complex, with a group of Wormian bones at each
asterion. The supra-occipital bone has a large piece of the

A. MACALISTER. — Notes on some South African Skeletons. 149

upper portion of the right side detached by a well-marked
clentated curved suture, running completely from the lambda to
the asterion.

The capacity of the cranium is 1259 cubic centimetres ; its
circumference 195 mm. The cranium is dolichocephalic ; length,
178 mm. ; breadth, 131 mm. ; index, 73'6 ; higher than broad ;
height, 134 mm. ; index, 75*3. The glabella is not strongly marked,
the face is broad and flat, with prominent malar bones ; bi-malar
width, 98 mm. ; naso-malar 104 mm. ; naso-malar index (Oldfield
Thomas), 1061. Inter-orbital width, 29 mm. Nasal bone, wide
and flat. Nasal height, 45 mm. ; width, 25 mm. ; index, 5 5 '5.
Orbits, small ; width, 34 mm. ; height, 29 mm.; index, 8 5 '3. Enough
alveolar margin remains to show that the jaw was prognathous,
the basi-nasal length being 100 mm., and the basi-alveolar at
least 103 mm.

As a detailed description of a single skull would be of little-
value, it will suffice to say that the general aspect of the face
agrees with that of the photographs and descriptions given by
Mr. Man of the Nicobarese, a people having strong Malayan
affinities. The length of the skull in proportion to its width
is rather greater than might be expected, but it is well known
that among Malays there is great difference in this respect.

Professor THANE read the following note, in the absence of the
author : —

NOTES on some SOUTH AFRICAN SKELETONS.
By Professor A. MACALISTER, F.E.S.

SOME time ago I received from my former pupil, Dr. Gorman,
five skulls, and one complete and several partial skeletons from
South Africa. These he dug up in a cave at Plettenberg Bay,
near Kaysma. The cave had been a dwelling, as in it were two fire
places, and a vast quantity of shells lay about one of them, while
around the other there were rows of graves. Dr. Gorman
thought that probably this might indicate that the sick and infirm
were sent to the smaller fire, and buried as they died in graves of
a foot or so in depth. They were buried as they died, on their
side, with their heads on their knees, and their hands beside the
head.

Dr. Gorman noticed particularly that in several of the
skeletons the last lumbar vertebra was ankylosed to the sacrum,
arid that the sterna were often perforate.

The skeleton was that of a man of 146 cm. in height, with
strongly pilastered femora and platycnemic tibiae. One knee had

VOL. XVI. M

150 A. MACALISTER. — Notes on a Skull from New Ireland.

been the subject of articular disease, and was ankylosed in a
bent position. The pelvis was dolicho-pellic and dolicho-hieric.
The ossa innominata singularly small, and the scapulae particu-
larly oblique.

The skull measurements were as follows : —

Length. .

182

170

182

Breadth

137

135

143

Height ..

129

124

J25

Breadth index .

753

794

786

Height index .

709

729

687

Basi-nasal lengt

Basi-alveolar len
Alveolar index .

gth

88
946

92
1022

96
1067

Orbital height .

Orbital width .

Orbital index .

800

718

700

Nasal height .

Nasal breadth .

Nasal index

605

537

658

Capacity

1365

1175

1495

4
183

176

The teeth were very much worn, the last molars small, the
palate wide, not very deep. The posterior nares short and
oblique. The skulls all showed a tendency to synostosis ; the
nasals were small, flat, irregular. The mandibles had particularly
low rami and slight chin projections, in No. 2 the maximum
height of the ramus was 43 mm. The femoral index was 135,
the scapular 860.

The skulls thus agree with the ordinary Bushman skull in
most respects being microseme, platyrhine, tapeinocephalic, mesa-
ticephalic. No. 1 is orthognathous, Nos. 2 and 3 are prognathous.
No. 3 is megacephalic, while No. 1 is meso-, and 2 is micro-
cephalic.

NOTES on a SKULL from NEW IRELAND.
By Professor MACALISTER, F.RS.

THE Anatomical Museum of Cambridge has received from Dr.
F. 0. Hodson this interesting skull from New Ireland. Dr.
Hodson, writing to Professor Humphry states that these men
are cannibals. " Twenty of them ran away from a plantation in
Mackay, N.Q., and made a camp on the top of ' Blackfellow's
Mountain,' where they decoy, kill, and eat other Polynesians or
Kanakas. This man was about live feet seven inches in height,
slim, and died of dysentery in the Mackay Polynesian Hospital ;
colour, dark copper ; habits, very savage."

The skull is markedly hypsi-stenocephalic (Davis), and micro-
cephalic; the capacity 1347 c.c., with a breadth index of 689, and

A. MACALISTER. — Notes on a Skull from New Ireland. 151

a height index of 733. It is prognathous (alveolar index 1031)
megaseme (orb. index 927), leptorhine (nasal index 429). In
these last two characters it differs from the majority of the
skulls of neighbouring islanders, the average Fijian being
platyrhine and mesoseme.

Of other characters noticeable in this skull, the principal are
simplicity of the sutures; one Wormian bone in the sagittal
suture below the obelion ; several in the lambdoidal ; the left
half of the squama occipitis being formed of a Wormian bone.
The foramen magnum is large, with a double lip in front, and
the condyles are small, the articular cartilage spreading to
the jugular process. The left jugular and posterior condyloid
foramina are small, while those on the right are large. The
mastoid processes are small. The auditory meatus is thin-
edged and shallow. There is a spheno-maxillary suture on
both sides, excluding the malar from the spheno-maxillary
fissure, and a ptery go-maxillary contact of the sphenoid and
maxilla, the palate bone not intervening.

The lachrymal bone has an enormous and monkey -like
hamulus 5 mm. in depth on the right side, and there is an
ossiculum naso-lachrymalis.

The teeth are large, complexly tubercled, very little worn.
The palate measures 53 from the alveolar point to the nasal
spine, and 60 transversely outside the widest part of the alveoli,
the last molar has three separate fangs, and is a large tooth,
measuring 9 in antero-posterior, and 12 in transverse diameter.

Measurements in Millimetres. — Length 180; breadth 124;
height 132 ; basi-nasal line 96 ; basi-alveolar 99 ; orbital height
38 ; orbital width 41 ; nasal breadth 21 ; nasal height 49.
Capacity 1347 c.cm.

Dr. J. G. GARSON read a paper on " The International Agree-
ment on the Cephalic Index," upon which Professor FLOWER
and Professor THANE made some remarks. This paper has been
printed in the last number of the Journal of the Anthropological
Institute, p. 17.

MAY 25TH, 1886.
FRANCIS GALTON, ESQ., President, in the CJiair.

The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and signed.

The following presents were announced, and thanks voted to
the respective donors.

M 2

152 List of Presents.

FOR THE LIBRARY.

From the SECRETARY OF STATE, GUATEMALA. — Infonne de la Oficina

de Estadistica, 1885.
From ihe UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. — Bulletin, Nos.

15-23.
From the DEUTSCHE GESELLSCHAFT FUR ANTHROPOLOGIE. — Corres-

pondenz-Blatt. 1886. No. 4.
From the AUTHOR. On the Site of the New Admiralty and War

Offices, Whitehall. By E. C. Robins, F.S.A.
Neue Beitrage zur Anthropologie der Juden. By Constantin

Ikow.
From the ROYAL ARCHJIOLOGICAL INSTITUTE. — The Archaeological

Journal. No. 169.
From the BATAVIAASCHE GENOOTSCHAP VAN KUNSTEN EN WETEN-

SCHAPPEN. — Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land-, en Volken-

kunde- Deel xxxi. An. 1 en 2 (Eerste Helft).
From the K. AKADEMIE VAN WETENSCHAPPEN, AMSTERDAM. Jaar-

boek. 1884. Verslagen en Mededeelingren : Reeks iii.

Deel 1.
From the ACADEMY. — Atti della R, Accademia dei Lincei. Vol. II.

Fas. 9.
Boletin de la Academia Nacional de Ciencias en Cordoba. Tom.

viii. Entr. 2, 3.
Bulletin de 1' Academic Imperiale des Sciences de St. Peters-

bourg. Tom. xxxi. No. 1.
From the ASSOCIATION. — Transactions of the National Association

for the Promotion of Social Science. 1885.
From the SOCIETY. — Bulletins de la Societe d' Anthropologie de

Paris. 1886. Fas. 1.

Journal of the Society of Arts. Nos. 1747, 1748.

Yierundzwanzigster Bericht der Oberhessischen Gesellschaft

fur Natur-und Heilkunde.
From the EDITOR.— Nature. Nos. 863, 864.

Science. Nos. 169, 170.

— The Photographic Times. Nos. 241-243.

L'Homme. No. 6.

Bullettino di Paletnologia Italiana. Tom. ii. N. 3, 4.

MR. REGINALD STUART POOLE, LL.D., D.C.L., Univ. South, of
the British Museum, gave an address " On the Egyptian Classi-
fication of the Races of Man." The lecture was illustrated by
two plates in lieu of diagrams, showing twelve typical represen-
tations.*

* These plates will be published, with the fall text of the address and the
discussion, in a future number.

R S. POOLE. — Egyptian Ethnology. 153

These representations were taken from monuments dating
from about B.C. 1400 to 1200. In considering them we must
remember three leading characteristics of Egyptian art :

(1) That in reliefs and frescoes the eye was represented full
face, and therefore we have to make allowance for this
peculiarity in our attempt to define the types. This done,
and the comparison made with sculptures in the round, of
which we had examples of some leading types, we found

(2) Remarkable naturalness and force of character, reminding
us of early Italian sculpture, leading to

(3) Love of caricature in its portrayal of hostile nations, for
which again allowance must be made.

The first representations described were taken from the famous
scene of the " Four Races of Man " in the tombs of the Kings
at Thebes. These races, characterised by marked difference of
type and colour, were (a) the Egyptians, or Red skins ; (b) the
Shemites, or Yellow skins ; (c) the Negroes, or Blacks ; (d) the
Northerners, or White men.

The Egyptian race we find by comparison of representations to
comprise the people of Southern Arabia and the opposite coast
of Africa, as well as the Phoenicians. The Sheinite type is
practically unvaried.

The type of the Northerners in representations of the enemies
of the Egyptians who occupied Libya and certain Islands in the
Mediterranean, shows a variety marked by very strong super-
orbital ridges and a retiring forehead, and probably depicts the
oldest European race, as Professor Flower afterwards observed ;
another variety was well characterized by M. Bertin as Armenian.

The Negro race is represented in the pure Negro, and what
may be called the Nubian variety. It has not yet been possible
to class the Shepherds or Hvksos and the Hittites. The type of
the Hyksos was illustrated by a lithograph of one of the famous
sphinxes from Zoan, in which Professor Flower in unconscious
coincidence with other men of science immediately recognised
striking Mongolian qualities.

The Hittite race could not as- yet be classed, probably because
the armies of the confederacies headed by this nation were
drawn from various races including Tatars. Mr. Poole im-
pressed upon the Institute the importance, before it was too
late, of obtaining photographic copies of the Egyptian represen-
tations of the races of man, the most interesting and characteristic
in all ancient art.

154 List of Presents.

JUNE STH, 1886.

FRANCIS GALTON, Esq., F.R.S,, President, in the Chair.

The Minutes of the last ordinary meeting were read and
signed.

The election of JOSEPH J. MOONEY, Esq., of Star, South
Molton, Devon, was announced.

The following presents were announced, and thanks voted to
the respective donors : —

FOR THE LIBRARY.

From Dr. O. FINSCH. — Die ethnologische Ausstellung der Neu-
Guinea-Compagnie im Konigl. Museum f iir Volkerkunde.

Catalog II. der ethnologischen Sammlung der New Guinea

Compagnie ausgestellt im Kgl. Museum fur Volkerkunde.

Ueber die ethnologischen Sammlungen aus der Siidsee. Yon

Dr. 0. Finsch.

From the AUTHOR. — Tombe della Cattabrega presso Crescenzago.
By P. Castelfranco.

L' Amour dans 1'Humanite, essai d'une ethnologie de 1'amour.

By Professor P. Mantegazza.

From the BERLIN GESELLSGHAFT FUR ANTHROPOLOGIE. — Zeitschrift
fur Ethnologie. 1886. Heft 2.

From the DEUTSCHE GESELLSCHAFT FUR ANTHROPOLOGIE. — Corres-
pondenz-Blatt. 1886. May.

From the SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES. — Archeeologia. Vol. xlix.

From the SOCIET!. ITALIANA DI ANTROPOLOGIA. — Archivio per
1'Antropologia e la Etnologia. Vol. xvi. Fas. 1.

From the MAGYAR TUDOMANYOS AKADEMIA, BUDAPEST. — Almanach,
1885 ; Nyelvtudomanyi Ertekezesek, xii., 1-5 ; Nyelvemlektar,
vol. xL xii. ; Nyelvtudomanyi Kozlemenyek, xviii, 2, 3, xix, 1 ;
Tortenettudomanyi ertekezesek, xii. 1, 2, 4 ; Tarsadalmi Erte-
kezesek, vii, 1-9 ; Bolcseszeti ertekezesek, ii, 1-7 ; Nemzet-
gazdasagi ertekezesek, ii, 1-6 ; Szilagyi, Bethlen es a sved
diplomatia; Vecsey, Aemilius Papinianus; Pech, Alsd-Mag-
yarorszag banyamivelesenek tortenete, vol. i ; Corpus Statu-
torum I ; Vazlatok az Akademia felszazados tortenetebol ;
Ungarische Eevue, 1881, 5-12; 1882, 1-10; 1883, 1-10;
1884, 1-10 ; 1885, 1-7 ; Bulletin, i, ii, iii ; Naturwissenschaft-
liche Berichte, vol. ii.

From the ACADEMY. — Atti della R. Accademia dei Lincei. Yol. II,
Fas. 10, 11.

From the SOCIETY. — Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society.
1886. June.

Journal of the Society of Arts. Nos. 1749-1750.

A. W. BUCKLAND. — On American Shell-work. 155

From the SOCIETY. — Scientific Transactions of the Royal Dublin
Society. Vol. iii, 7-10 ; vol. iv, 7-9 ; vol. v, 1, 2.
- Bulletin de la Societe Neuchateloise de Geographic.
Tom. I.

From the EDITOR.— Nature. Nos. 865, 866.
- Science. Nos. 172, 173.

American Antiquarian. Vol. viii, 3.

Photographic Times. Nos. 244, 245.

Eevue d'Ethnographie. 1886. 2.

— Materiaux pour 1'Histoire de 1'Homme, 1886. May.

L'Homme. 1886. No. 7.

• Annalen des K. K. Naturhistorischen Hof museums. Band i.

Nr. 2.

T The PRESIDENT announced that arrangements having been
made for holding a series of meetings in the Conference Hall
of the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, the Ordinary meeting on
June 22nd would not be held.

MR. C. H. BEAD, F.S.A., read a paper on the Ethnological
Exhibits in the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, upon which, the
President made some remarks. This paper will be published
in the next number of the Journal of the Anthropological
Institute.

Miss BUCKLAND read the following paper : —

On AMERICAN SHELL-WORK and ITS AFFINITIES.
By A. W. BUCKLAND.

I WISH to call the attention of anthropologists to the very re-
markable works in shell, obtained chiefly from mounds in many
of the States of North America (Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee,
Arkansas, Alabama, Virginia, Florida, Georgia, New York, Cali-
fornia, &c., &c.), which do not appear to have any counterparts
in Europe, but which seem to me traceable across the islands of
the Pacific, and perhaps to Japan. In a most interesting and
instructive paper on this subject in the " Second Annual Report
of the Bureau of Ethnology," published by the Smithsonian
Institute, Mr. W. H. Holmes observes : " In a broad region at
one time occupied by the mound-building tribes, we observe a
peculiar and an original effort — an art distinctive in the material
employed, in the forms developed, and to some extent in the
ideas represented. It is an age of shell, a sort of supplement
tq the age .of stone." He then proceeds to show that the
American Indians, even to the time of the Spanish Conquest,
employed shell in conjunction with flint and obsidian, not only

156 A. W. BUCKLANB. — On American SMI-work

as knives or scrapers, but as celts, clubs, agricultural imple-
ments, fish-hooks, and sinkers, as well as manufacturing it into
pins, beads, necklaces, earrings, gorgets, and other personal
adornments. In fact, shell in America seems to have taken the
place of bone, amber, and jet, as used in Europe, and to have
supplemented stone for weapons, wherever, as on the southern
coast, that useful commodity was scarce, but it would also
appear to have become so favourite a material, that it was
carried for hundreds of miles inland, and must have formed, both
in the raw and manufactured state, a most important article of
commerce at a very remote period.

Shells of small size, perforated and polished, have been
almost universally employed as ornaments, and beads cut from
shells are also found very widely distributed in graves of a pre-
historic age, not only in America but in Europe ; but in the
manufacture of shell beads of all forms and sizes, America stands
pre-eminent, uses having been devised for them which have made
them valuable, both as money and as historical records. How
far the pre-historic races of America made use of beads as
currency cannot now be known, but it is certain that the early
European writers on America all speak of their use as money,
and the great number found in ancient grave-mounds, makes it
probable that even in remote times they possessed a certain
monetary value. Wampum, so well known by name, and which
in modern times has played so important a part in American
history, consists entirely of beads, made with great labour from
shells, ground and perforated, formerly by stone implements,
but now by metal awls, the beads, purple and white, thus formed,
being strung together in different patterns, so as to denote
various events. Simple strings of wampum have been used
from time immemorial as money, their use as such being de-
scribed by all the early writers, but their development into his-
toric records is probably more modern. It is, however, impos-
sible to enter upon the history and uses of wampum, but whilst
speaking of beads, I must refer to a form, apparently peculiar to
America and called Euntees, described by Schoolcraft1 as consist-
ing of a " circular piece of flat shell from one and a-half to two
inches in diameter, quartered with double lines, having the de-
vices of dots between them, and being doubly perforated in the
plane of the circle."

It is, however, to the ornaments called gorgets that I
wish particularly to call attention. These gorgets consist of
plates of shell having holes bored for suspension, being also
elaborately carved and ornamented ; the ornamentation being
generally of such a character as to denote some sacred and
1 History of Indian Tribes, vol. III., p. 79.

and its Affinities. 157

Tnbolic meaning. Among the ornaments thus engraved the
in various forms is conspicuous, but there is another often-

icurring method of ornamentation to which Mr. Holmes
attaches great importance, and of which I give an enlarged
drawing.1 The three central spirals, the band of double circles
with dots in the centre, and the outer scalloped edge are all
repeated over and over again, although with variations as re-
gards the number of circles and the direction of the spirals. Of
these Mr. Holmes writes : " The student will hardly fail to notice
the resemblance of these disks to the calendars or time symbols
of Mexico and other southern nations of antiquity. There is,
however, no absolute identity with southern examples. The
involute design in the centre resembles the Aztec symbol of
day, but is peculiar in its division into three parts, four being
the number almost universally used. The only division into
three that I have noticed occurs in the calendar of the Muyscas,
in which three days constitute a week. The circlets and bosses
of the outer zones gives them a pretty close resemblance to the
month and year zones of the southern calendars."

Curiously enough, we find this same design somewhat modi-
fied on the great drum from Japan exhibited in the Inventions
Exhibition at South Kensington last year, of which I give a
drawing from a hasty sketch. In it may be seen the same
spirals, three in number, although turned in the contrary direc-
tion to those on most of the shell gorgets from America ; never-
theless, there are examples there also of the curve to the right
instead of the reverse ; then there is the plain zone which in
the Japanese drum is divided, and painted with the three ele-
mental colours, red, green and blue ; beyond this, we get the
]3alls or circles, but much more numerous than in the shell
gorgets, and each containing the same ornament as in the
Centre ; and beyond that the scalloped border. The design has
evidently a meaning, and that it is one connected with the sun,
is evidenced not only by the gilt centre and the trisekle2 which
is known to be a sun symbol, but also by the gilt sphere with
surrounding rays above. The background of this gigantic drum I
had not time to sketch, but it consists of the great sacred dragon,
surmounted by an ornament which doubtless symbolizes flames.

Turning to another design frequently represented on these
shell gorgets, we find a strong similarity to engraved shell orna-
ments from the Admiralty and Solomon Islands, in the British

1 The drawings referred to here and in other portions of this paper were in the
form of diagrams and have not been reproduced, but some of these designs may
be seen in the plates illustrating Mr. Holmes' s article in the Second Annual Report
of the Bureau of Ethnology, in the library of the Institute, and in the exhibits
from the Solomon and Admiralty Islands in the British Museum.

2 This same figure is found also in, wood carvings in Scotland, see Dr.
Munro's book.

158 A. W. BUCKLAND. — On American Shell-work

Museum, It may be observed that the inhabitants of the
Pacific Islands seem particularly expert in the manufacture of
shell beads, ornaments and weapons ; that they still use celts of
shell, like the ancient examples from America, and with them
knives, &c., of obsidian. They have also developed, especially
in the Admiralty Group, the art of carving very delicately in
tortoiseshell, and laying plates thus carved upon plain disks of
shell, but they have in addition to these, engraved shell disks,
the pattern being painted black. One of these, I believe from
the Solomon Islands, I reproduce somewhat roughly, and I
counted seven in the same case, all bearing nearly the same de-
sign, in which the three birds' heads form constantly a con-
spicuous feature ; it seems evident, therefore, that the bird has a
sacred and symbolic meaning in these islands as among the
ancient Americans, and its reproduction in this manner upon
similar shell disks, which are worn either as breast-plates or on
the front of the head, is a curious and significant fact not easily
to be accounted for as independent inventions. The American
examples were doubtless worn in the same manner, as they are
each bored with two holes for suspension. Among the American
gorgets we find, in addition to the birds, many curious and
elaborate designs, in several of which the human form is intro-
duced, reproducing almost exactly the characteristic Mexican
type; one very highly-finished specimen has an engraving of
two human figures with wings and birds' claws, in others the
human figure is conventionalised and distorted in a most ex-
traordinary manner, and the same may be said of the rattle-
snake which is very frequently depicted, but is often only to be
distinguished by the characteristic rattle. The spider also is
represented generally with a cross on the back, but the most
curious form is that which is supposed to have been a mask,
upon which the features of the human face are rudely carved.
The use of masks is almost universal, and everywhere among
savages or barbarous races they are used in religious ceremonies
and very frequently as a covering for the face of the dead, the
object being disguise or concealment from an evil spirit.
These American shell masks are however, I believe, unique,
and I wish to draw particular attention to the diagonal lines
which would appear to be tattoo marks, and which strongly
resemble those on masks from some of the South Sea Islands.1

The nearest approach to these shell masks is seen in an
elaborate mourning dress from Hawaii in the British Museum,

1 It is of interest to observe that among the figures of aborigines in the Indian
section of the Colonial and Indian Exhibition is one of a Hill Naga, who not
only wears necklaces and armlets of shell of the American pattern, but whose
face is tattooed in diagonal lines, like the masks here referred to.

and its Affinities. 159

where the face is covered with shells forming a mask, and the
breast is likewise covered with shell disks resembling those
from America but not engraved. The American masks are
very massive, cut from large univalve shells, the size being
about seven inches by six.

There is one very important point to be noticed with regard
to these works in shell ; quoting from Mr. Holmes : " Within
the United States ancient tablets containing engraved designs
are apparently confined to the Atlantic slope, and are not found
to any extent beyond the limits of the district occupied by the
stone-grave peoples. Early explorers along the Atlantic coast
mention the use of engraved gorgets by a number of tribes.
Modern examples may be found occasionally among the Indians
of the north-west coast, as well as upon the islands of the
Central Pacific." And yet the designs engraved upon many of
them are so distinctly Mexican in character, that he adds, speak-
ing of the gorget from Missouri, " It represents a sacrificial scene
and has many parallels on the paintings and sculptures of the
south, whereas no such design is known in the art of any
nation north of Mexico. It thus appears obvious that both the
material and the designs for these elaborate works in shell must
have been brought from immense distances, indicating wide and
extensive inland intercommunication or migration, whilst the
discovery of these works of art in the graves of the mound-
builders, gives to this commerce or migration at least a consider-
able antiquity. The paintings of Mexico, and the sculptures of
Central America, would seem to show that shell ornaments like
those described were once common there. The scarf of the
priest in the famous Palenque Sculpture is apparently a Euntee,
upon which a cross is engraved, and a Mexican necklace appears
to contain a shell mask like those of the mounds. I believe
many of these things might be traced also to Peru, whilst they
were certainly in use among the Indians at the time of the
Spanish Conquest. Mr. Holmes, quoting from Davis's " Spanish
Conquest of New Mexico," says : " In travelling north along the
west coast of Mexico, the Friar Niza encountered Indians who
wore many large shells of mother-of-pearl about their necks,
and farther up towards Cibola, the inhabitants wore pearl shells
upon their foreheads ; l and Cabeca de Vaca, when among the
pueblos of New Mexico, noticed beads and corals that came
from the ' South Sea/ "

By the South Sea Davis may perhaps have meant the Gulf of
Mexico, but there are so many things in common between the
islands of the Pacific and the ancient inhabitants of North

1 Note a similar mode of wearing them among the Admiralty Islanders, Mr.
Moseley's paper, Journ. Anthro. Inst. May, 1877.

160 A. W. BUCKLAND. —On American Shell-work

America that we are tempted to believe that the commerce
which apparently extended from Mexico in the south to both
coasts of the American continent, must also have been carried
across the Pacific to Japan prior to the Spanish Conquest. Not
only do the shell ornaments which I have described appear to
be reproduced in form, and to a certain extent in ornamentation
among several groups of islands in the Pacific, particularly in
the Admiralty and Solomon Islands, but the shell implements
and weapons in use there, are also similar to those found in the
mounds of Tennessee and other States of North America. The
nose pins adorned with shells now in use in the Admiralty
Islands, are apparently similar to those worn in ancient Mexico,
and which are still worn among the Indians of the north-west.
Wampum is also in use in some of these islands, made of beads
exactly like the American, being cut from shell, ground and per-
forated with much labour, although European beads must now
be easily procurable. These beads are also threaded in patterns
like the American, and a bracelet was exhibited by Lady
Brassey at a meeting of the Anthropological Institute last year,
to which was attached threads of beads. Dr. Guppy, who had
lately returned from these islands, described these strings of
beads as used not only as money, but as denoting certain things,
which is evidently an approach to the American use of
wampum.1

We are not of course bound to believe that direct communi-
cation existed between the American coast and the Admiralty
Islands, although we must bear in mind the fact recorded by the
Spanish navigator, that he saw a Peruvian vessel with sails
set, far out at sea laden with merchandise. It is impossible
to suppose that this vessel started on a haphazard expedition, or
that it was the only one of its kind. We are not told what
were the articles of merchandise thus transported, but doubt-
less beads and shell ornaments were among them, and even if
Easter Island was the point aimed at, it is both possible and
probable that compassless vessels sometimes wandered or were
driven by storms to other islands of the Pacific, and hence the
merchandise, or copies of it, may have been distributed from
island to island, and have thus become general.

In connection with this subject, I would wish to call attention
to two statements of Prof. Moseley in the interesting paper read
by him at the Anthropological Institute some years ago,2 on the
inhabitants of the Admiralty Islands. The first is the occurrence,
at Humboldt Bay, of one in every 15 or 20 of the inhabitants of

1 Massive shell bracelets with strings of beads attached may also be seen among
the exhibits from New G-uinea, in the Colonial and Indian Exhibition.

2 Anthro. Journal, May, 1877.

and its Affinities. 161

an arched Jewish nose with dependent tip, which I would
suggest may possibly be rather the American than the Jewish
type: the other is, that some of the men, particularly those
supposed to be priests, are accustomed to blacken portions of
their bodies, apparently with a religious meaning, with which I
would compare some of the Mexican paintings, in which the
priests or executioners are constantly painted black.

These are only a few out of many resemblances which might
be traced, but they must suffice for the present. Dr. Tylor has
pointed out many similarities between the arts, the calendars,
and the games of Japan and Mexico, and believes in an inter-
course, although not necessarily of very ancient date, between
Mexico and the East It, however, seems to me probable, from
the shell ornaments I have so imperfectly described, that that
intercourse may be traced across the islands of the Pacific,
subsisting during the era of the mound-builders, and continuing
to the time of the Spanish Conquest. Those who consider such
an intercourse at so early a period impossible will say — If it
existed we should find other and more marked traces of it. To
this I would reply that I believe other traces may be found if
searched for, but that it is precisely by such relics as those
described that past commercial relations between distant lands
can be traced. Could all intercourse between Europe, Asia,
and the islands of the Pacific be now suspended for three or four
centuries, what traces of our present extensive commerce would
be found in those remote lands at the end of that period, beyond
a few beads, some disjointed religious beliefs, perhaps a word or
two of English, some puzzling ethnic peculiarities, and feeble
traces of European architecture and agriculture ? How, therefore,
can we expect to find more definite traces of an intercourse
which must necessarily have been less frequent in times less
civilized, and when navigation was yet in its infancy ?

Since writing the above, I have been favoured with a copy of
the Third Annual Eeport of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washing-
ton, and find in it, amongst other important matter, a most
interesting article by Mr. William Healey Ball, on "Masks,
Labrets, and certain Aboriginal Customs, with an inquiry into
the bearing of their Geographical Distribution."

I have long been impressed with the great anthropological
significance of the use and distribution of masks, and have con-
templated the possibility of studying the subject, in order to
bring it before the Institute ; it is therefore peculiarly gratifying
to me to find that Mr. Dall, in his very elaborate article corro-
borates the views I have formulated in this paper, and in that
read by me before the Institute last year, as to a pre-historic
intercourse between the South Sea Islands and the western

162 A. W. BUCKLAND.— On American Shell-work

coasts of North and South America, although he traces that
intercourse to instead of from America. I, however, presume to
think that it will eventually be found to have existed in both
directions.

As Mr. Ball's article bears so much upon the subject of this
paper, I may perhaps be allowed to quote from the summary.

" There can be no doubt," says Mr. Dall, " that America was
populated in some way by people of an extremely low grade of
culture at a period even geologically remote. There is no reason
for supposing, however, that immigration ceased with these
original people. Analogy would suggest that from time to time
accessions were received from other regions, of people who had
risen somewhat in the scale elsewhere, while the inchoate
American population had been doing the same thing on their
own ground. Be this as it may, we find certain remarkable
customs or characteristics geographically spread north and south,
along the western slope of the Continent, in a natural line of
migration, with overflows eastward in convenient localities.
These are not primitive customs, but things which appertain
to a point considerably above the lowest scale of development
in culture/' Mr. Dall then goes on to speak of customs and
myths, adding " If these were of natural American growth, stages
in development out of a uniform state of culture, it might fairly
be expected that we should find them either sporadically dis-
tributed without order or relation, as between family and family,
wherever a certain stage of culture had been reached, or distri-
buted in certain families, wherever their branches were to be
found. This we do not find."

"The only alternative which occurs to me is that these
features have been impressed upon the American aboriginal
world from without. If so, from whence ? " Dismissing northern
Asia and Europe as giving no help in the matter, Mr. Dall turns
to Polynesia and Melanesia, pointing out that from the last of
the chain of islands stretching across the Pacific, it is but a step
comparatively, swept by the northerly current, to the Peruvian
coast. "We observe also that these islands lie south from the
westerly south-equatorial current, in the slack water between
it and an easterly current, and in a region of winds blowing
towards the east." He then goes on to say, " The instances, &c.,
I have called attention to, are particularly the use of masks and
carvings to a more than ordinary degree, labretifery, human
head preserving, identity of myths . . . ."

" In Melanesia we find carved figures of a peculiar sort used
in religious rites, or with a religious significance, and strangely
enough, two or more figures in a peculiar and unaccustomed

and its Affinities. 163

attitude, especially devoted to these purposes.1 Again, in Central
America and Mexico we meet the same attitude, and again on
the rattle in the hand of the shaman on the north-west coast,
and in the carvings on his head-dress, and by his door."

He then goes on to point out a variety of customs and myths
in the South Seas, similar to those in America, and, whilst
deprecating any idea of a common origin, says, " But from
my point of view, these influences have been impressed upon
people already developed to a certain, not very low degree of
culture."

" Of course this influence has not been exerted without contact.
My own hypothesis is that it was an incursion from Melanesia,
via south-eastern Polynesia, which produced the impact, perhaps
more than one. In all probability too, it occurred before either
Melanesian, Polynesian, or American had acquired his present
state of culture, or his present geographical distribution."

The impulse communicated at one point might be ages in
spreading, when it would probably be generally diffused in all
directions ; or more rapidly, when it would probably follow the
lines of least resistance and most rapid intercommunication.

" The mathematical probability of such an interwoven chain
of custom and belief being sporadic and fortuitous, is so nearly
infinitesimal as to lay the burden of proof upon the upholders of
the latter proposition

"It has to me the appearance of an impulse communicated by
the gradual incursion of a vigorous, masterful people upon a
region already partly peopled by weaker and receptive races,
whose branches, away from the scene of progressive disturbance,
remained unaffected by the characteristics resulting from the
impact of the invader upon their relatives."

I would gladly quote more from this very instructive article,
but must content myself with commending it, with the article
by Mr. Holmes on " Art in Shell," in the second volume of the
Eeports of the Bureau of Ethnology, to all who are interested in
tracing the pre-historic movements of ancient races.

DISCUSSION.

Mr. WALHOUSE remarked that during his residence in Southern
India he did not remember shells being used in dress or decoration,
although he had upon more than one occasion found a number of

1 The carved figures here referred to may be traced to New Zealand, as may
be seen in the New Zealand Court in the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, where
also may be noticed another peculiarity common to the Maories and the North
American Indians, which is, that in both countries the women are tattooed only
on the chin or round the mouth, and I am told that in New Zealand these tattoo
marks are only done after marriage, but I do not know whether that is the case
also in America.

164 C. W. ROSSET. — On the Maldive Islands,

small sea-shells of the genus Valuta in pre-historic graves, which
had evidently been strung and used as necklaces, and this at
localities far distant from the sea. The chank shell, bored and
adapted for blowing as a trumpet, is however very generally used
in temples and in households, not only in India, but in Japan and
China too, to announce religious observances. Now and then a
chank is found with the whorls turning the reverse way to the
ordinary variety. Such a specimen is highly prized, regarded as a
magical and fortunate possession, and often presented as a special
gift to wealthy and distinguished personages. The chank is a
distinguishing attribute of the god Vishnu, who holds it in one
of his hands.

The SECRETARY read the following paper, which was illustrated
by a large collection of objects of ethnological interest exhibited
by the Author : —

On the MALDIVE ISLANDS, more especially treating of

ATOL.

By C. W. EOSSET, Esq.

THE Maldive Islands are situated in the Indian Ocean, and
occupy a space of about 470 miles north to south, and 70 miles
from east to west, extending between latitude 7° 6' N., and
0° 42' S., and between longitude 72° 33' and 73° 44' E. The
group contains upwards of 12,000 islands, which lie in clusters
called Atols, of which there are more than twenty; but the
Maldivians divide them for political purposes into thirteen atols.
The King's or Sultan's Island is situated in Male Atol, which is
also the nearest to Ceylon, from which it is distant about 400
miles; while the most northerly Atol, Ihavandifolo Atol, is
distant about 350 miles from Cape Comorin, the southern-most
point of India.

The islands of Male Atol are of coral growth, though I also
found several pieces of lava rock and pumice stone on the shores.
From what I was able to gather from the natives, these stones
have only been found during the last few years, and it is. there-
fore, more than probable that they came from Java after the
great eruption of Krakatao.

There are no watercourses in Male* ; water is obtained from
wells, and is mostly brackish and unwholesome. Male is very
unhealthy in the hot season, during the N.E. monsoon, as the
sea water in the lagoons becomes rapidly fetid under the action
of the powerful sun, and emits a pestilential stench. During the
S.W. monsoon, however, the waves break over the coral reefs

more especially treating of Male Atol. 165

surrounding the lagoons, thus renewing the confined water con-
tinually.

The first accounts we have of the Maldive Islands appeared
about the years 1343-4, in a work by an Arab traveller named
Ibn Batiila. In 1602-1607 appeared the description of Francois
Pyrand de Laval, who made a long sojourn in the islands ; and
later we have the accounts of Captain Moresby and Lieutenants
Christopher, Powel and Young, who surveyed the group in
1834-36. In 1883 H. C. P. Bell, Esq., of the Ceylon Civil
Service, visited the islands, and embodied the result of his
observations in an elaborate and exhaustive treatise, which was
printed by the Ceylon Government.

The islands, however, must be still considered practically a
terra incognita to Europeans, as with the exception of Francois
Pyrand de Laval, no European has, so far, made any prolonged
stay there, the climate of which has always been considered as
dangerously unhealthy.

For this reason I determined to visit the islands after com-
pleting my labours among the Veddas of Ceylon, and become
acquainted with the people; not doubting that I should find
much that was interesting : the result so far has fully justified
my expectations.

My intention at first was to make a complete ethnographical,
zoological, and botanical collection, also to obtain photographs
of the inhabitants, places, and objects of interest ; with a view
to publishing a book on the Maldives. I was unable to carry
out my plans entirely on this first visit; the Sultan of the
Maldives, being suspicious as to the object of my journey, refused
to allow me to quit the Male* Atol, in which the King's or
Sultan's island lies. He could not understand that a European
would pitch his tent among his people for some months for the
purpose of collecting arms, earthenware jars, knives, cloths, tools,
fish, shells, animals, snakes, birds, butterflies, &c., &c., and
imagined this to be simply a blind to cover some political design.
His suspicions had most probably been aroused by the recent
arrival from Zanzibar of the news of the action of Germany in
that region, and he was determined that I should have no oppor-
tunity of hoisting a flag or in any other way obtaining a political
footing in the islands. However, after seeing me hard at work
for seven weeks, he seems to have become convinced of the non-
political character of my mission, and I received from him
permission to depart from Male, and visit the other Atols, but
it was then too late, as the vessel which was to convey me with
my collection back to Ceylon was then due, and as I had
promised to exhibit my collection at the Colonial and Indian
Exhibition in London, my return to Ceylon could not be delayed.

VOL. XVI. N

166 C. W. EOSSET. — On the Maldive Islands,

The result was that I had to quit the Maldives with my work
half finished ; hut I intend to return there again in the autumn,
when I hope to be able to visit the entire group.

My stay in Male* extended over seventy days, during which
time I made a collection of ethnological objects, and zoological
specimens, and also took upwards of eighty photographs.

As far as industries and manufactures are concerned, there is
much room for improvement, though this is far less the fault of
the inhabitants than that of the Sultan. This latter is a thorough
Mussulman, and will not have anything to do with Europeans.
When H. C. P Bell visited the island, the Sultan resolutely
refused to receive him, although he came on the part of His
Excellency the Governor of Ceylon, and he did not even reply
to several letters which Mr. Bell wrote to him ; however, he
condescended to accept the presents which were brought for
him. The trade of the Maldives, such as it is, is capable of
being greatly developed, were the Sultan so minded; for instance,
by building several hundred more fishing boats, the already
important dried fish trade of Male* Atol would properly develop.

The export of tortoiseshell could become much more important
than it is at present, while the justly admired Maldive mats
would find a large field open in Europe. These three trades
alone, if properly developed, would greatly increase the pros-
perity of the islands, which at present appear to make no
progress whatever. The Sultan's income is derived from the
levy of a 12 per cent, duty in kind on all imports, which, however,
appears to be somewhat irregularly collected, and from which
small importations are partly or wholly exempt. The principal
revenue derived from this import is paid in rice, cloth, and
cowries, and serves mostly to supply the wants of his army.
Besides this duty or toll a kind of poll-tax is levied throughout
the islands, which is principally paid in cloth, grains and cowries,
but I was unable to get any exact particulars on this subject, as
the inhabitants of Male" are exempt. Although the Sultan de-
rives a large part of his income from the foreign trade, he is not
at all favourably disposed towards it, and possibly he may one
day refuse to allow the Indian traders to settle in Male" so as
to confine trade to his own subjects. His opposition to foreign
trade is all the more hurtful to his subjects, as they are
dependent upon India for about half of their food supply. No
other part of the group is allowed to traffic with foreigners, all
the produce having to be brought to Male', hence the Sultan is
enabled to keep a tight hand on the foreign relations of his
dominion. During my stay I was able to get particulars con-
cerning the import and export trade for 1885, and ascertained
that the revenue result of the commerce of the last two years,

more especially treating of Male Atol. 167

shows a debit balance of about Es. 40,000, whilst the financial
position of the islands is further complicated by the fact that
the expenditure largely exceeds the receipts. The expenditure
of the state is almost wholly on account of the Sultan, who,
besides supporting the army, feeds and clothes the poor.

They live almost entirely upon fish and rice : as the islands are
not capable of producing grain of any kind, the rice has to be im-
ported from India. This trade is mostly in the hands of Bombay
native merchants, who bring the rice over in native crafts of
from 50 tons (bodu hodi) to 200 tons (bandu hodi) burden.

As already remarked, the Sultan would be very glad to
dispense with the services of these merchants, but this is not so
easily done, as the present deficiency in his treasury puts him
quite in their hands. These Bombay merchants have shops in the
bazaar at Male, which is the only one existing in the islands, for
which they pay the Sultan a rental of from 40 to 60 rupees per
month. There are between 40 and 50 shops, and here a retail
trade is carried on in piece goods, rice, sugar, coffee and tei,
payment being made in Maldivian money and rupees ; the latter
gradually superseding the former. The general trade is still
carried on, on the system of barter, the merchants taking in
exchange for their rice cowries, dried fish, cocoanuts, tortoise-
shell, coir and grass mats. The inhabitants of the other Atols
send their fish, cocoanuts, &c., to Mate, where they are purchased
by the Sultan, who gives rice, cloth, &c., in exchange, deducting
at the same time the amount due for taxes. The Maldivians
will not work so long as they possess any stock which they can
exchange for rice ; as soon as they can get no more food they
set to work, catching fish, gathering cowries, or fishing for turtles.
This refers only to the lower castes, who form about 60 per cent,
of the population.

With regard to the population of the islands, I was unable to
get anything like accurate information, and prefer, therefore, to
leave this point untouched, rather than put forward mere guesses.
In Mate, however, I was, of course, able to get a pretty correct
idea of the figures ; there are about 2,800 inhabitants on Male
Atol, with a further number of from 80 to 150 inhabitants from
the other Atols who are temporary residents. Besides this
there are about 50 to 80 Indian merchants. The population of
Mate Atol may, therefore be put down roughly at 3,000 souls
of whom at least 2,000 are in the service of the Sultan, at-
tendants, soldiers, store-keepers, overseers, musicians, dancers,
fishermen, &c., &c. These people are all supported by the
Sultan, who gives them food and money, the former consisting
of rice, areca-nuts, and dried fish, the latter being mostly paid
in rupees ; the salaries ranging from 12 to 20 rupees per month.

N 2

168 C. W. EOSSET.— On the Maldivc Islands,

The high castes and ministers are recompensed for their
services to the Sultan or to the state in land ; that is, certain
cocoanut islands are assigned to them, of which they receive the
tribute or taxes. Most of these islands are given by the Sultan
for the term of the recipient's life ; and as soon as the holder
dies they revert to the Sultan.

The different ranks and offices are divided systematically
among the different castes, the distinctions of which are still most
rigidly adhered to ; though I believe that caste exclusiveness
now is not pushed so far as it was a few centuries back. Great
deference is paid to high castes by those of inferior station, who
receive them standing, and only re-seat themselves when invited
or ordered to do so. When meeting in the street the lower-
caste stands on one side until his superior has passed. The
Sultan alone has the right to wear a hat and shoes, and only two
besides himself, namely, his cousin and another relative, are
allowed to carry umbrellas. These two are also the only ones
who are permitted to eat with him. The Sultan's umbrella is
white, his cousin's black, and Manifulloo's red. Persons of
different rank must always eat separately, the higher caste taking
his or her meal before the lower caste. A man and his wife
never eat together ; the woman must first wait on her husband
and when he has finished she eats alone.

Marriages are celebrated with very little noise and ceremony,
and are in fact extremely simple.

Both parties have to attend separately before the Katibu (the
magistrate or head man appointed by the Sultan in all islands
which have forty inhabitants or more) and declare their wish to be
married. The man appears in person, the woman is represented
by her parents. As soon as the Katibu has satisfied himself by
questioning that the parties are agreed, he declares them married,
and calls upon all present to bear witness to the contract. The
Katibu's fee is 1 bodu lari=4 kudalari, which is about equal to one
penny English. After the marriage, the bride is accompanied to
her new home by the spectators, who are entertained with feasting,
music, and dancing. The husband receives no dowry with his wife ;
on the contrary, he is supposed to settle a jointure upon her
equal to that settled upon her mother. It is also generally the
custom for the sisters of a girl who makes a good match to take
any of her superfluous clothes and ornaments and divide them
amongst themselves. The high castes have generally three or four
wives, four being the number which they may have, but must not
exceed ; the lower castes are also allowed four wives, but seldom
avail themselves of the privilege on account of the expense of
supporting them.

Although a man is allowed four wives at one time, it is only

more especially treating of Male AtoL 169

on condition of his being able to support them, and cases have
been known where the magistrate has refused to marry men whom
they knew, or suspected, not to be in a position to endow and
support the wife.

A man is able at any time to divorce one or more of his wives,
the process being as simple as the marriage ceremony. A lower
caste man has merely to send his wife away, while amongst the
higher castes the rule is for both parties to appear before the
Katibu and declare their wish to annul the marriage ; in this
latter case the man must appear in person, but the woman may
send two witnesses to speak for her. Intrigues are naturally of
every day occurrence under such a regime, but are not looked
upon in the same light as in Europe. The divorced wife merely
returns to her parents' home, sometimes with, sometimes without,
the children, and has no difficulty in finding another husband, if so
disposed. Both parties are at liberty to marry again immediately
after the divorce. The Maldivians are very fond of change in
the matter of wives, and I was told that it often happened that
a man would marry and divorce the same woman three or four
times in the course of his life. It will be readily understood
that the Maldivians are almost strangers to the feeling of
jealousy, at least as far as their fellow countrymen are concerned ;
but with a stranger, especially if a Christian, they are not at all
so open. I speak more especially of the King's Island where
the women are very chary of holding any intercourse with
foreigners, not because they are personally averse to such, but
because discovery of any intrigue would lead to their being
banished to another (and generally uninhabited) island, which is
for them a severer punishment than is death with us. Crime of
any kind is extremely rare in the Maldives, so far as I was able
to judge. It is possible that this may be especially the case in
Male, as I was told that the laws were not so strict on other
islands ; but the primitive life led by the Maldivians naturally
makes them strangers to many of the temptations which beset
more civilised nations.

The Maldivians bury their dead, but the ceremony is different
from that observed in other Mahomedan nations.

No one is supposed to weep or wail, but it often happens
that the relatives give vent to their grief involuntarily. After
being washed, the body is swathed in white cotton, bound at the
throat, waist, and knees. The nearest relations bring the corpse
to the burying-place, carrying it on a bier made of Candon
wood (M. Kadti). Earlier accounts of the Maldives mention
that much noise is made by the mourners who follow in the pro-
cession weeping, wailing, and crying aloud, and further that
presents were made to the crowd of spectators by the relations

170 C. W. EOSSET. — On the Mai dive Islands,

of the deceased. This may have formerly been the case, or the
inhabitants of other Atols may now follow this practice, but I
can affirm that I saw nothing of this kind whilst I was in Male*.
I questioned the Prime Minister on the subject, but he denied
that the practice had ever existed, at any rate in Male.
I found, however, that it is still the custom that a Maldivian
chooses his burial place during his lifetime.

Tbe ceremony is extremely simple consisting of the singing of
certain dirges and prayers from the Khoran by the priests. The
lower castes distribute cowries, the high class rice and dried
fish to the poor during the progress of the procession; the latter
also making presents of gold, silver, and silk-stuffs to the priests ;
and one or more of the relatives sprinkle the processionists
with perfumed water. When the body has been laid in the
grave, this is filled up with fine white sand. Everyone
is buried separately and a stone is afterwards erected over the
grave, the size depending on the caste of the deceased, the
shape on the sex. On the three Fridays following the burial
the relations and friends of the deceased come to sprinkle
white sand and pray over the grave, the priests singing mean-
while. The period of mourning is then over. In no case is a
body transported from one Atol to another, a person is buried
where he or she dies. This rule holds good even in the case of
the Sultan.

Their method of living is opposed to the preservation of health ;
for instance bathing, smoking, and drinking bad water are ex-
cessively indulged in, added to climatic influences. They have
no wholesome food, rice and dried fish, with heating condiments,
which are sufficient to ruin the digestive organs, being the daily
food of the people.

During my different journeys in the countries of the eastern
hemisphere, I have had opportunity of studying many of the
different types of races which inhabit it. When I first landed
on the Sultan's Island where there are about 3,000 people, of
which the women form a very large proportion, I was much
struck by the resemblance which these latter bear to the Persians,
with their light yellow-brown complexion and beautiful large
black eyes. I saw some high caste women (which is allowed to
very few Europeans) who were fairer than many of the women
of southern Italy and Spain, but I should add that this type is
rare in the Maldives. The men, especially those of the higher
castes, resemble Arabs.

The lower castes are of a more mixed type, and appear to be
more nearly allied to Mussulmans than Singhalese ; although
their language bears more resemblance to that of the latter than
Hindustani or Arabic. Only a few high castes speak Arabic

more especially treating of Male" Atol.

171

whilst those who are in communication with, and have passed
some time in Ceylon are alone able to speak Singhalese.

It is difficult to determine with any precision to which race
the Maldivians belong ; history merely tells ns that the islands
were colonised by a people of Aryan race and language, and no
old manuscripts are in existence on the islands, which makes it
impossible to do more than guess. It is generally believed that the
islands were colonised at about the same time as Ceylon.

Formerly there were five different languages and characters
used in writing : of these, however, only two are now used, the
other three being understood only by the elder people. The
five are — Gabuli-tana, divehi, akuru-tana, narha-tana, defo-tana.
The first and second of these are the two now used, the gabuli-
tana being the official language. The pronunciation is extremely
difficult to indicate, as they do not divide their syllables and
words in the same way we do ours.

I give a few examples : —

English Gabuli-tana

nation Mihangesai

vegetables Kagaginkgassgahugetakdie

fruits Kahugagannatakdie

grains Otarukurewietakedie

quadrupeds Mihungetaraulasophi

beasts Waligaula sophi

reptiles Faijnatti Candutschahaigindua sophi

I got a vocabulary with about fifteen hundred English words
with the Maldivian equivalents written against them ; but could
not obtain permission to transcribe the characters. I hope to do
this on my return. After much patient enquiry, I learned,
(more especially from the high priest, Seedee Totoo, who is
almost the only man able to give information on such matters),
that there is aDagoba, called Havida, in the jungle on the island
of Fua Mulaku, and the ruins of a temple called Ustumba on
Hatadu Island, in Addii Atol. I made every effort to get permission
to visit these places with the view of photographing them ; but
the Sultan would not give it, so that I must try and manage it
on my next visit. I showed the inhabitants of the above-named
islands drawings of Buddhist temples and asked them if they
had ever seen anything similar. They at once replied that they
had seen such a house, and that similar carvings on stone were to
be found on their islands. The high priest also promised to
have some Pandanus leaves with old writings in tana, narha-
tana, and defo-tana on them brought from those places for me.
He told me that there were still some to be found.

The manners and customs of the Maldivians are very similar

172 C. W. EOSSET.— On the Maldive Islands,

to those of the Arabs. The lower classes are only friendly when
the higher classes are ; but in that case they are thoroughly so.
I was already well acquainted with the great hospitality of the
Mohammedan races, but most especially noticed that of the Mal-
divians as they are extremely poor. Theft and robbery are far
less common than in India or Ceylon. The punishments consist
for the most part of blows which are administered on the thighs
and back with an instrument made of a thick piece of leather,
shaped like the sole of a boot, fitted into a wooden handle.
When the punishment is intended to be severe, short nails are
fixed into the leather. After being beaten the offender is generally
banished to some uninhabited island. Punishment by death is
never resorted to, and is, in fact, unknown.

Superstition and religion are what mainly occupy the Mal-
divian mind. Their conversation is always full of the first, and
the second is attended to in a way which I have seldom seen
equalled. High castes go three or four times a day to the
mosque to pray.

A book could be filled with particulars of demonolatry as be-
lieved in by the Maldivians. Every accident, every illness,
every misfortune, is ascribed to the devil. No one goes out
after dark if he can help it, for fear of meeting the devil in
the streets. The priests, of whom the number is but limited,
have, of course, very great influence, especially the high priest,
who is (next to the Prime Minister) one of the most intelligent
of all the natives with whom I came in contact, although he
has no faith in anything European. He is the man best able to
afford information about native manners and customs, laws, anti-
quities, &c. ; but the Sultan having strictly enjoined him not to
afford me that information I was able to learn very little.

I brought back with me a full collection of the articles of
ornament and dress worn by the Maldivians, which are fully
treated of in my catalogue. Most noticeable is the embroidery
work of the women.

High caste women wear red satin dresses, embroidered with
gold, silver, and silk which they work themselves ; the materials
being drawn from India and Ceylon. A fine silk cloth, with
gold or silver edging, is also made on some of the southern
islands. The women also wear gold, silver, and brass rings,
brooches, earrings, necklaces, and bangles, the quality and fine-
ness of which vary according to caste ; the laws on this subject,
however, are less severe than formerly, when a low caste girl
was not permitted to wear ornaments which should be worn by
a higher caste ; she is now allowed to wear pretty well what she
likes.

On great occasions, and when residing abroad, the men wear

more especially treating of MdU Atol. 173

a kind of Turkish or Arabian costume. The houses are very
unhealthy. They are surrounded by walls of cocoanut leaves,
six or seven feet high, so as to prevent anyone from seeing into
the compounds ; but which also prevents the free passage of
air, and is the cause of illnesses lasting so long as they do.
Everyone from the highest to the lowest, men as well as women,
will squat for the entire day and talk or smoke.

When I was there the high castes would come daily to my
house and sit around smoking and asking questions about
Europe. As with all orientals, time is no object with them, and
it is quite useless for anyone to be in a hurry.

The Sultan will take from eight to fourteen days to answer a
letter or question ; to delicately hint that you are pressed for
time would simply result in your getting no answer at all.

The Maldivians are skilful handicraftsmen, and reminded me
in this respect of the inhabitants of Cashmere. They are very
clever in imitating knives, spoons, and other articles of European
manufacture. This was a great help for me, as I was able to
get accurate models made of some ethnographical articles which
I was unable to bring away in their natural size ; such as beds,
turning-lathes, spinning-wheels, boats, &c. ; which, with the aid
of photographs of the original, fully answer the purpose. Every
Maldivian must learn some craft before he can marry, according
to his caste.

The high castes have lances made, with which they fence
before the Sultan ; they are also allowed to fence with sword
and buckler, but only on special occasions, and by command of
the Sultan.

They also pass much of their time in carving and colouring
wood ; middle . castes mostly going in for music and tomtom
playing. Mat and cloth making is only engaged in by servants
and low castes.

The games and dances are very interesting, and I was able to
take many photographs of them which will shortly be published
in one or two of the illustrated newspapers.

There are two principal dances ; one originally from the
Laccadives, the other from the Maldives. The first is called
Malikutarra, having been introduced from Malikai or Minnicoy.
About fifteen or twenty persons beat on tomtoms, making
certain regular movements at the same time ; whilst three or
four others sing a sort of accompaniment. The second or Todu
originates from Ari Atol, and is an old Maldivian game. About
twenty or thirty tomtom beaters stand round, whilst fifteen to
twenty dancers, who carry wands, about six feet long, to the end
of which tin boxes filled with cowries are attached, go through
all sorts of rapid movements, striking the wands against each

174 Conference.

other with great dexterity. The Sultan also invited me to a
private concert, requesting me at the same time to take a
photograph. The entertainment is called Wadchy. The tom-
tom players sing, accompanying themselves on their instru-
ments. The melody is Arabic, and was probably brought
from Arabia ; though I do not remember having heard it there.

The Sultan's private band is also interesting, but the instru-
ments were of no value for my collection, as they are old Portu-
guese or Dutch. I could make nothing of what they played,
but would say it was more Arabic than anything else. Not
having been able to visit the whole group, I cannot pretend to
be able to give a full description of these islands, and must
leave the completion until my return from my next visit, which
I intend making next autumn.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL CONFERENCES ON THE
NATIVE RACES OF THE BRITISH POSSESSIONS

Being a Series of Special Meetings of the Anthropological

Institute held in the Conference Hall of the Colonial

and Indian Exhibition.

JUNE IST, 1886.

CONFERENCE ON THE EACES OF AFRICA.
FRANCIS GALTON, Esq., F.R.S., President, in the Chair.
AFTER some opening remarks by the President,

The late Dr. MANN gave a brief description of the present
condition of the native population of the Cape of Good Hope.

Mr. C. WEBB described some of the exhibits in the Natal
Court, and called particular attention to the Kafirs and Bushman
who were present in the hall.

Sir JAMES MARSHALL read a paper on the condition of the
natives of the Gold Coast Possessions.

Mr. JOSEPH THOMSON spoke on the native races of Africa.

Opening Remarks by the President. 175

Mr. HAMILTON LANG read a paper on the natives of Cyprus,
with special reference to the ancient and modem pottery, and to
the survival of old customs, and the modern use of implements
of a very antique type.

An adjournment to the African and Cyprus Courts then took
place, where the various exhibits were more particularly de-
scribed by Dr. Mann, Mr. Webb, Sir James Marshall, Mr.
Joseph Thomson, the Eev. Mr. Payne, and Mr. Hamilton Lang.

OPENING REMARKS ly the PRESIDENT.

THE Anthropological Institute has responded with much
pleasure to the wishes of the authorities of this Exhibition to
hold a series of conferences.

The opportunity is unprecedented of meeting men from all
parts of the Empire who are familiarly acquainted with its
native races, and of inspecting collections of high ethnological
interest that have been arranged with cost and pains in the
various courts. It will be one of our principal objects to learn
the condition of the native races at the present moment, and to
gather opinions concerning the value of the influence of the
white man upon them ; whether it has been directed as judi-
ciously as might be desired, seeing that it has tended more
frequently to degrade than to elevate — to destroy rather than to
build up.

Humanity, considered as a whole, has been largely modified
during the last two or three generations by our action, and its
change must progress so long as the regions habitable by white
men continue to be more and more filled through their expan-
siveness.

There are also signs, long foreseen and yearly growing more
evident, that this great and recent spread of the white races of
Europe may ere long be accompanied by a somewhat analogous
spread of the yellow races of China.

Ancient industries and arts are rapidly perishing before the
advancing flood of alien civilisation. We must therefore be
prompt to study whatever is still extant of early ethnological
value, and should all the more cordially welcome the oppor-
tunities afforded by this instructive Exhibition.

Our chief difficulty in the way of doing a large amount of
valuable work in these conferences is due to the narrowly
limited time at our disposal. Its best distribution appears to
be that which we propose to adopt, namely to hear in this room
from gentlemen connected with the ethnological exhibits a brief

176 Opening Remarks ly the President.

account of the most typical specimens, together with any other
ethnological remarks they may wish to make, and afterwards to
disperse to the several courts alluded to in the conference of the
day. There we shall hear further explanations, which I hope
will be prolonged until six o'clock, so that each of us may be
able to go from court to court in what order we please, while
the risk of too great a crowd at any one of them will be
lessened. A methodical plan for the visit of a succession of
parties to the courts in turn seemed impracticable. The adjourn-
ment from this room will take place at five o'clock. We must
therefore dole out the hour before us in sparing allowances, in
doing which the gentlemen whom we shall have the privilege
of hearing have kindly concurred. Only twenty minutes alto-
gether can be given to the Cape Colonies. We shall then proceed
with the Western Settlements of Africa, and conclude with a
brief reference to the Cyprus collection. I shall not take up
another precious moment of your time before we begin with our
regular work.

Bantus.

Mr. Webb, of the Cape Colony, has brought to you three
men who are members of one or other division of the widely-
spread Bantu race. He will point on Dr. Mann's map to the
homes of their respective tribes, and he has laid on the table
characteristic specimens of Bantu workmanship, including
baskets, earthen pots, and some pretty small vessels, chiefly, if
not wholly, used as snuff boxes. Some of the old-fashioned
letisch objects are also exhibited. As regards dress, the effect of
the new fashion of clothing the person is shewn by the orna-
mented skin of new design which is now thrown over the
ancient complete female dress. The sticks they are so fond of
covering with ornamentation are now occasionally carved with
figures representing white men.

Two of their old-fashioned musical instruments are here.
One of these is especially curious, and it is extremely difficult
to acquire the knack of sounding it. A strip of membrane, at
the end of tightly stretched string, lies over a hole, and the
sucked-in air sets it in vibration. The other is a bow with a
gourd as a resonator. The string is struck with a stick.

[These instruments were played on by the natives.]

Bushmen.

I will now turn to the half-caste Bushmen, of whose race
hardly any pure specimens now remain. I myself, very many
years ago, have passed days encamped among them, on the

DR. MANN. — On some of the Races of South Africa. 177

same journey in which I explored Damara land, that country
which has recently passed under German protection, and I
retain the liveliest recollections of their too-much-overlooked
good points, and especially of their ingenuity, dexterity, and
nattiness.

I do not know that their strength, which has been variously
estimated, has ever been measured. So for the sake of procuring
a solitary instance, I will ask Mr. Webb to persuade the Bush-
man to exert his greatest strength of squeeze upon the very
instrument with which, during the Health Exhibition in these
same courts, I had the strength tested of nearly 10,000 persons,
and we shall soon see how he ranks among them.

I should say that his height has already been determined
to be 4 ft. 8£ in., and his weight, 8 stone or 112 Ibs.

[On trial, his greatest power of squeeze with the right hand
proved to be 54 Ibs., and that with the left to be 60 Ibs. Also,
his greatest power of drawing, as an archer draws his bow, was
58 Ibs.]

It appears from this that the man is barely of the average
strength of an Englishman, even when allowance is made for
his small weight. An average male sight-seer at the Health
Exhibition weighed 143 Ibs ; his squeeze with the strongest
hand was 85 Ibs., and his drawing power 74 Ibs. At this rate,
the half-caste Bushman who weighs 112 Ibs., ought to squeeze
67 Ibs., and to draw 58 Ibs., whereas his performance is only
60 and 58.

EEMARKS on some of the EACES of SOUTH AFRICA represented
at the EXHIBITION.

By the late DR. E. J. MANN.

Dr. Mann, in response to Mr. Galton's invitation, said that
the group of Kafirs to which he was asked to draw the atten-
tion of the meeting was that which was situated between the
range of the Drakenberg Mountains and the sea. A century
or so ago it consisted of a large number of small tribes, each
under its own chieftain. They could hardly be spoken of as
aboriginal inhabitants, as they had obviously migrated from
the north in not very remote times. They were practically now
distributed into five tribes, the numerous small tribes having
disappeared. These were the people known as the Amatonga,
most towards the north ; then the Amaswazi ; next the
Amazulu ; and finally the Amaponda and Amakoza, being most
towards Cape Town. The chief type of these tribes is the
well-known Amazulu. It is now a powerful group, as is

] 78 C. D WEBB.— On Objects of Ethnological Interest

sufficiently apparent in the fact that in 1879 20,000 of its armed
young men overwhelmed with their numbers and destroyed 1,000
British and Colonial soldiers. The mere overflow of the Amazulu
into Natal, in seeking refuge from the barbarous rule of their
chiefs, amounts to a native population of 360,000 to 400,000
individuals, residing in Natal under British rule. These are most
interesting people to us. They are not so black as the true
negroes. They have woolly hair, thick lips, and broad flat noses,
like the negroes ; but all these characteristics are in a softened
form, as if the negro had been mixed with a modifying race.
They have, for the most part, high foreheads with an intelligent
expression. They present the curious combination of high
capacity with a nevertheless barbarous and low state of civiliza-
tion. The reason for this probably is the small strain which is
put upon them by the necessities of life. Their clothes are
next to nothing. A small handful of tassellated skins serves
for a man. .A house costs about a shilling, and food is yielded
almost spontaneously by the bountiful climate and soil. The
typical objects presented before the meeting —the wooden pillow
for the head at night, the sun-baked clay and grass- woven beer
pots and milk vessels, the monkeys' tails kilts, the blankets of
joined skins, the rude hoes used by the women to scratch up
the ground, the stone mills for grinding the mullet, and the bee-
hive-shaped huts of straw shown on the carved model— all
point to this fundamental fact. The Exhibition, however,
contains a singularly fine and complete illustration of the
domestic life of these people, and the peculiarity which has
been alluded to will be at once perceived when these are
examined. The Executive Commissioner for Natal, and his
assistants in the courts, will gladly avail themselves of the
pleasant opportunity of pointing out in detail the lessons which
are conveyed in this really exhaustive collection of Zulu-Kafir
implements and objects.

On OBJECTS of ETHNOLOGICAL INTEREST exhibited ly CLEM. D.
WEBB, from SOUTH AFRICA.

By C. D. WEBB, ESQ.

THE following are the principal objects to which attention was
directed: — A specimen of the many baskets made by the
Eingoes in the Cape Colony, who may claim to excel, and are
the most skilful at all this style of work.

Earthenware pots and cups made of clay. The process of
manufacture is very simple; the clay is first worked until

from South Africa. 179

soft, and is moulded by the hand into the desired shape : it is
then burnt in a hot fire, and when finished the pots are used
for cooking, carrying water in, and for keeping milk and beer in.
The imported iron pots and china are gradually taking their
place. The Basutos excel in the earthenware industry.

Specimens of different kinds of snuff-boxes in common use
amongst the tribes of Soutli Africa. One is made from a portion
of an ox's horn, with wooden sides neatly wedged together and
polished. Another is made from a calabash or gourd hollowed
out and having figures of men and animals tattooed and burnt
on in a most perfect style. Others are made from a gourd
covered with beads of different colours wonderfully well
blended, for which the natives have a high reputation. One is
made from a sheep's horn, and is fastened to the snuffer's arm ;
very primitive. Some of the most interesting are in the form of
figures representing cattle, sheep, and horses, and are prepared
from the inside scrapings of an ox hide. The Pondos are the
only tribe who adopt this latter style of box.

A rare necklet made of bones and hoofs of antelopes, and
worn by the witch doctors and Fingoe conjurors. In instances
where stock has strayed, this necklet is thrown down by the
doctor and the position of the majority of bones and hoofs de-
termines the direction in which it is thought the stock has
strayed.

A Kafir doll, carried by barren women as a charm, with the
belief that the actual carrying and hugging of the doll will
ultimately be the means of a child being sent.

A very primitive covering, made from the leaves of the
"umkwinti" plant, and sometimes of plaited beads, which a
few years back was a complete dress for women, but as
civilisation spread, handsomely worked skins and cotton
blankets came into use, and these and European dresses are
now covered over the old style of dress which is however
still worn by some.

The tail of a blue crane, commonly called Kafir crane, worn
on the top of the head : none but chiefs of high rank and
warriors are allowed to possess these, nor are any permitted to
wear them but men of tried bravery upon whom the paramount
chief bestows them as marks of his favour. These, bestowed by
the hand of the chief, serve instead of the riband, stars, and
medals, &c., as eagerly sought for, though not more highly prized,
in a higher state of society.

180 SIR J. MARSHALL. — On the Natives of the Gold Coast.

On the NATIVES of the GOLD COAST.
By SIR JAMES MARSHALL, C.M.G.

THE portion of Africa of which I have specially to speak is one
of the oldest of the British Colonial possessions, but I fear it
remains to this day about the most savage, uncivilised, and
uncared-for portion of the empire. I mean the Gold Coast.

It first came under the direct influence of Great Britain in
1672, when the Eoyal African Company took possession of the
coast and built a number of forts along it. This company was
succeeded in 1750 by the African Company of Merchants, con-
stituted by Act of Parliament, which in 1821 was dissolved, and
the country ruled by the Crown, through the Governor of Sierra
Leone. A disastrous war with Ashanti, in which the Governor,
Sir Charles Macarthy, lost his life, caused the British Govern-
ment to transfer its powers back to a mercantile corporation,
which continued until 1843, when the Government again
assumed the ruling power, and has continued to do so under
various forms until now.

In my opinion, the result of this changing and experimental
mode of ruling has not been beneficial to the native population
as a whole, but has broken down and destroyed what that popu-
lation possessed in their modes of government and life without
raising them to anything better.

The Gold Coast is not a country which can, at all events in
our time, be made a colony where Europeans can settle. It
must remain the country of the natives, with but a handful of
Europeans among them. But these few Europeans have the
power by which they rule these people and enforce obedience.
And whenever this rule is carried out and enforced according to
European ideas, without any consideration of the ideas, equally
ancient and equally deep, which pervade the minds of the
natives, it may break and destroy, but does not promote any
real improvement. It is like a collision between a powerful
steam engine and an old-fashioned cart. It might be better for
the cart if it could become a steam engine, but a forcible collision
between the two, merely smashes the cart.

The handful of Europeans who represent the steam engine
are utterly out of sympathy with the ways, customs and beliefs
of the mass of the population among whom they are settled,
and who represent the cart. The Europeans do not understand
them, and therefore are apt to treat them alternately with ridi-
cule and abuse. The natives do not understand European ideas,
and are unable to accommodate themselves to those ideas. And
so there are constant collisions which cause destruction without

SIR J. MARSHALL. — On the Natives of the Gold Coast. 181

supplying anything better to take the place of what has been
destroyed.

My own experience of the west coast of Africa is that that
Government has for the time succeeded best with the natives
which has treated them with consideration for their native laws,
habits and customs, instead of ordering all these to be sup-
pressed as nonsense, and insisting upon the wondering negro at
once submitting to the British constitution, and adopting our
ideas of life and civilisation.

The most successful Government appears to have been at the
time when the British Government, disheartened at the defeat
and death of Sir Charles Macarthy in 1824, again handed over
the reins of power to a mercantile Government who secured as
their Governor Mr. George Maclean, whose rule is to this day
remembered and spoken of by the natives of the Gold Coast
with affection and respect. He is thus described in the Colonial
Office List : " This gentleman, with a force of no more than
100 men at command, and a revenue of only about £4,000 a
year, contrived to extend and maintain the influence of his
government over the whole tract of country now known as the
Gold Coast Protectorate. Here he preserved peace, remedied
injustice, and repressed the cruel customs of the native chiefs
and priesthood." When the British Government again assumed
the supreme authority, Mr. Maclean's influence over the natives
was maintained by his being appointed to the office of Judicial
Assessor to the native chiefs. I can speak of this office from
personal experience as I was appointed to it in 1873, and was
the last of the race, as in 1874 all judicial power was merged in
a Supreme Court of approved English construction.

As Judicial Assessor I was a sort of head chief, and sat with
the local chiefs in Court, hearing causes brought by natives
among themselves. By this I learned that a complete system of
laws connected with both land and personal property existed
among them, which had been handed down by oral tradition
from time immemorial, and was better suited to them than our
moderate, elaborate, and intricate laws of real and personal
property.

Time does not permit me to go into these matters. What I
wish to say is that the natives of the Gold Coast and the West
Coast of Africa have a system of laws and customs which it
would be better to guide, modify, and amend, rather than to
destroy by ordinances and force.

So also they have their chiefs, with court forms and etiquette,
and their own customs and mode of living which will not be
improved by ridicule or by forced abolition.

The result of my own experience is that the way to rule and
VOL. xvi. o

182 J. THOMSON. — Note on the African Tribes

improve these native populations is to take them as we find
them, making use of what we believe to be good or harmless,
whilst repressing what is cruel and unjust.

Anyone who treats these natives with consideration and, as
far as possible, with respect for the beliefs, laws, and customs
which are theirs, and which have come down to them from their
forefathers, soon finds that he gains an influence among them
which nothing else will bring him. Instead of starting a steam
engine and smashing the cart, get into the cart and ride with
the native driver and do what you can to make him improve
his cart, so that in time he may prefer the engine and take
to it.

Even in their fetish superstitions there is no use treating
them as folly. Fetishism is a tremendous .power throughout
Africa, and cannot be put down by ridicule or contempt. We
look at their fetish charms and wonder how people can be so
foolish, but these are but outward signs of what is of immense
significance to the unfortunate native.

I have no time for more, and will ask you to look at specimens
of the native industries which will prove to you that they have
a civilisation of their own, however inferior it may be to ours.

NOTE on the AFRICAN TRIBES of the BRITISH EMPIRE.
By JOSEPH THOMSON, F.E.G.S.

CONSIDERING the narrow limit of time allotted to the discussion
on the African races of the British Empire, it would have been
better — instead of calling upon such as I — to have given more
scope to those gentlemen who, like Sir James Marshall, are so
well able, from prolonged residence among the peoples in ques-
tion, to speak with authority.

You ask me to address you on the West African tribes when
in truth my acquaintance with them has been but slight. A rapid
run along the coast, and an equally rapid trip up the Niger to
Sokoto, constitute the whole of my claim to be heard on this
subject, and when I further inform you that I was only seven
months out of England, you will perceive that I can have had
but few opportunities for anthropological research.

Your chairman, Mr. Galton, in his opening remarks, alluded
to one subject about which, he said, it would be of special in-
terest to acquire some information. What influence had contact
with Europeans had upon the natives of Africa ? Had contact
been attended with good or evil results ? Now this happens to
be a subject in which I have always been greatly interested, and

of the British Empire. 183

therefore in default of more special anthropological information
I will devote what few remarks I have to make to this topic.

Stated briefly, I have to confess, with shame and reluctance,
that the opinion I have formed is, that contact with the
European in West Africa, has been attended with almost un-
mixed evil to the natives. We commenced our intercourse by
making them an article of trade, and for nearly four hundred
years transported myriads under conditions of untold horror
across the Atlantic to a life of shameful and savage treat-
ment. To obtain these slaves, tribe fought with tribe, and
village with village, till the land was drenched with the life
blood of millions. That trade is over, but the dire effects of it
still live and will require generations to remove.

It is now a matter of history that this state of things exists
no longer, and we piously thank God that we are not like our
forefathers. Now, instead of tearing the miserable black from
house and home, we take to him all the blessings of trade, and
spread before him the way of salvation. The trader and the
missionary in happy union are to heal the great festering sores
of our past sins, and through the benign influence of European
commodities and the Bible raise him to a higher level of civili-
sation. As illustrating the results of this new order of things,
the flourishing settlements, and the well filled churches of Sierra
Leone and Lagos, are triumphantly pointed to. Like most
people, till last year 1 had taken it for granted that here indeed
was something being done, of which we as Englishmen and
Christians had reason to be proud.

I was, I am sorry to say, only too soon disillusionised by
being brought face to face with the facts. In the chief towns I
found the people over governed — not wisely but too well.
Taught to regard themselves on a footing of equality with the
white men, they had become insolent and overbearing. I found
that everywhere they were apt scholars of European vices and
almost impenetrable to any of its virtues. The " blessings " of
civilised trade I only too soon discovered to be complete and
terrible demoralisation arising from the prodigiousness of the in-
famous gin trade — a trade it is true, not marked by the blood-
shed and horrid cruelties of the slave traffic — but one which, in
its far-reaching and dire results, was working as much ruin and
desolation as ever the capture and sale of human beings pro-
duced. It is impossible to describe in too strong terms the evil
influence of this scandalous business, a business which is driving
the already barbarous negro deeper and deeper in the moral
quagmire, ruining him soul and body, that a few traders may
coin more gold, and live in affluence at home. When I tell you
that for every bale of useful articles taken out to the West

o 2

184 J. THOMSON. — Note on the African Tribes

Coast of Africa, there are thousands of cases of gin, you will
perceive the pernicious havoc the latter must produce, and go
on producing, till a cry gets up from the conscience of the
nation against the further continuance of this traffic, though
how you are to stay the evil appetites you have roused passes
my understanding.

Along the whole line of that unhappy continent there rises
the cry for more drink — more drink; — give us tobacco, gun-
powder and guns. Those are the wants roused by a hundred
years of European trade, till now the proudest boast of a native
village is the size of its pyramid of empty gin bottles as
showing how much spirit they can afford to drink.

But you will say that even if all this be true, there is
surely a brighter side to the picture. If trade has failed to
pursue a legitimate and honourable course, our missionaries must
have been true to their calling, and done much to counter-
balance the evil influence of the trader. Far be it from me to
say that they have not worked nobly in the field and died
like Christian heroes by the score in harness in their glorious
mission, but if I must speak the truth, I must sorrowfully say
that the results have not been commensurate with the efforts
and the costs. In West as in East Africa missionaries pur-
sue with astonishing blindness the most impracticable and
visionary methods, and expect a Pentecostal awakening from
some inherent virtue in the great truths they preach. They
hope to graft upon the low undeveloped mind of the negro
the highest and the most beautiful conceptions of Christianity,
instead of teaching him something that he will comprehend.
The consequence is that everywhere Christianity stands baffled
before the arrayed forces of fetishism and barbarism.

Nowhere does it come into touch with the native, for the
gulf is so wide between the one as presented by the mis-
sionary, and the other as represented by the degraded mind of
the negro, that till some new mode of lessening the distance
between them is discovered, the case seems hopeless. But the
missionary never seems to learn, supplied with his spiritual
weapons from the theological college and arsenal, he never
seems able to adapt himself and his creed to the minds he
has to deal with, and so, as is so frequently the case, proves
a wasted life.

From a study of these and kindred facts, I had begun to form
the opinion that the civilisation of the negro was an almost
hopeless task. In East Africa I had seen that the influence of
Arab trade and civilisation extending over some hundreds of
years, and European trade and missionary effort in later times,
had been alike unproductive of any genuine advance, and we

of the British Empire. 185

have just seen that four centuries of intercourse with white men
on the west coast has only had the most demoralising results.
It seemed to me that as we were not making them better, and
were certainly in so many instances making them worse, it
would be better to leave them alone. With such ideas as these
in my head I reached the Niger, and in that famous river basin,
in which so many of our geographical pioneers have found a
grave, I was destined to take a more hopeful view of the future
of the negro.

In steaming up the river, I saw little in the first two hundred
miles to alter my views, for there luxuriated in congenial union
fetishism, cannibalism, and the gin trade. But as I left behind
me the low-lying coast region, and found myself near the
southern boundary of what is called the Central Sudan, I ob-
served an ever-increasing improvement in the appearance and
character of the native ; cannibalism disappeared, fetishism fol-
lowed in its wake, the gin trade largely disappeared, while, on
the other hand, clothes became more voluminous and decent,
cleanliness the rule, while their outward more dignified bearing
still further betokened a moral regeneration. Everything indi-
cated a leavening of some higher element, an element that was
clearly taking a deep hold on the negro nature and making him
a new man. That element you will perhaps be surprised to
learn is Mohammedanism..

As mile succeeded mile, and district district, on my journey
northward to the capital of Sokoto, I was struck with amaze-
ment to observe the enormous influence for good, that is being
worked by this so much vilified religion and the marvellous
acquisition from barbarism and paganism it is making, and how
rapidly it is transforming the whole political aspect of Africa
north of the line.

On passing Lokoja at the confluence of the Benue* with the
Niger, 1 left behind me the missionary outposts of Islam, and
entering the Central Sudan, I found myself in a comparatively
well governed empire, teeming with a busy populace of keen
traders, expert manufacturers of cloth, brass work, and leather :
a people, in fact, who have made enormous advances towards
civilisation. Under the influence of Mohammedanism, great
towns have sprung up which ring with the stirring din of a
hundred industries, while morning, noon and evening, with
heads bowed to the dust, the unity, the omnipotence, and the
omnipresence of a compassionate God are acknowledged. Here
is no veneer, no mere form. No extraneous influences bolster
up a savage people to the semblance of civilisation. Before the
watchword "of Islam and the cry, "There is but one God,"
fetishism and all its degrading rites have disappeared like a

186 E. H. LANG. — On Archaic Survivals in Cyprus.

black fog before a healthy heaven-sent breeze. Clearly there is
something in Mohammedanism singularly adapted to the negro
capacity and the conditions of a tropical existence, and whatever
may be said about it in comparison with Christianity, it un-
doubtedly helps to bridge the gulf which separates the latter
from native paganism, and supplies a stepping-stone to a higher
life, giving an impulse to the otherwise inert mass of heathen-
dom which, properly and judiciously fostered, may lead in the
future to great ends. At present, Islam is moving irresistibly
westward and southward, and those who wish well to the
native will watch with pleasure this onward march, and wish
it success in its crusade against barbarism, and more especially
will they pray that it may successfully grapple with the gin
trade, which has been our chief contribution to Africa.

On ARCHAIC SURVIVALS in CYPRUS.
By E. HAMILTON LANG, Esq.

MR. HAMILTON LANG said he had been asked by the Chairman
to give a very brief description of the survivals of art and
customs in Cyprus. His greatest difficulty was to make
selections, for nearly all present art in Cyprus is a survival,
and, at every turn, in present customs of the island, we meet
survivals.

The largest portion of the inhabitants is a survival of an
ancient race reputedly far advanced in civilisation when we in
Britain were still half-naked savages. With them in Cyprus
the hand on the dial of civilisation stopped very shortly after it
began to move with us ; and it is only now, thanks to the island's
becoming a dependency of England, that it is again beginning to
move in Cyprus, in slowly measured but steady strides. No-
thing has occurred to Cyprus, since the British occupation, so
calculated to quicken this civilizing motion as the Colonial and
Indian Exhibition. It is the first direct touch between the
Cypriotes and the great British public, and the warmth of that
touch cannot fail to produce an electrifying influence upon the
dry bones which, in Cyprus, have been pulverising during cen-
turies of neglect and oppression.

There are no modern wonders in the Cyprus Court, but the
modern things that are there, excepting the handsome map of
the Island, are replete with ancient stories. To begin with the
implements, you may put your hand upon the plough you see
there and realise that it is the same curious implement, without
the change of a bolt or a bar, of which you read in ancient Greek

E. H. LANG. — On Archaic Survivals in Cyprus. 187

literature, and identical with that which Elisha was holding in
Syria when Elijah threw his mantle over him. So, too, the yoke
for oxen, the threshing board, and the ox-goad. Again you will
see a quaint-looking bullock-cart, which seems to tell us how little
has been the progress in such arts in Cyprus during the past two
thousand years.. The reason is simple. From then and till
now the conditions of life and work have remained much the
same in Cyprus. The same simple tools,. the same home-grown
materials, the same unmacadamized tracks,, the same primitive
isolation of man from the outer world. But the clouds are
breaking, and British rule will soon dispel them altogether.

Artistic eyes have been attracted to our exhibits of pottery —
strange productions of the potter's wheels which have turned
briskly in the hands of the Cypriotes for 2,500 years or more ;
and it is probably the same kind of wheel in use to-day that it
was in the early days of the world's history. Here we have
endless survivals, but one only have I time to mention. The
potter of to-day at Lithrodonto when he has turned his jug and
is taking it off the wheel puts two little dabs of moist clay on
the right and left side of the rounded surface, a little above the
middle. If you ask him why he does so, he will probably
answer, " So my father did before me," and, in truth, the archaeo-
logist will pick you out from a pile of vases disinterred from
tombs' 2,500 years old, numberless specimens with the same
finishing touch, and others of the same age, superior to anything
which the modern potter can produce, on which the two dabs
represent two breasts, with a female head above them.

When we turn to the works of nature we find that all is not
inferior. They are imperfectly manufactured, nay, they are even
spoiled in their treatment. The wines are made tarry because of
the defective manner of fermentation and transport. The grain
is rendered unfit for European millers from the primitive way in
which it is threshed. The treatment is an. unfortunate survival.
But in quality there is nothing superior to the hard wheats of
Lefca; no grapes superior, and few equal to those from which
the Commanderia wine is made ; no silk superior to the silks of
Paphos for strength and brilliancy, nor any cocoons which yield
a larger proportion of silk ; no caroubs richer in saccharine
matter than the caroubs of Lefcara. This goodness is all sur-
vival. These products were as good two thousand years ago as
they are to-day. The essential goodness of quality exists, all that
is required is to bring it into contact with the science and
intelligence of our nineteenth century, arid this, I hope, will be
the result of the Colonial and Indian Exhibition. A people
which were amongst the first in the civilisation of a past age, are
capable to rise to the height even of our present civilisation, when

188 E. H. LANG. — On Archaic Survivals in Cyprus.

it is brought within their reach and its advantages become felt.
In the soil, in the climate, in the insular position, all is favour-
able for a high degree of material prosperity. An island which,
two thousand years ago, had a population which permitted it to
send 30,000 soldiers with Ptolemy Lathyrus to assist him in his
war in Syria, may again, under the fostering care of England,
become a land of plenty and of many, and the home of liberty.

I am to speak of survivals in customs. • Here, too, the
examples are inexhaustible. Three thousand years ago the people
of Cyprus held a festival, during which it was the custom to go
down to the sea and bathe. There is still to-day a feast-day on
which the peasants of Cyprus go down to the sea and sprinkle
themselves with its waters. The first was in honour of Aphrodite,
who rose out of the foam of the sea ; the second is simply a
survival of the ancient custom. In ancient times, upon the
death of a Cypriote, it was the duty of his relatives to make
offerings of food in honour of the dead, to-day there is nothing
to which mourners attach more importance than the offerings of
food in honour of the departed ; and if the departed one has been
greatly loved, year after year, as the day of his death recurs, the
poor collect at the door of the house to receive the offerings,
generally " burghel " (broken wheat) cooked in butter, which the
relatives offer in honour of the dead parent or friend. The evil
eye is as much dreaded to-day by the peasants of Cyprus as it
was thousands of years ago. Ask a Cypriote peasant how many
children he has, he will answer you, " three or four," or " four
or five," never a fixed number ; for with him it is held to be as
unlucky to count objects that may die, as it was for David of
old to count the thousands of Israel. There is no treasured child
or colt that does not wear round its neck a charm against the evil
eye, nor can you enter a peasant's cottage without the eye falling
upon the skeleton of a cows or ram's head, or other such object
to ward off ill-luck from the abode. Hospitality is a duty, and
nothing can be finer than the paternal abnegation of the
Cypriote parent for his children. The poorest give away their
little all to dower their girls and to share their possessions with
their boys when of an age to marry. When all their children
are thus settled in life, the parents are contented to live as
guests in the home they once owned.

In conclusion, I repeat, nearly all in art and much in customs
are still in Cyprus survivals. The Cypriote of to-day is still
a counterpart of the man of the past, but I greatly mistake if
you do not find it very different at the next grand Exhibition
to which His Eoyal Highness may invite him. The youth who
visits to-day many objects in the Cyprus Court will probably,
long before his head is grey, have to search for them in museums
of antiquities.

Opening Remarks ~by the President. 189

JUNE TTH, 1886.

CONFERENCE ON THE NATIVE RACES OF AMERICA
(WEST INDIES.)

FRANCIS GALTON, Esq., F.R.S., President, in the Chair.

The PRESIDENT made some observations on opening the Con-
ference.

Mr. G. H. HAWTAYNE read a paper by Mr. E. F. IM THURN
on the Natives of the West Indies ; and afterwards spoke on the
same subject. Sir RAWSON RAWSON also contributed some
remarks.

Dr. J. RAE gave a brief account of the Natives of British
North America, especially the Eskimo, and Professor FLOWER
joined in the discussion.

An adjournment took place to the West Indies and British
Guiana Courts, where Mr. HAWTAYNE described some of the
exhibits.

OPENING REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT.

THE phrase of " Native Races in the British Possessions of
America " is primarily associated in most of our minds with the
Red Indians in the Dominion of Canada. This is justly the
case, because out of the nine millions of square miles which the
whole British Empire contains, considerably more than a third
part lies within the Dominion of Canada, and all except a small
fraction of this was, until quite recent times, the home of the
red man. Moreover, their race has played a notable part in the
history of North America, it has been, and still is, the subject of
a large amount of anthropological inquiry, it has furnished
themes to many well-known popular writers. On these grounds,
I think I may be permitted to say that few sections of the
Exhibition would have been more attractive, not only to the
anthropologist, but also to the general public, than one which
effectually represented the domestic life, the arts and the usages
of the Red Indian. But this view does not seem to have been
taken by the Canadian authorities, whose wide courts, though
filled with most interesting products, refer almost entirely to the
industries of the white man. The whole of the Red Indian
exhibits occupy no more horizontal space than would be afforded
by a moderately-sized dinner table with a corresponding amount
of vertical wall space.

190 E. F. IM THURN.— On the Eaces of the West Indies,

Since there are not sufficient exhibits to serve as a text for
discussions about the Eed Indians, our hour must be assigned
to other races, who fall under the same title of Native Races
in the British Possessions of America, and who are well repre-
sented in this Exhibition. But before beginning upon these
I shall be happy to give a very few minutes to any gentle-
man who may be disposed to make brief remarks about these
temporarily overlooked red Canadian natives. The objects on
the table come from British Columbia; they are taken from
the exhibits under the charge of Dr. Selwyn, who, unless I am
mistaken, regrets the inadequacy of the exhibits relating to Red
Indians as much as I do. He is unfortunately unable to be
present.

On the RACES of the WEST INDIES.
By E. F. IM THURN, Esq.

THE information at present available as to the red races of the
West Indian Islands and of the immediately adjoining main-
land is but fragmentary. Certain points have been somewhat
minutely investigated, many others have as yet hardly been
examined. In trying to piece together from such unsatisfactory
data as these an outline of the probable facts concerning the
history of these races, I seem to feel myself somewhat in the
position of one who lays down a map of a country of which only
certain isolated spots are known, of which vast tracts have never
been visited. Just as this map-maker, after he has placed on
his paper the known points has to draw from conjecture the
surrounding country, so I must, on this occasion, suggest the
probable connection of the few ascertained facts which I have to
tell. Probable and possible are words that I am forced to use
frequently but with carefully considered significance.

At the time of their discovery the West Indian Islands were
found to be inhabited by red-skinned people of altogether
peculiar character. They were the first examples seen by
Europeans of the remarkable race of men which is peculiar to
the Western Hemisphere. The accounts of the first interviews
of Columbus and his immediate followers with these new people
in this newly discovered world, are of the very greatest historical
— or to use a wider word, anthropological — interest. They raise,
surely, in the imagination of any reader, a wonderful picture — a
picture of the first meeting of the man of white skin, the product
of the social development which had been in rapid progress for
long ages in the eastern world, with the man of red skin, the
product of the social development which during those same ages,

E. F. IM THUEN — On the Races of the West Indies. 191

with far less rapid progress, had existed- in the western world.
The men of the east thus for the first time visited and saw the
men of the west. The mind of the zealous anthropologist is
almost appalled at the greatness and splendour of the oppor-
tunity which those men of the east then had — and lost.

But those portions of the American race which were thus first
discovered in the West Indian Islands, were extinguished with
remarkable rapidity. The larger number were enslaved, and
with a slavery so cruel that they soon perished. Others lingered
on, carrying on a more or less desultory warfare with the white
colonists, who flocked from the east into the islands of the west.
The history of what was, I believe, the latest instance of active
fighting between West Indian colonists and West Indian red
men, that in St. Vincent, will be told you far better by Mr.
Hawtayne, who has kindly consented to read this paper for me,
than I could tell it. The general result of slavery and war has
been the almost complete extermination of the West Indian
red man. A very few pure-blooded representatives of the race
survive in two or three of the islands ; and it would be a very
good thing if these survivors were carefully examined, and if
their number and condition were recorded. A few other people
with red blood — so-called black Caribs — are to be found in St.
Vincent, and probably in some other of the islands. These are
hybrids between the genuine red West Indian and the imported
black African, and are of very curious interest. Mr. Hawtayne,
with much greater experience, can give you much better infor-
mation of these people than can I. For my part, I may, how-
ever, tell you that these island hybrids correspond exactly with
the hybrids, not very rare in certain parts of Guiana and of
Brazil, between red men and negroes. In Guiana they are called
Cobungroos. Physically, at any rate, the mixture is a most
successful one. Finer men, or better suited for life in the parts
where their lot is cast, than the Cobungroos of the edge of the
forest country of Guiana, it would be hard to imagine. I should
like to place on record that it was to one of these people, a young
fellow named Gabriel, that I very largely owe my success in
ascending Roraima.

The few surviving traces of these extinct island races are
naturally of the very greatest anthropological importance. These
are chiefly of two kinds, one of which is represented by the few
surviving traces of the languages of these races, that is of a few
brief vocabularies and of a large number of place-names ; the
other being represented by the products of the simple arts of
these races, the implements of stone, shell, clay and wood.

Concerning the traces of languages, all that I can here do is
to remind you that, as regards the Arawak language of the

192 E. F. IM THURN.— On the Races of the West Indies.

islands, Dr. Brinton has admirably summarised the little existing
information in a paper contributed to the " Transactions of the
American Philosophical Society" (since reprinted in pamphlet
form), and that a Carib grammar of the 17th century, by a French
priest then resident in Dominica (?) exists, and has of late years
been reprinted by M. Adam in Paris. I may add that Mr. Ling
Eoth, who will, I trust, be present at the reading of this paper, has
made considerable study of the language of the island Arawaks,
and will give you, I hope, more information on this subject than
I can. As regards the place-names, I have been for some years
collecting them, and I hope soon to publish the information
which they throw on the extinct people who originally gave
them. To close my few remarks on the subject of language, I
may also tell you that I possess the M.S. of an Arawak grammar
written by the late Eev. W. H. Brett, a man of great learning
on that subject; and that I also possess, through the extreme
kindness of my American friends, a M.S. German- Arawak
dictionary, compiled during the last century by a Moravian
missionary. Both of these latter linguistic materials refer, it is
true, to the Arawaks of the mainland, not to those of the islands,
but they cannot fail when published, as I hope they will be in
due time, to throw much light on the insular languages.

More enduring than the linguistic traces are the implements
of stone, shell, clay and wood. Various collections of these,
some of considerable extent, have been made, and afford much,
at present hardly used, material for study. Foremost should, I
think, be mentioned the Latimer collection, now incorporated in
the United States Museum at Washington. This collection was
brought together by an Englishman, but an American subject,
George Latimer, who was for a long period a merchant and
American Consul in Porto Eico. It was bequeathed by him to
the American nation. It has been admirably described by
Professor Otis T. Mason in the " Proceedings of the Smithsonian
Institute." Its fault, a fault, alas, common to almost every such
collection, is that it carries with it no record of the special place
and circumstances of the discovery of each stone. Next, I
suppose, in interest among the public collections must rank that
portion of the Christy collection, in the British Museum, which
consists of the stone implements from the West Indies. While
it contains some very interesting examples, it is far from suffi-
ciently representative, and I think I may safely plead with those
Englishmen who are possessors of West Indian stone imple-
ments to add them to our national collection, which has great
need of such specimens. Another public collection, the Black-
more Museum at Salisbury, contains some interesting West
Indian examples, the best of which have been described in Mr.

E. E. IM THUHN. — On the Races of the West Indies. 193

E. T. Stevens's "Flint Chips." Turning now to private col-
lections, among the more interesting of these may be mentioned
that of Sir Thomas Graham Briggs, of Barbados. A selection of
the best examples of this collection has been kindly lent to me
by its owner, and many of them have been figured in my "Notes
on West Indian Stone Implements," in " Titnehri," our Guiana
scientific journal. Another portion of this collection fills one of
the large cases in the West Indian Court of the Exhibition. Mr.
E. A. Atkinson, now of Trinidad, possesses a small but very
interesting collection, some examples of which he has been good
enough to give me, others he has lent me. These too have been
figured in " Timehri." Dr. H. A. Alford Nichols, of Dominica,
has also brought together a considerable number of examples,
the whole of which will be found in the Exhibition. My own
collection, which, at least in point of numbers, exceeds any of
these private collections, is unfortunately in Guiana, whence
special circumstances prevented my bringing it, as I should
like to have done, to the Exhibition. Various other small but
very interesting collections, are, however, there shown, by M. Th.
Eousselot, Esq.

Of these the first should be especially examined.

Time forbids my describing in any very great detail the
material thus nominally brought together. I may, however,
briefly allude to some of the more interesting features of the
collection thus laid before your imagination.

I think there is now hardly any part of the world from
which stone implements have not been procured, and it is a
platitude to remark that of these certain types occur with
wonderful similarity, almost everywhere. Commonest of these
is what I have elsewhere described as the " petalloid " type.
Its chief representive is shaped like the long narrow petal of a
flower, e.g., of a ranunculus. Eound this representative of the
type may be grouped many more or less slight variations of form.
But taking the type as a whole it may be said to be spread
universally over the globe. The explanation of this of course
is, that implements of this shape are, as axes, adzes, and chisels,
tools for the simplest, earliest, and most necessary purposes, and
that their form is consequently that naturally first devised by
one of the earliest efforts of imagination by all primitive folk,
whether isolated or not, in all parts of the world. It is as
common in the West Indies as elsewhere, and many examples
of it will be found in the show cases of the Exhibition. Some
of them will be found to be polished and finished to a very
high degree. Especially may attention be called to one extra-
ordinarily highly polished and beautiful example from Antigua,
the property of Bishop Branch.

194 E. F. IM THURN.— On the Races of the West Indies.

But in the matter of stone implements, as in other matters,
if the earliest devised forms of the most primitive folk are the
same, or very nearly the same, in all parts of the world, the
next, and in increasing degree, all further devised forms are apt
to be different in different parts of the world. That is, each
folk, starting from a very similar because very simple form,
develops for itself, according to its own peculiar surrounding
circumstances, higher forms specially suited to its own circum-
stances. Thus just as it is true that implements of the simplest
kind from different parts of the world are of identical form, so
it is true that implements of more elaborate kind are, more or
less, of distinct and peculiar form in each different part of the
world. The type of implement peculiar to the West Indies is
very peculiar, I believe I may say unique, and indicates so high
an artistic advance that it is a matter of extreme regret that
more of the circumstances which led to this advance are not
known. I may add in treating of these artistic forms that
the materials employed were of various kinds, including not
only stone, but also clay, wood, and, though this does not lend
itself to much artistic elaboration, shell.

The peculiarity of this West Indian art may not unfairly be
described as the application of an unusual elaborateness of
sculpture. This was probably first used as a mere means of
adorning implements of practical utility. This stage is well
illustrated by many examples in the exhibition, of which the
following may be especially noted : —

1. One in left hand large case, winged and grooved, thus —

Nowhere else, I believe, but in the West Indies, or
possibly on the immediately adjoining mainland, would
such a form be found. It is a specially good example
of many forms more or less slightly diverging from it,
and the whole group thus formed should, I think, be regarded
as the most remarkable feature in the history of the West
Indian stone age.

2. A large example, in the same case, from the Grenada
Public Library, should also be especially noted for the sake of
comparison.

3. A form approaching that already mentioned, but perforated,
should also be noted. They are fairly common in the West
Indies, and there are one or two examples, though no very fine
one, in the Exhibition. Its shape is here represented —
vwy That these examples thus described were not in-
r n H dividual eccentricities, but represent forms once com-
1 \ monly made, is, I think, shown by the fact that they

occur not only in considerable numbers, but of all
sizes, from barely an inch long to twelve inches long and more.

E. F. IM THURN. — On the Races of the West Indies. 195

But if, as has been suggested, this sculpture was first applied
as mere ornament to practical implements, it seems to have
been used, probably later, for the .adornment of stones, or of
other material, for merely ornamental, or perhaps symbolic, pur-
poses. It seems .as though the West Indian sculptor ran riot with
his art and often wrought an implement, frequently at the cost
of what must have been considerable labour, into curious forms
apparently impossible of practical use. Before describing some
of these forms, which have been described somewhat meaning-
lessly as " banner-stones '" — and the term, in default of a better,
is useful — I will just point out two facts bearing on this special
matter. The first is that still at the present day the red men of
the mainland are very apt when they see a piece of wood of
curious natural form— suggesting, say, some animal — to take
that wood and, with more or less artistic touches, to complete
its resemblance to that animal. It is perhaps worth notice as a
curious survival of, or reversion to, this practice that there is at
Stratford-on-Avon, a man who has a museum — a " phusoglyptic
museum " he calls it — of such natural pieces of wood which,
merely by a few touches of art, he has transferred to the shapes
of various animals. The second fact ,to which I propose to
refer is that there is another possible explanation than that
given above of the historical relation of the West Indian
banner-stones to the West Indian practical implements orna-
mented by sculpture; and this is that the red man first applied
sculpture merely !by way of amusement to certain stones the
natural shape of which suggested some peculiar form to his
mind, and that having thus developed his artistic skill, he then
only in the second place applied this artistic sculpture to the
ornamentation of the practical implements of simple form
which he was already in the habit of 'using. The difference
between the two possible theories is merely this : the one
suggests that sculpture was first applied to the development, in
an artistic line, of practical implements, and then was allowed
to run riot in the production of " banner-stones " ; the other
that banner-stones were first made as an amusement, and the
art thus gained was combined with that employed in the pro-
duction of practical implements.

Leaving the choice between these two theories open, I will
now turn to the description of one or two examples of banner-
stones.

1. The very essential idea of a " banner-stone " being that it
should be of no (unless of symbolic) use, I may allude first
to one which fulfills these conditions most perfectly. I have
placed a photograph of the stone in one of the cases of imple-
ments from British Honduras. Its form is so eccentric and

196 G. H. HAWTAYNE. — Remarks on the Caribs.

meaningless as to defy description, and I can only advise those
who are interested in such matters to examine the photograph.
The original implement is part of the Atkinson collection, but
is now in my care. It must have been manufactured at the
cost of a very considerable amount of labour. It has been fully
described and figured in " Timehri."

REMARKS on the CARIES.
By G. H. HAWTAYNE, Esq., C.M.G.

There is not much to be said by me in addition to what is con-
tained in Mr. Im T hum's paper. In the Island of St. Vincent
there were and still are, two kinds of Caribs, one the yellow or red
man whom the paper just read mentions, and the other a hybrid
race a mixture of yellow Caribs with some African slaves who
about 1(532 were wrecked on the shores of Bequia, an island close
to St. Vincent. Quarrels and wars arose between the two tribes,
and eventually the black Caribs settled on the leeward or north-
western coast, and the yellow on the opposite side of the island.
They were formidable enemies to the British, whose army of
5,000 men, led by Sir Ralph Abercrombie and other distinguished
generals, had a difficult task to subdue their savage opponents,
aided by officers and men of the French Republican army. One
of these black Caribs, Chatoyer, was the leader of the rebels.
There is an engraving in the West Indian Court from a picture
painted for Sir William Young from life, representing this savage
chief and his five wives. Their features show their partly African
descent, and the women are there represented carrying their loads
in sunanas, which are baskets woven from a species of Maranta,
strung on the back and supported by a band across the forehead,
just as the figure of the Acawoi woman in the British Guiana Court
is carrying hers. These black Caribs, when African slaves were
imported to till the fields of the European planters, became alarmed
lest their descendants might be mistaken for those of the servile
race, and compelled to labour, and so the practice was instituted of
compressing the foreheads of newborn children so as to distinguish
them from pure Africans. This custom, however, has long died
out, but skulls are to be found with receding foreheads thus caused.
The Black Caribs inhabit a small tract of land near the foot of the
Souffriere Mountain granted to them in 1805. They are excellent
boatmen and live by fishing. They also make a few baskets of
neat workmanship. In 1879 the black and yellow Caribs were said
to number 431, but of these several were not of pure blood. In
1735 they were estimated at 10,000, but many were killed in the
war of 1 795-6, and upward of 5,000 were transported to Ruatan in
the Bay of Honduras. The prisoners of war were, however, first
sent to a small island near St. Vincent, called Balliceaux, where

G. H. HA.WTAYNE. — Remarks on the Caribs. 197

several died, and where many graves containing their remains
with fragments of pottery and shells still exist. Moreover, a good
many of the Black Caribs were alarmed at the eruption of the
So uffriere volcano in 1812, and quitted St. Yincent for Trinidad.

The axes, or stone implements, are found in great number in St.
Vincent, Dominica, Grenada, and other islands. They are sup-
posed by many to be "thunderbolts," and this arises possibly from
their being found after a storm when the tropical rains wash away
a portion of the surface land and expose these relics buried but a
few inches beneath. They are still made in the far interior of
Guiana.

The stone from which they are manufactured is of two or three
kinds. The fine green description from, which the smaller and
keener edged ones are formed does not exist in St. Vincent. It
may be, as Mr. Im Thurn surmises, that this stone material was
brought from some distant place as an article of barter amongst
the Caribs.

Various forms of these stone implements are found throughout
the islands and Guiana, and I may mention that some years ago I
obtained in St. Vincent a stone implement about the size and shape
of a peach but as it were pinched up at one end into a thin ridge,
which was perforated with a small hole. This specimen was the
only one of the kind I had ever seen, until when taking it to the
Christy Museum, I found some exactly similar among the Scandi-
navian stone implements, and which were supposed to be used as
sinkers by fishermen. This will show how widely these stone
weapons and tools are distributed.

There is in the New South Wales Court one shell implement
found in Duke of York's Island closely resembling the Barbadoes
type, which is another noteworthy instance of distribution. The
stone implements in the same case resemble those found in the
West Indian Islands and British Guiana. They are, however,
termed tomahawks, for which there does not appear sufficient
authority.

One article of purely Carib manufacture to be seen in the British
Guiana Court is the matapie, a long bag or sac woven from the
rind of one of the Maranta tribe. It is so made as to become con-
stricted when pulled longitudinally, and is used to press out from
the grated root of the cassava, or manioc, the poisonous juice. The
Acawoi woman already mentioned is seated on a lever by which
downward pressure is sustained on the matapie, which is suspended
from a beam. This appliance is also found in the West Indian
Islands, and in St. Vincent is known by its French name,
coulevre.

A gentleman who recently visited the British Guiana Court
informs me that a similar utensil is or was used in Fiji to squeeze
out dye from a plant, but that the basket-work was so constructed
as to be twisted in contrary directions when pulled, so that the
vegetable mass enclosed in it was wrung instead of being simply
pressed.

VOL. XVI. P

198 G. H. HAWTAYNE. — Remarks on the Car Us.

The implements found in Barbadoes are for the most part made
from the centre of the conch shell, probably because that island
does not contain any hard stone.

Of the Carib language little was known to the black Caribs of
St. Vincent of twenty years ago, when the numerals after five were
the French six, sept, huit, &c., and the names of certain things, as
knives, guns, &c., were also given in French patois.

Interesting results would probably follow a systematic explora-
tion of the graves of the Caribs at Balliceaux. Some years ago I
made a hasty examination of one, but the bones in it were all in
small fragments. Conch and other shells abounded, and I obtained
several pieces of pottery, chiefly masks, rudely formed, and which
appeared to have been the ears or handles of earthenware vessels.
At Battewia, a neighbouring island, there is a large cave in which a
wooden seat or stool was discovered, and no doubt other relics
might be obtained there. There is also a Carib cave on the
windward side of St. Vincent, at different spots in which
island sculptured stones are found. Those which I most
clearly recollect are a stone or rock in a field above the town of
Barrowallie on the side of which is engraved a human face looking
due west, and a large flat rock with the upper surface extensively
carved, and which is supposed to have been a sacrificial altar.
This is on Rutland Vale Estate, also on the leeward side. At
Yambou Vale, on the windward coast, are other remains. A com-
parison of these rude sculptures or engravings with those found in
Gruiana would be most interesting.

When going round the cases in the Exhibition, a lady informed
me that the "cocked hafc" stones resembled closely an implement
of hard clay used in the present day in Egypt to remove dried
mud from the feet, and marked, as are the stones, on the flat surfaces
with lines. This struck me as being very interesting.

I should like to remark in connection with what has been written
by Mr. Im Thurn as to semi-lunar ornaments of silver having been
given to Chiefs of the Bed men, the form of which was presumably
copied from stone articles of a similar form, that it is on record that
when the Chief of the Black Caribs of St. Vincent, Chatoyer, was
killed in the Carib war of 1794, upon him was found a silver semi-
lanar ornament with an inscription, which had been given to him
by William IV, when Prince William Henry, and serving in the
Navy; but this semi-lunar ornament was evidently copied from the
gorget then worn by military officers, and of which specimens are
common. It may be therefore that the Dutch semi-lunar ornaments
spoken of by Mr. Im Thurn were also imitations or adaptations of
the gorget formerly worn by military men.

NOTE ly HYDE CLARKE, Esq., Vice-President.
Among Mr. Borlase's gold ornaments in the West Indian
Court, it will be observed that the .hand of most of the human
figures consists of three fingers, the feet also have three toes.

DR. RAE. — On Natives of British North America. 199

The same thing will be found in the New Zealand Depart-
ment.

This is an illustration, among many, of the common descent
of all these objects from one system of symbology.

It is found in characters, and can be recognised even now in
those of China.

Three is found to be treated as equivalent to the plural.

On Khita (Hittite) sculpture, three hairs represent the marie
of the lion, and the same in the emblematic writings brought
by Capt. Gill from the Moso district in S.W. China.

In Plate XIII of the Eeport on Queen Charlotte's Island,
1878, by Dr. Geo. M. Dawson (Geological Survey of Canada)
the hand is represented with three fingers, as in the cases cited
in New Zealand and Central America. These may be regarded
as related to the Pacific regions.

EEMARKS on the NATIVES of BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
By Dr. JOHN EAE.

Dr. JOHN RAE being called npon to make a few remarks on the
subject of the aborigines of British North America, said that it was
too large and important a subject to be dealt with satisfactorily in
the very short space of time allowed.

Dr. Rae agreed with the Chairman that it was a pity there was
no special exhibit of Indian work sent to the Colonial Exhibition,
although there may be seen at one part of the Canadian Court
a very considerable quantity of native work for sale. A very
interesting collection of the weapons, tools, pipes, bedding, clothing,
&c., used and worn by the different tribes, might have been brought
together. The Indians with whom Dr. Rae is best acquainted are
those of the wooded country, of whom the Maskegon, or " swampy,"
Crees form a very large portion, to the south and south-east of
the Hudson Bay Territory, whilst the Chipewyans, Dog Ribs or
slaves, Slave Indians, Louchoux, &c., occupy the more distant
lands to the north-west, in the Athabasca and McKenzie River
districts. All of these tribes are more or less docile and friendly,
having been treated with much kindness, firmness, and judgment
for a number of generations by the Hudson's Bay Company, who
have for many years excluded alcoholic drinks from a country more
than half the size of Europe, and the officers of the Company have
also willingly given up their small yearly allowance, a few dozens
of wine and brandy, that the Indians could not have it to say that
they took to themselves what they refused to the natives. These
Indians make very good voyageurs, either in summer in boats and
canoes, or in .winter on snow-shoe journees. They are found to be
trustworthy and obedient. In summer ifc is desirable to employ
them, as they are thus prevented killing fur-bearing animals when

P 2

200 Dr. RAE. — On Natives of British North America.

out of season. They get well paid and well fed whilst so engaged,
and thus earn some means to purchase supplies for winter. Many
of these northern Indians have an unfortunate habit of destroying
all their property on the death of any near relative, arid thus they
are kept very poor. I saw several cases of this during the few years
I was on the McKenzie. It is rather hard on the Hudson's Bay
Company (who have so far unsuccessfully endeavoured to stop the
practice) as all the property destroyed may not have been paid for.
These northern Indians might tame the reindeer as the " Laps " do,
but they think that to do so would bring upon them all kinds of
misfortunes. It is difficult to say why the Louchoux living next
to, and the hereditary (?) enemies of, the Eskimos, should be so
unlike other red men in appearance, manner, dress, and habits.
Both men and women are very fine looking ; their wealth is in
beads, of which the men wear a profusion, tastefully ornamenting
their leather garments. They usually carry a dress suit to put
on in the evening, or on arrival at a trading station. They (the
men) have their feet compressed when young, but not to such
an extent as to prevent them from walking comfortably, and wear
immense pigtails, a custom which the Hudson's Bay Company's
people are gradually getting them to give up, as by a great
addition of fat, feathers, &c., these tails become offensive and very
heavy. The children are carried in cradles differing from those
of any other native tribes.

Some persons seem to think that the Eskimos live outside
British America ; this is so little the case that about 4,500 miles
of the northern boundary of the Dominion of Canada are fre-
quented by these interesting people, who in Dr. Rae's opinion,
bear evidence of a previous state of civilisation, especially in their
kind treatment of their wives. Dr. Rae also thinks that the
Eskimos came from across Behring Strait from Asia. Their
traditions and many other things point in that direction, and they
are in no way related to the ancient cave men of Europe.

Professor FLOWER said that his investigation into the physical
characteristics of the Eskimos led him to agree entirely with Dr.
Rae's conclusions derived from other sources. He looked upon the
Eskimos as a branch of the North Asiatic Mongols (of which the
Japanese may be taken as a familiar example), who in their wander-
ings across the American continent in the eastward direction,
isolated almost as perfectly as an island population would be,
hemmed in on one side by the eternal polar ice, and on the other
by hostile tribes of American Indians, with whom they rarely, if
ever, mingled, have gradually developed special modifications of
the Mongolian type, which increase in intensity from west to east,
and are seen in their greatest perfection in the inhabitants of
Greenland, at all events in those in which no intercrossing with the
Danes has taken place. The typical Eskimo is one of the most
specialized of the human race, as far as cranial and facial characters
are concerned, and such scanty remains as have yet been discovered

J. BONWICK. — The Australian Natives. 201

of the prehistoric inhabitants of Europe present no structural
affinities with him. Similar external conditions may have led to
the adoption of similar modes of life, but this is a very unsafe test
of race affinity. There is therefore little or no evidence to justify
the assumption that the present inhabitants of the northernmost
parts of America are the descendants of the men whose rude flint
tools found in our drifts and caves excite so much interest and
speculation.

JUNE 22ND, 1886.

CONFERENCE ON THE NATIVE RACES OF
AUSTRALIA.

FRANCIS GALTON, Esq., F.R.S., President, in the Chair.

Mr. J. BONWICK read a paper on the Native Races of
Australia, upon which Dr. AHEARNE made some remarks.

The PRESIDENT described and exhibited some objects from
the New Guinea Court, and a large number of objects from
Australia were described by Mr. BONWICK.

The AUSTRALIAN NATIVES.
By JAMES BONWICK, Esq., F.R.G.S.

The short time allowed for this paper compels me to give
only a brief and popular description of these aborigines.

Their physique demands the first enquiry.

In colour they are dark, but not quite black ; Europeans, as
it is well known, may contract pigmentary stains in certain
pathological states. An odour, somewhat resembling that
emitted by a goat, has been detected. If not stoutly built,
there is no deficiency in height. The shoulders are rather
narrow, and the strength is reputed below that of the English.
The breast of the female is pendulous in early motherhood.

The base of the trunk differs from that of Europeans. The
greatest distance of the iliac crests is relatively less. In narrow-
ness of the basin, the native's pelvis is more like the negro's,
and in its extreme narrowness suggests a relation to the ape
family. The arms are longer than in any other race. In 50
Australians the forearm varied from 17 to 19 J; in 50 English,
17 to 18 f. The leg measurements, 17 to 20 in the whites, gave
17 to 22 for the others. In the woman, the leg is longer in
proportion than with her native husband.

202 J. BONWICK. — TJie Australian Natives.

The hair, which is cylindrical, is not woolly or tufted as in
Africans, or even as it was in the departed Tasmanians, though
more or less curly, and always coarse. Often thick upon legs
and arms, it is but sparsely scattered in the flowing beard. The
cicatrices on shoulder and breast are tribal marks.

A pyramidal shape of the head has been compared to that in
old Gaulish reindeer-hunters and the boat-headed Brochmen of
ancient north-east Scotland. The Australian head is more
narrow than broad. A massive brow makes the forehead appear
retreating, though often high, broad and convex. In the Western
Australian Court, possessing the best native Australian exponents,
a remarkably thick skull may be seen. The facial angle is
variable. A retreating, feeble chin distinguishes all. While
the mouth is large, the nose is flat, and repeatedly greater in
width than length. Prognathism is pronounced. Teeth are
powerful, well enamelled, with large crowns.

They who accept the evolution doctrine as applied to the
physical origin of man, regard the Australians as, in some
respects, nearer than most existing peoples to the anthropoid
apes. Many atavic reminiscences, or ancestral marks are
distinguishable. In the soft parts, brown stains are noticed, as
in negroes and the anthropoids. The lobule of the ear is more
or less attached. There is a general uniformity of colour. The
dental arch is of simian appearance. The first upper pre-
molar tooth is stronger than the second, the lower molars are
often equal in size, as in the chimpanzee, while the size and
number of cuspides or points on the molars are ape-like. The
form of the alveolar arch of the upper maxillary, and its prog-
nathism, may be styled pithecoid. The retreating chin, narrow
thorax, long upper members, contracted palm of hand, small
skull capacity, narrow pelvis, and platycnemic or flattened
bone of leg, are all supposed relics of transitional humanity.
Australian females show more of these lower signs than males.
In Bulwer Lytton's " Coming Eace," woman is to be pre-eminent,
physically and intellectually, over man.

The origin of the Australians is doubtful. Believers in the
existence of distinct evolutions of man, in different localities,
cannot consider Australia a suitable birthplace, inasmuch as
animals leading up to man are wanting there. A vacuity appears
after the ancient order of marsupials.

Man came to Australia as an immigrant, and was not of
indigenous growth. He may have come before depression
removed intervening bridges from other lands. The visitors, in
all probability, found other inhabitants there. Tasmania, New
Guinea, Timor, New Caledonia, Borneo, New Zealand, attest
the presence of a very ancient, dark skinned, rather woolly-

J. BONWICK. — The Australian Natives. 203

haired race over a large area, anterior to the insular formation
of those parts. As the immigrant Maories absorbed or destroyed
such aborigines in New Zealand, so only here and there can the
old type be detected now in Australia.

The occupation by Australians, though to be reckoned by
thousands of years, must have been subsequent to the separation
of Tasmania from New Holland, as only the primitive race, not
any Australians, were to be seen in the little Isle of Beauty. It
was also subsequent to the depression isolating New Guinea.

As the dark hill- tribes of India were ages before the advent
of Hindoos proper, and as important geological changes have
occurred since man first came to Britain, when no English
Channel existed, when mammoths and cave bears roamed in our
vales, we may be sure that the history of Australian natives,
since they left the ancestral home, must cover a vast period of
time. Admirers of old families should surely respect a people
of so great an antiquity.

Why were the Australians so long unknown to civilised
nations ? Neighbourly Malays found nothing to attract them in
trade. Spaniards, Portugese, and Dutch were equally content to
withhold from settlement. This want of contact with superiors
accounts for much unprogressiveness, and an ignorance of metals.
But if civilisation be connected with government, established
rules of conduct, and conceptions of something beyond material
existence, the people had a sort of civilization. Not indebted,
as were Western Europeans, to foreigners for knowledge of arts,
what advance there was might be regarded as an evolved one.
There are to be seen there no remains of a prior state of progress,
or of even the temporary sojourn of a higher race.

On the other hand, freemasonry, mysteries, circumcision, and
other rites would seein to demand former contact, at ever so
remote a period, with superior persons. Did the earliest
Australians bring some light from lands now, perchance, sunk in
the ocean ?

Civilisation is ever insignificant among hunting inhabitants.
There were no native animals in Australia to raise men to the
pastoral stage, and where even European settlers found nothing
indigenous worthy of cultivation as food, a native farming
population could not be expected. The Australians were hide-
bound, from a civilisation point of view.

The arts can be represented by a few simple contrivances.
Kude carvings on rocks or weapons, rude sketches in ochre upon
rocks or bark, illustrate a far inferior artistic power to that of the
long extinct tribe of Gaul, which has left us those clear scratch-
ings to depict hunts after reindeer and mammoths.

Fancy articles are to be seen in several Courts ; as tassels to

204 J. BONWICK. — The Australian Natives.

women's bags, head-sticks prettily circled by their cut shavings,
shields adorned with parti-coloured curves, and various orna-
ments worn at corrobories made of feathers, fur, and human
hair. Native persons were gaily got up in colours, arm and leg
bands, necklaces of shells, seeds, or teeth, girdles of bark, fur, or
hair, on festive occasions.

Manufactures are in bags of grass, bark and string, dishes of
bark, spoons of shell, head pads of fur or hair, nets of string,
rope of plaited string, bone hooks for fishing, skin cloaks sewn
with kangaroo sinews by bone needles, rude attempts at spinning
on a couple of sticks, water bags of bark or grass, digging sticks,
message sticks, and weapons.

Hammers, chisels, and tomahawks are stones, sometimes ground
to an edge, fixed by gum and cord on a cleft stick. The spear
or boomerang arrests the kangaroo or emu, the stick brings down
the bird, the spear, hook, and net procure the fish. Sometimes
the man watches for his prey with uplifted spear, crouching or
standing still in shallow water, raising his head occasionally for
air.

Force, if not much needed with the harmless animals of
Australia, is exercised in tribal wars. Australians and Europeans
alike have ideas of patriotism confined by certain territorial
boundaries ; inside of which are friends, outside are foes.

Spears of wood, with points hardened by fire, have sometimes
barbs of jagged stone, or, since European occupation, broken glass
or nails. Clubs are of various sorts, from simple knobbed sticks
to formidable wooden weapons with a sharp edge, curved or
angular. The wommera or throwing stick receives the spear,
accelerating its motion, and straightening its course.

A few boomerangs, chiefly employed in striking birds, are so
constructed as to perform spiral revolutions in flight and return
to the thrower after gaining their object. No boomerang was
used in Tasmania, though known in Egypt. A gradual transition
has been detected from the club to the boomerang, which is
often a formidable weapon.

Clothing, of skins, is rarely used by either sex, except in wet
or cold weather. Nakedness is no shame with them. As a
French traveller once remarked to a lady, " With a pair of
gloves you could clothe six men." A fall of emu feathers, or
tassels of skin, may be used in particular dances. The Western
Australian Court has some singular head dresses. Adornments
are almost entirely monopolised by the men ; females are content
with their natural charms. In his girdle the man carries his
weapons and charms.

Household goods are few where houses are but a lean-to of
slabs of bark, and where cooking is performed by the simple

J. BON WICK. — The Australian Natives. 205

process of throwing the animal game in its skin on the fire. Bags
of bark or grass hold water. Some advanced tribes have rude,
ovens in the ground. Stones are heated in a fire, placed in the
hole in contact with the food, and covered with wet grass and
earth for steaming purposes.

Food for the limited population is abundant in wild fruits and
roots, in birds, beasts and fishes. Pituri leaves, when chewed,
enable the native to travel for days together without suffering
hunger. The plant is only found towards the south-west of
Queensland. Cannibalism, if not confessed, is an existing in-
stitution of remote parts. The eating of the human kidney fat
is supposed to increase bodily strength. Water has been their
only beverage. No intoxicants, for drinking or smoking, were
known among them.

Home life there was not quite the dark scene some pictured.
Hunting and play in the day, feasting, dancing, singing and
joking in the evening, are the pastimes. Affection is witnessed
between husband and wife, parent and child, tribesman and mate.
The gambols of little ones afford constant amusement. Chastise-
ment seldom falls upon children. Want of soft food for infants
compels the mother to protract lactation to two or three years.
Infanticide, abortion, and wife-beating are known in the
Australian bush not less than in Europe and America. Morals
are neither so elevated nor so debased as in the British Isles.

Women are treated as the inferior, as elsewhere. They look
for the lesser game, while men seek the larger. If not the dancers
in the corrobory, they are the singers, musicians, and applauders.

While Cupid plays his pranks alike in palaces and huts, he
does not leave wild tribes neglected. The girl is the property of
her father till ownership be transferred to a husband, as in this
favoured country. There may be the promise in childhood, the
gift in after years. The old custom of wife stealing is still kept
up, though in pretence, with them, as it was till of late with us,
now only surviving in the pelting of the robbing bridegroom
with slippers by the lady's friends. As late as 1688 a party of
Highlanders carried off by force a number of Aberdeen damsels.
Polygamy can be seldom practised, as women are fewer than
men in the Bush.

Marriages may be contracted in the tribe, but not in the same
family or special class, in or out of the tribe. Bishop Salvado,
of Western Australia, records the complexity of arrangements as
to intermarriage in the six tribal families near him. In the
north-west the Kimera and the Paljari may intermarry. While
the child of a Kimera man and Paljari woman is a Boorungnoo,
that by a Paljari man and Kimera woman is a Banuighu. The off-
spring of a Boorungnoo man and Bannighu woman becomes

206 J. BONWICK. — The Australian Natives.

again a Kimera, wlieu that of a Bannighu man and Boorungnoo
woman is a Paljari.

There is no marriage ceremony, no wedding trousseau, no kiss,
and no honeymoon. It is usual at a certain season for all men
to leave their wives together for weeks, going off to a distance by
themselves.

Sickness is met by kindly attention, by charms, surgical
appliances, medicinal herbs, local poultices, and medicated baths.
The vulgar means may be as efficacious as the supernatural.
Death occasions the break up of a camp. The body, doubled
up, may be buried in a shallow grave, set up in a tree, or laid
upon a rude platform. Sometimes it is burnt to ashes.

Australians were commonly thought religionless. Words
have been considered to imply a Creator. Traditions are told of
a great old man in the sky, with a family of sons, but no lubra
or wife. A well-meaning missionary once fancied he detected in
their language notions of Trinity and Eedemption, Heaven and
Hell.

There is no doubt that they believe in spirits. Like the Jews
of Gospel days, they held that bad men could become bad
spirits or devils to plague the living. Charms, in potent
words by a suitable person, could drive out the devil-cause of
sickness. After death, it was thought men would go to the
land of souls, where baby ghosts are stored before being wanted
here. In dances and traditions there is an idea of a resurrection.
At man-making in one place the lad is buried in dust, and
jumped upon, then suddenly dragged out amidst a shout of tribal
joy. He was dead, and is alive again.

They are not insensible to Christian teaching. Missionaries
complain less of their stupidity than of inconstancy. They
accept readily, and forget readily. Every Australian colony has
had its missions, under various religious denominations, and
always well supported by the State. The Episcopalian Pro-
testant and Eoman Catholic Churches, Presbyterians and Bap-
tists, Wesleyans and Moravians, English and Italians, Germans
and French, Scotch and Spaniards, have tried to raise these
people. The Moravians have been latterly very useful in
Victoria. The two youths here present are from their excellent
school.

In Western Australia is the celebrated New Norcia Mission
of Spanish monks, founded, amidst poverty and trial, by Fathers
Serra and Salvado. The latter, now a Bishop, continues his
admirable labours. It is not all lessons and preaching there, but
plenty of music and play. The mission cricket eleven lately
beat the English club at Perth, and could have astonished us at
Lord's. The native community there own sheep and cattle,

J. BONWICK. — The Australian Natives. 207

vineyards, and cornfields, are vocalists and instrumentalists at
church services, and are taught painting, telegraphy, &c. The
monks work with the blacks, and win thorn by sympathy, while
never neglecting heart training. A prohibitive cordon is drawn
around the extensive estate to keep whites at a distance.
Already one sign of decadence is seen in the paucity of births.
The end is approaching.

An English missionary upon the Murray, where the natives
have long mixed with our people, has lately published a col-
lection of letters written by his converts, as evidence of his
successful teaching. One aborigine wrote thus to his fellows : —
" I know something of what hell is like. When I was a boy I
fell into a big corrobory fire, and was badly burnt. I've been in
the fire. I know what that is. I believe that hell is far hotter."
The missionary is sadly tried by drunkenness and debauchery at
his station, and mourns over the decrease of scholars.

Civilisation and religion have advanced for a time. But the
ploughman tires, and takes to his hunt again. The scholar
becomes a drunkard, or enters the Native Police. The convert
lapses, or dies. The race, as a race, is not rising. All surround-
ings are too much for the man. The weight of our civilisation
crushes him. To mix with his own, to marry in the tribe, is to
be degraded once more. To dwell with Whites is to receive
ridicule, not brotherhood. Well educated girls have gladly fled
tor love from a civilised home to the native camp. The heart
has often vindicated its claim over civilised proprieties.

In their intelligence, Australians have been deemed lower
than most natives from their having no knowledge of metals,
not comprehending numbers and time, not being inclined to
till the ground. And yet, apart from their quick perception
and skill in hunting, the aptness of some, at least, to acquire
European learning, shows that they are improvable.

The adoption of their fathers' creed is no direct witness of
racial inferiority. Many Englishmen rejoice to follow old times,
and boast of their consistency iri unchanged opinions. They
seek no light, want no light, and refuse the light as much
as the poor Australians ; though, fortunately for them, favoured
with ancestors who had been willing to listen and change.

Abashed and confounded by the obtrusive knowledge and
power of Europeans, as the roused bat would be when suddenly
thrust into sunlight, the aborigines have been hastily misjudged.
Englishmen who know their speech have a good opinion of their
intelligence. In some mission schools the percentage in exami-
nations has been remarkable.

The Talking or Message Stick is, at any rate, the beginning of
a written code of thought. As several of these sticks are to be

208 J. BONWICK. — The Australian Natives.

seen in the Western Australian Court, it is sufficient to say that
notches, scratchings and sketches made upon them have a
definite meaning to those taught the signs. If not up to the
standard of Peruvian quippas or Egyptian hieroglyphics, they
serve to tell their tale.

Australian languages have been esteemed variations from one
original tongue, or a crossing of flexional and monosyllabic
speech. There is in the East much of the agglutinate. Ke-
duplicatives, though far fewer than with Maories, are not un-
common. The phonetic system is much the same all over the
island-continent. Some have considered the consonants g, I, d
not primarily belonging to the language, and occurring only as a
transformation of r, t, c, p. Most words are written with a, e, i, 0,
r, I, m,n,gn,p,r, t}w,y.

Western Australian is less flexional than Eastern. The phrase
is composed of successive roots as in Siamese. In South
Australia is seen the transition from the agglutinate to the
flexional. Opinions differ as to grammatical construction. One
missionary found 15 voices, 6 tenses, and 8 participles in a
single dialect. Mr. Protector Moorhouse, of Adelaide, saw no
auxiliaries, and declared all verbs attributives. As the first and
second personal pronouns are so similar all over Australia, he
supposed, as he once told me, that a single pair formed the earliest
inhabitants of the continent. Pronouns are most crude, least
flexional, and more Turanian than Aryan. As may be expected,
there is a great want of words to express abstract ideas. The
dual is known. Numbers are simple enough. A hand expresses
5, two hands indicating 10. With some dialects, names are
given to the 5 ; others make 4 by repeating 2 ; and those with
only two words for numbers join 1 and 2 for 3. Tally sticks,
with notches, are sometimes now employed.

Intelligence can be gauged by current beliefs, though views
cherished by one party may be only idle superstitions to another.
Australian natives are derided for believing in demoniacal
possession, still accepted throughout Europe and America.
Condemned aboriginal magic is honoured among ourselves as
animal magnetism and clairvoyance.

Wizards claim the precious gifts of healing and inflicting
diseases, causing rain and thunder, aiding friends and des-
troying foes, suddenly transporting themselves to distant places
and assuming foreign forms, foretelling future events and
knowing the hidden past, conversing with spirits of the dead
and utilizing supernatural beings. A healing wizard sucks out
the disease, in the form of a stone or bone cast by malignant
demons. To expel a devil requires a proper formula by a duly
qualified operator. Magic sticks, crystals, or bones, and the

J. BONWICK. — The Australian Natives. 209

whirling round of magic boards by means of a string are aids to
native wonder-workers.

Some thrust subjects into a deep sleep, hypnotize them so that
they call a spade by any other name than spade, see visions, and
reveal secrets. A man wills a death, and the patient gradually
wastes away. The possession of a hair from the body expedites
the magician's art. Some black seers command the elemental
spirits, fetch back the departed soul of a person, and bring
ghosts visibly to camp fires. They can invisibly ride upon the
spirits as easily as a witch on the devil's broomstick, and cause
them to speak in native language.

The seers are devout believers in their own powers, which, in
most cases, fell upon them in dreams by spirit agency. They
supplement spiritual endowments with arts acquired from aged
magicians. Extraordinary powers decay, or are lost by drink and
social disorganization, in some quarters where even the demons
have retired before the stronger forces of modern civilisation.

Magic is useful in affairs of the heart. By it a girl is enticed
from the camp fire to her secreted lover, while parents are being
lulled to sleep by a charm. But friends engage then another
professional to throw a spell ever the legs of the runaways.

The Jump-up- Whitefellow idea, or reappearance after death in
white guise, is a rude confession of the .Resurrection. A sup-
posed likeness to the beloved departed has saved lives of ship-
wrecked or wandering whites among savages. In Mr. Hayter's
charming story in verse, " Carboona" a young girl, who had lost
her lover in battle, recognised in the wild white man, Buckley,
of Port Philip, her returned betrothed, and henceforth called
him her lord.

Young-men-making is attended by mysteries, some of a phallic
kind. The lad was maimed, got a new name, received a sacred
stone, heard solemn secrets, was adorned with a girdle of human
hair, and, by breathing and imposition of hands, was made one of
the initiated.

Circumcision, or some such artificial deformity, is known at
the Sound, the Bight, the Gulf of Carpentaria, South Australia,
but rarely eastward, and was never seen in Tasmania. Practised
several thousands of years in Egypt, adopted by Jews, Mahome-
tans, and many oriental Christians, favoured by sun worshippers
of antiquity, it seems strange to find that it existed among
isolated Australians.

Native dances are full of mysticism, suggesting ideas of
creation, spiritual influence, and the life to come, while telling of
serpent, sun, and phallic worships.

Freemasonry was noticed in the interior by an explorer. An
old man put right knee to right knee, breast to breast, giving hand

210 J. BONWICK. — The Australian Natives.

tokens. On these being returned by the English mystic brother,
expressive approval followed.

However, and whenever, in the past these several institutions
arose, their very existence does not mark Australians, as some
affect to believe, but little removed from the monkey or dog in
their intelligence.

The rights of aboriginal peoples have been questioned. Un-
improved land, say many, should be appropriated by those who
will use it. This law applies only when whites are strong
and blacks are weak, not between whites themselves.

Supposed outrages by native trespassers were duly succeeded
by supposed acts of justice. The speared bullock was revenged
by shooting anybody of a tribe. New comers assumed that the
natives were British subjects, less for the purpose of their pro-
tection than for justification in hanging them. Tribal laws were
scornfully ignored, and unknowable English ones took their
place.

Any evidence of a native was legally valueless against a
European. Though ill-treatment of lubras excited natural
feelings in husbands and fathers, the personal injury of a white
was often the cause of the slaughter of many blacks. In 1849.
when at the home of the gentle and brave Captain Sturt, I heard
him say " Thank God ! in all my explorations I never caused the
death or suffering of a single native."

Our aborigines being always in the hunting stage were never
numerous. Children were few, and often died early. North
Australia, in parts unoccupied by us, has the strongest tribes.

The decline of the race is not a little owing to the loss of native
rights, the break up of tribal order, and that introduction of our
nineteenth-century habits, which only resulted in the foresters'
acquirement of our vices. Strong drink has been their chief
foe, and greatest means of destruction. One imported disease
has desolated the tribes, arrested births, crushed out self-respect,
and hurried the shamed and despairing to death. British law
made but feeble efforts to repress evils, and tender-hearted
colonists witness with helpless dismay the sad disappearance.
A German, who had a mission for twenty years, once said to
me, " It broke my heart to stay any longer there."

Only a few miserable remnants of powerful tribes linger on
in dirt and drink. All the Tasmanians have gone, and Maories
will soon be following. Pacific Islanders are departing childless.
Australian aborigines as surely are descending to the grave.
Old races everywhere give place to the new. Are we, British
people, after the survival of the fittest doctrine, to be some day
supplanted by a more overwhelming or more cultured race ?

F. W. PENNEFATHER.— On the Natives of New Zealand. 211

JUNE 29TH, 1886.

CONFEEENCE ON THE NATIVE EACES OF NEW
ZEALAND AND THE FIJI ISLANDS.

FRANCIS G- ALTON, Esq., F.E.S., President, in the Chair.

Mr. F. W. PENNEFATHER read a paper on the Natives of New
Zealand, upon which Sir JULIUS VON HAAST made some
remarks.

The Hon. J. E. MASON read a paper upon the Aborigines of
Fiji, and exhibited a number of specimens of native workman-
ship.

Mr. W. C. DEVEREUX and the Eev. G. BROWN joined in the
discussion.

On the NATIVES of NEW ZEALAND.
By F. W. PENNEFATHER, Esq.

I DO not think it necessary here to enter into the question of
the origin of the Maori race. It has been so frequently dis-
cussed, and so many works have been written proving, at least
to the satisfaction of the authors, that they are descendants of
the ancient Mexicans, Hittites, Israelites, Malays, and Aryans,
that no useful purpose could be served by either reiterating old'
theories, or inventing new ones. I will merely say that what
must impress every traveller is the great variety of type and
colour which they exhibit — a strong argument for supposing
that they are a mixed race ; and that wherever they really came
from, they are certainly not aboriginals ; and, therefore, even if
it be a law of nature that aboriginals must fade away and dis-
appear before the white man, that can have no bearing on the
present question.

So closely are the New Zealanders allied to the brown-skinned
inhabitants of the islands nearer to the Equator that, to quote
the words of Mr. Sterndale in the report presented to 'the New
Zealand Government in 1884, when speaking of the various
branches of the great Polynesian family, " Their language is so far
identical that they readily understand one another without the
intervention of an interpreter. Their social customs are analo-
gous ; their traditions and habits of thinking are the same.
They have but one ancient name whereby they distinguish
themselves from the rest of humanity — Maori."

212 F. W. PENNEFATHER. — On the Natives of New Zealand.

It is impossible to state, with anything approaching accuracy,
the numbers of the Maories who were in New Zealand in the
early days of the colony. There are reasons to believe that the
early settlers over-estimated them. The parts of the country
first occupied by Europeans were, as we now know, just those
where the native population was densest. Information was, in
many cases, derived from the chiefs ; each of whom, with the
same feeling of pride as that which actuated the Scottish chief-
tains of former days, was anxious to represent his tribe as being
as numerous as possible.

It is conjectured that fifty years ago the Maories in New
Zealand amounted to about 80,000; in 1858 to 56,000 ; at the
present time there are not more than 35,000. The principal
causes of this lamentable decay are drink ; diseases, both infec-
tious and contagious ; European clothing, which has been sub-
stituted for the old waterproof mat ; peace, which has not only
deprived them of what was at least the healthy and manly
occupation of fighting, and was to a Maori the principal object
in life, but also has induced them to leave their old fortified
villages on the hills and live in damp swampy ground near
their potato cultivations ; and wealth, which produces idleness
— a curse to any race, but doubly so to an uncultured one.

The history of the Maories naturally divides itself into three
periods ; first, from their arrival in New Zealand until the immi-
gration of the Europeans ; secondly, from that until the end of
the war ; thirdly, the present time. The peculiar arts and cus-
toms of the uncivilised Maories can be explained better in
the New Zealand Court, amongst Dr. Buller's collection of
curiosities, than in this room; the period of the war is now
happily only a matter of ancient history; I shall, therefore,
proceed at once to consider the condition of the race in the
present, and their prospects in the future.

Now all are agreed that the objects to be aimed at are to pro-
mote the advancement in civilisation of the Maori race, and to
arrest their decay in numbers. Various means have been sug-
gested. It has been argued by some that the proper course for
the Colonial Government to take is to encourage their inde-
pendent nationality — to allow them to advance towards civilisa-
tion in their own way, without forcing them to become sham
Europeans. Some, on the other hand, declare that if the
natives were only treated in precisely the same manner as
Europeans — if there were no special laws as to native lands,
for instance — the whole difficulty would disappear. I believe
that such views can only be put forward by those who have
not studied the question, which appears to me increasingly
difficult, if not insoluble. It must be remembered that the

F. W. PENNEFATHER. — On the Natives of New Zealand. 213

Maories are divided into tribes which have attained to very
different stages of civilisation. Without speaking of the South
Island, where the natives do not amount in all to 2,000, and
are scattered about in small settlements amongst vastly pre-
ponderating numbers of Europeans, even in the North there is
no one body of natives. The important and prosperous tribes
to the north of Auckland never joined in the "King "movement.
To force them to submit to it now would be unjust in the ex-
treme. Others, on the east coast, have long ceased to recog-
nise the authority of the King ; some again maintain a sort of
sentimental regard for him, but would repudiate his inter-
ference. In proof of this, I may mention that in January
last a large native gathering was held at Hastings, in Hawke's
Bay, to consider the provisions of a Bill which was to be
introduced into the New Zealand Parliament the ensuing
Session with reference to native lands. It was attended by
Maories from all parts of the island, with the sole exception of
the Waikato District, where the natives are the adherents of
Tawhiao, the titular King. The authority of the local chiefs
has also died out. It appears, therefore, to me to be an absolute
impossibility for the Maories, as a whole, to have a Government
separate from that of the Europeans ; they may be, it is true,
and are, separately represented in the Colonial Parliament ; and
in those parts of the country where they predominate they
could, if they desired, conduct the affairs of the local Govern-
ment for themselves under the existing statutes providing for
the government of counties and boroughs ; but anything further
I believe to be impossible.

For other reasons also I believe the encouragement of an in-
dependent Maori nationality to be neither possible nor desirable.
They cannot remain stationary in the midst of a progressive
community ; they must either advance or decay. The native
customs are absolutely antagonistic to progress. Take, for
example, the tenure of land. It is tribal ; no individual pos-
sesses even a usufruct of his cultivation. Who will drain, fence,
or grow crops, if he has no security that hundreds may not
swoop down upon him to share the rewards of his labour ? " In
seed-time visitors are few, in harvest they are many," was an
old Maori proverb. Or again, instance the old custom of " utu "
which still prevails in remote districts, By it, if a misfortune
befel a man, such as the loss of a child or a canoe, his neigh-
bours had a right to come to his whare, and seize all his posses-
sions, even his clothes. How can you inculcate thrift to men
who may any day be reduced to beggary through no fault of
their own ?

Turning now to the other view — that if Maori and European

VOL. XVI. Q

214 F. W. PENNEFATHER. — On the Natives of New Zealand.

were treated equally the native difficulty would disappear, I
can only say that it is a most excellent sentiment, but hard to
work out. The land question is the first to confront us. Before
land held by native custom can be dealt with in the same
manner as that owned by Europeans, the title must be ascer-
tained in some manner or other. We all know how difficult it
is to effect a partition of land in this country. But the compli-
cations here are simplicity itself compared with the intricacies
of Maori tenure. The claimants may be hundreds in number,
and the grounds of their claim — birth, residence, gift, conquest,
&c. — almost as many. If one tribe has conquered another in
former times, the question whether the conquerors have per-
formed acts of ownership sufficient, according to Maori cus-
tom, to constitute themselves the possessors of the soil to the
exclusion of the original proprietors may be argued for months.
Then pedigrees, which are known only by tradition, have to be
investigated, and the amount of evidence adduced may be enor-
mous. In a word, if the race is to progress at all, the title to
land must be ascertained ; for this, special machinery such as
that provided by the Native Land Court, is a necessity. No one
has yet devised a means by which this process can be other than
tedious and expensive.

But even when the title is ascertained, the matter is only
brought one .stage further on. On what system is the land
to be held ? If it is awarded to a number jointly, it is in-
evitable to the legal mind that all the incidents of joint tenancy
must immediately attach themselves ; and we have the absurd
result of English lawyers being obliged to investigate and study
a whole series of obsolete black-letter textbooks of the sixteenth
century, in order to ascertain the exact legal position of a dozen
natives of New Zealand !

Then, if the land is divided into separate allotments, a further
difficulty must be faced. The temptation to every native is to
sell his share immediately, squander the purchase money in
banquets and entertainments, and be reduced to beggary. In
the hope of meeting this, restrictions against alienation without
the consent of the Government have sometimes been imposed.
I do not share the feeling occasionally expressed that this is an
unwarrantable interference with the freedom of the natives.
But I do confess that the result is not satisfactory. An unedu-
cated man possessing means without occupation is more to be
pitied than one who is driven by poverty to spend his days in
labour.

What then, it may be asked, do you suggest ? I reply that
I believe that the only hopes for the race lie in religion,
temperance, education, and the inculcation of habits of industry,

F. W. PENNEFATHER. —On tlie Natives of New Zealand. 215

for which the abolition of their old communistic manner of life
is a necessity. It is a mistake to suppose that even at the time
when the Hau-Hau superstition was in full vigour, the influence
of Christianity wholly died out amongst the natives. At the
present time, in several parts of the country, especially in the
northern districts, there is a native Church, with its own ministry,
church boards, and organisation ; and there is every reason to
believe that its influence for good is exercised over a large
number. With reference to temperance, it must, I fear, be ad-
mitted that for a Maori there is no middle course between
drunkenness and teetotalism. No one can regret more than
they do themselves the frightful results of drink amongst them.
The Blue Ribbon movement has been introduced, and is already
bearing excellent fruits. Recently, when the district known as
the " King Country " was opened to Europeans for the first time
since the war, a petition was presented by the native chiefs and
other residents praying that no licence might be granted for
the sale of spirituous liquors throughout the district ; and, in
consequence of their petition, a proclamation to that effect has
been issued by the Colonial Government.

Very much has been done in the way of education both
by the Government and by private individuals. Native schools
are established all over the country, wherever possible and re-
quired. The education in these is, as far as circumstances will
allow, similar to that in the European elementary schools. The
boys take to study and literary amusements with a readiness
that is quite surprising ; they seem to have a natural aptitude
for anything in the way of drawing maps and plans. Then a
not unimportant part of the school training of boys and girls
alike is the inculcation of habits of neatness and cleanliness
which are of vital importance to the health of the race. ( I hold
in my hand a copy of a reading book issued by the Government
Inspector of Schools, entitled " Health for the Maori.") Besides
this, outdoor games are played, and everything is done to make
the lives of the young people as happy as possible.

For the more advanced pupils also, facilities for improvement
are offered. At Te Aute, in the Hawke's Bay District, for in-
stance, there is an excellent college originally endowed with
land granted by the natives themselves to the Church of
England missionaries, to which youths are sent who have passed
through the elementary schools. Such a training is specially
valuable either for those who have given evidence of special
talent, or those who are owners of property, and who would
otherwise be spending their time in idleness and dissipation.
The young men from Te Aute sometimes enter the University,
or pass into the various occupations in life — proceeding to Holy

Q 2

216 F. W. PENNEFATHER. — Un the Natives of New Zealand.

Orders, going into Government or lawyers' offices, &c. — or else
return to their homes and relations. Some of them I am glad
to reckon amongst my personal friends. It is always curious to
observe amongst the young men so educated, that although they
have the strongest feelings of affection for their own race and
home, the break in the history between them and the old un-
civilised Maories is absolute. They have totally lost all tradi-
tions of their former religion. Native arts — which are still
lingering amongst the older generation — have, I regret to say,
quite died out amongst the younger ones ; if they evince any
taste for carpentry (in which indeed they are most carefully in-
structed at Te Aute) it is merely in the European style, not in
the least following the curious and elaborate carving of their
ancestors ; and, amongst the women, the weaving of flax mats
has almost gone out of fashion. The only hope, therefore, lies
in inspiring into the race a desire for the more moderate luxuries
of European civilisation — comfort in buildings, dress, and habits
— which will necessitate labour, either on their own lands or on
those of others.

A word as to the position of the half-castes. It has often
been urged that half-castes (especially when one parent is
an Anglo-Saxon) inherit the vices of both races and the
virtues of neither. Such is not the case in New Zealand.
Half-castes are frequently strong active men and women and
estimable members of society, having in their turn families
who are in no way the inferiors of their parents. Indeed, many
of those who maintain the view that the case of the Maori
race is hopeless, are yet of opinion that for many generations
at least their influence will be felt through their half-caste
descendants.

For myself, I cling to a brighter view. I feel it to be our
clearest duty to do all in our power to preserve a race possess-
ing a history so interesting, and qualities so noble. Not until
the prospects of our native fellow-countrymen become much
more gloomy than they now are, will I give up the hope that
the remnant of the Maori race may yet again take root down-
wards and bear fruit upwards.

[After the paper was read the Conference was adjourned to
the New Zealand Court, where Mr. Pennefather explained the
principal native curiosities exhibited, giving also a full account
of the religion, customs, and manner of life of the Maories of
other days.]

HON. J. E. MASON. — On the Natives of Fiji. 217

On the NATIVES of FIJI.
By the Hon. J. E. MASON, M.L.C.

In treating of Fiji and the Fijians T feel that however imper-
fectly I may handle my subject, it will nevertheless prove of
interest to many who know little of the 115,000 natives who
are in reality British subjects, and also to many others who are
unacquainted with the marvellous beauty and wonderful pro-
ductiveness of the many islands which form one of the healthiest
of Her Majesty's tropical possessions.

It may be well, perhaps, tirst of all to glance hastily at the
history of the islands prior to annexation, then at their geo-
graphical position, extent and population, and lastly, at the
unbounded resources of wealth which may be developed if only
the government is in the hands of a capable, broad-minded and
unbiassed administrator.

Fiji History.

Fiji was discovered in 1643, by Abel Tasman, the celebrated
Dutch navigator. Captain Cook, more than 100 years after,
passed through the group, and Captain Bligh in the launch of
the " Bounty " sighted the group in 1789, and later on made
some remarkably accurate observations.

In the early part of 1800, the first Europeans are supposed to
have found their way to these islands. They were for the most
part escaped convicts and desperadoes and they naturally
exercised great influence among the natives, chiefly by assisting
them in the inter-tribal warfare, which for many years appears
to have been of frequent occurrence.

About 1835, the first settlement of Europeans was made at
Levuka, for the purpose of trade with the natives in cocoa-nut,
beche-de-mer, pearl shell and native curiosities ; some pursued
their trades of carpenters, blacksmiths, and boat builders, and the
settlement gradually grew till, in 1851, a considerable traffic arose
between the Islands and the adjoining markets of New Zea-
land, Sydney, Melbourne, and San Francisco.

As late, however, as 1861, there were only about 160 adult
Europeans who were principally engaged in trading with the
natives.

From that time, however, settlers commenced plantations of
cotton and cocoa-nuts, which up to the present time, have been
supplemented with coffee, cinchona, sugar, maize, tea, tobacco,
and green fruit.

In 1871, a government of Europeans was started with
Thakombau as King. But this government only lasted for about
three years, when the islands were annexed to Great Britain.

218 HON. J. E. MASON.— On the Natives of Fiji.

Geography.

The group of islands known as the colony of Fiji, lies
between the parallels of latitude 15° and 22° south of the
Equator, and longitude 177° west and 175° east of the Meridian
of Greenwich.

The total area is larger than the principality of Wales, and
there are about 200 islands in the group, of which 80 are
inhabited.

The largest island of these 200 is as large as Jamaica, and
six times as large as Mauritius, while the second largest island
is about the size of the county of Devon ; and the area of the
whole colony is greater than the British West Indian Islands.

The total area of the colony is 4,953,600 acres, of which
371,000 only has been alienated, which is only a little over one-
thirteenth of the whole area.

There are 128,414 inhabitants distributed over 7,740 square
miles, giving an average of 16*59 per square mile, while in
Mauritius the average is 533'01 per square mile, and in Ceylon
111*89 per square mile, thus showing what capabilities Fiji
possesses for the redundant population of other parts of our
Empire.

Many of the islands are hilly and have mountains to the
height of over 4,000 feet.

They are composed of the most part of volcanic lava, basalt,
and conglomerate, while many are densely covered with forests
containing numerous varieties of large and valuable trees.

The colony is essentially well watered ; the rain-fall in many
places being nearly 200 inches in the year, which serves to keep
alive the sources of the many streams that feed the main
rivers.

Of these the Eiver Eewa in Yiti Levu is navigable for about
50 miles from its mouth, while many others in the different
islands prove of great use for internal transport.

The colony has many harbours and roadsteads, but as nearly
every island is surrounded by a barrier reef, great care has to be
taken in making your anchorage.

The Fijians are considered by many to be purely Melanesian,
though in some cases undoubtedly there is a tinge of Poly-
nesian.

The distinguishing peculiarities of East and West Polynesia
seem to blend in Fiji and betoken a hybridization of the two
races.

They are a tall well-developed people, and they vary in colour
from a rich copper to a lightish black, though, in no case do
they resemble, either in colour or appearance, the race that is

HON. J. E. MASON. — On the Natives of Fiji. 219

usually called negro, to whom in form and feature they are un-
doubtedly superior.

Their language is singularly harmonious, although there are
many dialects in the different islands.

In Vanua Balavu (an island to the windward), Fijiaris are
lighter in colour and more developed in physique, owing to a
mixture with the Tongan race, who are considered the only race
in the Pacific physically superior to the Fijian.

Nature has been so kind in providing the necessaries of life
that they are not accustomed to anything like labour, except of
a desultory character, in the cultivation of their native foods.
They are, however, physically capable of maintaining a system of
continuous daily labour like the Europeans, and have proved,
when it suits their own interests, to be a most useful class of
labourers.

The tide of civilisation, however, which for 10 years past has
been flowing amongst them, has not even yet taught them that
gift of acquisitiveness which so often prompts the civilised
nations of the world in their untiring efforts in agriculture and
commerce.

There is, however, very little change in any of their social
customs. Since annexation, cannibalism, as you all know, has
ceased to be practised, and polygamy which was at one time
in vogue among the chiefs is now almost unknown. It requires
a scientist to treat of the people anthropologically, and as I am
only a planter I refrain from giving you my imperfect knowledge
of Fijians from this point of view. I may perhaps mention
that man for man they compare most favourably with Europeans
in physique and morality, while their intellect is decidedly of a
superior character to most dark-skinned races, for a people so
lately civilised who were previously addicted to cannibalism and
many other vices.

By a census taken in 1881 there were about 115,000 of them
scattered over the group in 1,220 villages. Their mode of life is
still primitive, and by a wise provision of the Government they
are unable to obtain intoxicating liquors, which have been the
main cause of deterioration of so many aboriginal races.

That they are capable of a higher development is proved by
the adaptability shown in the native Industrial School, where
100 boys from different parts of the group are instructed by
skilled European artizans in carpentering, boat building, and other
trades.

I must say a word here of the evangelising efforts of the
Wesleyan Mission, the Eoman Catholic Mission, and the Church
of England.

Eeliglon truly may be said to have been the primary cause of

220 HON. J. E. MASON. — On the Natives of Fiji.

the civilisation of this noble race. In almost every village in
Fiji there is a church, a school-house, and a native teacher;
while throughout the length and breadth of the group family
prayer is a daily custom.

Resources.

I feel that I cannot touch upon the natural resources of this
fertile colony without stating that the development of such
resources by Europeans cannot take place, either now or in
years to come, without the assistance of cheap labour.

That labour in such a country can be, and ought to be, cheap,
has been proved by the history of our other tropical possessions.

Premising that labour in the islands will shortly be far
cheaper than at present, I have no hesitation in affirming that
Fiji from its position, from its climate, from the marvellous
fertility of the soil, will prove a second West Indies, and become
in time, one of the most valuable of Her Majesty's possessions.

Sugar has already assumed very large proportions, despite the
many disadvantages that the growers had to encounter, but this
industry in Fiji, as in other of our English sugar producing
colonies, has received a check owing to the sad depreciation in
value that will materially affect the interests of the Colony.

Cocoa-nuts may be called the staple industry of the natives
as well as of many of the whites. The kernel is dried and
exported for oil making, and the refuse is used for oil cake for
cattle, while the husk is manufactured into fibre which is again
manufactured into many kinds of rope.

The climate and the soil are well suited for the growth of tea,
an industry which, if pursued to any extent, ought to bring the
islands into that prominence which they so undeservedly now
lack.

Before closing this brief paper, I should like to draw the
attention of those who have honoured me with being present to
the fact that in a climate like Fiji it is quite compatible for the
European to live side by side with the native in perfect harmony
with mutual advantage to both, an advantage to the European
in utilising the labour of an inhabitant of the soil, and an
advantage to the native in appreciating and gaining knowledge
of the comforts with which Europeans invariably surround them-
selves.

F. A. SWETTENHAM. — On Natives of Straits Settlements. 221

JULY 13TH, 1886.

CONFERENCE ON THE NATIVE RACES OF THE
STRAITS SETTLEMENTS AND BORNEO.

FRANCIS GALTON, Esq., F.R.S., President, in .the Chair.

Mr. SWETTENHAM read a paper on the Native Tribes of the
Straits Settlements.

Mr. PRYER read a paper on the Natives of British North
Borneo. Sir GEORGE CAMPBELL and Mr. SWETTENHAM joined
in the discussion.

A number of Ethnological objects from the Straits Settlements
and from Borneo were exhibited and described.

On the NATIVE RACES of the STRAITS SETTLEMENTS and
MALAY STATES.

By F. A. SWETTENHAM, Esq.

AT a conference convened by the Anthropological Institute of
Great Britain and Ireland to listen to a paper on the races of
the Straits Settlements it might fairly be expected that you
would hear some very learned and interesting details on a
subject which has for years engaged the attention of scientific
men. I beg to assure you at once that I am not a scientist. I
shall not attempt to follow such writers as James Richardson
Logan and Baron Micluho-Maclay in a disquisition on the
ethnology of the inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula.

My effort to interest you will be of the humblest and most
commonplace description, and of necessity it will be brief.

Before I say anything about the races inhabiting the Straits
Settlements ] should like for one moment to detain you with a
word about the country they inhabit.

The Straits Settlements consist of two islands, Penang and
Singapore, and a strip of the mainland called Malacca lying
between them. Singapore is about 1° 20 ' north of the equator,
Malacca is 120 miles by sea north-west of Singapore, and
Penang 260 miles further in the same direction. All three
settlements are in the Straits of Malacca, and together they
comprise, with a recently acquired strip of territory called the
Bindings, an area of less than 1,500 square miles, containing a
population of half a million inhabitants. The very interesting
and instructive colonial statistics which are printed in the

222 F. A. SWETTENHAM.— On the Native Races of the

Exhibition near that gigantic chart of the world, and under the
clocks which show you that the Queen's flag really does wave over
an empire where the sun never sets, disclose a fact so remarkable
that I may be permitted to call your special attention to it in
connection with the subject under consideration : it is this, that
whereas the area of the Dominion of Canada is so enormous that
it more than doubles that of the whole Indian Empire, the value
of the trade of Canada is actually less than that of the Straits
Settlements colony. The figures in the returns for 1884 were
roughly, Canada, thirty-nine millions, the Straits Settlements,
forty millions sterling. I mention that because it is certainly a
curious fact but little known, and it adds an interest to the
consideration of such a subject as the races inhabiting these
settlements, I need hardly tell you that up to the year 1867
the Straits Settlements formed one of the Presidencies of India,
a non-paying Presidency, that in that year they became a Crown
colony and remain so. There are no duties, all the ports are
free, and I believe the colony is financially the most prosperous
of any of its class. At any rate it pays £50,000 a year for
imperial troops, it contributed £100,000 towards military opera-
tions in its neighbourhood, and it has just spent £100,000 at the
request of the Imperial Government in fortifications. It may
therefore be concluded that those with whom lies the responsi-
bility for the defence of the Empire regard Singapore as an
important strategic post.

I trust you will not think that in mentioning these facts I am
digressing from the subject, and I confess I should like, if time
had permitted, to tell you more of a colony which must be of
considerable importance to the British producer and consumer,
though I doubt if its existence is much known outside the
narrow circle of those whose interests have brought them in
direct contact with the place.

I said that the population of the Straits Settlements colony
was half a million, and I may add that thirty years ago the
number of inhabitants was 248,000. The races were divided as
follows at the last census in 1881 : —

Malays .. .... 174,326

Chinese 174,327

Natives of India 41,106

Europeans 3,483

the balance being made up of representatives of between twenty
and thirty different nationalities.

In regard to the division of races the interesting facts to be
noted are that the Chinese, whilst by far the most important
race, the most laborious, intelligent, wealthy, and the largest

Straits Settlements and Malay States. 223

contributors to the revenue, are also increasing in numbers by
far the most rapidly, mainly owing to the enormous number of
immigrants who year by year leave China to seek their fortunes
in the Straits of Malacca. A fact of equal if not greater
interest is that the Malays, while they appear to be dying out
in those Malay states which are under a purely Malay govern-
ment, are slowly but surely increasing their numbers under the
British Government in the Straits Settlements colony, and this
increase is a natural increase, and not one to be ascribed (except
in a minor degree) to immigration.

The natives of India are increasing from the same cause as
that which influences the Chinese, but to a lesser extent, because
though they find in the Straits Settlements a prosperity which
is very unusual in their own country, the Government of India
has until quite recently placed all kinds of hindrances in the
way of free emigration of natives of India from the Indian
Peninsula to the Straits Settlements.

So far I have referred, as the notice of this conference bids
me, to the races of the Straits Settlements, but I would ask you
to let me include the races of the Malay Peninsula, for the
chief interest to ethnologists is probably in the aborigines of the
Peninsula, none of whom are found in the more civilised
colony.

The Malay Peninsula covers an area of about 75,000 square
miles, and contains about 670,000 inhabitants, excluding
Chinese and other recent settlers. These people belong to three
distinct stocks.

The Thai or Siamese . . . . (about) 150,000

The Malay (about) 500,000

And the Negrito or Aborigines (about) 20,000

Under the protection of the British crown and the direction
of the Governor of the Straits Settlements are three important
Malay states, Perak, Selangor, and Sungei Ujong, all of which
have contributed specimens of their products to this Exhibition,
and the first mentioned has sent here and erected the Malay
house which you may see in the garden. I do not propose to
refer to the races of the unprotected states of the peninsula, and
in those I have mentioned the Siamese element is so small that
it may be dismissed from consideration.

The Malay and Negrito races are both of the highest interest
from whatever point considered, but it is quite impossible, in the
time at my disposal, to do more than refer to them in the
briefest possible manner.

It is unlikely that the Malays can be really indigenous to the
peninsula, and where they came from, whether Java, Sumatra,

224 F. A. SWETTENHAM. — On the Native Races of the

or elsewhere in the archipelago, is a question which has never
yet met with a satisfactory answer. The Malay tradition is
that they had a supernatural origin, and that they crossed from
Sumatra to the Malay Peninsula. The tradition concerning the
swords in the Perak Eegalia will give some idea of what amount
of confidence can be placed in Malay history. Wherever they
came from, the Malays spread themselves and their language
over an enormous area, and Malay is now, and was 400
years ago, spoken throughout the Malay Archipelago from
Sumatra to the Philippine Islands. There is a colony of Malays
at the Cape of Good Hope and it is supposed that the Malay
language can be traced in the dialect spoken by the savages of
Formosa.

As regards the weapons, I will read to you what Kaja Dris
says of the sword with pearls in the handle ; it is one of the
most valued pieces in the Perak Regalia.

;
(The Perak Eegalia were here exhibited and described.)

History of the Perak Eegalia.
By H.H. Rajah, Dris, C.M.9.

Translated by F. A. Swettenham, Esq., H.M's. Eesident at Selangor.

" THIS is the history given by men of olden time, regarding the
" Regalia of the Sultans of Perak, the home of peace.

" There was a Raja named Raja Chulan who came out of the
" sea clad with splendour ; he it was who originally sprang into
" being at the mountain called Sa'Guntang Malm Biru. Now
" when His Highness rose out of the sea he was wearing a crown
" studded with precious stones. Behind his ear he wore a seal
" called Lalinter (Lightening), with a handle of the wood called
" Gamat and a sword called Chorek Sa'manjakinin. It was said
" by the men of old time that this sword was made by a king
" called Japhet, son of Noah, the Prophet of God, and it is a most
" deadly weapon. In the handle of the sword are the two priceless
" stones called ' Lok-Lok,' while at the end of the sheath there is
" a stone called ' Kachubong.' This sword was brought by Raja
" Chulan from out of the ocean to become the Regalia of the
" country of Perak. Secondly there is a writing called Chiri
" brought by Bahta out of the sea. It was Bahta who was vomited
" by the Cow at the mountain called Sa'Guntang, hence the class
" called ' Cow- vomit ' now existing in Perak. Thirdly there is a
" golden betel-nut box called 'Puan Nagataroh:' that betel box
" also came out of the sea. The sword called ' Seda Melekah/

Straits Settlements and Malay States. 225

" and the sword called ' Pebujang ' and a ' Kris alang1' named
" ' Pestaka ' are said to have come from Acheen ; there is also a
" petl benian2 and a golden mundam which were brought from
" Johor by the late Sultan Tanah Abang.

" Moreover there is a Guliga found by a woman of Temong
" named Che Teh Perbu. She it was to whom the title of Toh
" Temong was given and she presented the Guliga to H.H. the
" late Sultan Tanah Abang when he was on the throne of
" Perak. Finally many articles of the Eegalia owe their origin
" to the custom that prevailed whereby each Raja when on the
" throne should add to the Eegalia some fitting article of novel
" description.

"'That was called an instituted custom, that is to say a recent
" custom."

The other daggers are specimens of the Malay kris, and
though the owner likes to put his weapon in a pretty scabbard,
it is not the golden sheath but the highly tempered blade he
values. Those two krisses with curious handles in the shape of
a Malay comedian's mask are modern weapons, but they are
only made in the heart of the Malay Peninsula, at a particular
spot, and they are most difficult to procure. It used to be the
custom for Malay Rajas to sleep with their weapons on such a
cushion as that, placed at the bed head, and this silver border is
some 60 or 70 years old.

The earthenware water jar is of recent manufacture, and was
made in the interior of Pahang, where I got it a year ago. The
design is called the " pomegranate," and the clay being unglazed
is porous, and the water in the vessel is thus kept fairly cool.

I would now ask you to look at the fabrics, which are fair
specimens of Malay weaving. They are all but one of silk,
woven in the roughest hand looms ; but the designs are, I
believe, peculiar to the Malays, and it is a pleasure to me to
mention that the President of the Royal Academy, visiting the
Exhibition in the earliest days of its existence, was specially
struck with the artistic value of these Malay fabrics. The
cotton painted cloth is what is called a " kain batek " ; it is
made in Java, and this class of " sarong," as the Malay national
garment is called, is highly valued .by the Malays. The colours
are permanent, and the pattern is obtained by covering the
cloth with a thin layer of wax, tracing the design for each
colour separately, and then dipping the cloth in the dye. All
the fabrics, whether silk, cloth of gold, or cotton, will wash
without injury, but the prices of these stuffs are high.

1 A " Kris Alang " is between the " Kris panjang " and the " Kris pandak '
in size.

2 A " peti benian " is the Treasure box of a Eegalia, a Kind of ancient safe.

226 F. A. SWETTENHAM. — On the Native Races of the

Malay women pride themselves on their skill in mat-making
and needlework, and you will find here specimens of both.
The mat and betel boxes are made from the bleached inner
portion of the pandan leaf.

I should like for a moment to call your special attention to
these specimens, as illustrating what I think is an unusual
degree of artistic taste and creditable work when the imple-
ments at command are taken into consideration. The gold box
belongs to the P6rak Regalia, and is similar in shape to the
silver box though of different design. Both are meant to
contain the betel-chewing apparatus, and both are of a pattern
no longer used. I believe they are at least 100 years old, and
they were probably made by Sumatran workmen in the employ
of the Sultan of Perak. The golden bowl, with a mixed gold and
copper support, is to hold drinking water, whilst the double
silver stand is for rosewater in which to wash the fingers before
and after eating. These two vessels also belong to the Perak
Regalia, and to judge from the appearance of the latter it must
be of great age. I think it will be admitted that this silver
rosewater dish, with its immense variety of design in the
highly repousse work on both body and stand, is an exceptionally
beautiful vessel. The silver dish, betel boxes and scissors, and
the water bowl with cover are also good specimens. They are
about 40 or 50 years old and the work of Sumatran Malays.
The small golden pomegranate is modern work, made in Treng-
ganu. It is intended to hold attar of roses and to be tied to the
corner of a pocket handkerchief.

Until about the year 1250 the Malays were pagans or followed
some corrupted form of Hindu worship, and Sultan Mahmud
Shah, who reigned over the Malacca dominions in the 13th cen-
tury was the first Malay Prince converted by Arab missionaries
to the Mohammedan faith. His reign was a long one and his
power extensive, so that when the Portuguese .arrived in the
Straits of Malacca in 1511, they found the greater part of the
Malays of the Peninsula professing the religion of Islam. It is
a curious fact that up to the time of this conversion the Malay,
of ail the Sumatran languages, should have possessed no written
character of its own, and those Arabs who spread the Moham-
medan faith taught also the use of the Perso- Arabic character
and introduced many Arabic words into the Malay language.
Malay is essentially a dissyllabic language, but it contains a
considerable number of Sanskrit words, supposed to have
been introduced by the Hindus, who appear to have settled in
Java and Sumatra in the 4th century. Relics of Hindu
superstitions are still found amongst the Malays and Negritos
of the Peninsula, and the customs even now observed, especially

Straits Settlements and Malay States. 227

in P6rak, on certain occasions are especially interesting, utterly
opposed as they are to Mohammedan teaching, and savouring
strongly of devil-worship.

The Malay people were a very important power in the
archipelago before their conversion to Islam, but I cannot tell
you anything of the state of their then civilisation, for their so-
called histories are not trustworthy, and I am not aware that any
specimens of their manufactures in those days exist. I have
brought here for you to see some gold and silver vessels of
ancient origin — from 50 to 200 years old — some weapons of
more recent date, a water jar, and a few fabrics used as wearing
apparel. I doubt whether the influence of the Islam creed can
be traced in these manufactures, but there is no question that
it has proved most congenial to the Malay character ; a character
which cannot be described in a sentence, but the leading
features are pride of race and birth, extraordinary observance
of punctilio, and a bigoted adherence to ancient custom and
tradition. I can only speak of what the Malay is now, and
I am inclined to think that six centuries of the Mohammedan
faith has moulded his character in respect of the features I have
mentioned, while an enormous belief in the supernatural is
possibly a relic of the prse-Islam state.

Finally, there are the Negrito tribes of the Malay Peninsula,
in reference to whom Mr. Abraham Hale has written an in-
teresting paper, which was read at a meeting of the Anthro-
pological Institute early this year. M, De Morgan has also
written recently on the same subject in the French publication
" L'Homme," and the Eussian traveller, Baron Micluho-Maclay,
has made these people his special study.

In the Straits Settlements Court of the Exhibition will be
found the most complete collection of the clothing, weapons,
and ornaments of these people ever yet brought together, and
specimens of some of these are now before you.

The Negrito tribes are called by the Malays of different states
by many different names, but perhaps the commonest is " Orang
trtan," wild or jungle people. My own observation leads me to
the conclusion that they are divided into two widely different
sections, usually known as Sakai and Semang. The former, a
people of moderate stature and large bones, rather fairer in
complexion than Malays, with long unkempt, wavy hair, standing
straight out from their heads. The latter, small and dark, with
black frizzy hair, close to their heads like that of the negro races.
Both classes are nomadic, live on roots and easily grown
vegetables, fish, birds, and even snakes and lizards, while they
avoid all strangers, whether Malays or Negritos of another tribe.
Their clothing, when they wear any, consists for the women of

228 F. A. SWETTENHAM. — On the Native Races of the

a bark cloth, tied round the waist and reaching to the knee (a
specimen is before you), and for the men a similar cloth, passed
round the waist and between the legs. For weapons they all
use the blow-pipe with an arrow, the point of which is dipped in
the heated juice of the ipoh or upas tree. In the use of this
" sumpitan," they are very skilful, and can kill with it all kinds
of birds and small animals. The Sakais use no other weapon
but the Semangs have a very powerful bow and iron-barbed
arrows,with which they can kill the largest game. For ornaments,
the women wear round their necks and arms strings of brass
rings, boars' or squirrel's teeth, beads or beetles' legs, and coins
when they can get them. Sometinles also they paint their faces
with red devices traced in the juice of the Bixa Orellana fruit,
whilst both men and women wear, through the septum of the
nose, a porcupine's quill, the bone of a fish, or a rolled piece of
the leaf of the plantain tree. The more civilised 6rang tftan
live in wretched hovels built with jungle materials, while others
sleep on the ground or in caves. Steel implements are highly
prized by these tribes for they have neither the means nor the
knowledge to make them themselves, but it is believed that
comparatively recently some at least of them used implements of
flint or slate.

None of the Negritos profess any religion or believe in any
Supreme Being, but they are intensely superstitious, and imagine
that the hills, the woods, and the rivers are filled with spirits,
the majority of which are evil and must be propitiated. They
call the sun a good spirit, and it is natural that they should
have a high regard for it.

The rude art of the Negritos is confined to the ornamentation
of their blow-pipes, arrow-sheaths, and hair combs, all of them
made of bamboo, with primitive designs scratched by a hard
point of wood or iron. The only fabric is the " kain trap," or
bark cloth, you have seen ; of pottery or metal work they have
no knowledge, and it may be almost said that as far as manu-
factures go they want none and have none. Except in those
cases where coming in contact with Malays they obtain the
commonest knives and cooking vessels by a barter, which is
always favourable to the more civilised race. Under these cir-
cumstances, it seems difficult to draw any close comparison
between the Negritos without religion, arts or manufactures, and
the Mohammedan Malays, who appear to be of a different type,
and have some claims to rank amongst Eastern peoples as a
race possessed of considerable artistic talent. Baron Maclay
has, however, come to the conclusion, that in a comparison of
language, a connecting link can be traced, not only between all the
various tribes of Negritos, living quite cut off from each other,

Straits Settlements and Malay States. 229

but between them and the Malays, and he has expressed his
opinion that the Orang Utan of the Malay Peninsula undoubtedly
show traces of a Melanesian blood. This opinion appears to
coincide with the result of Logan's researches so far at least
as concerns a common prse-Malayan language.

DISCUSSION.

Mr. SWETTENHAM, referring to some remarks by Sir George
Campbell, said that an interesting question had been raised, to
which he could give a fairly satisfactory reply. The Chinese who
came to the Straits Settlements as a rule brought neither wives
nor families for the best of reasons, they had none and conld
support none. In nearly all cases the Chinese came originally as
coolies, unable even to pay their own passage money from China.
But after a few years' residence in the Straits they usually
were in a position to return to China, marry, and again come
to the Straits with a wife, or more commonly they married in the
colony, sometimes Chinese, sometimes a woman of another nation-
ality. The wealthier Chinese who had been one or more genera-
tions in the Straits, almost invariably married the daughters of
Chinese in a similar position, and what was very curious was that
these people, Straits-born Chinese, used the Malay language more
often than Chinese. Indeed, all Chinese resident in the Straits
found it more easy and more useful to acquire a slight knowledge
of the Malay tongue than to attempt to carry on business with
Chinese from another province in an unfamiliar dialect of their own
language.

Mr. Swettenham said that this state of affairs prevailed specially
in Malacca to which place the Chinese liked to retire in their old
age : indeed, Malacca might be described as a popular Chinese
cemetery, and it was more common, at least for Straits-born
Chinese, to provide for their burial in Malacca than in China. It
was certainly incorrect to suppose that a large number of the
Chinese who immigrated to the Straits Settlements and the Malay
States did not take up their permanent abode in those countries,
whilst in many cases the height of their ambition was to become
naturalized British subjects.

On the NATIVES of BRITISH NORTH BORNEO.
By W. B. PRYER, Esq., C.M.Z.S.

THE population of British North Borneo is very scanty, so much
so that vast tracts on the east coast and in the interior are
simply uninhabited forest. On the west coast the population
in some districts is fairly large.

The want- of people on the east coast is due to the ravages, in
old days, of pirates by sea and head hunters by land.

VOL. XVI. R

230 W. B. PRYER.— On the Natives of British North Borneo.

Commencing on the seaboard of the east coast, the first people
met with are the Bajaus or sea gypsies, on the littoral. The
villages on the sea coast and at the rivers' mouths contain many
Sooloos, Bugis, Illanuns, and others, but the first tribe of true
Bornean aboriginals met with is the Booloodoopy, who have
villages from Sugut and Paitan on the north, to Tabunac on the
south. Largely mixed up with them are the Doompas on the
north, and the Era-ans on the south. Inland from these people
the whole bulk of the population is known as Dusuns or Sun-
dyaks, divided up into many tribes and sections, including the
Eoongas, Kooroories, Umpoolooms, Saga Sagas, Tunbunwhas,
Tingaras, Eomanows, and many others, those of the far interior
little better than roving savages, while nearer either coast, where
they have rubbed against Mohammedan civilisation, they are
much more cultivated, both in their dress and manners.

The Bajaus or sea gypsies are a curious wandering, irrespon-
sible sort of race, rather low down in the scale of humanity,
and live almost entirely in boats, in families. Though undoubtedly
of Malay origin, they are much larger in stature, and stronger
and darker than ordinary Malays. Not caring to store up
property, and rarely troubling themselves as to where next
week's meals are to come from, they pick up a precarious liveli-
hood along the shore line, by catching fish, finding sea slugs and
turtle eggs, spearing sharks, and so forth. As an illustration of
their unthriftiness, I may mention that I have known one who
brought a find of rather higher value than usual to market (a
tortoiseshell, I think), and bartered it for rice, the only thing they
care for, and then threw two or three bags of the rice overboard
sooner than be at the bother of taking it about with him. They
lead a wild, free, roving life in the open air, untroubled by any
care or thought for the morrow.

I arn myself regarded by them as a chief of the Sandakan
division of Bajaus.

The weapons they use are the barong, spear, round shield,
and tumbeloosow. Very few of them have guns. The tum-
beloosow is a long light lance, made of bamboo with a sharp
wooden spike at the end : this they can throw for two or three
score yards, thus giving them a great advantage over any
people not armed with any projectile.

The well-known Balignini were a subdivision of the great
Bajau tribe : they used, as professional kidnappers, to harry the
seas from Macassar, Batavia, and Singapore on the south to
Manila on the north ; they did not, as a rule, murder, without they
thought there was occasion to do so. In Sandakan and other
places there are many people now living who were kidnapped
in very distant parts and brought up for sale in the old times.

W. B. PRYER. — On the Natives of British North Borneo. 231

The model of a pirate boat or depong, made by a Bajau chief,
who, though not a pirate himself, has taken a prominent part in
the rough time in which he lived, is shown in the British North
Borneo Court, at the Colonial Exhibition.

The last pirate raid along our coast occurred in 1879, when
the Balignini murdered or carried off sixty-five people, Bajaus
mostly; as late as 1881, they conducted raids elsewhere, but all
this sort of thing has now, it is hoped, been put a complete
stop to from all the coast under our control. Many of those
who used to be leading pirates have now quietly settled down to
agricultural pursuits.

The Illanuns are a race who inhabit the south side of the
island of Magindanao. Long ago their warfare against the
Spaniards degenerated into general piracy. Their usual practice
was not to take captives, but to murder all on board any boat
they took. Those with us have all settled down to a more
orderly way of life now, however. The Illanun kris is about
two feet long, broad and double edged in the blade, and is held
like a sword.

The Sooloos are a people inhabiting principally the island of
Sugh in the Sooloo Archipelago ; mostly lazy, independent, and
turbulent, they are not regarded with great favour by everybody ;
but brave, restless, and fierce, they made the best and almost
the only traders in face of the numerous dangers that beset
both sea and land to within the last few years, and many of
them are settled down in every village along our coast line.
Their ancestry is very mixed, there being a large infusion of
both Arab and Chinese blood in their veins. A good many
of the Sooloos are not bad fellows in their way when you come
to know them. Most of these Sooloos, Illanuns, Bugis, and other
coast people, the Bajaus excepted, are well-behaved, courteous,
and intelligent, and even companionable.

Leaving the coast and before reaching the true tribes of the
interior, there are generally some villages inhabited by a mixture
of races, descendants of people from the interior, and of Sooloos,
Bajaus, Malays, and others. These people, in some places known
as the Doompas, used to oppress the natives on the one hand,
exacting tithes of their produce, forcing sales of goods upon
them at exorbitant prices, &c., while on the other they used
either to stop traders ascending the rivers altogether, or to
extort heavy tolls from them for permission to pass. The
establishment of a firm government in North Borneo put an end
to most of these irregularities some time ago.

The first true tribe of the interior arrived at from the east
coast is the Booloodoopy. The Booloodoopies are a somewhat
singular people, many of them having strangely Caucasian

232 W. B. PRYER.— On the Natives of British North Borneo.

features, or at all events departing largely from the ordinary
Mongolian type. Some of them have well raised bridges to
their noses and very round eyes. These peculiarities have been
enlarged upon by a French savant, Dr. Montano, who visited
North Borneo in 1880. The Booloodoopies are not very bold,
and as the richest of the birds' -nest caves occur in their country,
they have had to oppose cunning to the straightforward
exactions made upon them from time to time by Sooloo and
other rapacious adventurers. The Era-ans in Darvel Bay are
closely connected with the Booloodoopies and like them are
large birds'-nest cave owners. At various times both these tribes
have sought the society of Sooloo Datos, as a barrier against
their fellow Datos, and a protection against the marauders who
used to infest the country both by sea and land, and in many
places there is a large infusion of Sooloo blood in consequence.

In Darvel Bay there are the remnants of a tribe which seems
to have been much more plentiful in bygone days, the Sabahans.
Most of them are so mixed with the Era-ans as to be almost
indistinguishable. Some of them however, still have villages
apart, remain heathens in their religion, and would practise their
old customs, human sacrifice included, if allowed. In some of
the birds'-nest caves mouldering coffins are to be seen, rudely
carved with grotesque figures, said to have been deposited there
in bygone days by the old Sabahans : many of them are on ledges
of rock at considerable elevations.

Next above the Booloodoopies are the Tunbunwhas, the first
sub-division of the main tribe or people known as the Dusuns or
Sundyaks, who constitute the chief portion of the population of
British North Borneo. I have never yet seen a completely
satisfactory account of the Dusuns, or of the true Dyaks either :
the latter are spoken of as the aboriginals of Borneo, but even in
them there seems to be a great similarity in many matters to
Chinese, while the Dusuns would seem to be of nearly half
Chinese ancestry. I do not incline so much to the idea that
Chinese men and women came over in bodies and settled
down in numbers at a time in North Borneo, as that, long
ago, when a large trade was being done between Borneo and
China, many Chinese traders, shopkeepers, sailors, and the like,
married women of the country and settled down. This sort
of thing is, in fact, going on even in this day, thus effecting
a slow infiltration of Chinese blood ; though not of Chinese
speech or manners generally, though I believe that in one or
two places on the west coast Chinese is spoken and written,
and Chinese customs are practised. In many places the modes
of agriculture adopted by the Dusuns are far superior to any-
thing of the kind anywhere else in Borneo, and are supposed to

W. B. PRYER. — On the Natives of British North Borneo. 233

be due to Chinese influence. Ploughs, winnowing machines, and
other appliances used by them are to be seen in the North
Borneo Court, sent over by Mr. Dalrymple from the Putatan
district on the west coast.

Difficult as it is to tell how far the Dusuns owe their
ancestry to Chinese, it is still more so to say where the Dusun
ends and the Dyak proper begins. Many of the Dusun men
in the interior wear the chawat and the women brass waist-
belts and gauntlets just the same as the Dyaks, while nearly
all the Dusuns have the same fancy for old jars, and most of
them a modification of the head-hunting customs of the true
Dyaks. This veneration for old jars is obtained without doubt
from the Chinese. Is this any indication that Dyak ancestry
also is partly Chinese ? The taste for brass ornaments is very
similar, although in an exaggerated form, to that of the Foochow
Chinese.

The sumpitan or blow-pipe is one of the principal weapons of
the Dusuns : the darts are tipped with poison.

The coast people and Booloodoopies and most of the Tun-
bunwhas are Mohammedans, but the tribes more in the centre of
the country are heathens, Kafirs as the Mohammedans call them ;
their belief is that after death they all have to ascend Kina Balu,
which the good ones find little difficulty in accomplishing, and
are from there ushered into heaven, while the wicked ones are
left unsuccessfully trying to struggle and scramble up the rocky
sides of the mountain.

The Tunbunwhas and other Dusun tribes are greatly guided
in their movements and operations by omens and dreams, good
birds and bad birds, and so forth; and have superstitions in
connection with a good many things.

Though not such ardent head-hunters as the true Dyaks, still
the Dusuns of the interior and west coast used to indulge a good
deal in this practice. When first I went to Borneo many houses
on the west coast were ornamented with heads hung up round
them, and in the interior, blood feuds between villages frequently
occasioned head-hunting raids from one to the other. The men
that took heads generally had a tattoo mark for each one on the
arm, and were looked upon as very brave, though, as a rule, the
heads were obtained in the most cowardly way possible, a woman's
or child's being just as good as a man's. The true head-hunters
were most formidable neighbours ; there are none in our territory
as they all reside to the southwards. The possession of a head
appears to be a .certain method of ingratiating oneself with the
fair sex. During the famine in Sooloo in 1879, a great many
slaves and captives were taken over to Booloongan and there
sold, and in most cases the purchasers cut off their heads for that

234 W. B. PRYER. — On the Natives of British North Borneo.

reason. The number of slaves and kidnapped people so taken
over was estimated at 4,000.

Dancing is too universal a custom of the Dusuns and Sundyaks
not to be mentioned, they will always on the slightest induce-
ment get up a " main booloogsi " as it is called, while in times
of abundant harvests dancing is going on all night long, night
after night, in every village or cluster of houses. The dance is a
very primitive one ; a large ring is formed of men and women
holding each others' hands, the men together and the women
together, and they circle round and round with a sort of slow
sliding step, singing or chanting in a somewhat weird monotonous
way as they do so. The Bajaus have the " main booloogsi " also,
in their case the women form an inner ring, and the men an
outer one, round a pole, and circle round it in opposite directions ;
and whereas the Dusun dance goes on slowly all night long till
daybreak, the Bajaus get excited and sing and dance faster and
faster, bounding round the pole, till at last they are all exhausted.

The most objectionable custom practised by the Dusuns was
that of human sacrifice or " surmungup " as they called it ; the
ostensible reason seems to have been to send messages to dead
relatives, and to this end they used to get a slave, usually one
bought for the purpose, tie him up and bind him round with
cloths, and then after some preliminary dancing and singing, one
after another they would stick a spear a little way — an inch or
so — into his body, each one sending a message to his deceased
friend as he did so. There was even more difficulty in getting
them to abandon this custom than there was to leave off head-
hunting. Down in the south-east the way of managing " sur-
mungups " is for a lot of them to subscribe till the price of a slave
is raised, he is then bought, tied up, and all the subscribers
grasping simultaneously a long spear, it is thrust through him at
once. This custom still exists in Tidong and the neighbour-
hood.

The tribes near the coast usually live in separate houses, two
or three families in each house, though even amongst them six
or eight families will sometimes be together ; but in the interior,
twenty or more families will live together under one roof in
what is known as a " benatong " or long house, each family having
its separate apartments, the doors opening on to a sort of
covered corridor. All these houses are well raised off the ground
on poles, in the Malay fashion. In the interior, amongst the
heathens, the space underneath the house is frequently utilized
as pig- styes.

Over the greater part of North Borneo, the people may be
described as more or less lazy ; the forest and the sea so abound
in natural wealth that very little exertion is needed to collect a

W. B. PKYER.— On the Natives of British North Borneo. 235

sufficiency of it to barter for anything they want. The ground
is so fertile that the slightest attention given to it is repaid by
an abundant return, they frequently have two crops coming up
on the same ground simultaneously; the men do the harder
work, felling the trees, &c., by fits and starts, leaving most of the
purely agricultural labour to the women,. who do not, however,
overmuch fatigue themselves with it, as, as I have already men-
tioned, almost all their nights are given up in good seasons to
dancing while the crops are ripening outside. Their wants are
of course but few, their houses are soon made of materials found
in the adjacent forest, wood for fuel is only too abundant, clothes
are scarcely needed, their fields and gardens yield a constant
supply of sweet potatoes, tapioca, bananas, &c., after the first
crops of paddy and maize have been cleared off, and if anything
more is needed, produce-collecting parties of the men are made
up, who get beeswax, camphor, rattans, &c., in the forest. Some
of the things they buy are most expensive, sixty and seventy
dollars is frequently given for a single sarong. Men of indus-
trious habits can easily be overburdened with the quantity of
goods they can acquire. Up the Labuk, where large earthen-
ware jars are what the people most covet, I have seen some of
the family residences crammed full, top and bottom, and hung
up, to the roof with these rather cumbrous evidences of wealth.
It may be said generally that whatever they want they buy,
from a bundle of tobacco to a gold hilted creese.

Amongst most of the tribes, brassware of various kinds used
to be much valued, a great deal on account of the facility with
which it could be hidden in the forest, or even in mud at the
bottom of rivers. In the old days keeping any visible wealth
was a sort of challenge, and consequently people as they bought
things used to hide them away. The whereabouts of many of
these deposits has been lost, and it not unfrequently happens
that produce-collecting parties in the forest stumble across a lot
of brass cannon, old gongs, &c.

One of the customs of the Tunbunwhas worth mentioning is
that of embalming the dead: this is done with the valuable
Borneo camphor, abundant in the woods in their neighbourhood,
more particularly on the Kina Batungan, it is worth some 60s!
or 80s. a pound ; the coffins are hewn out of a solid piece of
of billeau (ironwood), and are of considerable value.

On the west coast the population is thicker, the produce has
been mostly cleared off, and the people have to give a much
more steady attention to agriculture, and undertake various
manufactures themselves.

As we come over to the east coast the people are lazier, under-
take little agriculture and less manufacture. On the coast line,
however, the Bajaus and Sooloos make a few things.

236 W. B. PRYER — On the Natives of British North Borneo.

There is a curious resemblance between the sarong and the
Scotch kilt : in the manner they are worn, and an even closer
one in their designs : the plaid of some of the commoner sarongs
is said to be the Bruce tartan, while many others, I am told, are
of the Stuart pattern.

Mention is made by Mr. Dalrymple of a tribe distinct from
the Dusuns, known as the Tagaas, who inhabit some of the
mountains of the west coast and who he seems to think are the
descendants of some old and distinct race.

From the above remarks it will be gathered that the main
race inhabiting British North Borneo, the Dusuns, are in all
probability descendants of a mixed aboriginal and Chinese
ancestry, and that as we come nearer to the coasts the sub-tribes
mix and blend with each other, and with aliens, till, on the east
coast there is very little of the native type left at all, a race
rapidly springing up there of very cosmopolitan origin. On the
west coast there are more natives and fewer aliens, but much the
same thing is occurring there on a smaller scale. The Dusuns
in character are quiet and orderly and not particularly brave,
but no doubt would be industrious if occasion arose ; a very
good rural population, with somewhat yokelish notions. Any
slight bloodthirsty tendencies that circumstances and the want
of proper restraint have driven them to, are gladly abandoned
wherever our influence has spread. They show every symptom
of thriving and increasing, under a proper firm government, and
there is no fear of their melting away and disappearing like so
many races have done, when brought into contact with the white
man. Much the same thing may be said of the sea coast rades,
who also possess many good work-a-day knockabout qualities,
but not to the same extent as the Dusuns. Of them, the
Bajaus are probably doing the best in some districts, Sandakan
particularly, as they bring their great strength to bear on fairly
rough work, are increasing and multiplying rapidly, and are even
beginning to build houses. The Sooloos are the principal fisher-
men, and take not a small share of the trade amongst the
islands; while all are glad to seize the opportunity of living quieter
and more secure, if less adventurous, lives than they used to do
in the old days. At first there was some slight difficulty in pur-
suading some of them to settle down to a more orderly state of
things, but for four or five years past matters have been going
on smoothly and quietly, except in some of the quite outtying
districts ; while it is not an uncommon thing to see large bodies
of people, men, women, and children from other parts, generally
under some grave and peace-loving chief, come sailing into
our waters to settle under our flag.

Joiirw. Anttarop. Inst., Vol. XVI., PI. III.

FIG. 1.

SCULPTUEED STONE OP COPAN, HQNDFEAS.

THE JOUENAL

OF THE

ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE

or
GEEAT BEITAIIST AND IEELAND.

NOVEMBER 9TH, 1886.
FRANCIS GALTON, Esq., M.A., F.E.S., President, in the Chair.

The Minutes of the last ordinary meeting were read and
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G. W. HAMBLETON, Esq., of the National Conservative Club ;
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EXHIBITION of ETHNOLOGICAL CASTS.
By Professor W. H. FLOWER, LL.D., F.R.S.

Professor FLOWER exhibited some specimens from the remarkable
collection of casts of faces of natives of islands of the Pacific Ocean,
which has been lately made by Dr. Otto Finsch, of Bremen, and
spoke of their great value as permanent material for anthropo-
logical study, which will endure after the people themselves, and
even the races to which they belonged, have passed away.

The face presents the most important characters by which races,
as well as individuals, are distinguished, and these casts appear to
be so carefully executed as to give with great exactness the form
of the nose, forehead, mouth, &c., even so as to allow of accurate
measurements being taken from them. They are, moreover,
coloured from nature. The operation of making so large a series
of casts (164 different individuals) was, as might be supposed,
owing to the reluctance of many of the subjects to submit to the
necessary operations, a work of great labour and cost, requiring
much time, tact, and perseverance on the part of Dr. Finsch. The
collection includes 46 Micro nesians from 19 different localities, 12

242 E. T. HAMY. — An Interpretation of one

Polynesians from 8 localities, 14 Malays from 12 localities, 80
Melanesians from 20 localities, 1 Negro, and 2 Australians.

Professor FLOWER, in presenting in the name of the author a
separate copy of a paper on " Les caracteres Simiens de la Machoire
de la Naulette," from the Revue dj Anthropologie for July, 1886,
by M. Paul Topinard, stated that the interest of the jaw, arising
from the circumstances under which it was found denoting great
antiquity, fully justified the exhaustive treatment which M.
Topinard had accorded to it in this memoir. Many misstatements
regarding it, arising from imperfect or erroneous descriptions of
previous authors were now corrected, and a full and complete
examination of all its characters, compared with other human and
simian jaws given.

The author concludes that although by no means so low a type
as has been supposed (for example, the genial tubercles, on the
absence of which much stress has been laid, are really present) , and
although none of the simian characters which have been pointed
out are of absolute value, yet there is a greater combination of
small characters all pointing in the same direction, than in any
other known jaw.

The following paper was read by the Assistant Secretary : —

An INTEKPKETATION of one of the COPAN MONUMENTS
(Honduras.)

By Dr. E. T. HAMY, of Paris, Corr. Memb. Antb. Inst.
[WITH PLATE III.]

THE ruins of Copan are, as is well known, situated in Honduras,
a few miles from the north-western frontier of this little state.
They were discovered in 1576 by Diego Garcia de Palacio,
Licentiate and Auditor of the Eoyal Audience of Guatemala,
but no systematic examination of them was made until April,
1834, when their investigation was undertaken by Colonel D.
Juan Galindo.1

The memoir which he wrote on the antiquities of Copan was
but very incompletely published, and his drawings are only
known through a few lithographs ; of these, however, only -a
very small number of proofs " before letters " are in existence.2

1 D. J. Galindo, " The Ruins of Copan in Central America." (" Archaeo-
logia Americana." Transactions and Collections of the American Antiquarian
Society, Vol. ii, pp. 545-550, 1836.)

2 These lithographs, five in number, were drawn at Bineteau's, about the year
1836. The drawings were effaced from the stones before any title had been*
engraved, and it is only by comparing the proofs to Galindo's original sketches,
which are lodged in the archives of the " Societe de Greographie," that I was
able to identify these figures.

of the Copan Monuments (Honduras}. 243

One of these lithographs represents, among other antiquities at
Copan, a large and regular convex stone, the centre of which is
hollowed out in the shape of a small basin. It is surrounded
by a sort of tress, of which twelve plaits can be seen in the
drawing.

In the unpublished note, dated 19th June, 1834, which Galindo
sent to the " Societe de Geographic," he described this monu-
ment as being nearly spherical, with a belt around it ; and
added " the horizontal diameter is 1'568 m. ; the perpendicular
diameter is smaller and 1 m. only. There exists a small cavity
at the top, and a sinuous line winds round it."1

" What is the meaning of this freak of art ?" finally exclaims
the American antiquary ; and I myself, while examining Bineteau's
lithograph, and comparing it with the wood engraving published
a few years later, in Stephens' great work,2 repeated, " What can
this symbol be ?"

At that time I was engaged in the study of certain curved
lines, of a very special character, which were engraved or painted
on various ancient pieces lately discovered in America. I could
not help regretting that the design traced on the surface of the
Copan stone should be so indistinct in the profile views given by
Galindo and Catherwood. For a more thorough investigation,
I required to have a top view of the strange monument which
excited my curiosity.

A young and intelligent traveller, M. Louis Adam, recently
returned from Central America, furnished me a few days ago —
unknowingly, however — with the very document I was in need
ot", and thus gave me the solution I was endeavouring to obtain.

M. Louis Adam had come to ask me to visit a curious collec-
tion of antiquities gathered by him in Salvador, and had brought,
for my inspection, some albums of sketches drawn, in January,
1884, from the Quiriza and Copan ruins, by a retired French
Officer, Captain Toufflet, who has since died in Guatemala.
One of the first drawings that attracted my attention was the
round stone of Galindo and Catherwood, with a side and top
view of the monument (Plate III). The latter sketch of our
compatriot (Fig. 1) showed, on the convex surface of the stone,
the very curve I had suspected while studying the incomplete
documents that were in my hands.

The importance attached to this discovery will easily be
understood when I add that the design engraved on the religious

1 This latter detail, which, is very conspicuous in the original sketch, was
omitted in the lithograph. We shall see further on the great importance of
this " sinuous line," which was first discovered by Gralindo.

2 J. L. Stephens, " Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and
Yucatan," New York, 1867, Yol. i., p. 157.

244 E. T. HAMY. — An Interpretation of one

monument of Copan, is no other than the Tai-Ki, Taai-Kiik,
Tae-Keih, Tae-hei,1 one of the most venerated symbols of the
Chinese.

According to the Tchou-hi or Tchou-Fou-Tseu school, the
Tai-Ki is the Great Extreme, the Great Absolute, the pinnacle,
the pole of the world ; it is a most perfect principle ; it has
neither end nor beginning ; it is the idea, the model and source
of all things, the essence of all beings.2

The Tai-Ki is represented in the following manner : On the
semi-diameter of a circle, says Davis.3 a semi-circle is traced,
while another semi-circle is also described, but in a contrary
direction, on the remaining half-diameter.

The two figures thus obtained and combining with each other
form what the Chinese call the Yang and the Yin, that is to
say, Force and Matter, the active and passive spirits, the positive
and negative essence, light and darkness, the rational soul and
the physical soul — one is painted in a dark colour, the other is
represented in a light tint ; and in order to symbolize more com-
pletely the penetration and alliance of the two principles, a
small light circle is added in the middle of the dark figure,
while a dark disc is drawn on the light figure. These small
circles, which were added subsequently to the invention of the
Tai-Ki proper, are, however, not represented on the Copan
monument, which gives thus an accurate idea of the ancient
Chinese design of the Tchou-hi school.4 One may compare, for

1 These are various forms of the same word, such as Du Halde and the old
Jesuits, Davis, Edkins, von Faber, Jones, etc., have transcribed it in their
•vrorks.

2 J. B. du Halde, " Description Geographique, Historique, Chronologique,
Politique et Physique de 1'Empire de la Chine, La Have, 1736, VoL iii, pp. 36,
37. Cf. E. T. Eitel, " Fong-Shoui, ou Principes de Scfence NatureUe en Chine
(Ann. du Musee Gruiniet, Vol. i, pass.) J. Edkins, "La Eeligion en Chine"
(Ibid., Vol. iv, p. 132.)

3 J. F. Davis. " China ; or, General Description of Ways and Customs,
Government, Laws, Religions, Sciences, Literature, Natural Productions, etc.,
of the Chinese Empire."

4 According to Chinese cosmogony, says Max von Faber, the universe was
formerly a vesicle or cell in which was confined a gaseous chaos called guoan-ki.
This fundamental cell is the faai-kiik, i.e., the commencement. The guoan-ki
was an intimate mixture of two kinds of gas, one kind being the iang, i.e., the
vivifying, the living, acting with knowledge, the active power, the masculine,
the light, the other kind being the im, or the living, deprived of sentiment, the
passive element, the feminine, the darkness. The Ta'i-Ki, or commencement, was
thus represented : the red part corresponds to the iang element, and the black
part to the im element. The large red section is called t'aai-iang, and the
black section t'aai-im. The red disk in the black part is the sio-iang and shows
the actual presence of the iang in the im — the black disk in the red section is
the sio-im, and denotes the present existence of the im in the iang, it is a sort
of ubiquity of the iang in the im, and of the im in the iang. (Max von Faber,
" Transcendentale Voorstellmgen der Chineezen. De Indische Gids. Statt-er-
Letter Kundig Maardschift," Amsterdam, April, 1884, pp. 703, 704.)

of the Copan Monuments (Honduras). 245

instance, the top part of the Copan stone with the decorations
figured on the vase given in Jacquemart's work, "LaCeramique."

This ornament, the centre of which is occupied by a Tal-Ki,
represents that symbol under various aspects, and surrounded
by four Kouas, Tony and Kien on the one side, and Kouen and
Kien on the other.1

A picture, which I recently received from Tonkin, shows a
Tai-Ki, painted green and red, in the middle of a Sien-Tien.
The latter is composed of the same Kouas as the one published
by M. Dumoutier in the "Eevue d 'Ethnographic " of 1885, but
otherwise disposed. It is surrounded by twenty-eight circular
medallions, diversely coloured, and containing, each of them, a
Chinese character. Four other larger signs are printed in the
corners. The top of the plate is occupied by cartouches bearing
the symbols of scarcity, long-life, and wealth ; the lower part of
the picture shows the signs corresponding to the notion of gain
and happiness.

This print, in which the symbol found at Copan, is thus
honoured as the centre of all good, as the axis on which every
prosperity revolves, forms part of a series of popular pictures
printed in China ; and thence they have spread all over the
countries situated south of the Chinese provinces.2

The Tai-Ki is again to be found on certain magical tablets
used in propitiatory sacrifices to obtain rain ; it is engraved on
armchairs, on tables, and on the wooden seats manufactured at
Canton ; it is painted on the banners of temples, and on the red
paper stripes which are usually hung about doors at the New
Year ;3 they are again to be seen on household implements, on
pipes, etc.4 It is therefore a well-known symbol, and is not
only popular in China, but also in all countries that have been
more or less influenced by Chinese civilization.

The presence of such a symbol in the ruins of Copan, where
there exists so many manifestations of a strange and curious art
so closely allied to the eastern arts of the old world, furnishes a
fresh proof in support of the theory of an Asiatic influence over
American civilization.

In fact, if it be correct that Confucius has mentioned the

1 " Eevue d'Ethnographie," Vol. iv, pp. 19 and 324. 1885.

2 Lieutenant Grouin, French resident at Nam-Dink, bought that picture at the
time of the Tat feast, and ascertained that it had been printed at Tay-h6,
near Hanoi (" Comptes rendus de la Societe de Greographie," 1885, No. 14,
p. 418).

3 It acts as a counterpart to the sign " fire," which has, as is known, the
power to protect houses from fire.

4 The " Musee d'Ethnographie " possesses an amulet hung on a pipe brought
from Tonkin, and bearing a Ta'i-Ki, which, liowever, differs from the above
symbol by a double inflexion of the lower curve.

246 E. T. HAMY. — The Copan Monuments (Honduras).

Tai-Ki in an appendix of his commentary on the Yi-King,1 it
could only have been during the Song dynasty (1126-1278 A.D.)
that the doctrine which considers this symbol as the principle
of all things, began to spread widely over China. The 13th
century is therefore the earliest date that can be set down to
the erection of the Copan monument.

The famous symbol decorates the upper part of an altar2 in
the sacred precinct of the old religious city, and this altar, like
all those discovered in these marvellous ruins, was placed in
front of a statue.

It would be particularly interesting to know all the details of
the statue to which was appropriated a stone of so peculiar a
character. Unfortunately the idol, marked M on Stephens'
and Catherwood's plan, was broken long ago; there only
remains the pedestal, on which the two feet, bearing rich and
beautifully carved sandals, are still to be seen ; the rest of the
statue lies on its back and is completely covered over by a
large tree which fell upon it.3

Let us hope that Mr. Maudsley, whose presence in the
Copan ruins has lately been reported, will give a new proof of
his enlightened zeal for American archaeology by having this
idol cleared, and a mould taken from it.

A careful examination of the statue might hasten the solution
of the important problems which has sprung up as to the
similarity, once more confirmed, between the old monuments of
the Copan priests and those of the disciples of Tchou-hi.4

Explanation of Plate III.

Fig. 1. Top view of the stone of Copan, in Honduras, showing
the sinuous line resembling the Chinese Tai-Ki.

„ 2. Side view of the same stone.

1 P. J. B. du Halde, op. cit., p. 36.

2 This is what Stephens says about it in his " Incidents of Travel ":
" Opposite is a circular altar with two grooves on the top, three feet high, and
five feet six inches in diameter, an engraving of which is here given " (Vol. I,
p. 157.)

3 Stephens, loo. cit., Plate.

4 This is the first time that the Ta'i-Ki has been so clearly pointed out on a
religious monument of ancient America. This strange fact may be compared
with other evidence which I have already published in the " Revue d'Ethno-
graphie" (Vol. iv, pp. 20-2], 1885). I showed there that a nearly similar sign
was sometimes used by the Chimus and the Yuncas, and I also recalled the fact
that the mound-builders possessed and venerated a symbol of the same order, in
which, however, the circle was divided into three zones instead of two.

H. LING EOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola. 247

DISCUSSION.

Mr. Gr. BEETIN said that he was sorry not to be able to agree
with Dr. Hamy, but he considered tthat the monument was not in-
tended to be viewed from the top, but from the sides; and it
seemed rather to represent an artificial mound, with two semi-
circular roads leading to the summit where stood the temple. If
viewed from the top the design might be compared as well with
the Egyptian urceus or the Indian pramantha as with the Chinese
symbol.

Miss A. W. BUCKLAND remarked that although the sculptures on
the Copan stone bear a strong resemblance to the curious engraved
shells from American mounds, which she brought to the notice of
the Institute last session, and which she believed to be traceable to
Japan through the islands of the Pacific, — the resemblance con-
sisting in the central disk, the waved lines proceeding from it,- and
the outer bosses; yet the division into two parts, instead of three,
as in the shells and the Japanese drum, would seem to denote a
different symbolism, and she failed to see in them the strong
resemblance to the Chinese figure noticed by Dr. Hamy.

The following paper was then read by the Secretary :
The ABORIGINES of HISPANIOLA.
By HY. LING EOTH.

Introduction.

THE number of works from which to draw the materials of an
account of the Aborigines of Hayti may almost be counted on
one's finger ends. We have first of all Christopher Columbus's
account of his Discovery of the West Indies, published under the
title of "Select Letters of C. Columbus," by Mr. Major, 2nd ed.,
Hakluyt Society, 1870. In this edition is published Dr. Chanca's
description of the events which occurred on the Second Voyage of
Columbus. This account is supplemented by Ferd. Columbus's
history, in Churchill's "Collection of Voyages" (Vol. II, 1704,
pp. 557, &c., fol.) This includes (pp. 622-623) an interesting, if
mixed, account of the superstitions, medicine men, and mythology
of the aborigines by Eamon Pane, a Franciscan monk, who
was engaged endeavouring to convert the Indians, and who was
afterwards asked to describe their customs. All these men are
of course, to be accepted as unanswerable authorities. One of
the earliest published accounts of Columbus's Second Voyage
was written by Mcolo Scillacio, and appeared in 1494 or 1495.
This narrative is almost wholly derived from the letters of
Guillernio Coma, and may be accepted as of historical value.
In this paper has been used the Eev. John Mulligan's transla-

248 H. LmG BOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola.

tion, which was brought out in New York in 1859. We then
come to Angleria, more commonly known as Peter Martyr, a
great collector of facts, and one who, from his position as a
member of the Tribunal of the Indies, had every means of
receiving the most authentic information. Indeed, he informs
us that every one who returned from the " Ocean " came to him;
it was chiefly due to this fact that he was so able to record the
descriptions and histories he has handed down to us. Mufioz
criticizes him somewhat severely ; but in so far as we are able
to judge, the restrictions refer more especially to portions of the
Decades which do not concern us in our present inquiry.
Angleria published his first Decade in 1511, and we have
drawn our notes from "Hakluyt's Collection, &c.," Vol. V,
1812, pp. 168, 177, &c., &c., and also pp. 289-303. This latter
portion1 forms, as Angleria mentions, the sum total of the
accounts he received from Andreas Moralis and others.
Moralis was apparently a very trustworthy man, who was sent
by the Governor Ovando to explore the interior of the island
shortly after its discovery. He appears also to have been a very
shrewd observer. The next author is Oviedo, or more properly,
Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdez. He published his " Natural
History of the Indies" in 1526 (Toledo, fol.), and a second
edition in 1535 (Seville, fol.). We have made use of the French
edition published at Paris in 1556. Oviedo's work forms the
basis of nearly all the historians who followed him, and Thomas
Jefferys, the geographer, in his "Natural and Civil History, &c."
London, 1760, Part II, pp. 7-17, gives a very fair account of
the natives of Hispaniola, taken almost wholly from Oviedo.
Although Oviedo did not write till 1525, yet from a statement he
makes (French ed., fol. 70) he must have been at St. Domingo
probably soon after 1505, or after Moralis explored it. Girolamo
Benzoni, with whom we have next to deal, did not visit the New
World until about 1541, he spent fourteen years there, and pub-
lished his book in 1565 ; we have drawn from the translation by
Rear- Admiral W. H. Smyth, published in 1857 by the Hakluyt
Society. At the time of Benzoni's visit the native Haytians
were reduced to under 4,000, if we may credit Jefferys (Part II,
p. 17). This would detract from the value of Benzoni's state-
ments were it not for the fact that on account of his poverty
he was obliged to mix with the Indians almost on terms of
equality — he was so destitute that he had to make his own
cassava bread — and that he traversed some of the most
unknown parts of the island ; being also an illiterate man, we
judge, as well by internal and other evidence, that the informa-

1 Third Decade, 7th to 9th chaps, inclusive.

H LING BOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola. 249

tion he gathered was practically obtained. Very different, how-
ever, is the case with Le Pers. Charlevoix, who published Le
Pers' account under the title of "Hist, de 1'Isle Espagnole,"
2 vols.,4to, Paris, 1730, says he obtained the MS., as well as per-
mission to publish it, from the author ; but M. Margry says that
Le Pers repudiated Charlevoix's publication. However this
may be, Le^Pers, according to a statement in the preface,
appears not to have gone to Hispaniola until about or after
1700. According to Jefferys there were at that date only 100
aborigines living, and according to the same preface Le Pers
was chiefly if not wholly employed in converting the African
slaves. A comparison of his account of the Indians with that
given by Oviedo tends to the conclusion that he abstracted all
he knew on the subject from that historian. Finally we have
those princes among historians, Herrera-Tordesillas and J. B.
Munoz, who both had access to numerous documents not to be
met with out of Spain. We have made use of the English
editions of these works : Herrera's in 5 vols., 8vo., 1725-6, and
Munoz's, 1 vol., 8vo, 1797, both published in London.

There are other works to the contents of which we have not
been able to gain access.1

Constitution.

With regard to the appearance of the natives of this island,
the authorities differ rather more than was to have been
expected of eye-witnesses.

Hair. — The hair was flowing (Major, p. 13). Scillacio says
their hair is black, soft, and hangs straight down (op. cit., p. 87),
and Oviedo (fol. 39) that the women had beautiful hair, soft
and very black. The men were beardless (Chanca, p. 37, Herr.,
I, 62, Oviedo, fol. 39), save a few straggling hairs (Scill., p. 87).
Their nostrils were very wide (Oviedo, fol. 39, Herr., I, 62).
"Their foreheads, smooth and high, disagreeable, and they
made them so at their birth, reckoning it graceful ; for which
reason, and because they always went bareheaded, their skulls
were so hard that sometimes a Spanish sword would break
upon their heads " (Herr., I, 62, also Oviedo, fol. 39). Scillacio
(p. 87) says their heads are depressed, their foreheads high ; and
Ferdinand Columbus (Church., II, 586) speaks of the extra-
ordinary high foreheads of the Watling Islanders.

While Oviedo (fol. 39) says their eyes were bloodshot
(trouble"), Scillacio, who speaks at second hand, describes them
as grey with spots of various colours round them. So with

1 The Boyal Geographical Society has in the press a Bibliography and Carto-
graphy of Hispaniola by the present writer.

250 H. LING EOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola.

regard to their teeth, Oviedo (fol. 39) says they were very bad,
and Scillacio (p. 87) says they were as white as ivory.

Their bodies were well made and proportioned (Major, pp. 6
and 13, Oviedo, fol. 39, Angl., p. 170), strong-boned and gross
(Herr., I, 62). They had elegant well-polished nails (Scill.,.
p. 87.)

As to colour, Columbus states they were not black as in
Guinea (Major, p. 13), while Angleria (op. cit., p. 190), says the
women were of a lovely brown. They were whiter, of better
countenance, and better shaped than the natives of the other
islands (Herr., I, 62 and 67).

Character.

These people were very different on the north-west coast to
what they were in other parts of the island. Columbus first
landed on the north-west coast, and on his approach the natives
fled, as they were timid to a surprising degree (Major, p. 6), but
being called to by the Watling Islanders that the Spaniards were
friends, and come from heaven (Major, p. 9), the natives flocked
around to trade quickly enough In the centre of the island, at
Cibao, the natives likewise fled on the arrival of the whites
(Church., II, 612). Columbus says of them here (ibid., p. 7)
that they were guileless, liberal, and exhibited much loving-
kindness. Apparently, on all other parts where the Spaniards
landed or attempted to land, while the natives appear to have
been ever ready to trade, they first of all resented the approach
of the Christians. Thus on the north-east coast at Ciguayos the
natives showed fight (Church., II, 526), and at the south-east
corner, probably Cuayacoa, they likewise were prepared for war
(ibid., II, 618). It would seem indeed that the whole territory
of Ciguayos was devastated before the people were conquered
(Angl., pp. 200-202). When the natives found they could not
withstand the Spaniards in the open they continued to attack
them when off their guard (Herr., I, 182), and during the revolt
at Higuey the Indians, after repeated defeats rallied at every
town (Herr., I. 297-301). The last cacique, "Harry," was never
subdued, and the Spaniards were ultimately obliged to come to
terms with him (Herr., IV, 223). The natives of Porto Eico,
who suffered much from the raids of the Caribs, were also
brave people (Herr., I, 329, 338, 377). The Jamaicans also
showed fight (Church., II, 615). Some of the Indians who
escaped from Hispaniola went over to Cuba, and when the
Spaniards arrived there they attacked them again (ibid., I,
363-4).

When the wretched natives could no longer withstand the
hateful work imposed upon them they fled to mountains and

H. LING EOTH. — TJie Aborigines of Hispaniola. 251

woods and lived on wild fruits (AngL, p. 215), others killed
their children and hanged themselves, and the women dissipated
their pregnancy with the juice of a certain herb. " Some threw
themselves from high cliffs, down precipices ; others jumped into
the sea ; others into rivers ; and others starved themselves to
death. Sometimes they killed themselves with their flint
knives ; others pierced their bosoms or their sides with pointed
stakes" (Benzoni, p. 78). Oviedo (fol. 41) also states that the
unhappy wretches poisoned and hanged themselves; and Moralis
(p. 296) that the women destroyed conception.

The caciques seem to have had good chivalrous notions.
When Guarionexus fled to the court of Maiobanexus, the latter
preferred to have his country laid waste than to give up his
friend to the Spaniards.

Columbus speaks of the intelligence of these people, and
expresses his astonishment at the good account they could give
of their surroundings (Major, p. 8). They were apt imitators,
copying the Christians like monkeys (Benzoni, p. 23, and Chanca,
p. 65). Judging by an example in the British Museum of a
beautiful stone axe copied from an European model, Scillacio's
statement (op. cit., p. 85) that they can copy anything shown to
them is well worthy of credence.

On one occasion an Indian messenger showed considerable
acumen in getting out of the clutches of his hostile countrymen ;
he pretended to deafness, dumbness, and lameness, and by signs
made them believe he was trying to get back to his country
(Herr., I, 172).

If the historians are not using a figure of speech only, the
Indians must have been very emotional. When Columbus lost
his caravel, Gfuacamari and his followers wept (Church., II, 594),
the same cacique also wept every time he spoke of Columbus'
murdered companions (ibid., 620). In Jamaica the people could
also "cry and sob" (ibid., 616).

The inhabitants of all the islands appear to have been most
hospitable (Church., II, 612, 618, and ScilL, p. 77).

The bad character given to the natives by Oviedo (fols. 39,
57, and 59) can only be explained by the light — or rather dark-
ness— of his bigotry. Because they were idolaters, he failed to
see that they had even one redeeming virtue.1

History.

Past events were kept fresh in the memory of the people by
ballads called areitos (Andr. Mor., 289) which were sung at feasts

1 When relating statements by Oviedo and others that the natives of
Hispaniola .were lazy, we must remember that travellers are only too ready to at-
tribute idleness to savages ; but Mr. ImThurn (" Among the Indians of Guiana,"
p. 269) has put this question of the indolence of savages in its proper light.

252 H. LING BOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola.

by the chiefs and priests. They used to draw on the walls of the
caves where they worshipped (Pane, p. 625), but whether this
was intended to record events we are not informed. According
to Pane, the people who first inhabited the island came out of a
cave,1 called Cacibagiagua, in the mountain Canta. Some of the
men who emerged were caught by the sun and transformed into
stones, birds, trees, &c. Once a chief, Guagugiana, sent out a
man Giadruvava to gather a certain herb, called digo, to wash
him, but this man was turned into a nightingale, called Giahuba
Bagiaci. Then the chief getting angry proposed to abandon the
cavern. They forsook the children, who for want of nourish-
ment remained dwarfs, and went to Matinio (Martinique)
where the men abandoned the women and returned to the
island. The men being without women, naturally desired them.
One day some neuter human beings were discovered sliding
down the trees, these beings were caught with much difficulty,
woodpeckers were then tied to certain parts of their bodies who
pecked holes into them, and thus they became women. Their
migration is to a certain extent confirmed by Moralis (p. 289), who
says the natives came in their canoes from Martinino (Martinique),
on account of their quarrels there. He says the island was first
named Quizqueia, &nd then Haiti. Quizqueia means a great thing,
so great that none may be greater, also large, universal, or all.
Haiti means rough, sharp or craggy, and this name was given on
account of the mountainous character of the island (ibid.). He
also states (p. 298) that in the mountains of the extreme western
end there were said to exist wild men, without fixed abode,
without certain language, and without cultivating the ground.
Oviedo (op. cit., fol. 51) also refers to these people who lived in
caverns, and were not subdued until 1504.

Pane says (op. cit., p. 625) that the Indians called the island
Aiti, and apparently themselves the same, and that other
islanders called them Bouchi. [See p. 279.]

Archaeology.

Schomburgk, when travelling in the island, came across, at
San Juan de Maguana, a curious stone circle, which he de-
scribes as follows : —

" The circle consists mostly of granite rocks, which prove
by their smoothness [? worn by rain] that they have been collected
on the banks of a river, probably at the Maguana, although its
distance is considerable. The rocks are mostly each from
30-50 Ibs. in weight, and have been placed closely together,

1 Captain T. H. Lewin ("Hill Tribes of S.E. India," Lend., 1870, p. 238) says
that the Khyengs believe that their ancestors came out of a cave in the earth.

H. LING EOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola. 253

giving the ring the appearance of a paved road 21 feet in
breadth, and as far as the trees and bushes, which had grown
from between the rocks, permitted me to ascertain 2,270 feet in
circumference. A large granite rock 5 feet 7 inches in length,
ending in obtuse points, lies nearly in the middle of the circle,
partly imbedded in the ground. ... It has been smoothed and
fashioned by human hands ; and although the surface has
suffered from the atmospheric influence .... the cavities of
the eyes and mouth are still visible." He compares the figure
with that mentioned by Charlevoix, and says that " a pathway
of the same width as the ring extends from it firstly due west
and turns afterwards at a right angle to the north, ending at a
small brook" (Journ. Ethnol. Soc., 1854, Vol. Ill, p. 121). His
supposition as to the figure being an idol is quite guesswork.1

Astronomy.

On this point the historians tell us nothing. But we have
a sort of side reference which would seem to imply that the
aborigines did not take much account of astronomy. Ferd.
Columbus, in speaking of the Guadaloupe Islanders, says: "For
in other places they only reckon the day by the sun, and the
night by the moon, whereas the«e women reckoned by other
stars, saying when the Charles Wain rises, or such a star is
north, then it is time to do so and so" (Church., II, 635).

Arithmetic.

Eegarding their powers of calculation, we have only the one
record of Pane, who states that they cannot count beyond ten
(p. 622).

Medicine.

Several of the writers state that the Spaniards suffered much
from venereal disease, communicated to them by the Indians,
but modern research appears to decide that this disease was
known to Europe before the discovery of America.

Benzoni gives a very short account of the customs observed
by the priests or doctors in sick cases, but in that he confirms
Pane's descriptions. He adds that these medicine men have
great authority, but that they generally doctor only the
principal people (pp. cit., pp. 81-82X He also appears to infer
that the smoke inhaled was tobacco smoke.

1 In his interesting work on British Guiana, Mr. C. Barrington Brown
describes (p. 144) a somewhat similar but smaller stone circle. The slabs
forming it are undressed, 2 to 3 feet higb, and 5 to 6 feet apart ; the circle is a
true one, 30 feet in diameter. On one slab a frog-like figure has been cut in
very deeply. The Peruvians built stone circles, see Atlas to Humboldt and
Bonpland's Voyage, Paris, 1810, fol., p. 107.

VOL. XVI. T

254 H. LING BOTH. — The Aborigines of~Hispaniola.

Pane gives us a very full account, which runs as follows
(pp. 626, &c.) :—

" When a man is sick they bring him the Buhuitihu, that is,
as we said before, the physician. The doctor is obliged to be
dieted as the sick man is, and to look like him, which is done
thus : — He has to purge himself as the sick man does, which is
done by snuffing a certain powder called cohoba up his nose
which makes him so drunk that he knows not what he does,
and so says many extravagant things which they affirm is
talking with the Cemis, and that they tell them how the sick-
ness came.

" When they go to visit any sick body, before they set out
from their house they take the soot off a pot or pounded char-
coal, and black all their face, to make the sick man believe what
they please concerning his distemper. Then they take some
small bones and a little flesh, and wrapping them all up in
something that they may not drop, put them in their mouth,
the sick man being before purged with the powder aforesaid.
When the physician is come into the sick man's house he sits
down and all persons are silent ; and if there are any children
they put them out, that they may not hinder the Buhuitiku in
performing his office ; nor does there remain in the house any
but one or two of the chief persons. Being thus by themselves
they take some of the herb Gioia," &c., which will cause them
" to vomit what they have eaten, that it may not hurt them ; then
presently begin their song, and, lighting a torch, take the juice.
This done, having stayed a little, the Buhuitihu rises up, and goes
towards the sick man, who sits all alone in the middle of the
house, as has been said, and turns him twice about, as he thinks
fit; then stands before him, takes him by the legs, feels his
thighs, descending by degrees to his feet, then draws hard, as if
he would pull something off; then he goes to the door, shuts it,
and says, ' Begone to the mountain or to the sea, or whither thou
wilt ; ' and giving a blast as if he blowed something away, turns
about, claps his hands together, shuts his mouth, his hands quake
as if he were a-cold, he blows on his hands, and then draws in
his blast as if sucking the marrow of a bone, sucks the man's
neck, stomach, shoulders, jaws, breast, belly, and several other
parts of his body. This done, they begin to cough and make
faces, as if they had ea.ten some bitter thing, and the doctor pulls
out that we said he put into his mouth at home or by the way,
whether stone, flesh, or bone, as above. If it is anything eatable,
he says to the sick man, take notice you have eaten something
that lias caused this distemper, see how I have taken it out of
your bodv, for your Cemi had put it into you because you did not
pray to him or build him some temple, or give him some of your

H. LING BOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola. 255

goods.1 If it be a stone, he says, keep it safe. Sometimes they
take it for certain that those stones are good and help women
in labour, wherefore they keep them very carefully wrapped up
in cotton, putting them into little baskets,2 giving them such as
they themselves eat, and the same they do to the Cemis they
have in their houses. Upon any solemn day, when they provide
much to eat, whether fish, flesh, or any other thing, they put it
all into the house of the Cemis that the idol may feed on it."

If the patient dies, and has many friends, or was a lord of a
territory, and can oppose the physician, for mean people dare
not contend with him, they take the juice of the leaf of an herb
called Gucio, and mix it with the dead man's nails and forehead
hair pounded between two stones and " pour it down the dead
man's throat and nostrils, and so doing, ask him whether the
physician was the cause of his death, and whether he observed
order. This they ask several times, till he speaks as plain as if
he were alive, so that he answers to all they ask of him ; . . . .
and they say the physician asks him whether he is alive, and
how he comes to answer so plain ; and he answers he is dead.
When they have known what they desire of him, they return
him to his grave, whence they took him to make this inquiry."
They have another method to make the dead speak, by placing
the body on a very hot fire covered with earth, but in this case
the dead only answers ten questions. If the Buhuitihu has not
done his duty the friends waylay him, and break all the bones
in his body, and leave him for dead. " At night they say come
abundance of snakes of several sorts," who, licking the physi-
cian's face and body, he recovers in a few days, and then tells
the people that the Cemis came to his assistance. The deceased's
friends " if they can catch him again they put out his eyes, and
bruise his testicles ; for they say none of these physicians can
die, though never so much bastinadoed, if they do not cut out
his testicles." In the other case when they uncover the fire, if the
physician did not do his duty, the smoke after rising enters the
physician's house, he himself gets sick, and his skin becomes
diseased ; these are considered signs that he did not do his duty,
and the friends of the dead man then try to kill him.3

1 The medicine men among the Abipones used similarly to hide thorns,
worms, beetles, &c., in their mouths, and then pretended that these had been
sucked by them out of the patient's body (Dobrizhoffer, " Gesch. der Abip.,"
Vienna, 1783, II, p. 326). Im Thurn (" Among the Indians of Guiana," p. 338)
had a caterpillar taken out of his body by & peatman (medicine-man).

2 Im Thurn points out (" Among the Indians of Guiana," p. 423) that the
Guiana Indians carry about certain worn stones, to which some superstitious
value is attached.

3 The Payaquas occasionally sacrificed their medicine men when the latter
were not successful with their patients (Dobrizhoffer, " Gesch. der Abip.,"
Vienna, 1783, II, p. 327).

T 2

»
256 H. LING EOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola.

Food.

They were apparently omnivorous. They devoured the small
mammalia1 indigenous to the island. The Indians generally
eat great spiders, worms that breed in rotten wood,2 and fish
almost raw,3 for as soon as taken, before they roast it, they dig
out the eyes to eat (Church., II. 590). Dr. Chanca also says
they " eat all the snakes and lizards and spiders and worms
they find upon the ground" (op. cit., p. 68), "and such birds as
they can catch of many kinds which abound in the island" (ibid.\
They eat serpents "like unto crocodiles, saving in bigness,"
called luannas. This animal was evidently prepared with
much care, being cleaned and washed, then rolled up and
placed in a pot just big enough to hold it, a little water was
added, and it was then boiled over a soft fire of sweet wood
which gave little smoke. Of the fat "an exceeding pleasant
broth or pottage " was made, and the eggs were boiled alone,
(Argl., p. 192). There were not many lizards "for the Indians
consider them as great a luxury as we do pheasants " (Chanca,
op. cit., p. 43). The Cubans also eat oysters (Church., II,
615).

But Benzoni gives us the best account of the mainstay of
these natives, which was bread made from maize and from the
roots we call cassa\va. His account of the preparation of the
bread from maize is as follows : " The women, molandaie, who
grind it, wet a quantity of this grain the previous evening with
cold water, and in the morning they gradually triturate it be-
tween two stones. . Some stand up to it, others kneel on the
ground ; nor do they care if any hairs fall into it, or even some
pidocchi. When they have made a mass by sprinkling in water
with the hand, they shape it into little loaves, either long or
round, and putting them into some leaves of reeds, with as little
water as possible, they cook them. This is the common people's
bread ; it lasts two days and then mildews. The chiefs' bread
is made in the following way : after soaking and triturating the
corn between two stones, the molandaie wash it with hot water
and pick out the husk, leaving only the flour, which they grind
as much as they can and then shape into small cakes. These
are cooked in a round pipkin, applying fire under them by

1 According to Wallace there are only two genera, the Solenodon and the
Capromys. He calls the latter hutias and the former agouta. The Spanish
historians speak of utias only and describe them as animals of about the size of
rabbits.

2 Cf. Im Thurn, who gives (p. 266) a whole list of insects eaten by the
G-uiana Indians.

3 The Tongans eat fish raw (A. St. John&ton, " Camping among Cannibals,"
Lond., 1883, p. 53.)

H. LIXG EOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola. 257

decrees." Benzoni goes on to tell us from his own experience
that the " grinding is very severe work," and that although the
chiefs' bread takes great trouble in making, it is only good when
fresh and cold. In the woodcut with which he illustrates his
method of making bread, two women are kneeling over the fire
evidently baking, and the third woman, also kneeling, is evi-
dently grinding the maize on a curved piece of stone or wood,
having three or four legs, and known as a metatl, by means of
an instrument which looks like a rolling pin.1

The cazabi bread, according to Benzoni, is made thus : they
take up fresh roots, " they peel them and cut them with sharp
stones that they find on the beach, and putting them into a rag,
they squeeze out the juice, which would be poison to anyone
drinking it ; then laying them on a great brick, like cakes of
paste, they cook them on the fire, leaving them so long as they
will hold together. Finally they put them into the sun to dry.
They make some thick and some thin.2 This, to my taste, is a
wretched article of food, but if put into a dry place it would con-
tinue good for three or four years. The accompaniment of some
moisture in the throat is requisite, else it is harsh and difficult
to swallow."

The two other sorts of roots battatta and haie " are commonly
cooked in the embers " (Benzoni, p. 86).

They had also a spice called agi (Chanca, p. 68) which they
drank in water (Herr., I, p. 68).

Their chichia or what we should call kava, is made, according
to Benzoni (p. 86), by the women, who grind the maize, then put it
" into water in some large jars " ; a little of the grain is rendered
" somewhat tender in a pipkin," and then handed over to other
women who chew it, spit it out " upon a leaf or platter and
throw it into the vase with the other mixture. . . . It is
then boiled for three or four hours, after which it is taken off
the fire and left to cool, when it is poured through a cloth, and
is esteemed good in proportion as it intoxicates. . . . They

1 This method of reducing grain which, at the time of the discovery was
common throughout America, differs entirely from that followed in the Old
World (see Stevens' " Flint Chips," p. 234). Strange to way, Baker found the
American method in use at Cassala, thus (" Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia," Lond.,
1867, pp. 78-79) : " There are no circular hand-mills as among Oriental
nations, but the corn is ground upon a simple flat stone, of either gneiss or
granite, about 2 feet in length by 14 inches wide. The face of this is roughed
by beating with a sharp-pointed piece of harder stone, such as quartz or horn-
blende, and the strain is reduced to flour by great labour and repeated grinding
or rubbing with a stone rolling pin."

2 This account of the bread-making should be compared with that given by
Im Thurn (pp. 260-263) of the bread-making of the Q-uiana Indians, who
likewise make several kinds of bread.

258 H. LING BOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola.

also make wines of other kinds, of honey, of fruits, and of roots,
but these do not intoxicate as the first does."1

Oviedo mentions many varieties of fruits, but it is not clear
whether he refers to those of the island or of the mainland.

Narcotics.

We have already seen (Medicine) that these aborigines had a
powder, cohoba, the smoke of which they inhaled through their
noses. We are probably not wrong in inferring that this powder
was a preparation of the herb known to us as tobacco.

According to Jefferys (op. cit., II, 11) the moist leaves of
tobacco were spread on half-kindled coals, but Oviedo (op. cit.,
fol. 71) simply says they make themselves drunk with the
smoke of a certain herb like henbane. He describes the smoking
through the nose, thus : " The instrument with which they inhaled
the smoke was a forked hollow tube about a palm in length, and
of the thickness of a little finger, well polished, well made, all of
one piece. They inhaled the smoke as long as they could, in
fact until they fell down drunk. Those who could not afford
such tubes made use of reeds." Oviedo gives a drawing of this
tube, and a very similar tube from Mexico exists in the
anthropological collection in the British Museum. Oviedo calls
special attention to the fact that the tubes or reeds are called
tobacco, and not the plant smoked. Occasionally when a chief
fell drunk as above, his women carried him away, but this was
only when they had received special instructions to that effect
beforehand.

It is remarkable that none of the travellers mention the
smoking of pipes, or bowls. Benzoni says that tobacco was the
Mexican name of the herb, and in describing the medicinal
customs referred to, he does not give the tube any particular
name. But if the aborigines did not smoke pipes they at least
smoked cigars. The following is Benzoni's account of cigar-
smoking (op. cit., pp. 80-81) : —

" When these leaves are in season, they pick them, tie them
up in bundles, and suspend them near their fire-place till they
are very dry ; and when they wish to use them they take a leaf
of their grain (maize) and putting one of the others into it, they
roll them round tight together ;2 then they set fire to one end,

1 On the Moskito coast (H. A. Wickham, " Rough Notes," Lond., 1872,
p. 189, and John Collinson, "The Indians of the Mosquito Territory," in
Memoirs of the Anthrop. Soc., Ill, 1870, p. 151) to this day at the Mishla
feasts the drink (mishla) is prepared in the same way by chewing, &c. Compare
the manufacture of the chichia with the preparation of the chicha niascada by
the Sierra Indians of Peru, as described by Tschudi (" Peru," 1846, II, p. 179) and
Im Thurn's description of the paiwari (pp. 263-264).

2 Cf. Iin Thurn (p. 318), cigarette-smoking.

II. LING EOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola. 259

and putting the other end into the mouth they draw their breath
up through it, wherefore the smoke goes into the mouth, the
throat, the head, and they retain it as long as they can, for
they find a pleasure in it, and so much do they fill themselves
with this cruel smoke that they lose their reason. And some
there are who take so much of it, that they fall down as if
they were dead, and remain the greater part of the day or night
stupified."

We have seen under the headings of Religion and Medicine
that tobacco was also taken in some form or other in order to
produce vomiting, delirium, and general relaxation of the muscles
and purging. From these results it would appear that tobacco
was not merely inhaled or taken as snuff but also taken inter-
nally,1 or that it was mixed with some other narcotic.

Crimes and Morals.

" Some say that these people were very great thieves, and that
for every little fault their laws inflicted hanging." So says
Benzoni. He believed they were honest ; he expresses a wish
that all Christians were equally so, and considered that the
thieving must have been learned from the Spaniards. He is
strengthened in his belief of the honesty of the Indians by
imagining that until the Spaniards arrived they had nothing of
value to steal from one another, forgetting that whatever they
did possess was of value to the holder, and that although
eatables, gold in the river beds, &c., were common to all, there
was other property which could be stolen. But Columbus
distinctly says (Church., II, 621) that the caciques used to steal
one another's cemis ; and Oviedo states that thieves were spitted
on the branch of a tree and left to die (op. cit., fol. 75), and that
no one dared to intercede for them. The Watling Islanders on
the contrary laid their hands on everything they possibly could
(Church., II, 586).

Benzoni says in these countries there is very little chastity ;
and in few places are the girls or sisters attended to. They
all sleep together like fowls .... (op. cit., p. 82). At
the time of Benzoni's visit the Indians were already greatly
demoralised, and while allowing that chastity is not a savage
virtue, we must remember that the destruction of Columbus' first
colony was in a great measure attributed to the interference of
the Spaniards with the native women (Chanca, p. 53). Oviedo
states that some women were chaste and loved their husbands
(op. cit., fol. 72), and others most unchaste (fol. 74). He also
states that G-uacanagari had certain women with whom he coni-

1 Compare A. S. Tayior, " On Poisons," Lend., 1875, p. 803.

260 H. LING feoTH. — TJie Aborigines of Hispaniola.

niitted the abominations, related by Pliny (Bk. X, ch. 62) [sic] ;
and that men who allowed themselves to be polluted were obliged
to dress like the women,1 and by whom they were hated (op. cit.,
fol. 72). Incest (connection with mother, sister, or daughter) -
was unknown. When men went to gather gold they had to be
continent (op. cit., fol. 74).2

Religion.

Considering the general contempt with which the Spaniards
treated the natives and their customs, we may congratulate
ourselves on having comparatively fair accounts of the religion
of these Indians. Columbus first of all says that " they are not
acquainted with any kind of worship, and are not idolaters ; "
and states that they believe he and his crew came from heaven
(Major, p. 8), but later on he offers to ship as slaves " as
many of these idolators as their Highnesses shall command"
(ibid., p. 15). Ferdinand Columbus' account of their worship is
as follows : " Every cacique appears to have had a house apart
from the town, in which there was " nothing at all but some
wooden images carved by them, called Cemis, they repairing to
perform certain ceremonies and pray there. In these houses they
have a handsome round table, made like a dish, on which is
some powder, which they lay on the head of the Cemis, with a
certain ceremony ; then through a cane that has two branches
clapp'd to their nose, they snuff up this powder . . ." which
" puts them besides themselves, as if they were drunk. They also
give the image a name, and I believe it is their father's or
grandfather's, or both, for they have more than one, and some
above ten, all in memory of their forefathers . . ."3 The people
and caciques boasted among themselves of having the best cemis,
but objected to Christians entering these houses, and on occasions
carried off the cemis and hid them in the woods ; they appear
nevertheless to steal each other's cemis (Church., II, 621).
Some Spaniards one day having burst into one of these houses,
and hearing the image speak, knocked it over, discovered a man
concealed. The caciques were supposed to control their subjects
by means of these cemi, as they begged the Spaniards not to
let the people know of their discovery (ibid.). Herrera says
that the image which the Spaniards overthrew was "hollow,
and behind it was a hollow cane, like a trunk to shoot pellets,

1 According to H. H. Bancroft (" Native Kaces of the Pacific," I, p. 585),
among the New Mexicans such men were similarly obliged to dress like women.

2 H. O. Forbes describes the solemn ceremonial which precedes the annual
gold washing operations among the Bibi9U£u tribes in Timor ("Naturalist's
Wanderings," p. 467.)

3 Tm Thurn (p. 366) says of the Guiana Indians "the supposed gods are really
but the remembered dead of each tribe."

H. LING EOTH. — The Aborigines of Rispaniola. 261

that reached to the corner of the house, which was garnished
and covered with greens, where the person was hid who spoke
what the cazique would have the cemi say" (pp. cit., I, p.
160).

Most of the caciques have also three stones which they were
said to worship, one to help corn and all sorts of grain, a second
which helps women to be delivered without pain, and a third
which procures rain or fair weather according to requirement
(Church., II, 621). See above, Medicine, the charm-stones.

According to Pane (Church., II, 622), they think there is an
immortal Being, like heaven, invisible, and that has a mother,
but no beginning, and this Being they call Jocakui-ague
Maorocon, and its mother they call Atabei, lermaoguacar, Apito,
and Zuimaco ..." " Almost all these people have 'abundance
of cemis of several sorts ; some have their father, mother,
kindred, and predecessors ; some figures cut in stone and wood,
and many of both sorts, some that speak, and others that cause
things to grow, some that eat, others that cause rain, and others
that make the wind blow " (ibid., 626). They pay great venera-
tion to a grotto called Giovovava, out of which the sun and
moon came, in the country of the Cacique Maucia Tiuvel, and
" have painted it all after their fashion, without any figure but
leaves and the like." Here they had two little stone cemis called
(Boinaiel and Maroio), about a quarter of a yard long, "their
hands bound, and they looked as if they sweated." These
images were much honoured when rain was wanted, (Pane, ibid.,
625). Oviedo (op. cit., fol. 75) also tells us that they prayed to
their images for rain and good seasons.

Pane continues (ibid., 628), the wooden Cemis are made as
follows : — A man travelling, sees a tree shake its roots, this
action frightens him, he asks who he is, and the tree refers him
to a physician. Then the physician hurries along and gives it
cogioba, asks it why it sent for him, whether it will go with him,
and have a house built and endowed. That tree thenceforth
becomes a Cemi, and is cut into shape according to its own direc-
tions.1 An important Cemi, Faraguvaol (Pane, ibid., p. 630), was
originally a certain creature that ran into a ditch and was found
to be a beam which looked as though it had life in it.

The stone Cemis are of several sorts (Pane, ibid., 629). Some
the physicians take out of the bodies of those that are sick,
and those are looked upon as the best to help women in labour.

1 Compare this account of the making of a Cemi with the statement of Mr. Tm
Thurn at the Exhibition, 1886 (" On the Races of the West Indies," Journ. Anth.
Inst., XVI, p. 195) that " at the present day the red men of the mainland
are very apt when they see a piece of wood of curious natural form— suggesting,
say, some animal — to take that wood, and, with more or less artistic touches, to
complete" its resemblance to that animal."

26'2 H. LING ftoTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola.

" Others there are that speak, which are shaped like a long turnip
with the leaves long and extended, like the shrub bearing capers.
Those leaves for the most part are like those of the elm. Others
have three points and they think they cause the Guica to
thrive ..." The cogioba which they give to the Cemi is " to
pray to it, to please it, to ask and know of the said Cemi what
good or evil is to happen, and to beg wealth of it. When they
would know whether they shall be victorious over their enemies,
they go into a house, whither none but the chief men are ad-
mitted. The lord of them is the first that begins to make cogioba
and to make a noise whilst he does it, none of the company
speaking till he has done. His prayer being ended, he stands
awhile with his head turned about and his arms on his knees ;
then he lifts up his head and looks toward heaven, and speaks.
Then they all answer him with a loud voice, and when they have
all spoken, giving thanks, he tells the vision he saw, being made
drunk with cogioba he snuffed up his nose, which flies into his
head, and says he has talked with the Cemi and shall obtain a
victory, or that his enemies shall fly, or that there shall be a
great mortality, or war, or famine, or some such thing, as occurs
to him in his drunken fit " (Pane, ibid., 629).

There are some funny stories told by Pane of these Cemis.
Baidrama, in the time of the wars, was burnt, but being washed
in guica juice " his arms grew out again, his body spread, and he
recovered his eyes," but as his attendants did not give him guica
to eat he made them ill. One Cemi named Corocose was fond of
lying with the women. Faraguvaol, already mentioned, and
Opigielguowiran were in the habit of running away. The former
even ran away when bound in a sack. The latter had four legs
like a dog, arid when the Christians came he sought refuge in a
rnorass, since which time he has not been heard of (Pane, ibid.,
pp. 629-630).

They also had female Cemis. The Cemi Guabancex was a female
made of stone. When she was angry she " raises the winds and
waters, overthrows houses, and shakes trees." She had two
female attendant Cemis, who carried out her orders (Pane, ibid.,
630).

Benzoni also gives us some interesting information on the
worship of the Indians. On page 78 he says : " Touching the
religion not only of this island, but also of all the other nations
of the New World, they worshipped, and still worship, various
deities, many painted, others sculptured, some formed of clay,
others of wood, or gold, or silver ; and in some places I have seen
them made with a tail and feet, like our Satan." Oviedo says
(fol. 69) "the variety of Cemis is too numerous to describe ; they
are made of gold, stone, wood, and earth." They were apparently

H. LING KOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola. 263

much attached to these Cemis, for when Chanca pretended to
throw them on the fire they were much hurt (Major, pp. 65-66).
He (Benzoni) states that in consequence of the priests destroying
the idols, the natives hide them in caves and sacrifice " to them
occultly." " They have (p. 79) a name for every one, regarding this
as their patron on this subject, and that as their patron on that
subject . . . ." But he says " these people only ask of their gods
plenty to eat and drink, and good health, and victory over their
enemies." He says the devil appears in various shapes and
promises to fulfill their entreaties, and then does not do so, ex-
cusing himself on the ground " that he has changed his mind
because they have committed some great sin."

"When the cacique of La Uspanola wished to celebrate a
feast in honour of his principal false deity, he commanded all
his vassals, both men and women to come to him on a certain
day, and on arrival at the appointed spot, they ranged them-
selves in order. The cacique then advanced and entered the
temple, where the ministers were dressing the idol. There he
sat down, playing on a drum, and all the other people followed ;
first the men painted black, red, and yellow, with plumes of
parrot and other feathers, with ornaments of sea-shells round
their necks, their legs, and their arms. The women were not
painted at all ; the girls were quite naked ; the married women
had a covering hanging from their waist. . . . Thus they entered
the temple, dancing and singing certain of their songs in praise
of their idol, while their chief saluted them with his drum.
Then by putting a stick down their throats they vomited, so that
the idol might see they had nothing bad either in their stomach
or their breast. After performing these foolish ceremonies, they
all sat down on their heels, and (p. 80), with a melancholy noise,
they sang some more songs. Then some other women entered
the temple with baskets adorned with roses arid various flowers,
and filled with bread, and they went round to all those who were
singing and repeated a little prayer to them. The singers
jumped up on their feet to answer, and when they had finished
these songs, they began others to the honour and glory of their
chief; after which they presented the bread to their idol. The
ministers now took and blessed it, and shared it with all the
people, as if it was a holy thing or good relic. Finally, every
man, highly elated and content, returned to his own home.

" . . . . they worshipped two wooden figures as the gods of
abundance. And at some periods of the year many Indians
went on a pilgrimage to them. They had also another idol made
with four feet,1 like a dog, and they believed that when he was

1 This is probably Opigielguowiran mentioned above by Pane.

264 H. LING BOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola.

angry he went away to the mountains, where, being found, they
used to bring him back on their shoulders to the temple."

After death they believe they go to a happy vale which,
according to Ferd. Columbus' description (Church., II, 621)
would resemble Mahomet's heaven ; but according to Pane (op.
tit., pp., 625-6) the dead are said to go to a place called Coaibai,
which lies in a part of the island called Soraia ; the dead feed
on fruit of the size of a quince, and for the rest, their life is one
of bliss and sensual pleasures. They wander during the night
and hence natives do not stir out at night for fear of meeting
them. The Indians called the spirits of the dead opia, and those
of the living goeiz. Perhaps we may hazard the conjecture that
these names explain their dreams, for, according to the same
authority, they say sometimes a man would fight with an opia,
and then find he had got hold of a tree, and at other times he
would think he was lying with a woman, and there was no one
there. Since the Christians took their Cemis away, spirits no
longer appear to them (Moralis, p. 290).

With regard to ceremonies carried on in grottoes Schomburgk
(Journ. Ethnol. Soc., 1854, Vol. Ill, p. 121) describes charcoal
and coloured drawings in the calcareous caves of Pommier,
which he considers Indian work. Descourtilz also (" Voy. d'un
Naturaliste," Paris, 1809, Vol. II, pp. 18-19) says rock carvings
of grotesque figures are to be found in the caves of Dubeda,
Gona'ives, in those of Mont Selle, near Port-au-Prince, and in
the Quartier du Dondon, near Cap Francois (C. Haitien).

It would appear that some of the historians accepted every
carved figure, or drawing of a figure, as representing a god.
Oviedo (fol. 69) thus speaks of the hideousness of one par-
ticular idol which they figure everywhere, and not only paint
on one part of the house but also grave on the stools. A
modern writer (W. Walton, " Present State of the Spanish
Colonies," London, 1810, Vol. I, pp. 164-170) apparently falls
into a similar error in describing what is apparently a meal
pounder (or some allied instrument), and lays stress on the
figure-head, which is of course only an ornament.

Superstitions.

They believed that the sun and moon came out of tho grotto
called Gfiovovava, in the country of the cacique Maucia Tiuvel
(Pane, p. 625, Benzoni, p. 80). Their tradition of the making the
sea runs thus : — There was a man name Giaia, who killed his son
Giaiael, for attempting to kill him. The son's bones were put
into a calabash, and after a time, when the father went to look
at them, they were turned into fish, and he and his wife resolved

H. LING BOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola. 265

to eat them. In the meanwhile four brothers (born at one
birth) came during Giaia's absence and eat the fish, and while so
doing they perceived him returning, and so going about in that
hurry to hang up the calabash, they did not hang it right, so
that there ran so much water from it as overflowed all the
country, and with it came abundance of fish, and hence they
believe the sea had its original (ibid., p. 624). Pane says these
superstitions are reduced to song (ibid., p. 626). Benzoni (op.
cit., p. 80) mentions a pumpkin kept as a relic, which had come
out of the sea with all the fish in it. Pane also tells us of a
tradition that a clad people should come and rule over them and
kill them, and that they should die of hunger. This was
originally considered to be the Caribs, who, however, only plun-
dered and fled, and then they thought it must be some other
people, and then they found it was the Spaniards that were
meant (ibid., p. 631). Benzoni tells the same story (op. cit., p.
22), and adds that on the arrival of the Spaniards this tradition
had evidently been forgotten. Moralis (op. cit., p. 289) says this
tradition was embodied in a song, and that they afterwards sang
it with mourning.

Magic and Witchcraft.

Mr. Shepherd (" The Island of San Domingo," Hunt's Mer-
chants' Mag., N. York, 1863, pp. 361-363) mentions an old
parchment, in the possession of the Archbishop of Santo
Domingo, which describes the trial of some Indians for " . . . .
invoking spirits by the aid of a liquid, distilled from a plant
called Zamiaca, which also contained a fibre that the Indians
made into a garment they wore to assist in the working of the
charm derived from the liquor. Under the influence of this
potation, and enveloped in a robe of Zamiaca, the queen of the
tribe retired to a cavern near the sea coast, and consulted the
spirits of her ancestors with regard to matters of state, each
year at the vernal equinox, or new season of the Indians."
This information is given for what it is worth.

Government.

" There were four principal kings or caciques to whom all the
others were subject. The names of those four were Caunabo,
Guacanagari (Guacamari), Behechico, and Guarionex', each of
these had under him 70 or 80 other little lords ; not that they
paid tribute or gave anything, but were obliged whensoever called
upon, to assist them in their wars and till the ground " (Church.,
II, 619). Herrera says there were five great sovereigns (op. cit.,

266 EL LiNG*RoTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola.

I, 67). The commands of these caciques were obeyed to the letter
(Church., II, 592, and Herr.; I, 64).

When Guacanagari came on board Columbus' vessel on the
first voyage, he had with him two old men who spoke to and for
him, and apparently he only spoke to his people through such
men. A custom of this sort would serve to impress the populace
with awe, and the frequent allusions to the extreme reverence the
people pa^d their chiefs may be accepted as a tolerable proof
of the unlimited power with which they controlled their sub-
jects.

Women were evidently not debarred from government, for we
have the case of Anacaona, the wife of King Caunaboa, who
was also the sister of Bohechico, King of Cibana. Her husband
was imprisoned by the Spaniards, and she succeded to her
brother's throne (Major, p. 233, and Angl.,pp. 191-192).

" They leave the inheritance of their kingdoms to the eldest
sons of their eldest sisters. If she fails, to the eldest of the
second sister, and so of the third if the second fail. For they
are out of doubt that those children come of their blood, but the
children of their own wives, they count to be not legitimate. If
there remain none of their sister's children, they leave the
inheritance to their brothers, and if they fail, it descendeth to
their own sons. Last of all, if all these fail, they leave it to the
most worthy and powerful" (Moralis, p. 301). Oviedo (op. cit., fol.
74) and Benzoni (op. cit., p. 82) confirm this.1

Customs.

The people howled when Guarionexius was taken captive
(Angl., 191). When a king's son is born the natives of the neigh-
bourhood repair to the queen's chamber and salute the child with
high-sounding titles. Bechicus Anacacoa was also called Tureigua
ffobin, meaning a king shining as bright as brass ; Starei, bright ;
Huibo, highness ; Duiheynequen, a rich flood. The king is
always to be spoken of with the full number of his titles
(Moralis, 300). At Cuba first the men then the women came
to kiss the hands and feet of the Spaniards (Church., II, 589).
The Indians of Hispaniola laid their hands on the Spaniards'
heads by way of honour (Church., II, 592). When the Cacique
Guacanagari and Columbus first met the former and his two
men (counsellors), they neither ate nor drank the food offered,
but touching the cups with their lips and tasting the food they
passed it on to the mob who did eat and drink (Church., II,
593). They were all very grave and the two old men observed

1 Cf. Im Thurn, p. 185, "Descent in the Female Line among the Arawaks."

H. LING EOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola. 267

the king's mouth and spoke for and to him (ibid.). Guacana-
gari had lots of attendants. His son went at some distance
behind him (ibid.}. The exchange of presents was evidently
customary, for on first meeting Columbus received a girdle from
Guacanayari (ibid.).

Property.

Columbus (Major, p. 13) tells us, " I have not been able to learn
whether they have any property of their own. It seemed to me
that what one possessed belonged to all, especially in the matter
of eatables ; " and Benzoni corroborates this saying (op. cit., p. 83),
" and as to eatables, everybody gives to whosoever goes to his
house." and of gold and silver, he says they only had to go to
" the mine and get as much as they liked, as people do at a spring
of water ; " but as we shall see (Personal Ornaments) gold was
not held in a very high estimation by them.

On travelling to Cibao with Columbus, the Indians from
Isabella " went into the houses, took what they liked best, and
yet the owners were not at all displeased, as if all things were in
common. In the like manner, the people of the country,
coming near to any Christian, would take from him what they
thought fit, thinking our things had been as common as theirs.
But they were soon undeceived " (Church., II, 612).

Scillacio says, " All things are held in common " (op. cit., p. 83).
The other historians say nothing about the possession of
property. It is doubtful whether this community of possession
extended beyond the lower class, for we have seen that caciques
possessed and stole Cemis, and that men were impaled for theft.
[For distribution of property see Government and Burials^

Trade.

Dr. Chanca (op. cit., p. 64) says, " The Indians barter gold,
provisions, and everything they bring with them for tags of laces'
beads, and pins, and pieces of porringer, and dishes/' It can
hardly be supposed that they learnt to trade from the Spaniards,
for Columbus distinctly says, when speaking of their canoes
(Major, pp. 9-10), " they navigate among these islands, which are
innumerable, and carry on their traffic."

Angleria (op. cit., V, p. 178) also states that the Cibanas and
their neighbours barter amongst themselves gold, spice, &c., for
pots, dishes, stools, &c. ; and Moralis (op. cit., p, 290) refers to
the selling by common people.

The Jamaicans, when Columbus visited them, after first
offering to fight, " followed in their canoes to trade " (Church
II, 615).

268 H. LING ROTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola.

War.

On the east coast the natives, when approaching to attack,
"spake out ]oud with terrible voice" (Angl., p. 175), and
would come on " with terrible cry" (ibid., 199). These were
the Ciguaians and Caunaboa's people. They daubed themselves
previously to fighting. The latter on one occasion were
ranged in battle array in five divisions (ibid., 187). If the
accounts are not exaggerated they would muster up to 6,000,
8,000, and 15,000 strong (ibid., 191 and 199-200).

Columbus says (Major, p. 6) " their only arms are reeds cut
in seeding time, to which they fasten small sharpened sticks ;"
but Chanca (op. cit., p. 61) states that they had cross-bows, from
which they discharged darts with considerable skill ; he
mentions also the finding of a man with a gaping wound in his
shoulder, caused by a dart, so that he had been disabled from
fleeing any further " (ibid.). We are also told that they
possessed " bows and arrows, long and sharp like javelins, made
hard at the ends with fire " (Angl., p. 175), and again " they
fought with clubs, arrows tipped with bones, and spears made
hard at the ends with fire" (ibid., p. 187). Ferd. Columbus
informs us that they had cudgels instead of swords, bows
made of yew, almost as big as those of France or England, the
arrows of small twigs growing out of the ends of canes, which
are massive and very straight, about the length of a man's arm
and a half ; the arrow is made of a small stick hardened at the
fire, about a quarter of a yard and a half long, at the end
whereof they fix a fish's tooth or bone, and poison it (Church.,
II, 597) ; and later on he says again that poisoned arrows were
used on the south coast (ibid., II, 618). After the arrival of
the Spaniards they fixed nails on as spear-heads (Herr,, II, 190).
Finally Oviedo (foL 39) describes long hard wooden swords,
two fingers thick, pointed at both ends, and with a guard and
used like a two-handed battle-axe; he mentions also short
sticks used as darts, the points of which split and break off,
causing bad wounds. It is not clear, however, whether these
two latter are Carib or Haytian weapons. Stones appear also
to have been used (Herr., II, 190).1

A curious light is shown on their method of fighting by the
following description of an encounter recorded by Herrera (op.
cit., I, p. 300) :—

" At Higuey an Indian challenged a Spaniard, the Indian only

1 The use of stones as missiles is common among savages. The Australians
are almost unerring shots, and so are the South Sea Islai ders ; according to
H.. O. Forbes (" Naturalist's Wanderings," pp. 242 and 462), the Kubus in
Sumatra and the Bibu£U9u in Timor are wonderfully accurate marksmen with
stones.

H. LING EOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola. 269

pointed his arrow, and shifted from side to side to avoid the
stones, and to prevent the Spaniards coming close to make use
of his weapons;" the Spaniard " darted his spear at him, thinking
he had struck him through, but the Indian stepped aside, and
went away scoffing at him."

Hunting and Fishing.

Beyond the bare mention of the fact that the natives brought
fish, parrots, &c., to the Spaniards when they first landed
(Munoz, p. 220) ; that the natives hunted the utias by burning
the grass to drive them out (Herr., I, 66, Oviedo, fol. 38) ; and
that they were expert fishers and also given to hunting
(Moralis, p. 290) ; we have no knowledge at all as to the manner
in which the aborigines hunted or fished.

We have, however, some valuable pieces of information oil
these arts as practised by the Cubans. The latter captured
parrots in this wise : — They " set a boy of ten or eleven years of
age on a tree with a live parrot and a little grass or straw on
his head, when he touched the parrot's head with his hand it
cried out, the others, that were so numerous, hearing it,
resorted thither, and, lodging on the tree, the boy, who had a
small rod in his hand, with a noose at the end of it, clapped it
about each parrot's neck, they imagining that the rod had been
a twig of the tree, and drawing them to him, wrung their necks
and let them fall, till the ground underneath was covered with
them, and thus he might kill thousands, for as long as the
parrot that was tied made a noise, the others never left the tree "
(Herr., II, 14).1

These Cubans also possessed nets and fishing-tackle (Church.,
II, 588), and were in the habit of visiting uninhabited islands
to hunt and to fish (ibid., p. 590), They had also fishhooks
(ibid., p. 616). It is remarkable that they made use of the
peculiarity of sucker-fishes, which they called reves (?), in order to
catch both other fish and turtles. These fishes when tied " by the
tail run themselves against other fish, and by a certain rough-
ness from the head to the middle of the back, they stick so fast
to the next fish they meet, that, when the Indians perceive it
drawing their line, they draw them both together " (Church., II,
616).

According to Sebastian de Ocampo, at Xagua, in Cuba, fish
were pent up in the harbour as safe as if they had been in fish-
ponds, being enclosed with reeds or canes, stuck in the oose
very close together (Herr., I, 323),2

1 Cf. Samoan pigeon catching (Turner's " Samoa," Lond., 1884, p. 127.)
" Cf. The salt-water artificial fish-pools at the Island of .Peru, Gilbert Group
(Turner's "Samoa," p. 298).

VOL. XVI. U

270 H. LING ftoTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola.

Munoz (pp. 235 and 245) mentions twice, that the natives at
Hispaniola brought Columbus venison, by this he must have
meant the flesh of the utias already referred to (Food).

Agriculture.

Agriculture was so well established that they could no longer
exist without its practice, and when in consequence of the
cruelties of the Spaniards the aborigines " refused to sow their
lands with any grain for making bread, but had destroyed all
that was left of the harvest " (Benzoni, p. 26, and also Angl.,
p. 185), the wretched people suffered very much more from
starvation than did their oppressors. We have numerous and
repeated references to the cultivated lands, and there is little
doubt as to the great extent of their plantations (Munoz, pp.
221, 227, &c., Benzoni, Oviedo, &c., &c.).

As we find to be the case among other races who have
arrived at this stage of progress they had a vague tradition
that agriculture was an introduced art.1 They believed that
originally they had not been in the habit of cultivating iucca
and maize, but had been content with other products growing
wild on the island. The iucca, they said, was first found by a
wise man, Bohuitihu, who, by transplanting it to his garden,
improved its quality. At first it was deadly poison to all who
ate it raw, but perceiving it to be of pleasant taste they
persevered in attempts to make it useful, until finally they
discovered that the juice was poisonous (Moralis, p. 299). The
maize they considered to have been likewise chosen from among
the seeds of nature (ibid., p. 300.)

The implement for cultivating the soil was simply a stave
hardened in the fire, and which they called a coa (Herr., 1, 184) ;
Oviedo (fols. 102-103), calls it a macana. This tool was
apparently used for this purpose only, and not for fighting ; for
Angleria (p. 202) tells us that after the defeat of the
Ciguauians one of the chiefs brought the Lieutenant 5,000 men,
" without weapons, saving only such instruments as they use in
the tillage of their ground."

Dr. Chanca says they " neither know how to dig, nor have
the means of digging more than a hand's depth" (p. 69), but this
statement refers to mining operations. As might have been
expected there were certain fixed periods during which cultiva-
tion was carried on (Angl, p. 215). In Cuba we are told the
natives grubbed the ground before planting the iucca (Herr., I,
46); but the operation was more probably one of simply clearing

1 Cf. " Orig. of Agriculture," Journ. Anthrop. Last., XVI., p. 105.

H. LING EOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola. 271

by burning. In Hayti the ground was not touched until after
rain, when the soil was soft (Oviedo, fol. 102). Benzoni (p. 83)
states " they do not prepare the earth for sowing the grain, but
making a small hole they put in three or four grains, and
covering it over suffices" while Oviedo (fols. 102-103) tells us
they only cultivated land which originally grew timber or canes,
the natural prairie not being considered fertile. The land was
cleared by burning. The seed of the maize was dibbled a pace
apart between each hole, the hole being made by a stick worked
with vertical motion, and the seed to be sown was carried in a
little bag hanging from the cultivator's neck (ibid.). In some
provinces maize was harvested twice a year (Benzoni, p. 83).
Depredatory birds were frightened from the fields by children
who sat in sheltered stages in the trees and where they kept up
a continual shout (ibid.).

The plant of the root iucca, from which they made their
cazdbi bread was the second staple crop. Cuttings about two
feet long were planted " in heaps of earth called conuchi,1 and at
the end of two years they form a large root." These roots are
not taken up until required for bread-making, as they soon spoil
(Benzoni, p. 85). Angleria (p. 280) gives a somewhat more
detailed account of the preparation of the soil for iucca planting,
but in this case it is not clear whether he is describing the
methods in use among the Haytians or among the aborigines of
the mainland.

They also cultivated the lattata (sweet potato) and haies
(yams) (Benzoni. p. 85, and others, also Oviedo) ; and numerous
other less important vegetables. Ferdinand Columbus, in
speaking of the Cubans (Church., II, 589), believed that cotton
was not cultivated, but grew naturally. If it grew wild in
Cuba and the natives made use of it in that state, the same
conditions would probably hold good for Hispaniola, but cotton
was so largely in use in all the islands that we may consider it
was to a certain extent domesticated.

Irrigation was also extensively practised. Moralis (p. 301)
tells us that in JCaragua, in Hazua, part of Caiabo, in the lake
region, in Yaquino, part of Bainoa, there was little rain, and
" in all these regions are fosses or trenches made of old time,
whereby they convey the water in order to water their fields,
with no less art than do the inhabitants of New Carthage and
of the kingdom of Murcia."

Judging from an incident related by Pane (p. 632) the value
of the fertilising property of urine was understood.

1 On the Orinoco cassava plantations, or clearings generally, are called canucos
(H. A. Wickham, " Bough Notes," pp. 21, 46, 59, 74).

U 2

•
"272 H. LING EOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola.

We have no record as to the division of labour between men
and women in the field work.

Domestic Animals.

Although at Cuba and at St. Mary's the inhabitants had
tame dogs (Church., II, 588, 589, 617), none are mentioned as
•existing in Hispaniola. If, however, by Zuruguia Dr. Chanca
means Xaragua, then the Haytians may have had domesticated
fowls, &c., for in describing the island he says (p. 43) "no kind
of domestic fowl has been seen here, with the exception of some
ducks in the houses of Zuruquia."

The natives were much troubled with nigues or jiggers, which
got into their limbs and bodies (Benz., p. 87) and they also
suffered from lice,, which occasionally fell into the dough (ibid.,
p. 84).

Marital Relations.

These islanders were polygamous. Columbus states it seemed
to him " the men were content with one wife, except their
chief or king to whom they give twenty" (Major, p. 13). Pane
says : — " They used to have two or three [wives], and the great
men twenty-five or thirty" (Church., II, p. 633). Angleria tells
us that Bechico Anacacoa had thirty wives and concubines
(op. ciL, p. 190j, and Moralis mentions that the chiefs take as
many wives as they please (ibid., p. 301). According to Oviedo
(fol. 72), all those who could afford it had more than one wife,
whilst the caciques had as many as they pleased; finally,
Eenzoni relates : — " The Indians take as many wives as they
like, though one is the principal and commands all the rest"
(op. cit., p. 82). But Oviedo, again, contradicts this last state-
ment, for, according to him, the cacique's wives all lived, ate,
and slept with him together, under one roof, on terms of equality
among themselves, and although there was one generally better
beloved or nobler than the rest, this did not give her any right
or title over the co-wives (op. cil., fol. 74).

" When the women have an infant, they carry it to the sea
shore, or to a river to wash it, and without any further ado
they suckle their children " (Benzoni, p. 83).

According to Columbus the women seem to work more than
the men (Major, p. 13). The women also ground the maize,
made the bread, and prepared the kava (Benzoni, pp. 85 and 86).
Professor Mantegazza (" L' Amour dans L'Humanite," Paris,
1886, p. 227) says that Columbus found marriage between
relations of the first degree illegal in Hayti. We have been
unable to find any evidence for this statement.

H. LING EOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola. 273

Education.

The chiefs gave their children to the wise men to be taught,
as Moralis (op. cit., p. 289) puts it, the origin and success of
things and to learn to recite the deeds of their ancestors in
peace and war.

Games and Amusements.

We have frequent references to their dancing and singing,
although Benzoni only mentions it in connection with their
worship (op. cit., pp, 79 and 83). But dancing and singing were
resorted to as matters of pleasure. According to Moralis (op.
cit., p. 289) they sing songs and dance to them, and play on
timbrels made of fish shells. " They exercise themselves
much in dancing, wherein they are very active, and of greater
agility than our men, by reason they give themselves to
nothing so much, and are not hindered with apparel, which is
also the cause of their swiftness of foot " (Moralis, p. 289).
Except on occasions of public rejoicings, such as a marriage
of a cacique, or a victory after a battle, the men and women
attended the dances separately (Oviedo, fol. 69.) During
the dance men and women supply the dancers with drink,
and when the dances are completed they are all dead drunk,
which only happens when the song is a solemn one and
not tedious (ibid., fol. 71). Angleria describes the festivities
which were held when Bechico-Anacacoa, returned to his pro-
vince with the Spanish lieutenant. The chief's wives received
him "bearing in their hands branches of date trees, dancing
and singing ;" these branches which " they bore in their right
hands when they danced they delivered to the lieutenant with
lowly courtesy and smiling countenances." On this occasion
(Oviedo, fol. 70) 300 virgins took part in the dance. The
Spaniards were introduced to a common hall where "after
many dancings, singings, maskings, runnings, wrestlings, and
other tryings of mastery," two bodies of men fought before them,
in which four men were killed (op. cit., p. 190).

Scillacio's description of dancing is as follows : — " Several
women at once, having their hair confined under wreaths and
turbans, start off from the same line sometimes with an ambling,
sometimes with a slower movement. The plates of metal which
they wear attached to their fingers are mutually struck against
one another, not merely in sport, but for the purpose of produc-
ing a tinkling sound. They accompany this sound with a voice
not deficient in modulation, and singing that is not wanting
in sweetness ; and in a gracefully voluptuous manner, through

274 H. LING BOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola.

winding mazes, execute a languid dance in beautiful order, with
multiform involutions, while no one claims a conspicuity above
her companions .... Being at last both excited and fatigued by
the sport, they hurry forward with equally accelerated steps,
and in a more petulant and frolicksome mood, and with voices
raised to a higher pitch, finish their dance " (p. 89).

The chief game, however, was one played with a ball.
According to Oviedo (fol. 86-87, op. tit.) every village had a
cleared space for playing the game of latos, surrounded by stone
seats — but for the caciques pretty carved stools were placed. The
ball was made by boiling the roots of certain plants, was black,
and from the description appears to have been indiarubber.
Sides are taken of 10 or 20 each, and he compares the game to
football, only the ball is propelled by the head, neck, or shoulder,
but most frequently by the thighs or knees, and must not touch
the ground to be considered well played. If it falls dead, then
the side which has allowed it to do so, lose the game. They
were wonderfully skilful at this game. The men and women
never played together but sometimes the men play against the
women, the young married women who thus played changing
the long apron for a short one. According to Herrera (op. cit.y
I, 166) the ball was made of the gum of a tree.1

Communications.

The modes of communication were simple. There were no
roads, " for the Indians make their ways broad enough but for
one man to pass at a time " (Church., II, 612), and the existence
of these purely primitive pathways is confirmed by an incident
in a revolt mentioned by Herrera (I, 303), in which he states
that a soldier met twelve Indians, " one after another, as is
usual with them, nor could they go otherwise by reason of the
narrowness of the valley/'

In spite of these narrow pathways it was evidently the
custom for the chiefs to be carried in a sort of litter, for
Columbus tells us that the Cacique Guacamari was so carried
(Church., II, 592 and 593). This chiefs son was carried on the

1 Cf. McNair, " Perak and the Malays," Lond., 1882, pp. 262-3. " They are
very expert, too, in tossing the raga, or wicker-ball, which is thrown in the air
to one of the party, and the object then is to keep it up, this being done with
hands, feet, shoulders, or knees, every part of the body being brought into play
to keep the elastic ball from falling to the ground. Their dexterity over this is
wonderful . . . ." It greatly resembles our football. Im Thurn says the
G-uiana Indians have a game of ball, but he does not describe it. The New
Mexicans had a game of ball which was played in almost exactly the same way
(Bancroft, "Native Races," I, 586) ; and the Nahua nations had specially pre-
pared grounds on wnlch to play this identical game (ibid., II, pp. 297-8).

H. LING EOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola. 275

shoulders of a man of note, and the chief's brother, who walked
on foot, was led under the arms by two great men (ibid.}. After
the conquest the Indians had to carry the Spaniards about on
their shoulders (ibid., p. 620), and Guarionexus, when pardoned
for revolting, was carried home on his people's shoulders.

Clothing.

Doctor Chanca says: "They all .... go naked as they
were born, except the women of this island, who some of them
wear a covering of cotton which they bind round their hips,
while others use grass and leaves of trees. When they wish to
appear full dressed both men and women paint themselves,
some black, others white, and various colours, in so many
devices that the effect is very laughable ; they shave some parts
of their heads, and in others wear long tufts of matted hair,
which have an indescribably ridiculous appearance" (Major,
p. 64). Columbus tells us : " Both men and women go as
naked as they were born, with the exception that some of the
women cover one part only with a single leaf, or grass, or with
a piece of cotton, made for that purpose " (ibid., pp. 5-6). In
describing a festival, Benzoni (op. cit., p. 79) says the men were
"painted black, red, and yellow, with plumes of parrots' and
other feathers, with ornaments of sea-shells round their necks,
their legs, and their arms. The women were not painted at all;
the girls were quite naked, the married women had a covering
hanging from their waist," and elsewhere (op. cit., p. 83) he
states, "respecting clothing they all go naked." Chanca (op.
cit., p. 37) also says, they have the hair "dipt irregularly, and
paint their heads with crosses and a hundred thousand different
devices, each according to his fancy, which they do with
sharpened reeds." According to Angleria (op. cit., p. 190) at
Xaragua the women " were all naked, saving that their privie
parts were covered with breeches of Gossampine cotton ; but the
virgins having their hair hanging down about their shoulders,
tied about the forehead with a fillet, were utterly naked." But
the women of the upper class wore the apron down to their
ankles (Oviedo, fol. 73). And at Cuba (Church., II, 617) some
of the sailors said they saw a man " clad with a white coat or
vest down to his knees, and two that carried him had them
down to their feet, all three as white as Spaniards." The
Haitiens were said to cover themselves with the inward bark of
the palm trees to keep off the rain (Herr., I, 74). The Ciguayos,
a mountain people, wore their hair down to the waist (ibid., I,
181).

276 H. LING EOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola.

Personal Ornaments.

Oviedo (fol. 69) says they painted (? dyed) the figures of the
cemis on their bodies, and their rings had representations of
cemis on them. Dr. Chanca states that he "saw one root of
ginger, which an Indian wore hanging round his neck," but
whether this was as an ornament or a fetish is not mentioned.

At Porto Rico it would appear only the chief men or caciques
wore a piece of gold hanging on the breast (Herr., I, 378.)

At Samana Bay " the hair was worn very long and hung in
a bag made of parrots' feathers," and also long " as the women
in Spain wear it, and behind on the crown of the head, they
had plumes of parrots' or other birds' feathers " (Church., II,
596). The inhabitants here were, however, probably Caribs.

The Haytians appear to have had a quantity of jewellery and
other personal ornaments. Columbus received on one occasion
" 605 pieces of jewellery of various colours, and a cap of similar
jewel work which I think they valued very highly" (Chanca).
" Among the 605 pieces of jewellery were eight strings of small
beads made of white, green and red stones, one string of gold
beads, one regal crown of gold . . . ." (Churchill, II, 610). Dr.
Chanca continues : " The Indians beat the gold into very thin
plates, in order to make masks of it, and set it in a cement
which they make for that purpose. Other ornaments they
make of it to wear on the head, and to hang in the ears and
nostrils, and for these also they require it to be thin. It is not
the costliness of the gold that they value in their ornaments,
but its showy appearance" (Major, p. 55). The visor masks,
says Columbus, were furnished "with eyes, nose, and ears of
gold" (Churchill, II, 595). Scillacio says that the gold was
beaten out on a cylindrical stone highly polished. He also
refers to the low estimation in which they held gold (op. cit., p.
83). The first woman they caught had a plate of gold hanging
at her nose2 (Church., II, 592), and some of the Indians had
" small grains of gold hanging at their ears and nostrils " (ibid.).
Columbus was also presented with a " girdle, not unlike those
used in Spain though differently wrought" (Churchill, II, 593).
" The girdle was adorned with small fish-bones, like seed pearls,
curiously wrought, four fingers broad" (Herr., I, 68). Scillacio
speaks of a " dozen belts polished with admirable art, and some
of them variegated with thin plates of gold, interwoven in the
cotton fabric with wonderful skill " (op. cit., p. 61). Elsewhere
(p. 83) he states the gold was made into wreaths and turbans for
the women. We hear also of " several things in gold," and " of

9 See wood-cuts of nose ornaments, p. 198, of Im Thurn's " Among the
Indians of Q-uiana."

H. LING EOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola. 277

other pretty things which hung about their necks " (Church., II,
595). Also of Indians with plates of gold on their head (Herr.,
I, 74). Guacanagari and his subject chiefs had crowns of gold
(ibid., 76). The plates of gold were not cast but beaten between
two stones. They evidently set a great value on silver (Herr.,
I, 76). The same author tells us that they made use of a red
dye from a fruit of a tree called Bisa to protect [sic] themselves
from the sun, or when they were in war (op. cit.t I, 184).

Burials.

When a cacique died two (or more ?) women were buried with
him alive, not because they wished it, but because they were
forced to. So Oviedo tells us (op. cit., fol. 73). Moralis says :
The best beloved of the King's wives or concubines are buried
with him. When Bohechico Anacacoa died his sister ordered
G-uanahattabenechina, the fairest wife and her two waiting maids,
to be buried with him. This beautiful woman was buried "with
all her jewels, and twenty of her best ornaments. Their custom
is, to place beside every of them in their sepultures, a cup of
water and a portion of the fine bread of cazabi" (op. cit., p.
301). But to come back to Oviedo, we find that the custom of
immolating the wives was not general throughout the island.
In other cases, when a cacique died his body was tightly
enveloped in cotton bands bound round from head to foot. He
was placed on a little stone in a hole dug in the ground like a
cave the roof of which was supported by timber, so that no
earth should touch him, and with him were buried his jewellery
and other things dear to him during life. The obsequies lasted
fifteen to twenty days, the neighbouring Indians and chiefs
coming to pay the deceased honour, funeral orations were com-
posed describing his great deeds, and his [personal] property was
divided among the visitors (op. cit., fol. 73).

The mode of burial apparently differed among the kingdoms.
Ferdinand Columbus enumerates various ways not only of burial
but also of helping the wretched beings to start on their last
journey. In some cases the cacique's body is opened and dried
at the fire, " that he may keep whole. Of others they keep only
the head. Others they bring in a grotto, and lay a calabash of
water and bread on his head." Caciques were burnt in the house
where they died, but strangled when they are at the last gasp.
Some are turned out of their house, and others put into their
hammocks, with bread and water, and left to die, and some who
are dangerously ill are taken before the cacique, who decides
whether they are to be strangled or not (Church., II, 621). Sir
Kobert Schomburgk claims to have discovered an Indian burial

278 H. LING BOTH. — TJie Aborigines of Hispaniola.

ground in the Valley of Constanza (" Athenaeum," 1852, pp. 797-
799). On his own showing he did not examine the ground,
nor did he get any skulls, but he asserts it to be an Indian
burial ground, apparently because there are above 1,000 mounds,
and because the present inhabitants say it is. This, of course,
is no evidence.

The Spaniards found on several occasions heads wrapped up
with great care, sewn up in baskets. Heads thus preserved
were supposed to have been those of parents or of others held in
veneration (Major, pp. 52-3).

It is doubtful whether these people buried the bodies of their
enemies, for while Herrera states that the murdered Spaniards
of the first expedition were buried (op. cit., I, 113-114). Chanca
mentions the finding of the ^mburied bodies (Major, p. 45).

Poetry and Music.

History, such as it was, and the deeds of their forefathers
were handed down to them in certain meters and ballads called
areitos. " They have also songs and ballads of love, and others
of lamentations and mourning, some also to encourage them to
the wars, with every one of them their tunes agreeable to the
matter" (Moralis, p. 289). The same authority states that
Anachaona " in making rhymes and ballads was counted a pro-
phetess among the best " (op. cit., p. 301).

" When they sing these songs, they play upon an instrument
called Maiohavan, made of wood, hollow, strong, yet very thin,
and as long as a man's arm, that part where they play on it is
made like a smith's tongs, and the other end like a club, so that
it looks like a calabash with a long neck. This instrument they
play on is so loud, that it is heard a league and a-half off; and
to that music they sing those songs they have got by heart. The
chief men play on it, who learn it from their infancy, and so
sing to it according to their customs " (Pane, p. 626).

The above drum or gong is very different from that described
by Oviedo, which is made of a hollow cylindrical piece of wood
with a rectangular hole on one side of the cylindrical surface and
another hole in the form of an H opposite to the first. The H
hole is placed uppermost and when beaten with sticks makes a
" bad noise." Oviedo also says there is only one tune and one
time kept in their songs (op. cit., fol. 70). There exists such a
gong in the British Museum.1 Benzoni also mentions a drum
(op. cit., p. 79) which appears to have been played by the chief
or priest only.

1 Captain Cameron (" Across Africa," 1877, I, plate facing p. 357) describes
wooden gongs from west coast of Tanganyika very like those of Hayti.

H. LING BOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola. 279

We have already seen (Games) that they possessed timbrels
of fish-shells.

Language.

Columbus on his first voyage of discovery found that the
natives he took with him from the island Guanahani (Watling
Island) could converse freely with the natives of Cuba and
Hispaniola, and we find later on that natives of Hispaniola could
speak the language of, or make themselves understood by, the
inhabitants of Jamaica. The Watling Islanders did not quite
understand the language spoken at Samana Bay (Church., II,
596). There were, however, evidently differences in dialect for
we are informed by Eamon Pane (p. 631, Vol. II, Churchill
Coll., fol. 1704) that the Admiral told him that the language of
the province Madalena Maroris was different from the rest, and
not understood in all parts of the country, and that he was to
go to the Cacique Guarionex on the west coast " whose language
was understood all over the island." Herrara (p. 166, Vol. I,
Engl. ed., 1725) confirms this and speaks of the dialect spoken
in the province of Guarionex as the " courtly language."1

With regard to the pronounciation of the language we have
only one short statement of Andreas Moralis handed down by
Angleria (p. 292), which runs : " AH such words as in their
tongue are aspirate are pronounced with like breath and spirit
as is /, saving that herein the nether lip is not moved to the
uppermost teeth."

Dr. Brinton appears to be the only authority on the
Hispaniola language, and in his excellent paper entitled the
"Arawak Language of Guiana," (reprinted Phil., 1871, 18 pp.,
4to.), he gives a vocabulary of Haytian words, and a short
dissertation on the language.

In all the known words the letter I is conspicuous by its
absence. We meet with it however in a suffix el which appears
to correspond to our -son (Welsh ap, Eussian -witch). Pane
speaks of a man called Giaia (p. 622) and refers to this man's
son as Giaiael, and again (p. 630) he speaks of a cacique as
father to Guarionel. Anacacoa's sister's name was Anacaona.

We may mention here that Mr. Prax (" Bull, de la Soc. de
Geog.," Paris, Ser. IX, 1855, p. 202) says "the word Haiti
should be written Ahiti which is composed of three roots,
a} flower ; hi, great ; ti, country. Hence Ahiti signifies flower

1 In Samoa there are three different languages spoken — the first a strictly
court language, spoken by the king and highest officials ; the second by the
lesser nobles and warriors ; and the third by the common people (A. St. John-
ston, " Camping among Cannibals," Lond., 1833).

280 H. LING ROTH. — TJie Aborigines of Hispaniola.

of great countries." He gives no proof whatever in support of
this explanation.

At a future date we hope to revert to the language of
Hispaniola.

Navigation.

Columbus states " they navigate all these seas " (Major, p. 8).
" They have in all these islands very many canoes like our row-
boats, some larger, some smaller, but most of them larger than
a barge of eighteen seats. They are not so wide, because they
are made of one single piece of timber, but a barge could not
keep up with them in rowing, because they go with incredible
speed, and with these canoes they navigate among these islands.
.... I have seen in some of these seventy and eighty men
each with his oar" (ibid., pp. 10-11). According to Angleria
(op. cit. p. 189) " their boats are made only of one tree, made
hollow with a certain sharp stone (for they have no iron) and
are very long and narrow." At Cuba, a canoe was seen " drawn
upon land under a bower ... it was made of the body of one
tree and as big as a twelve-oared barge." Later on a similar
canoe was discovered 70 feet long that would carry 50 persons
(Church., II, 591). Another canoe is also mentioned with 40
men in it (ibid., 592). Oviedo (op. cit., fol. 89) says the canoes
are hollowed out by an axe aided by fire and that the natives
burnt and struck alternately. The drawing he gives of one,
with its square ends, however, does not convey the idea of
swiftness ascribed to them by Columbus. Oviedo states that
they are easily upset, but not sinkable, and in this respect they
were better than the Spanish boats. From the same drawing it
would appear that the paddles much resemble our spades with
cross handles and very long blades. Oviedo states that the
Caribs had cotton sails (ibid., foj. 89).

The natives of Porto Rico had " boats made of one piece of
timber, square at the ends, like trays, deeper than the canoes,
the sides raised with canes, daubed over with bitumen, and not
flat as the canoes but with a keel." (Herr., I, 340). Benzoni's
drawing of a canoe on the coast of Cumana (S. America) is
furnished with almost square ends (op. cit., p. 6).1

Habitations.

According to Oviedo (op. cit., fol. 85) there appears to have
been no rule as to where a settlement should be made and their

1 On the Orinoco, according to H. A. Wickham's " Bough Notes," p. 99,' the
large canoes with the extremities squared above the water are called "casco,"
the smaller ones being apparently called •' curiara " (p. 59) ; on the plates facing
pp. 160 and 237 the author gives us drawings of the pitpans in use on the
Moskito coast, and which bear a remarkable likeness to the canoe drawn by
Oviedo.

H. LING BOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola. 281

villages were consequently found in every situation ; their fields
were close to their homes, and every village had a space reserved
for the game of the latey. Dr. Chanca (op. cit., p. 52) speaks
of things being "hidden in the grass around their houses,"
hence we may infer that occasionally at least they were not in
the habit of clearing the ground in their immediate neighbour-
hood. The settlements were of all sizes varying from a village
of seven or eight houses (Chanca, p. 51) to a district " so
populous that it seemed to be one continued town for a league
in length " (Church., II, 618). Dr. Chanca states that the Indians
lived in miserable hovels covered with grass and dampness
(op cit., p. 52) ; but judging by the account and by the two
sketches left us by Oviedo, their habitations must have been re-
markably good, and were furnished with window-spaces. One
kind of house appears to have been hexagonal (or round).
Posts were inserted in the ground five to six paces distant,
these were joined at the top by wooden braces, and from this
point upwards branches were fixed on all round, meeting at the
top of a central post, thus giving the dwelling a conical roof.
The roofs consisted of straw, leaves of the Bihao, cane tops,
and palm leaves, but the walls were formed of thick canes
set in the ground side by side. The whole was strongly corded
together by larger vine ropes (rattans). The houses of the
Caciques were larger, longer, and furnished with galleries, &c.
(Oviedo, fol. 85). The chiefs house also had a raised seat
inside (Herr., I, pp. 74 and 76). The Cubans appear to have
had habitations similar to those in use at Hispaniola ; they
lived in towns, in houses of timber covered with straw, and made
after the manner of pavilions (Church., II, 589) ; concerning the
island of Borrique (Porto Rico), "there were many good houses,
though built with timber and thatched, and a square in
the midst of them, and a way down to the sea, very clean and
plain, and the walls of canes interwoven, or wattled,1 with greens
artificially wrought as in Valencia" (Herr., I, 108).

Columbus on his journey to Cibao " passed by many Indian
towns, the houses whereof were round > thatched, with such
a little door [-way] that he who goes in must stoop very low "
(Church., II, 612). "They had no doors, but barred access by
means of canes or sticks, this was, of course, no defence, but
according to their custom no man dared break in at a door he
finds so barred " (ibid.).

The Indians appear to have had a fair variety of furniture.
Angleria (op. cit., p. 192) describing Anacaona's treasure-house,
says, her treasures consisted of " chairs, stools, settles, dishes,

1 Cf. Im Thurn, p. £05.

H. LING EOTII. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola.

potingers, pots, pans, basins, trays, and such other household
stuff and instruments, workrnanly made, of a certain black and
hard shining wood:" these were manufactured at the island
Guanabba (now called Gonaives ; it lies some miles off Port-au-
Prince). We also hear of a handsome round table, made like a
dish, in a cemi-hoiisQ (Church., II, 621). The people, it would
seem, did not use stools, but " all sat down on their heels "
(Benzoni, p. 79). Columbus we hear on one occasion was seated
" on a chair with a low back the Indians used, and they were
very neat polished and bright, as if they had been made of jet "
(Herr., I, 74). Oviedo (op. cit., fol. 69) also mentions the carved
stools. At Cuba, a seat is described which was made of one
piece in strange shapes, and almost like some creature that had
short legs, and the tail lifted up to lean against, which is as
broad as the seat for the convenience of leaning, with a head
before, and the eyes and ears of gold (Church., II, 589).1

Benzoni (p. 79) describing a feast says, " they all sat down on
their heels," but Oviedo (fol. 86) describing the game of ball
says, " they sat on stone seats."

It was from these people that hammocks were introduced to
the Old World. Oviedo (fol. 72) describes them as sometimes
made of patchwork (?), and at others of open network. Occa-
sionally they were made so broad that one could lie in them
transversely. Both Oviedo and Benzoni draw them as though
they had a stay at each end to keep them expanded, but in their
description nothing is said of this.

Fire.

Fire was obtained by the simple drill twirled between the
hands, with three sticks. Two dry light sticks of brown wood
were tied firmly together, and the point of the drill of a
particular hard wood was inserted between the two, and then
worked (Oviedo, fol. 90).2 The Cubans carried firebrands about
with them (Church., II, 589).

String.

The posts of their houses were fixed together with rattans
(Oviedo, fol. 85), but the ropes with which the Spanish colonists
were strangled during Columbus' absence are described as made

1 The British Museum possesses a small black ebony stool from St. Domingo
answering to the above description.

2 Judging by an illustration on p. 49 of Benzoni's quoted work the natives of
Nicaragua made fire in a similar way. No where else is there any record of
a people making fire by means of working into two sticks tied together. Oviedo
g'ves a drawing of how this is done, so that there can be no mistake about it.

H. LING KOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola. 283

of a certain broom (? Bromelia) like the esparto (Church., II,
609). L Angleria, however, speaks of native hemp for making
ropes demanded as a tribute (p. 189).

Weaving.

In translating Benzoni's history, Bear-Admiral Smyth calls
attention to the fact that from the use of the word rag (una
pezza), the arts of weaving and spinning are presupposed (op. cit.,
pp. 87 and 89). In Benzoni's time, whether these arts were already
known to the aborigines or not, it is more than likely that
cloth would have been in use. He tells us that the juice of the
iucca was squeezed out through a rag (op. tit., p. 85), and that
their wine was filtered through a cloth (op. cit., p. 87). His
drawings of hammocks also make them appear to have been
made both of pieces of cloth and of netting. Herrera says the
natives gave the Spaniards cotton cloths (op. cit., I, 68), and
Columbus says some of the women used a cover of cotton cloth
made for that purpose (Major, p. 6). We are also told that at
Cuba they none of them made use of the cotton to clothe them-
selves, but only to make nets for their beds, which they called
hamacas, and in weaving aprons for women to cover their naked-
ness (Church., II, 589). When G-uacanagari pretended to have
a wounded leg, that limb was bound up with bandages (Chanca,
op. cit., p. 58). According to Ferd. Columbus (Church., II, p.
608), in the houses at Guadaloupe were found " cotton, spun and
unspun, and looms to weave " (see Herr., I, 107).

The evidence as to their knowledge of this art is, therefore,
somewhat meagre.

Pottery.

Pottery was a well developed art amongst these people, for
collectors seem to be able to find fragments marked with the
images peculiar to the Indians of this part of the world.
Herrera speaks of their " earthenware pitchers, handsomely made
and painted " (I, 68). According to Benzoni, the cacique's bread
was baked in a round pipkin, and they used also large jars or
vases and pipkins in the manufacture of their wine (p. 84), and
he also refers to their idols being made of clay (p. 78). Angleria
(p. 192) mentions special pots for cooking iguanas.

Basketwork.

Although none of the historians make any reference to the
manufacture of baskets, nor to the material of which they are

1 The Ghriana Indians make string of a Bromelia. See Im Thurn, p. 284.

284 H. LiN<? EOTH. — The Aborigines of Hispaniola.

made, we have occasional mention of them proving that basket
work was well known to these Indians. On several occasions
the Spaniards discovered men's heads sewn up with great care
in small baskets in Hispaniola (Chanca, p. 522) and in Cuba also
(Church., II, 591). Benzoni in describing a feast speaks of
" baskets adorned with roses and various flowers " (p. 80). The
Caribs would appear also to have had baskets, as Columbus
found them at Guadaloupe full of men's bones (Church., II, 608).
These baskets may however have been stolen in their" raids.
Calabashes are frequently mentioned.

Stone Implements.

Dr. Chanca found they had "many tools, such as hatchets
and axes, made of stone, which are so handsome and well finished
that it is wonderful how they contrive to make them without
the use of iron " (Major, p. 68).

They used stones to triturate the maize (Benzoni, p. 83) : they
committed suicide with flint knives (ibid., p. 78) and they cut up
the iucca roots with " sharp stones that they found on the beach "
(ibid., p. 85). Oviedo gives a drawing of an axe (op. cit., fol. 89)
in which the stone axe-head is fixed to the haft by insertion
into a hole.

Some crudely executed engravings of stone and earthenware
figures found in St. Domingo were published on Plate I,
Vol. II, of Descourtilz's "Voyages d'un Naturaliste," Paris,
1809, and Nicolson in his "Essai sur 1'Histoire Naturelle de
St. Domingue," Paris, 1776, gives on Plate 9, drawings of
characteristic images, &c., and on Plate 10, drawings of
stone celts well finished, one of which is much like a European
axe. The best selection of drawings of stone articles from St.
Domingo was published by the late Mr. Edw. T. Stevens in
"Flint Chips," London, 1870, on pp. 224-235. Among the
more interesting may be mentioned " a stone bowl with
sculptured ornament upon the outside" and a /<mr-legged
" metatl." Mr. Stevens also figured one of those curious stone
collars which have been found in St. Domingo, Porto Eico, and
St. Thomas, but the uses or objects of which still defy explana-
tion by anthropologists. A paper on Cuban Antiquities, by
Andres Poey appeared in the "Trans. Amer. Ethnol. Soc." (Vol.
Ill, Part I, pp. 183-202, New York, 1853), illustrated with a
few woodcuts of little stone carvings or images. There appears
to be some slight similarity between these images and those of
St. Domingo. The author incorporates in his paper a fanciful
theory of W. Walton's (" Present State of the Spanish Colonies,"
London, 1810, Vol. I, pp. 167-171) on the connection between
the Hispaniolas and the followers of Brahma which, it is

H. LING EOTH. — TJie Aborigines of Hispaniola. 285

needless to add, will not stand investigation. Schomburgk
("Jour. EtknoL Soc.," Lond., iii, 1854, pp. 114-122) says the
carved stones " are only found where there is sure evidence that
the Caribs inhabited or visited the place," but he, on his part,
gives no evidence in support of this statement.

Metallurgy.

Gold there appears to have been plenty, apparently obtained
only at the surface, as Chanca, already quoted, records they
had not the " means of digging more than a hand's depth," but
Angleria, (op. cit., p. 188) says that when the Spaniards arrived at
the gold mines of Cipanga, " they found certain deep pits which
had been digged in old time," and which Columbus thought
must be the mines of Solomon.

Benzoni refers to idols made of gold and silver (p. 78) :
Oviedo (fol. 69) of gold only. We have already described
(Personal Ornaments) how the gold was beaten into shape.
There is no record of its having been smelted.

There exist copper mines in Hispaniola, but we find no
mention that the natives made any use of this metal, although
at Martinique Columbus describes Carib women who " arm and
cover themselves with plates of copper, of which metal they
have a great quantity " (Major, pp. 14-15), but this appears to
be hearsay.

At Guadaloupe some of the men on the second voyage
declared they had found an iron pan, but Ferd. Columbus says
this must be a mistake, as " there never was anything of iron
found among those people " (Church., II, 607). Later on the
sailors affirm they met with iron hatchets on the same island
(ibid., 634). These implements may have been stolen, for
Columbus (Major, p. 6), Chanca (ibid., p. 68), and Angleria
(op. cit., p. 169) all unite in stating that the Indians had no iron.

The Indians valued brass more than gold and highly valued
tin (Herr., I, 141).

Topography.

According to Columbus the Indians were well acquainted with
their surrounding islands (Major, p. 10). Angleria, Hen-era,
Munoz, and others describe the position of the towns, &c.,
which we need not discuss here.

Swimming.

Moralis tells us " they are the most expert fishers by reason
that they are accustomed daily to plunge themselves in the
VOL. xvi. x

286 List of Presents.

rivers, so that in a manner they live no less in the water than
on the land " (p. 290). On one occasion, at Guadaloupe, when
it was too rough to land the boats, Columbus sent the
Hispaniola women ashore by swimming (Church., II, 634). On
another occasion some women escaped from the Spaniards by
swimming considerably more than half a league (AngL, p. 175).
Oviedo also says they were splendid swimmers (fol. 89).

NOVEMBEE 23rd, 1886.
FRANCIS GALTON, ESQ., M.A., F.K.S., President, in the Chair.

The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and signed.

The election of C. W. EOSSETT, Esq., as a corresponding
member was announced.

The following presents were announced, and thanks voted to
the respective donors : —

FOE THE LlBEAEY.

From the DEPAETMENT OF MINES, Sydney, N.S.W. — Annual Report
for the year 1885.

From the PEABODT ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. — Ancient and Modern
Methods of Arrow-Release. By Edward S. Morse.

From the AUTHOE. — Can Europeans become Acclimatised in
Tropical Africa ? By R. W. Felkin, M.D.

• A Contribution to the Determination of Sex. By R. W.

Felkin, M.D.

The Scientific prevention of Consumption. By G. W.

Hambleton.

From the ACADEMY. — Kongl. Yitterhets Historie och Antiqvitets
Akademiens Manadsblad, 1885, Nos. 157-159.

From the ASSOCIATION. — Proceedings of the Geologists' Associa-
tion, Vol. ix, No. 6.

Fi'om the INSTITUTION. — Journal of the Royal United Service Insti-
tution. No. cxxxvi.

From the SOCIETY. — Journal of the Society of Arts. Nos. 1773,
]774.

Boletim da Sociedade de Geographia de Lisboa, 1886, Nos.

3,4.

From the EDITOE.— Nature. Nos. 889-890.

• Science. No. 196.

The Photographic Times. No. 268.

L'Homme, 1886, No. 16.

Bullettino di Paletnologia Italiana, 1886, Nos. 9, 10.

D. A. CAMERON. — On the Tribes of the Eastern Soudan. 287

The following paper was read, in the absence of the author,
by Professor A. H. Keane : —

On the TRIBES of the EASTERN SOUDAN.

By DONALD A. CAMERON. Esq., H.B.M. Consul for the Eastern

Soudan.

THE Arabs of Suakin and of its neighbourhood, for about 100
miles in a semi-circle, may, for convenience, be divided into the
following tribes : —

1. Natives of Suakin, i.e., Suakinese.

2. Amarrars.

3. Hadendoas.

4. Ashrafs.

5. Artegas.

6. Bishareen.

7. Beni Amers.

1. The population of Suakin is a mixed one, and, exclusive of
the Egyptian garrison, numbers about 5,000. Deducting from
this a score of English and about 100 Greeks and Levantines,
together with Turkish and Egyptian officials, Jeddah merchants
and artisans, Somalis, Arabs of Aden, Abyssinians, and natives
of India, there remain about 4,000 Suakinese and Soudanese
negroes who now represent the fixed population of the town.
Owing to the constant intermarriage between the different black
peoples here, certain further deductions must be made, and we
have left perhaps 3,000 genuine Suakinese whose native lan-
guage is Tobedawiet, and who are identical in race and in
language with the friendly or hostile tribes of Arabs outside the
town, such as the Amarrars, Artegas, &c.

Later on in treating of each of these tribes it will be seen
that they claim by tradition to have different origins. Whatever
truth there may be in such traditions, for all practical purposes
it may be confidently affirmed at starting that all the natives of
the north-eastern Soudan, inside and outside of the town of
Suakin, are kindred and speak one common language, Tobedawiet,
in distinction from Arabic, of which they are more or less
ignorant.

The Arabic name for the people of the desert is Orban
CcjV/0)1 ^7 which one means Bedouins, mountaineers, nomads,
camel-men, and shepherds, &c. The Suakinese of the town are
often called Hadareb. Now there is a province in the south of
Arabia called Hadramaut (c^v^i^)^ whose inhabitants are

x 2

•
288 D. A. CAMERON. —On the Tribes

called Hadramy, in the plural Haddrima (<u^w, L5<rA^.
These Hadramies abound at Hoveida and other parts of El- Yemen.
In fact Hadramy is a generic name at Suakin for people from
the south of Arabia, and not from Jeddah and the Hejaz ; and
it is most natural that from the earliest times adventurers from
Hadramaut may have come over and settled at Suakin. Upon
this is based the tradition that Suakin is a Hadramy colony, and
that Hadareb is merely another form of Hadarima — m and 1}
being interchangeable. Indeed, Othman Sheikh, who claims
descent from the aborigines of Suakin, tells me that the
Suakinese or Hadareb are undoubtedly Hadramies from South
Arabia.

Mr. G. A. Hoskins, who travelled in Ethiopia in 1833, and
soon after published a work on the ruins of Meroe, near Berber,
states that when at Dongola, he was told by Sheikh Mukhtar, a
most intelligent Kadi, that in the time of the fourth Khaleefa,
namely, Ali (in the seventh century A.D.), there was an invasion by
the great tribe of the Ababja from the Yemen, who " finding the
country inhabited by infidels, drove out some but forced the
greater number to turn Moslems, and that thus the former in-
habitants became blended with the Arabs and have not been
distinguished for ages. This is a curious and highly interesting
tradition proving historically almost what might naturally be
supposed."

On the whole I think there must be some truth in this
Dongolese tradition as narrated by Mr. Hoskins, and I would
here draw attention to the similarity of the two words Ababja
and Beja.

Ababja can hardly be different from the modern word Ababde/i,
the name of a powerful tribe which stretches south from
Assouan, having the Bishareen to the south and the Amarrars to
the east.

Beja is a vague word applied to all Tobedawiet-speaking Arabs,
and the origin of the word deserves serious discussion.

In another part of his work Mr. Hoskins says that it is probable
that during the period of its magnificence the Empire of Meroe
held the Yemen tributary, and that on its decay it was invaded
by the Yemenese (Hadramies), who swarmed across into Nubia
or Ethiopia. If this view is accepted there can be no doubt
that these Yemenese landed at or near Suakin, between Eowaya
and Agig, and that most of them hurried inland to the Nile, a
certain small portion remaining on the coast. Thus what
Othman Sheikh tells me at Suakin, in May, 1886, is confirmed
by what I have just read by chance in Mr. Hoskin's book of
1833-4.

of the Eastern Soudan. 289

Burckhardt, who was at Suakin in 1814, gives a very full and
valuable account of this town, and accepts the native statement
that Suakin is more or less a colony of Hadramaut.

My own opinions are as follows : —

1. There may have been at least one invasion of the Eastern
Soudan from Arabia.

2. That such of the invaders as could not find room on the
coast had to hurry inland till they struck the Nile, and that the
survivors were easily absorbed by the aborigines, adopting the
aborigines' language and having little or no effect on the
aboriginal race.

3. That Suakin being on the coast may have retained a large
proportion of Hadramies, and so have come to be called Hadramy.

4. That the present JBeja or Tobedawiet- speaking people of
the Eastern Soudan are the aborigines, who gradually adopted
Islam through contact with the coast or with Egypt, or with
minor Moslem invasions in the seventh and following centuries.

5. That the Eastern Soudanese are quite unlike the Bedouin
Arabs of the north, such as are met with in Arabia, Syria,
Mount Sinai, and the Delta ; and that they may be fairly
assumed to be the aborigines of the country.

The following are extracts from a letter from Mason Bey, of
the Egyptian Service, who has travelled a great deal in the
Soudan. He says that the aborigines question is very far from
settled. For his own part he believes that the Bishareens,
Hadendoas, Halengas, and B.eni Amers are an autochthonous
race, and that they have held their own in spite of all invasions.
As for the theory that the aborigines were killed off by the
invaders, that will not stand before recent evidence. Moreover,
an invader must have been pressed to reach the Nile, and could
do no more than hurry through the country. Occupation by
any sedentary race is out of the question. The late Ali Bey,
Bakheet of Kassala, assured him that the Beni Amers, Hade*n-
doas, Bishareen, and Halengas called themselves the " Rotn"
and that Eotn is the name of their country and people. These
people have no affinity with the Arabs. Linant gives an
account of them in his work on the " Etbai'." According to
Lepsius the Suakin people are Arabs having no affinity with
the neighbouring tribes. Mason Bey very properly doubts the
affinity between the Hadendoas and Abyssinian s. He adds
that most of the ethnological difficulties arise from a precon-
ceived determination to divide the human race into certain
hard and fast groups, located within equally hard and fast
lines.

Mason Bey sent me the following letter from M. Bonola, the
Secretary of the Khedivial Geographical Society of Cairo : —

290 D. A. CAMERON.— On the Tribes

" My dear Be}7,

" This is what I have found about the Beja and Bishareens
in the ' Nouvel Dictionnaire de Geographic/ de Vivien de St.
Martin, 1884.

"Beja or Bishareen. — An aboriginal people of Nubia. This
name is ancient, and some think they can recognise it in the
hieroglyphic inscriptions under the name of Bouka, which is
like the Bouga of the Ethiopian inscriptions, and the Greek
inscriptions of Axum.

" Latin authors speak of them as Blemmyes.

" On their arrival in Egypt, the Arabs came in contact with
the Beja, and good information can be obtained about them
from the old Moslem authors. The best notice is that by
Makrizi in his ' History of Egypt ;' also in the ' Istakiri,' translated
into German by Mordtmann (' Das Buch der Lander.' Hamburg,
1845), and in Masoodi.

" Makrizi says that the Beja are of Berber origin. Soon after
the arrival of the Arabs in Egypt the Moslems invaded the
emerald mines, and intermarried with the Beja, so that a large
number of the tribe, called Hadareb, embraced Islam. This
Hadareb tribe, which is the elite of the nation, inhabits the side
which is towards Saeed.

" After this resume of Makrizi, M. Vivien goes on to uphold
his thesis that the Beja are of Berber origin, and he analyses
M. Linant's book on the ' Etbai,' which gives a very detailed
description of the manners of this people.

"The language Bejawi or Bedawi (which must not be con-
founded with Bedouin) is altogether an original idiom, hitherto
very imperfectly known, and it is of very great ethnological
importance to determine the relation between the Agao and the
other aboriginal dialects of Abyssinia, and the Somali, Galla,
Ababdeh, Coptic, and the Berber dialects of the Etbai district.

" The tribes of the Beja family are numerous, such as the
Hadendoa, Halenga, Shinterab, Merefab, &c."

The above is M. Bonola's letter, and I agree with Mason Bey
that it only adds to the general confusion.

In the Bible (Chronicles II, chapter xii, verses 2 and 3) it is
said that Shishak, King of Egypt, invaded Jerusalem with an
army of Ethiopians, and Lubims, and Sukkiiins. Sukkiims may
mean the people of Suakin.

Suakin is written SawdJcin in Arabic f^j**)' The natives
call it " SoJce" in their Tobedawiet language.

The houses at Suakin are all built of coral rag, which is called
Domar. This is torn up by crowbars from the reefs in summer
when the water is low. The natives live in large huts of mat-
ting stretched on branches. These huts are called " Bidaigowab"

of the Eastern Soudan. 291

The Suakinese are undoubtedly a handsome race. They are
rather below our average height, although their slender figures,
covered by the loose white tob, or native toga, and their upstand-
ing hair, make them look taller than they are.

Out on the plains or in the hills they have great powers of
endurance in running and climbing, and are as active and lithe
as greyhounds. But in the town they are lazy and good for
nothing ; and even when willing to work make but feeble coolies
and coalheavers. Their food is almost entirely vegetable, varied
with fish and now and then a little meat.

Within their own narrow waters the Suakinese are very expert
fishermen and sailors. Their craft consist of canoes and dhows.
The canoe (Khoori) is always a " dug-out " of teakwood brought
from the East Indies. Their dhows are of the usual type
throughout the east, carvel-built and with lateen-sails.

I took great interest in scanning the features of the
Suakinese. It was easy to detect the presence of negro blood
by the thickness of the nose and lips, &c., but after making all
deductions for intermarriage, I made out two rather distinct
types, that of the sheikhs and that of the lower classes.

Some of the sheikhs' faces were almost as perfect and refined
as that of any Caucasian. The nose was fine and delicate, the
brows arched, the lips and chin well cut, and the jaw not too
heavy. The hands and feet were small and shapely. The hair
was long and wiry, but not crisp like a negro's. It was divided
into three parts — a thick pad on the crown, and thick festoons
of hair on the side. Some shave their heads, and wear
turbans.

The complexion was a dark brown, but not black ; on the
other hand it was never fair like that of many Arabian
Bedouins.

The faces of the lower orders of pure Suakinese are decidedly
coarser as a rule. But here again there is a marked difference
between tribes. The Amarrars, and especially the Ashrafs,
claim superiority of race, and scorn the savage Artegas and
Hadendoas. As these two latter tribes were hostile and absent
from Suakin I have had no opportunity of inquiring into this
interesting detail.

A great friend of mine, young Sheikh Seyyid Yaseen, an
Ashraf or aristocrat of the Northern Amarrars, assures me that
it is very easy to distinguish an Amarrar from a Hadendoa, or
both from an Artega, Bishareen, or Beni Amer ; and that every
tribe has its peculiar dialect and idioms. A Hadendoa from
near Kassala could never be mistaken for an Amarrar of Suakin
or a Bishareen from Berber; the connecting links between
these extreme tribes being the minor nomad families who inter-

292 D. A. CAMERON.— On the Tribes

marry or change their allegiance from time to time. There can
be no doubt that the present revolution in the Eastern Soudan
will also have a great effect on the tribes. It marks a great
epoch in their national history, and every piece of really
accurate information which can be gathered now concerning the
rebellion will be of value by-and-by from an ethnological point
of view. Some of the minor hostile tribes have been annihilated,
or are represented only by women and a few infant males.
Whole mountain districts have been depopulated. The autho-
rity of great sheikhs has been upset, and the future is in the
hands of a few less powerful sheikhs and tribes who have kept
aloof from the rebellion and fighting, and who are, in conse-
quence, relatively much stronger than before.

2. Outside Suakin we meet with two great tribes, the
Amdrrars and the ffadendoas. The Suakin-Berber road forms a
pretty correct boundary between them. The Amdrrara stretch
along a base line from Suakin, Handoub, and Ariab, northwards
past Eowaya and Elba towards Kosair. They are Arabs of the
mountains and of the coast. They are not Nile Arabs, for
between them and the Nile are the Ababdehs and Bishareen.
Their country is called the " Etbal" The headquarters of the
tribe is in the Ariab district, and their sheikh of sheikhs, who
has been recently murdered by Osman Digna, was Hamed
Mahmoud, son of Hamed Hasai, of the Ajim or noblest stock.
The Amarrars may be classified into four great families —

i. Weled Gwilei,
ii. Weled Aliab,
iii. Weled Kurbab-Wagadab,
iv. Amarrars proper of the Ariab district,

making in all a total of about 50,000 fighting men.

The Amarrars claim to be of Koreish descent. They assert
that Seif Ullah Khalid ibn Weleed invaded and conquered the
Eastern Soudan in the reign of the Khaleefa Osman, and that
they and their kindred tribes of the Comeelab, Bishareen,
Belaweeb of Suakin, and Mergomab of the Atbara, are the
descendants of the invading Arab army. The grain of truth in
this tradition is that small bands of Koreish Arabs may have
come and won over certain sheikhs and tribes to Islam, and that
as the new faith spread over the country during the last 1,000
years the people have been at pains to make themselves out to
be of Arabian descent.

3. The Hadendoas have their headquarters at Filik, near
Kassala, and extend from the Abyssinian frontier northward
through the Gash, Wadi Langab, Wadi Oseer, and Khor Baraka,
past Erkowit and Tokar to Kokreb, and Sinkat close to Suakin.

of the Eastern Soudan. 293

The Shukuriehs are to the south and west of them ; the Beni
Amers to the east ; the Bishareens and Amarrars to the north ;
and their only access to the sea is in the neighbourhood of
Suakin. The majority of them are much nearer Kassala than
Suakin, and it is incorrect to speak of the Suakin Arabs in a
general sort of way as being Hadendoas.

Digna himself is a Hadendoa, and for the last three years he
has succeeded in collecting at Tamai a large number of the
Northern Hadendoas, Artegas, and some Amarrars. Thus the
word Hadendoa is now almost synonymous for the rebels. The
natives whom I have consulted all insist that the Hadendoas
are not of Arabian origin, and that they are an early emigration
from the centre of Africa, west of the Nile. The Amarrars look
upon them as a wild inferior race, who somehow have learnt
the Tobedawiet language, but who are quite distinct from the
Amarrars, Ashrafs, Beni Amers, and Bishareen. They say that
the Hadendoas freely intermarry with other tribes, that their
sheikhs have not much influence over them, and that they
easily shift their allegiance and follow any leader of their fancy
like bands of brigands rather than tribes under a sheikhdom or
patriarchal government.

The head sheikh of sheikhs of all the Hadendoas is Musa,
who lives at Filik, in the Kassala or Taka province.

The Hadendoas outside Suakin may for convenience be
divided into two great tribes, (1) ffamdctbs and the (2) Erkowaits.

In addition to these, there are of course all the numerous
tribes and sub-tribes under the great Sheikh Musa, at Filik, to
the sauth.

But at Suakin I am unable to obtain any accurate information
about them, and I now speak only of the Northern Hadendoas
immediately under Digna's influence. This confederation in
1884-5 must have numbered at least 15,000 desperate fighting-
men.

The Comeelabs are sometimes spoken of as Amarrars and
sometimes as Hadendoas. The Amarrars claim them as kindred
but many of their sub-tribes joined the Hadendoas under Digna.

4. The Ashraf, Shurefa, or Shereefs f^_o> *?? 'li-Sj, uJu-£»0
are a small tribe who live for the most part near Tokar, in
the Gash and in Khor Baraka. A certain portion have also
settled among the Amarrars to the north. The number of grown
males among all the Ashraf probably does not exceed 2,000.
They call themselves Beni Hashim, and claim descent from
the Prophet. Throughout the Mahdi-Digna revolution they
have remained loyal to the Egyptian Government and their
sheikhs are now taking an active part with the Amarrars in
dispersing the rebels.

294 D. A. CAMERON. — On the Tribes of the Eastern Soudan.

Seyyid Yaseen, an Ashraf-Amarrar Sheikh, tells me that cen-
turies ago their ancestors were rulers of Medina, but that in the
sixteenth century they were overthrown by the family of Abdul-
Mutalleb. The Mecca Sheikhs then invited them to come and
settle in that town, but Mohammed el Wall, the head of the
family, refused, and crossed over to Suakin about the year 1550
A.D. He died and was buried at Suakin, leaving three sons,
whose posterity are now to be found near Tokar, in Suakin, and
among the Northern Amarrars.

Their greatest sheikh is Shereef Mohammed Abu Fatima,
who lives at Dagga, in Khor Baraka.

I consider that the future of the Eastern Soudan is in the
hands of the Amarrar-Ashraf tribes, and that with patience,
conciliation, and firmness there is every hope of establishing a
sound native government under the headship of their sheikhs.

5. The Artegas are said to be the descendants of a sheikh of
that name, who came from Hadramaut in pre-Islamic times, and
married one of the daughters of Iblis, and settled near Tokar.
The Artegas now assert that their name means "patrician"
(omed. A/^C), and indeed they may be looked upon as the most
ancient stock of this district. I have met with no Artegas, as
they are all rebels, but I am assured that they are an inferior
race like the lowest types in Suakin. At present the tribe
numbers about 5,000 men near Tokar. Before the revolt, large
numbers were to be found in this town. One family still
remains, the Divan Bekabs, but they are few and quite insigni-
ficant. Similarly, Mahmood Eesheed ibn et Taha, of Suakin,
claims to be of the original stock of Artega and the daughter of
Iblis.

It is worth while going to Tokar, and making a thorough
inquiry into the traditions of this tribe ; and I believe that much
valuable information from an ethnological point of view can be
obtained from a stay in that district.

Tokar, indeed, and not Suakin, is the key to the north-east
Soudan. Suakin is a chance settlement, and has a score of rival
inlets north and south ; but Tokar, from its position, is unique.
It is at Tokar, therefore, that the questions of the races and
languages of the Tobedawiet Arabs can be best studied. One
could learn more in a month there, than in a year at Suakin.

6. The Bisharecn occupy the western half of the Berber
road, and lie beyond the Suakin province. The Amarrars claim
them as kindred of Arabian, Koreish, or Kwahili origin. Certain
tribes like the Bishara and Bishariabs are indeed classed as
Amarrars. They speak Arabic and Tobedawiet.

7. The Beni Amers ( ,^elc 15^) OCCUP7 a triangle of territory

Joitra. Anthrop. Inst., Vol. XVI, PI. IV.

WEST AFRICAN SYMBOLIC MESSAGES.

G. W. BLOXAM. — West African Symbolic Messages. 295

of which Agig is the apex ; the sea coast to Massowa the eastern
side, the Khor Baraka to Kassala the western side, and the
Abyssinian frontier the base.

Their language is Tigre* and not Tobedawiet, and like the
Bishareen, they lie beyond the Suakin province.

Of the foregoing tribes of Suakinese,

Amarrars,
Hadendoas,
Ashrafs,
Artegas, and
Bishareens,

it will be seen that the first thing that connects them more or
less is their common speech — Tobedawiet.

Almkwist has published a very full grammar of this language
under the title of " Bischari Sprache" Munzinger, in his " East
African Studies," gives an excellent vocabulary of Tobedawiet as
spoken in the south among the Hadendoas and some of the Beni
Amers.

In the next place (although most of the Beni Anier speak
Tigre, which is an Abyssinian dialect, and very few speak
Tobedawiet), yet the Amarrars claim kindred with them. On
the other hand they scout any idea of kinship with the Tobe-
dawiet-speaking Hadendoas. I do not understand this.

The course of study which I have laid down for myself in my
leisure this winter and spring at Suakin is first of all to try and
master the Suakin language as a basis for ethnological research.
I may then be able gradually to collect fresh materials in the
shape of oral traditions, folk-lore, &c., which may be of use to
this Institute. The present essay is merely a preliminary
sketch.

EXHIBITION of WEST AFRICAN SYMBOLIC MESSAGES.

By G. W. BLOXAM, M.A., F.L.S., Assistant Secretary.

[WITH PLATE iv.]

THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY said that Mr. R. N. Gust had kindly
presented to the Institute eight specimens of Aroko, sent to him
by Mr. J. A. Qtonba Payne, Eegistrar of the Supreme Court at
Lagos. These Aroko, or symbolic letters, were such as are used
by the tribe of Jebu in West Africa, to which tribe Mr. Payne
himself belongs.

No. 1 (Fig. 1, Plate IV) is a message from a native prince of
Jebu Ode to his brother residing abroad. It consists of six

296 G. W. BLOXAM.— Exhibition of West

cowries, all turned in the same direction ; the quill of a feather
is passed through them from front to back, and the shaft turned
back towards the end of the quill, and fixed to the side of the
cowries.

Six in the Jebu language is E-fa, which is derived from the
verb fa, to draw ; Africans are in the habit of cleansing their
ears with a feather, and look upon it as the only instrument by
which this can be effectually done ; the whole message, there-
fore, is as follows .

Efa yi ni mo fi fa 9 niQra, ki VQ na si fa mo mi
girigiri.

" By these six cowries I do draw you to myself, and you should also draw
closely to me."

lyq yi ni mo fi nreti, ni kankansi ni ki nri 9.

" As by this feather only I can reach to your ears, so I am expecting you to
come to me, or hoping to see you immediately."

No. 2 (Fig. 2, Plate IV) is from a native general of the Jebu
force to a native prince abroad. This also consists of six cowries,
but they are arranged two and two, face to face, on a long string;
the pairs of cowries being set face to face indicate friendly
feeling and good fellowship ; the number six expresses a desire
to draw close to the person to whom the message is sent ; while
the long string indicates considerable distance, or a long road.
This is the message :

Bi ona to wa larin wa tile, jin pup9-pup9, sib6sib$ mo fa o
mora, mo si doju ko 9. B<? ni mo fe ki o doju k9 mi, ko si fa
m9 mi.

" Although the road between us both may be very long, yet I draw you to
myself, and set my face towards you. So I desire you to set your face towards
me, and draw to me."

The third letter (Fig. 3, Plate IV) is from a native prince of
Jebu Ode to one of his cousins abroad. The message consists
of six cowries as before, but the arrangement is again different ;
in this message two cowries are placed nearest the knot facing
in the same direction, towards trie opposite end of the string;
then come two face to face ; and, lastly, two more facing in the
same direction towards the end of the string. The two pairs of
cowries facing in the same direction indicate numerous people
before and behind the two blood relations signified by the
cowries in the centre, which face one another, and around
which, it will be observed, the string is tightly drawn. The
message is :

African Symbolic Messages. 297

Larin 9P<?19P9 enia, niwa-lehin, a ko le sal m9 ara eni ; bi o ti
mo mi, ti mo si 1119 9, je ka doju k9 'ra wa, ka gb'ara wa mu, ka
ma se dehin ko 'ra.

" In the midst of numerous people, before and behind, relations are sure to
recognise and know each other ; as we hare known ourselves to be one, let us set
our face to each other, and embrace ourselves together, never to turn against
each other."

No. 4 (Fig. 4, Plate IV) is from His Majesty Awnjale, the
King of Jt^bu, to his nephew abroad, and here we find other
substances besides cowries included in the Aroko. Taking the
various articles in order as before, commencing from the knot,
we observe four cowries facing in the same direction, with their
backs to the knot, this signifies agreement ; next a piece of
spice (a) which produces when burnt a sweet odour, and is never
unpleasant ; then come three cowries facing in the same direc-
tion ; then a piece of mat (&) ; then a piece of a feather (c) ;
and, lastly, a single cowrie turned in the same direction as all the
others. The interpretation is :

Qrc) temi tire meji jora W9n. Iwa re wu mi, osl J9 temi.

" Your words agree with, mine very much. Your ways are pleasing to me,
and I like them."

Maru : — Erun ki iru Olorun.

" Deceive me not : — Because the Spice would yield nothing else but a sweet
and genuine odour unto Q-od."

Nka seru si 9 lailai.

" I shall never deal doubly with you all my life long."

Bi 9ro re ti r$n mi to, opin ni.

" The weight of your words to me is beyond all description."

Nitori lori eni kanna la njoko, t'a si nsun — lo je ki nranse si o.

" As it is on the same family mat we have been sitting and lying down
together — I send to you."

Nje eti re ni ngo ma re.

" I am therefore anxiously waiting and hoping to hear from you."

Fig. 5, Plate IV represents a message of peace and good news
from His Majesty the King of Je.bu to His Majesty the King of
Lagos, after his restoration to the throne on the 28th of December.
1851. It appears even more complicated, but the interpretation
is simple, enough. First we find eight cowries arranged in pairs,
and signifying the people in the four corners of the world, and
it will be observed, that while three of the pairs are arranged
with their faces upwards, the fourth and uppermost, i.e., the pair
in the. most important position, are facing one another, thus

298 G. W. BLOXAM. — Exhibition of West

signifying that the correspondents, or the people of Jebu and
Lagos are animated by friendly feelings towards each other ; so
too, there are two each of all the other objects, meaning " you
and I " — " we two." The two large seeds, or warres (a, a) express
a wish that "you and I" should play together as intimate friends
do, at the game of " warre," in which these seeds are used, and
which is the common game of the country, holding very much
the same position as chess or draughts with us ; the two flat
seeds (6, b) are seeds of a sweet fruit called " osan," the name
of which is derived from the verb " san" to please ; they, there-
fore, indicate a desire on the part of the sender of the message
to please and to be pleased ; lastly, the two pieces of spice (c, c)
signify mutual trust. The following is the full meaning of the
hieroglyphic.

Ninu gbogbo enia ti o kiin igun mererin aiye, ara Eko ati
Ijebu lo sun mora ju.

" Of all the people by which, the four corners of the world are inhabited, the
Lagos and Jebu people are the nearest."

Bi o ti je pe ere li a fi ay 6 se, b§ lo ye ki Je^bu ati ara Eko
ma sore pq.

" As ' warre ' is the common play of the country, so the Jebus and Lagos
should always play, and be friendly with each other."

Sisan li osan isan ni ; ki o ma sai san 9 bi o ti san mi.

" Mutual pleasantness is my desire ; as it is pleasant with me, so may it be
pleasant with you."

Maru : — Erun ki iru Olorun.

" Deceive me not : — Because the Spice would yield nothing else but a sweet
and genuine odour unto G-od. I shall never deal doubly with you."

As a general rule odd numbers are of evil import, while even
numbers express good will ; thus a single cowrie may be sent
as an unfavourable answer to a request or message, meaning :

(j)r9 na kan leti eni, ko se se.

"The matter is unpleasant to our hearing — not easy to be done."

Whereas it has been seen that two cowries facing one other
signify two blood relations ; two cowries, however, back to back
(Fig. 6, Plate IV) may be sent as a message of reproof for non-
payment of debt, thus :

0 ko ehin si mi patapata, lehin ti a ti ni qrq p$ nipa gbes& ti
o je mi, emi na yio si kehin si o.

" You have given me the back altogether, after we have come to an arrange-
ment about the debt you have owed me, I also will turn my back against you."

African Symbolic Messages. 299

Fig. 7, Plate IV, consisting of two cowries face to face followed
by one above, facing upwards, is a message from a creditor to a
bad debtor, and means :

O je mi ni gbese tan, o si ta mi nu ; emi na yio si ta o nu,
nitori emi ko m^ pe iw9 le se iru eyi si mi.

" After you have owed me a debt, you kicked against me ; I also will throw
you off, because I did not know that you could have treated me thus."

No. 8 (Fig. 8, Plate IV), which consists of four cowries in
pairs, face to face, is a message of goodwill from a brother to
another brother abroad, asking for a personal interview :

Ore) ayp ati erin ni. Ara wa le. Mo fe o ri, ki oju ti emi ati
tire ko se merin.

"It is a message of joy and gladness. We are all quite well in the family.
I would like to see you, so that the four eyes — yours and mine — may see each
other."

Explanation of Plate IY.

Figs. 1 to 8. — Eepresentations of the symbolic messages de-
scribed in the foregoing paper. The originals
were presented by Mr. Payne to Mr. E. N.
Cust, by whom they were transferred to the
Anthropological Institute : they are now in
the museum at Oxford under the care of Dr.
E. B. Tylor.

DISCUSSION.

DR. TYLOR called attention to the desirability of systematically
collecting examples of symbolic messages among all peoples, as
worked on their two main principles, viz., direct signification or
allusion, as when a bit of charcoal means death, andpunning significa-
tion, by a play upon words, as in many of the other examples brought
forward. The symbol-message survived in advanced civilisation,
typical instances being the classical message of the Scythians to
Darius consisting of a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows
(Herodot., IV, 131), and the episode of the woodcock's feather in
Scott's " Woodstock."

Sir JAMES MARSHALL and CAPTAIN MALONEY also joined in the
discussion.

The following paper was then read by the Secretary :

300 T. R GRIFFITH.— On the Races

On the EACES inhabiting SIERRA LEONE.
By T. E. GRIFFITH, Esq., Colonial Secretary at Sierra Leone.

I CANNOT imagine any place in Africa where there is such a
field for the Anthropologist who desires to study the varieties
of African men and races as Sierra Leone. It is peculiarly
situated in this respect, the colony having been the place to
which, for many years, were carried all liberated Africans
rescued by British men-of-war.

Hence the settled population in the present generation in-
cludes the children of an infinite variety of African races
drawn from a large portion of that great continent, wherever
the slave traders of Europe and America once carried on their
operations. Under British rule, these people are now gradually
settling down into one nation and the English language, or
rather a peculiar dialect of it, is commonly spoken, but the
process of amalgamation of tribes and races is very gradual,
and one unfortunate characteristic of the Sierra Leone com-
munity is the mutually exclusive tendencies and jealousies of
families and tribes according to the races from which their
liberated forefathers had sprung, although not breaking out
into tribal riots as they once did. This is still very observable
with juries in the law courts.

There is also, I may say, not yet any peculiar physical
characteristics which may be said to predominate, so that you
could distinguish a native negro of Sierra Leone as such from
the natives of the tribe of his particular forefathers.

In drawing up in my official capacity the instructions for
taking the census of the colony in 1881, it was necessary, as
far as possible, to distinguish between the various tribes within
the colony, but so numerous were those from whom the de-
scendants of liberated Africans were drawn, that it had to be
given up in their case, arid also in that of the natives of the
colony descended from independent peoples, who, attracted by
the security of British Government, had settled among them.
These classes of the people together numbered about 38,800,
out of a total population of 60,500. The remainder were
classed as Mandingoes, Timmanees, loloffs, Baggas, Mendis,
Sherbros, Gallinas, Limbas, Sosoos, Eoulahs, Loccos, Serrakulies,
Bulloms, Kroomen, West Indian negroes, and a population of
about 750 souls of whom no account of their race could be ob-
tained. These few particulars, which I am obliged to make as
short as possible, may serve to give an idea of the very wide
field for anthropological study, which is afforded by the colony
of Sierra Leone. Every type of West African feature, every

inhabiting Sierra Leone. 301

dialect of its numerous tongues, every variety of its costume
every peculiarity of its superstition and creed — from the belief
in Greegrees and fetish worship to the Monotheism of Mo-
hammed— may be met with either among the inhabitants or
irregular but frequent visitors from other parts of Africa.

To enter upon any large proportion of the innumerable in-
teresting topics thus afforded would require more time and
space than could be devoted to them within the limits of this
paper, and I therefore propose to confine what I have to say to
a few of the more characteristic and important.

Mixed up with the general population of liberated descent
are two peculiar tribes or families of somewhat different origin
known as the Nova Scotian settlers and the Maroons. The
former are descended from American negroes who had fought
under the English flag in the American war, at the close of
which they were placed by the British Government for their
safety in Nova Scotia, but suffering from the rigorous climate,
some 1,800 were in 1792 transferred to the settlement of Sierra
Leone. Having been free blacks and proprietors in the Southern
States trained under American slavery, they had no taste for
labour, and considered agriculture only fit for slaves. This led
to many troubles. Their numbers are decreasing. The Maroons
were natives of Jamaica, who claimed their freedom when Great
Britain took that island from the Spaniards. They had lived
in the mountains of Jamaica, and were not peaceable characters.
Some 550 were brought to the settlement in 1800. They
became useful and industrious men, notwithstanding their dis-
like for agriculture. They inhabit a quarter of Freetown named
Maroon town. Rankin, who visited Sierra Leone in 1834, states
they were originally principally of the Coromantin natives, and
were celebrated for fine muscular form, but their old nationality
was destroyed, and a new race generated by a mixture of
Spanish, and most probably Carib blood with the negro.

Among the permanent residents from other parts of Africa
are the Akus, the Eboes, and the Krooinen.

The Akus form the most numerous and important of the
distinctive races, having been originally liberated, living in
Sierra Leone.

Their name Aku, according to Dr. Clarke, signifies "How d'ye
do ? " They belong to a race of the interior, known as the Yoru-
bas, or Yarribeans, located on the Niger to the back of the
Eboe and Benin countries, where they form a large nation,
which has the British settlement of Lagos for its neighbour.
They have less of the characteristic features ot the typical
negro, their lips are less thick, and their noses more inclined to
the aquiline shape. They are among the most persevering and

VOL. XVI. Y

302 T. E. GRIFFITH.— On the Races

industrious people on the west coast of Africa. As a rule, they
are extremely parsimonious and consequently wealthy. They
make excellent traders, and are very speculative. The men are
generally very hardy, strong, and cunning in their dealings with
each other, but they exercise the virtue of obedience and union
for a common object of interest. They are jealous of each other
and dislike opposition from members of their own tribe, but
their chiefs have peculiar and secret means of enforcing
obedience and respect, which may be rather suspected or hinted
at than described. Their women are excellent traders. They
are quiet in- manner, and seldom show annoyance at the time
if you have given them offence, although at some future time
they may avenge it. The Akus of Sierra Leone are numerous,
rising in wealth and influence; those who are educated are
making great advances in civilisation and offshoots of them
have settled at Lagos. Some of those instructed and educated
at Sierra Leone have returned to Abeokuta, the principal
town of their own country, and rendered good service towards
the civilisation of their native state.

The Eboes are a numerous and thriving people at Sierra Leone
and many of them have acquired wealth and influence. They
come from a country on the west bank of the Eiver Niger,
not far from its fall into the sea, and those who inhabit that,
country are described as tall and robust, capable of enduring
great fatigue, frequently paddling their own large canoes for
forty-eight hours without taking food.

This description answers pretty well for those who have
settled in Sierra Leone, although my own observation tends
towards an opinion that those who have settled with us are
of slightly weaker physique. They are called Egboes, Igboes,
Eboes or Iboes, according as they inhabit various parts of
the territory, but the people under these various names are
really one race.

In colour they are much fairer than their neighbours nearer
the coast, many of them being of a light copper colour. Their
features are distinctly of the negro type, with retreating fore-
heads, flat noses, and thick lips. There are nine Eboe skulls in
the Museum of the Army Medical Department at Chatham,
which are all described by Staff-Surgeon Williamson as large,
capacious, oval, and well formed, with marked negro charac-
teristics. The teeth are prominent, but do not project very
much. One skull, described as that of a notorious Eboe thief,
is noticeable for great breadth between the eyes, projecting
teeth, broad and thick lower jaw, and great weight of skull, it
being 1 Ib. 11 oz. 3 drs. That of an Eboe girl has an oval
cranium, high, well-arched forehead, large nasal bones, great

inhabiting Sierra Leone. 303

breadth between the eyes, and slightly projecting teeth. In
their own country the Eboes are distinguished by peculiar
tattoo marks on their bodies, and the custom of tattooing is
not altogether given up even by the more civilised Eboes of
Sierra Leone, who are distinguished by three small marks on
each cheek. I may, however, remark that the custom is
gradually dying out.

One peculiarity of the Eboes is the superior social rank they
ascribe to women, in which they form a pleasing contrast to
most other uncivilised tribes, they have a strict Salic law, and
never allow in their own country a women to occupy the
throne.

I hasten to add, however, that my Eboe friends in Sierra
Leone are as loyal subjects of Queen Victoria as any to be
found within her wide dominions. They are an imitative people
adapting themselves readily to the manners and customs of
others. An Eboe gentleman of Sierra Leone, since deceased,
not long ago attained to university honours in this country, and
was called to the English bar, adapting himself completely to
the manners and customs of the legal profession.

They desire to excel in whatever they undertake. It was
noticed of the Eboes in the old slavery days that the degreda-
tion of slavery had a more galling and depressing effect upon
their minds than upon those of most other tribes. They are of
a determined nature, fierce and boisterous. Sir Eichard Burton
regards them in their uncivilized condition as one of the most
ferocious and dangerous of African tribes. Their tempests of
passion are quickly over

Kroomen. — Whatever may have been the origin of the Kroos
they are a very decidedly distinct and peculiar African people.
One district of Freetown is inhabited entirely by the Kroomen,
to whom the Government of the colony allow what I might
almost call a modified sort of Home Eule in that district, that
is to say, their petty disputes and small local disturbances are
allowed to be settled by their own chief, who is called the Kroo
king, the Government interfering only in serious cases. In one
respect, they resemble the white people of the colony residing
there for purposes of gain and trade without the intention of
actual settlement. The Kroo population of Freetown is almost
entirely masculine, there being very few females among the six
or seven hundred of them. They are a most industrious, thrifty
and intelligent people, contrasting in these respects most favour-
ably with all other Africans. They are employed as boatmen,
labourers, outdoor servants, and cooks. They all come from a
part of the Grain Coast to the south, below Cape Palmas, known
as the Kroo coast. The great ambition of a large number is to

Y 2

I
304 T. E. GRIFFITH.— On the Races

save money and return to their native country, to have a plurality
of wives, and enjoy for a time ease without labour.

As a people they are willing, quiet, and obedient workers : few
of them have any religion at all. As a general rule, they are
averse to the influences of civilisation, only a very few in
Sierra Leone having adopted Christianity.

Their chief mental characteristic is a strong attachment to
their native country, and their native manners and customs.
Even on board H.M. ships, where numbers are employed, it is
found advisable to permit their own headmen to exercise
authority over them. They are seldom tall, but are well made,
vigorous and active. As a race, they have more regular
features than the lower class of negroes, and are distinguished
from other natives of the coast by an appearance of muscular
strength and a greater aptitude for labour. They have been
nicknamed " the Scotchmen of Africa " from their love of
emigration. to seek their fortunes.

Their complexion varies much from a dark brown to a
perfect black, yet a Krooman can always be recognised by a
peculiar mark consisting of a broad blue black line running from
the forehead down the face to the end of the nose. Many of
the women are tattoed in this fashion.

The Kroomen have never engaged in the slave trade, having
the greatest abhorrence of slavery. Even in the worst slave-
trading days there was never, says Sir E. Burton, any amount
of slave trading from the Kroo country.

In our recent expedition up the Nile the British Govern-
ment engaged over 300 Kroomen on account of their special
skill in boat management ; 200 of these were drawn from Sierra
Leone, and the official reports which I have perused accord
them high praise. The opinion of their value as good workers
is universal ; but they do not bear a good character for honesty.

Outside the colonial borders our nearest neighbours are the
Timmanees ; a short canoe journey carries on« into their country,
where we find ourselves in the midst of native peculiarities, and
in a state of society in some respects as little influenced by
our vicinity as though it were 1,000 miles away.

The nation is extensive, but is now much divided. They
were the original possessors of the soil of the settlement, the
present country of the Timmanees borders each bank of the
Eoquelle and Scarcies rivers, touching the Soosoos on the latter,
and the territory of the Foulahs to the north-west. Our
Government has treaties of friendship and peace with nearly
all the Timmanee chiefs, many of them being in receipt of yearly
stipends which they value. Yet we have not been without
much trouble with them.

inhabiting Sierra Leonr. 305

When speaking, however, of these countries bordering on
Sierra Leone, it would be erroneous if we conceived them as
being settled and homogeneous. The jurisdiction of any chief
seldom extends beyond his own cluster of villages, and the
rivalries of contending chiefs lead to a constant state of in-
ternecine strife. The practice of hiring war boys by contend*
ing chiefs who are paid only by plunder and the capture of
prisoners who are kept or sold as slaves exists.

From these and other causes the Timmanee people, and, in
fact, most of the border lands of Sierra Leone, are seldom long
at peace, and their disturbances are a serious hindrance to
the trade of the colony. The Timmanees themselves are a
middle-sized, muscular, and well- formed race. Their language
is harsh and guttural. They are pagans, believers in fetish.
Some profess Mohammedanism, but more in name than prac-
tice. Polygamy is universal, and as a rule, they treat their
women kindly. The dress of the men in the more uncivilised
places is simply a small cotton cloth round the loins, but the
well-to-do wear either the Foulah costume, or a sort of smock
frock of native make, rudely dyed in yellow or blue patterns of
native manufacture, specimens of which were displayed in the
West African Department of the Colonial and Indian Exhibition.

By way of ornament, they wear all manner of articles, as
fetishes, greegrees, amulets, talismans, and charms. The women
wear personal ornaments of the same nature : a very peculiar
article of female dress is a belt of beads placed at first on
infants soon after birth and the custom never abandoned during
life, being worn next the skin over the hips. The strings are
commonly called jiggydahs, and form an article of trade and
manufacture. The commonest are black, and made from cocoa
and palm nut shells cut into beads ; some again are of leather.
There is no metallic currency among the Timmanees, or any
other of the neighbouring tribes, but from their association
and proximity to the coast, they understand and appreciate our
coinage.

The country produces rice and benni seed in great abundance,
and if peace prevailed very large quantities could be grown and
sent to Freetown. The Timmanee dwellings are huts, often
built so close together that a passage between them is diffi-
cult ; they are sometimes square but mostly circular, and are
made of wattle and daub, or sometimes mud; generally they
possess only one room, but sometimes they are divided with a
low partition. The seats are of hardened mud, the door a mat
fastened against the opening. Cooking pots made of clay, and
iron pots imported from England with cutlasses and baskets
form the principal articles of domestic use.

»
306 T. E. GRIFFITH.— On the Races

A system of internal slavery exists, but it is in the main of a
very mild character, and, unless in times of war, slaves seldom
desert their masters.

The Mendis are a large tribe, occupying ground at the back
of the Sherbro country. They are a warlike and, at times, a
troublesome people. Their chief town is Tyama, about 150
miles inland. They are thorough pagans, and probably there
is no tribe near to Sierra Leone that indulges so much in
superstitions of every description. We have on more than one
occasion found them useful allies. Journeys of some distance
into their country were made by two colonial officials, Messrs.
Budge and Laborde, at different times, and their accounts are
most interesting.

At the present time their country is much disturbed by in-
ternal feuds. It is a matter of general opinion that that por-
tion of their country which is near the coast is continually
at war with some neighbouring chief whilst their interior
vegions are generally peaceful and given to agriculture.

The Mandingoes are perhaps the most industrious, energetic
people of interior Western Africa. Among genuine negro
tribes they have shown the greatest aptitude for improvement.
They are zealous and sincere Mohammedans. Their traders
are very generally distributed. Their colour is black, with an
admixture of yellow, and in general physiognomy they bear
more resemblance to the black races of India than to the
negroes. Their hair is woolly. In stature they are tall and
slim, and their figure is well formed. They are settled in great
numbers in the Soosoo country, and although they live princi-
pally in the Futah Jallon country, they are to be found over a
large area ; in 1881 there were over 1,200 in Sierra Leone.
Their chiefs attain to great power and influence. Where they
settle they engage in trade, and such manufactures as may be
open to them. They are skilful as blacksmiths and tanners of
leather which they dye with skill and work up, and plait into
patterns of various descriptions. Many samples of articles were
to be seen in the Colonial Exhibition. They also form hand-
some articles with considerable taste with the dyed wools im-
ported from Europe, and the Mandingo gowns formed an impor-
tant feature of the West Africa Settlements exhibits. General
opinion inclines to the belief that the physical and material
superiority of the Mandingoes over other tribes is due to the
circumstance that they have been long civilized, so far as the
profession of Mohammedanism implies it, and it is not too much
to suppose that had other uncivilised African tribes been sub-
ject to the same influence they would have been in a better con-
dition than they are at the present moment.

inhabiting Sierra Leone. 307

Next to the Mandingoes, and allied to them are the Foulahs, a
singular race of people who, during the present century, have
spread themselves as conquerors over a great part of the interior.
They are distinguished by a very light complexion (looking down
upon the negroes, as — being themselves whites — they are fre-
quently not much darker than may be seen in the south of
Europe), and a cast of features approximating more to the
European or Arab type than to the negro. They have long
black ringlets hanging down to their shoulders, thoughtful
eyes, and they move with measured steps.

There are, however, some Foulahs, who through intermarriage
with negroes have become of a black complexion. Foulah
traders visit Sierra Leone from even the most distant parts of
the interior bringing with them gold, ivory, and various articles
of produce. These are usually rich, though not by any means
cleanly in person or habits. The Foulahs, who are settled in
Sierra Leone and its neighbourhood, are handicraftsmen of
various kinds, making sandals and pouches, plaiting straw for
hats, or writing out verses of the Koran, which may be sold for
greegrees or charms. They also work as gold or silversmiths,
the rings of precious metals marked with the signs of the
Zodiac shown in the Exhibition, may be taken as specimens of
their skill. They also excel in steel, and the leather work for
which Africa has been long famous. They are believed to be
a mixed race sprung from the Berber inhabitants of the African
shores of the Mediterranean, with a considerable infusion of
Arab blood. Their precise origin is an unsettled question, but
at all events, like the negro Mandingoes, they have acquired,
and are still acquiring, considerable power among all the in-
terior races whom British influence as yet scarcely reaches, and
of whom we know very little.

The Soosoos occupy a country north-east of Sierra Leone
from the Eiver Kissi Kissi, extending beyond the Eio Pongas
nearly as far as Eio Nunez.

Large numbers of them are still heathens, but most are
Mohammedans : they were originally a branch of the Mandingo
race, but, migrating to this country, dispossessed the former in-
habitants, the Baggas, and others, and by frequent intermar-
riages with them, now form a distinct people. They were once
very powerful and warlike, that is according to African
standards, and the Timmanees, their neighbours, had to appeal
to the Colonial Government for assistance against them, but of
late years the Timmanees have been able to hold their own
against them. Their language is soft, pleasing, and musical,
and has been termed by some the Italian of West Africa ; it
is spoken over a great part of West Africa, and is understood
by many Foulahs and Mandingoes.

308 T. E. GRIFFITH. — On the Races

They are, for Africans, fairly industrious, and send consider-
able quantities of produce into the colony. Some of them are
tall, fine-looking men. Domestic slavery prevails extensively,
and they have proved very intractable to civilising processes,
although apt and quick to learn. Many of them become war
boys.

The Sherbros form a large population of British subjects, their
country having been annexed to the colony in 1861 by Governor
Hill. These manifest the advantages of being placed under
settled rule, and are becoming an orderly and tolerably pros-
perous community. Their progress in peaceful trading is re-
tarded by perpetual broils and wars among the fiercer tribes
around them.

But as the advantages of quiet and good order become more
and more widely known, there is a greater influx of inhabitants
from among the wild tribes who settle down as peaceful subjects
of Her Majesty. The trade of the rivers, in spite of the fre-
quent disturbances, affords an important contribution towards
the prosperity of the colony.

When I add that, until very lately, the Sherbro country was
one of the principal seats of the external slave trade, the pre-
sent improved condition of its people must be the more gratify-
ing. The people are lighter in colour, and of weaker physique
than the Soosoos. The Vei or Vey people, whose country lies
between Cape Mount and Cape Mesurado, are spread over a
country along the coast to the south of Sherbro, of which very
little is known, and which is not much visited, but the coast
line of which, as far as the territory of Liberia, has lately
been added to British jurisdiction. There are a number of
small and perpetually discordant tribes spread over this
country, among whom the Yeis occupy a position of some
superiority. These people are remarkable among Africans for
having invented an alphabet and written language of their
own, not being derived from those of any other people, and
which has become extensively known and used among the
natives of the West coast.

There are several interesting customs prevalent among nearly
all the tribes of whom I have spoken, but I fear I have tres-
passed far beyond the limits of this paper, and will, therefore,
name them as shortly as possible.

One is the custom of circumcising not only the males but
also the females. This is called Boondoo. It is particularly
prevalent among the Mendis and the Soosoos. Several Boondoo
masks, and other articles connected with the rite, were shown
in the Colonial and Indian Exhibition. Girls of eleven to four-
teen years of age and older are taken into the Boondoo bush

inhabiting Sierra Leone. 309

and kept in seclusion under strict watch by certain old women
who have charge of the ceremony, while they are taught
Boondoo songs and dances. After a certain period the opera-
tion is performed of excising the clitoris at midnight, and under
a full moon, with much singing, dancing, and hideous noises by
the women, the presence of men being specially forbidden.

The girls are then cut on their backs and loins in such a
manner as to leave raised scars which project above the surface
of the skin about one-eighth of an inch. They then receive
Boondoo names, and after recovery from the painful operations,
are released from Boondoo with great ceremony and gesticulation
by some who personate " Boondoo devils," with the hideous
masks, &c. (shown in the Sierra Leone cases). The girls are
then publicly pronounced marriageable.

Of kindred character is the institution of Porroh among the
men. There are two kinds, the religious and the political.
No one is admitted to Porroh without being circumcised. He
must live in the Porroh Bush for a time strictly secluded,
especially from the sight of women, during which time he is
said to be eaten by the Porroh devil. After he is initiated he
receives a Porroh name, and is released ; such is a brief outline
of the religious Porroh.

The political Porroh is more select, and is used for arranging
the affairs of the tribes, settling disputes and making laws.
Wars are sometimes said to be stopped by arbitration of the
Porroh. It is known, however, that Porroh is often used for
bad purposes, and much of the trouble arising on the borders of
Sierra Leone is traceable to Porroh, and the scheming and mis-
chief which is hatched in its seclusion. Its representatives cr
messengers are always held sacred like the ambassadors or
heralds of civilised countries. Mohammedan traders, and even
some Europeans, have been known to be admitted as Porroh
men for the sake of gaining political influence.

The field for anthropological observation afforded by the
mixed populations in and around Sierra Leone is so extensive
that, although I have been able to glance at only a small
portion of it, and to speak as briefly as possible, I have said
sufficient to show how much instruction and advantage may
be derived from its more extensive study.

DISCUSSION.

Sir JAMES MARSHALL, on being called upon to Speak, said that he
had never resided in the Sierra Leone Settlements, and therefore
could not make any remarks on Mr. Risely Griffiths' paper. The
speaker's residence was on the Gold Coast, and in confirmation of
the view that the language spoken at Sierra Leone is one of its

310 List of Presents.

own, he added that whenever Sierra Leone people appeared in
Court he had to get the services of an interpreter.

Captain MALONEY, Governor of the Gold Coast, also joined in the
discussion.

The Rev. GEORGE BROWN then made some remarks on the
" Papuans and Polynesians," but the formal reading of his paper
on this subject was adjourned until the next meeting.

DECEMBER 14TH, 1886.

FRANCIS GALTON, Esq., F.K.S., President, in the Chair.
The Minutes of the last meeting were read and signed.

The election of J. A. OTONBA PAYNE, Esq., of Lagos, as an
ordinary member, and of W. J. HOFFMAN, Esq., M.D., of
Washington, D.C., U.S.A., as a corresponding member was
announced.

The following presents were announced, and thanks voted to
the respective donors : —

FOR THE LIBRARY.

From the AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION. — The Library Journal.

Vol. II, No. 1.
From the UNITED STATES' GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. — Bulletin, Nos.

27-29.
From Professor AGASSIZ. — Annual Report of the Curator of the

Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College, for

1885-86.
From the AUTHOR. — Congres International des Americanistes.

Sixieme Session, Turin. By Baron J. de Baye.

Die Herkunf t der Arier. By Karl Penka.

Ueber eine in zwei Zipfel auslaufende, rechtsseitige Vorder-

flosse bei eineni Exemplare von Protopterus annectens, Ow.

By Prof. Dr. Paul Albrecht.
Ueber den morphologischen Werth iiberzahliger Finger und

Zehen. By Prof. Dr. Paul Albrecht.
Ueber den morphologischen Sitz der Hasenscharten-Xiefer-

spalte. By Prof. Dr. Paul Albrecht.
Ueber die morphologische Bedeuhmg von Penischisis, Epi-

und Hypospadie. By Prof. Dr. Paul Albrecht.
Ueber die morphologische Bedeutung der Penischisis, Epi-

und Hypospadie des Menschen. By Prof. Dr. Paul

Albrecht.

EEV. G. BROWN. — Papuans and Polynesians. 311

From the AUTHOE. — Zur Diskussion der die Hasenscharten und
schragen Gesichtsspalten betreffenden Vortrage der Herren
Biondi und Morian. By Prof. Dr. Paul Albrecht.

" Herr Paul Albrecht zum letzten Male." Antwort auf den

gleichnamigen Aufsatz des Herrn Geheimrathes Professor
Dr. von Kolliker vom 12 August, 1885, in den Sitzungs-
berichten der Wurzburger Physicalisch - medicinischen
Gesellschaft vom Jahre 1885, von Prof. Dr. Paul Albrecht.

From the ACADEMY. — Bulletin de 1' Academic Imperiale des
Sciences de St. Petersbourg. T. xxxi, No. 2.

Boletin de la Academia Nacional de Ciencias en Cordoba.

Tom. viii, Ent. 4.

Atti della Reale Accademia dei Lincei. Vol. II., Fas. 5, 6.

Pamietnik Akademii Umiejetnosci w Krakowie, Wydzial

Matematyczno-Przyrodniczy. Tom. x, xi.

From the ASSOCIATION. — Proceedings of the Geologists' Associa-
tion. Vol. 9. No. 7.

From the INSTITUTE. — Proceedings of the Canadian Institute.
No. 146.

From the SOCIETY. — Journal of the Society of Arts. Nos. 1775-
1777.

Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society. 1886.

December.

Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. No.

123.

Boletin da Sociedade de Geographia de Lisboa. 6a Serie.

No. 5.

From the EDITOR.— Nature. Nos. 891-893.

- Science. Nos. 197-198.

- Photographic Times. Nos. 269-272.

American Antiquarian, 1886. November. Vol. viii. No. 6.

L'Homme, 1886. Nos. 17, 18.

Materiaux pour 1'Histoire primitive et naturelle de I'Homnie.

1886. November.

The following paper was read in the author's absence by Dr.
E. B. TYLOR, F.E.S. :—

PAPUANS and POLYNESIANS.
By the EEV. GEORGE BROWN.

AMONGST the difficult questions of the day, are those of the
original home of the races which inhabit Australia and the large
groups of islands in the Pacific, and their affinity and identity with
each other. They present such diversities of appearance, of lan-
guage, and of customs, that the attempt to reduce them to

312 REV. G. BKOWN. — Papuans and Polynesians.

a common type might almost be considered a hopeless one.
The tendency, however, of anthropological science of the pre-
sent day is to decrease the number of so-called special types in
the Pacific. But opinions differ very much indeed as to the
number of types to which the inhabitants of Australasia may
be referred, and also as to the names by which they are to be
distinguished.

The aboriginals of Australia present, perhaps, the greatest
difficulty. Wallace, whilst maintaining that "the distinction
that has been drawn between the Papuans proper and a special
Melanesian type seems needless and fanciful," also declares that
" the Papuan must not be identified with the Australian, the
results of extensive philological researches being entirely
opposed to such a conclusion." One must needs be careful when
venturing to dissent from such a careful observer and writer as
Mr. Wallace is ; and I do not now maintain that the identity of
Australians and Papuans can be proved. All that I wish to
notice is, that the only proof which Mr. Wallace gives as a
reason for his opinion, namely, that " the Australian idioms are
characterised exclusively by suffix formations whereas the
Papuan tongues shew a preference rather for prefixes, a funda-
mental difference altogether excluding any relationship between
the two linguistic systems," is not borne out by our knowledge
of Papuan dialects. I think Mr. Wallace has, in this instance,
confounded the older Papuan with the later Polynesian lan-
guage. The Papuan languages are all full of suffix formations ;
so that this " fundamental difference " at all events does not
exist. It will be well, however, here to state what is one
object of this present paper. For many years of my mission
life I quietly accepted the old Malayo-Polynesian theory of the
origin of the Polynesian races, and of course regarded the black
frizzly-haired Melanesians or Papuans as constituting a radically
distinct and separate race, with no identity in origin and little
or no affinity in language. It was, however, my duty after
spending some fourteen years in Samoa, to be stationed for some
years amongst a purely Papuan people who were absolutely un-
touched by foreign influences, and whose language had never
been reduced to a written form. A comparison of their lan-
guage, manners, and customs, did much to shake my belief in
old theories ; and whatever position may be assigned to the
Australian and Tasmanian races, I am pretty confident that
there are no insuperable difficulties in classing the Papuan and
Polynesian races under one general type, the Papuan consti-
tuting the older branch of the family. This is substantially the
theory advanced by Mr. Wallace in his " Malay Archipelago,"
where, after describing the different races, he says (p. 592) " I

REV. G. BROWN. — Papuans and Polynesians. 3 1 3

believe, therefore, that the numerous intermediate forms that
occur among the countless islands of the Pacific, are not merely
the result of a mixture of these races, but are, to some extent,
truly intermediate or transitional ; and that the brown and the
black, the Papuan, the natives of Gilolo and Ceram, the Fijian,
the inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands, and those of New
Zealand, are all varying forms of one great Oceanic or Polynesian
race.

It is, however, quite possible, and perhaps probable, that the
brown Polynesians were originally the produce of a mixture of
Malays, or some lighter-coloured Mongol race with the dark
Papuans ; but if so, the intermingling took place at such a
remote epoch, and has been so assisted by the continued in-
fluence of physical conditions and of natural selection, leading
to the preservation of a special type suited to those conditions,
that it has become a fixed and stable race with no signs of
moQgrelism, and showing such a decided preponderance of
Papuan character, that it can best be classified as a modification
of the Papuan type. The occurrence of a decided Malay ele-
ment in the Polynesian languages, has evidently nothing to do
with any such ancient physical connection. It is altogether a
recent phenomenon, originating in the roaming habits of the
chief Malay tribes; and this is proved by the fact that we find
actual modern words of the Malay and Javanese languages in
Polynesia, so little disguised by peculiarities of pronunciation as
to be easily recognisable — not mere Malay roots, only to be
detected by the elaborate researches of the philologist, as would
certainly have been the case had their introduction been as
remote as the origin of a very distinct race, a race as different
from the Malay in mental and moral, as it is in physical,
characters."

Mr. Wallace, in his " Australasia " has somewhat modified this
opinion, and states (p. 261) " The editor of this volume has
always maintained that the brown Polynesians are really quite
distinct from the Malays, and, except in colour, seem to have
more affinity with the dark woolly-haired races of the Pacific ;
or, which now seems more probable, are equally distinct from
both." This view is supported by two writers who have great
knowledge of the races and languages of the Pacific. The late
Mr. W. S. W. Vaux, in a paper on the " Probable Origin of the
Maories," read before the Anthropological Institute in 1876,
maintains that there was once a distinct Polynesian language,
and that the connection of the modern languages of the brown
Polynesians with the Malay is by no means so intimate as many
able philologists have asserted. Still more important and
weighty is the evidence of Mr. W. L. Eanken, who, in a paper

314 EEV. Gr. BROWN. — Papuans and Polynesians.

on the " South Sea Islanders/' read before the same society a few
months later, proposes the native term " Mahori " for the brown
Polynesians, and shows that their language is totally distinct
from the Malay, has a different construction, has very few
Malay roots, and only a few quite recent Malay words. Though
resembling Malays both physically and mentally in some
respects, the Mahoris differ greatly from them in others. They
have a much greater average height, their features are much
more of the European type, and their hair is typically wavy.
He traces this race to Samoa as their first home in the Pacific,
but primarily from some part of the Asiatic continent. He
says, " we are thus led to these conclusions ; that they are of
some kindred race to the Malays, of Mongolian stock ; that they
have separated from that stock as distinctly, and perhaps as
early, as the Malays themselves, and always had a distinct
language ; that they dwelt some time in Papua, and perhaps
in other lands of the Malay Archipelago, and there learnt some
new words from Malay traders ; thence they migrated to Samoa,
and have since colonised the South Sea, sometimes displacing
Papuan settlers. In spreading northwards from Samoa they
met another branch of their own family in the Kingsmill
Islands, who had probably travelled along the Caroline Archi-
pelago from the Philippines, and show another exodus of the
same family about the same time. This convergence of the
views of three modern writers, each starting from a different
point and reasoning from a distinct set of observations, as to
the radical distinctness of the Malays and the brown Poly-
nesians will justify us in giving up the term Malay o-Polynesian
as altogether misleading."

It is in my opinion unfortunate that Mr. Wallace did so
modify his original theory. It will also be seen that I differ
from Mr. Vaux and Mr. Eanken, principally on one point only,
namely, that they, whilst maintaining that the Polynesian is
distinct from the Malay, also maintain that he is radically
distinct from the Papuan, whilst I maintain his original identity
with that race.

Professor A. H. Keane, who, in " Nature," and in this Journal
has contributed a good deal to the literature of this subject,
divides these races into three families.

I. The dark races, which embrace —

(a) Australians.

(e) Negrito, as ^Eta, Samang, and Mincopies, or Andaman

Islanders.
(i) Papuans, with east and west branches.

II. Brown, or Indo-Pacific races, embracing — -

REV. G. BKOWN. — Papuans and Polynesians. 315

(a) What has usually been called the Malayo-Polynesian

race ; but which he calls Mahori.
(e) Mikronesians.
(t) Malays proper.

Mr. Keane maintains (" Journ. Anthrop. Inst.," Vol. ix) that
the difference in language and physical types of the brown races
are far too varied to be derived from one stock ; that there are
elements in the Malay language and races absolutely non-
existent in those of the Eastern Pacific, while the Polynesian
possesses characteristics of type and speech it could not have
derived from the Malay. That Crawfurd is astray in assuming
that the common linguistic element of all the brown people from
Madagascar to Easter Island is not organic but of recent date,
and borrowed from the Malay. On the contrary, this universal
element is fundamental, pre-historic, a joint inheritance, coeval
with the first dispersion, preserved more faithfully by the
eastern branch than by the Malayan.

He declares that Mr. Wallace rightly separates the Malays
from the Papuans, and connects them with the Mongolians.

" I substitute,"^ he says, " for Malayo - Polynesian Indo-
Pacific." He sums up his own conclusion as follows : —

I. Both of the great Asiatic types, the Caucasian and
Mongolian have occupied the Indo-Chinese peninsula.

II. The brown races of Malaysia consist exclusively of these
two elements variously intermingled, the Caucasian being the
substratum.

III. The large brown Eastern Polynesian consists exclusively
of the Caucasian element.

IV. Negrito Autochthones of Indo-Chinese and West
Malayans, have been rather supplanted than absorbed by Cau-
casian and Mongolians.

V. The Papuan Autochthones of Eastern Malay and Western
Polynesian have been absorbed rather than supplanted, the
fusion producing Melanesians in the east, and Alfuros in the
west.

Their movements were first south from Asia, then from the
Archipelago east to the Pacific. The lighter races, the aggres-
sors, extirpated the Negritos in Western Polynesia, but inter-
mingled with the Papuans in the east.

There is no Malayan type. It is not a racial designation.

What relations are the brown Malaysian to the brown
Polynesian ? His view is that the Caucasian Malayan broke
away east at the same time as the arrival of the Mongolians, and
that the Sawaiori are their descendants.

Prof. Keane also maintains, in the appendix to Wallace's

316 KEY. G. BROWN. — Papuans and Polynesians.

" Australasia/' that the Malayan is rather a modification
of the Mahori (Polynesian) than the reverse (p. 611). He
says the Mahori is a pure and unmixed race if any such is
still 'to be found any where on the globe. Then to get rid of the
difficulty found in the fact that the Mahoris have, as stated,
almost certainly migrated from their present Malayan region
eastward to their actual Pacific domain, he supposes the
Eastern Archipelago to have been originally peopled by
Polynesian races. In proof of this he describes Mantawey
Islanders as pure Polynesians. The presence of the Mahori
(Polynesian) people on the extreme western boundary of the
Malayan dominion, cannot, he says, be accounted for by as-
suming a more recent migration across all the vast and often
densely peopled Papuan and Malayan region, from Samoa
westward to or beyond Sumatra. " Hence," he says, " the in-
evitable conclusion that these Manataweys are here autoch-
thonous, possibly the only remnant of the Western Mahoris that
has escaped contact and fusion with the intruding sub-
Mongolian and other Asiatic races. In short, the Mahoris went
eastward, while the common speech was still everywhere in its
present primitive state, and before, or possibly even in con-
sequence of the eruptions from the north — eruptions modifying
in the west the type which preserved its purity under exceptional
circumstances in the east" (p. 613). In this latter idea he
seems to agree with Pomander ; but the great difference which
exists between Mr. Keane, and those who think with Mr.
Wallace, Mr. Wake, and others is, that he still adheres to his
assertion that the Papuan and Polynesian (or Mahori as he
calls them) constitute absolutely distinct and separate races.

Judge Fornauder, of Hawaii, has written fully on the question,
and his theory will be shown by the following extracts in
which he sums up " I think the facts collected in the foregoing
attempt to satisfactorily solve the question of the Polynesian
origin, will warrant the conclusion that the various branches of
that family, from New Zealand to the Hawaiian group, and from
Easter Island to the outlying eastern portion of the Fiji
Archipelago, are descended from a people that was agnate to,
but far older than the Vedic family of the Arian race ; that it
entered India before these Vedic Arians ; that there it underwent
a mixture with the Dravidian race, which, as in the case of the
Vedic Arians themselves, has permanently affected its com-
plexion ; that there also, in greater or less degree, it became
moulded to the Cushite- Arabian civilisation of that time ; that,
whether driven out of India by force, or voluntarily leaving for
colonising purposes, it established itself in the Indian Archipelago
at an early period, and spread itself from Sumatra to Timor and

EEV. G. BROWN. — Papuans and Polynesians. 317

Luzon ; that here the Cushite influence became paramount to
such a degree as to completely engraft its own legends, myths,
cult, and partially its institutions upon the folk-lore and
customs of the Polynesians ; that it was followed in this Archi-
pelago by Brahmanised or Buddhist Ario-Dravidians from the
eastern coasts of Deccan, with a probably strong Burmah-
Tibetan admixture, who, in their turn, but after protracted
struggles, obtained the ascendency and drove the Polynesians to
the mountain ranges and the interior of the larger islands, or
compelled them to leave altogether; that no particular time
can be assigned for leaving the Indian Archipelago and pushing
into the Pacific, it may have occurred centuries before the
present era, but was certainly not later than about the first
century of it ; that the diversity of features and complexion in
the Polynesian family, the frequent broad forehead, Ptoman nose,
light olive complexion, wavy and sometimes ruddy hair, attest as
much its Arian descent and Cushite connection as its darker
colour, its spreading nostrils, and its black eyes attest its
mixture with the Dravidian race ; and, finally, that if the
present Hindu is a Vedic descendant, the Polynesian is a fortiori
a Vedic ancestor" (pp. 159, 160).

Mr. C. Staniland Wake is one of the more recent writers who
combats Mr. Keane's opinions, and substantially agrees with
Mr. Wallace in the most important points. Mr. Wake objects
to Mr. Keane's definitions and classification, more especially as
regards his first class of dark races, in which he includes
Negritos, Papuans, and Australians. Wake argues that the
great difference in the long straight hair of Australia, and the
woolly and frizzly haired Negrito and Papuan is against this
classification. Also that Australians and Papuans are full-
bearded and Negritos are beardless, also Negritos are short-
headed and Papuans are long-headed. Wake then says (" Journ.
Anthrop. Institute/' vol. xii) "that it may be much doubted
whether the Polynesians do not in reality possess as many
features in common with the Papuans as with the Caucasian
tribes of Indo- China " (p. 204) ; and a little further on he
says "the existence of differences of no little importance
between the Polynesian and Papuan is perfectly consistent
with those races having been derived from a common stock."
He attaches also great importance to the fact that in the
Malay Archipelago are natives intermediate between the two,
namely, Ceram, Bouru, &c. Wallace, however, describes these
Ceramese as undoubted Papuans (p. 401). Wake sums up as
follows : —

1. The Eastern Archipelago was at a very early period in-
habited by a straight-haired race belonging to the so-called
VOL. xvi. z

318 EEV. G. BROWN. — Papuans and Polynesians.

Caucasian stock, the purest modern representatives of which are
the Australians.

2. To this race belonged also ancestors of all the Oceanic
races, including the Papuans. Micronesians, Tasmanians, and the
Polynesians.

3. The special peculiarities of the dark races are due to the
introduction of various foreign elements, the Negritos having
influenced all of them in varying degrees.

4. The lighter Oceanic races show traces of the Negrito in-
fluence ; but they have been affected at various periods by inter-
mixture with peoples from the Asiatic area, giving rise on the
one hand to the so-called savage Malayan, and on the other to
the Polynesians, who have been specially affected by the
Malays.

5. Traces of an Arab or Semitic element are apparent among
the dark and light Oceanic races, but chiefly among the Papuans
and the Melanesians, the former of whom may also possess a
Hindu admixture.

These conclusions probably require, as Mr. Keane supposes,
the Negritos to have been the earliest inhabitants of the Eastern
Archipelago; but there is less truth in Mr. Keane's further
supposition, that this primitive race, spreading north over the
Asiatic continent, became, under more temperate climes,
different, first into the yellow Mongol, and then, through it,
into the fair Caucasian type, returning in subsequent ages to
its original home of Malays and Polynesians.

He then adverts to Whitmee's theory, " that not only are the
whole of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, together with those
of the Indian Archipelago and the Malagasy, more or less
changed branches from an original root-stock, of which the
Malay is more changed than any of the others ; but that first the
Papuan language and then the Australian must be affiliated to
the same stock, the original form of which they approach still
nearer to than either the Malay or the Polynesian branches."
This opinion, which agrees with that of other competent
authorities, coincides with my theory, and it would be no less
strongly supported by a consideration of the manner and
culture of the Oceanic races.

Keane replied to Wake, very strongly objecting to some of
his conclusions. He said " the linguistic element, treated
vicariously if not altogether ignored by Wake, possesses in this
area quite an exceptional importance. Hence it could not be
too widely known that after fuller research Von der Gabelentz
had abandoned his former views and now held that the Papuan
and Polynesian languages, like the races, were fundamentally
distinct. In this conclusion Dr. A. B. Meyer acquiesced, and there

REV. G. BROWN. — Papuans and Polynesians. 319

could be little doubt that Mr. Codrington would agree with
Mr. Whitmee that the two forms of speech had nothing in
common beyond superficial resemblances, or what might be due
to mutual borrowings."

A resumt of this may now be given. Wallace believes that
these peoples are all varying forms of one great Oceanic or
Polynesian race. Keane believes in two distinct races amongst
the blacks, and that the Mahori, so far from being a modifica-
tion of the Malay, is a pure language ; and, as he thinks, the
Malay is more probably a modification of the Mahori or Eastern
Polynesian. He also maintains that the Papuan and Mahori
are essentially and radically distinct races and languages.

Fornander believes that the Polynesians were the original
inhabitants of Malaysia prior to the irruption of Malays ; that
they were driven out from there and so peopled Eastern Poly-
nesia. He also maintains that the Papuan and Polynesian are
distinct peoples.

Mr. Wake believes, as already quoted, that the Eastern Archi-
pelago was once inhabited by a straight-haired race belonging
to the so-called Caucasian stock, of which the aboriginal
inhabitants of Australia are the purest modern representatives;
that these were the ancestors of all these Papuan and Poly-
nesian peoples, and that the special differences which exist
amongst them are due to the introduction of various foreign
elements, the Negritos having influenced all of them in varying
degrees.

He accounts for the lighter races as having been specially
affected by admixture with peoples from the Asiatic area, and
so giving rise to the so-called " savage Malay," on the one hand,
and to the Polynesian on the other (" Journ. Anthrop. Inst,"
vol. xii.)

There are, of course, some other theories, such as that of
Taylor (Te Ika a Mam) and others, that the Polynesians came
from America, but I do not discuss them now.

My own opinion is that Mr. Wallace and Mr. Wake are very
much nearer to the truth than any of the others. I cannot,
however, now go into the question of the original habitat, and
their Aryan or Turanian affinities. Though I think it will not
be difficult to show that they have been affected by both races
at different periods, I cannot decide the question either as to
the first conclusion of Mr. Wake, that the Archipelago was
originally peopled by a race of straight-haired blacks, of which
the Australian black is the purest representative. There are
many customs of these blacks very similar indeed to those of
the Papuans of the Western Pacific, and I think that their

z 2

320 EEV. G. BROWN. — Papuans and Polynesians.

language will certainly be found to be more closely connected
with Papuan than with this later Polynesian.

I think it is extremely likely that there was originally one
great race occupying these different groups, as far west at least
as Borneo and probably extending upon the mainland on the side
of Siam, the Malacca Peninsula, and perhaps as far as Burmah,
which probably at that .time formed part of one vast continent.
The traces of these peoples a,re or have been found in all the
different groups, from the black races found in New Zealand by
the original Maori colonists, and who were derisively called by
them " black kumara," to "Western Malaysia, and also on the
mainland. The Papuans of the present day are the purest
representatives of this race. In Malaysia this pre-Malayan
race was modified by admixture with the Turanian races of the
mainland of Asia ; and .this constituted the present Polynesian
race, which still retains so much of its old Papuan element.
This intermixture will probably account for some if not all of
the differences which exist .to-day between the brown and the
black races, as they are found on the different groups. At this
period I think it likely that the migration eastwards set in,
probably caused by the encroachments of Malay and Hindu
immigrations as Fornander states. In fact, the principal dif-
ference between Mr. Fornander and myself is that I hold that
the basis of the Polynesian is Papuan with Asiatic admixture ;
whilst he describes it simply .as a separate and distinct ante-
Malayan race, which drove out the Papuan peoples only in turn
to be themselves driven out by the Malays, and so compelled to
look for other lands on which to settle.

Names of Races and their Location.

When we consider the great difference of opinion as to the
original habitat and affinity or otherwise of these peoples, it
will be no matter for surprise that a great difficulty has been
found in fixing upon names for them which would describe the
people without committing the writer to any particular theory.
The names, in fact, are nearly as numerous as the theories have
been and are. Malayo-Polynesia is virtually abandoned, how-
ever, by all parties. For the brown races the term Sawaiori,
Mahori, and a lot of others, have been proposed; and an equal
number also for the black races. It would scarcely be right
here to enter into an explanation of the reasons why I do not
employ any of these fanciful names. I shall use the term
Eastern Polynesian or simply Polynesian, to represent the brown
races wherever found, and the term Western Polynesian, Papuan,
or Melanesian, to represent the black races of the Pacific, who
are principally found now in a pure state only in the western
groups.

EEV. G. BROWN. — Papuans and Polynesians. 321

The Eastern Polynesian people inhabit, amongst other groups,
Samoa, New Zealand, Friendly Islands, Nine, Ellice Group, the
Hervey Group, Tahiti, Marquesas, Sandwich Islands, Madagascar,
and other smaller islands, some of which, such as Lord Howe's
Group, Steward's Group, &c., are found in very close proximity to
islands peopled by pure Papuans.

The Western Polynesians inhabit New Guinea, New Britain,
and New Ireland, Admiralty Groups, Solomons, Santa Cruz,
New Hebrides, New Caledonia, and many other islands and
parts of islands outside of these areas.

The Eastern Polynesian may be described as of a light brown
with varying shades of colour. Perhaps the best illustration is
that of the colour of a cup of coffee, with the ordinary quantity
of milk in it, perhaps a little brighter in colour and darker or
lighter as the coffee may be made by the proportion of milk put
into it.

The hair is curly or waved, not straight like that of the
Malay. In fact, in Samoa, they call straight hair " lauulu
valea " or foolish hair, an incidental mark, I think, of the sur-
vival of the old Papuan love for the large frizzly mops of hair,
which in his opinion are so essential to beauty. The stature is
fully equal to that of the ordinary European. They are a
cheerful and joyous people, and fond of amusement. They have
hereditary chiefs, descent is traced through the father, and also
through the mother, especially if she is of higher rank than the
father. The language is soft and musical, every syllable being
open and no consonantal terminations. They have a great
respect for rank, arid this is often irrespective of the physical
power, appearance, or wealth of the possessor. A good speaker
will always command respect and attention, often far greater
than that to which his rank would entitle him.

The Western Polynesian or Papuan is generally of a sooty
brown or black colour, though this colour is said to vary in New
Guinea from the black colour of the typical Papuan, to the light
brown of the Polynesian. I may mention here also the fact that
no two writers can agree in a description either of a typical Papuan
or Polynesian, which of itself surely favours the presumption that
they are not two absolutely distinct and separate races. The
Papuan is frizzly-haired and full-bearded generally, though in this
respect also the races differ very much from each other. He is
generally tall and lanky, and not so well formed and developed as
the Polynesian. There is no hereditary chieftainship, descent being
through the mother only. In most islands, if not in all, there
are class divisions which cannot intermarry in their respective
classes. The Papuan, where unaffected by Polynesian admix-
ture as in Fiji, pays but little attention to rank unless it is
backed by physical power or by the possession of wealth, which

322 REV. G. BROWN. — Papuans and Polynesians.

may enable the possessor to do mischief. The language is very
full and expressive ; the dialects are as numerous almost as the
tribes, every petty district on some islands having a separate
and distinct dialect, which is often unintelligible to people living
only a few miles away. These languages admit of consonantal
terminations, and are many of them more agglutinating than
those of Eastern Polynesia are found to be. These are only a
few of the principal characteristics which may be observed, but
it will be seen at once how difficult it is to describe the typical
specimen of either race. I have only described some of the
principal differences, but in order to show that there is a much
closer affinity between the two races than is generally supposed,
I will discuss some of these differences in detail.

Language.

Professor Keane's principal complaint against Mr. Wake's
paper (" Journ. Anthrop. Inst.," vol. xii, p. 221) was that his
arguments in favour of that essential difference of the two races
as proved by their language had not been fairly dealt with ; and
he stated that the conclusion of his own paper was, that what-
ever might be the relationship of other stocks, the dark frizzly
haired, hook-nosed, hypsistenocephalic Papuans of fully de-
veloped agglutinating speech, had no perceptible affinity, beyond
their common manhood, to the tall brown, somewhat lank-haired,
straight-nosed, brachy cephalic Eastern Polynesians of almost
isolating, or very faintly developed, agglutinating speech. ,

It would be out of place here to enter very fully into
this matter. I can only state that after 14 years spent in the
study of one of the purest and softest Eastern Polynesian
dialects which is known, I went to live amongst a purely
Papuan people, knowing absolutely nothing of these differences
of opinion, and never having heard that any man in this world
had ever questioned the fact that the two languages and the two
races were absolutely and radically distinct and separate. There
was no white man in the New Britain Group when I landed, and
in fact most of the places had never been visited by either
Europeans, Malayans, or Polynesians. The language had never
been reduced to writing, and there were of course no interpreters.
My first task was to learn the language as best I could ; and
afterwards to reduce it to a written form. In this we succeeded
so far that we have now a vocabulary of at least 6,000 words,
with a fair grammar of the language. The Gospel of St. Mark
has been translated and printed, and is read intelligently by the
natives. The gospel of St. Matthew has been translated and
revised by the missionaries since I left the group, and is now
ready for the press.

It was during my work of writing the grammar and vocabulary

KEY. G. BROWN. — Papuans and Polynesians. 323

and translating that my opinions changed, and that I was led to
believe that the differences which exist to-day in the language
and customs of these people, so far from proving their absolute
difference from each other, may be used to show that they are
essentially the same. I was surprised to find not merely
purely Eastern Polynesian words used to express identical mean-
ings, but in our attempt to dig down into the heart of the language
I unearthed Polynesian roots which, though not used to express
the same shade of meaning, were employed to express one which
was strictly analogous, if not absolutely identical. I am well
aware that we cannot prove identity of origin from similarity in
language, and also that the fact of a certain number of Malayan
or of Eastern Polynesian words found in a Papuan language
apart from any similarity in grammatical construction, by
no means proves that they are derived from a common stock.
But I purpose dealing with this part of the comparison first.

Erom a hasty comparison, I have selected some 170 words
which all express similar meanings in different languages,
namely Duke of York, a Papuan dialect, Samoa, which is said to
be the original Hawaiki from which the Polynesians went forth,
and Maori, which was one of the latest places colonized by them,
The synonyms of the words found in Samoan or Maori would
also, as is well known, be likewise found in almost every other
Polynesian language.

Examples of Words used in the same Sense.

English.

Duke of York.

Samoan.

Maori.

Miscellaneous.

Outrigger

aman

ama

ama, Tah.

Canoe

aka

vaa

waka

vaka, Niue.

Fish

ain

ika

ika, Niue, ia, Tah.

Spear

bele

ta6

pere

N.B. orig. means reappear.

Knot in sling ...

buram .

purumu

Breathe...
Class or company

S.
ba

ga (Tutuila) ...

ga
kapa

gae", manava, Sam.
very interesting.

Dig

kili

ele

keri

Pluck

iuti

futi

huti

huti, Tah.

Eye, face

mata

Grow

tubu

tupu

tupu, Tah.

Turn over

buli

fuli

huri

Plait

piri

fili

whirl

firi.

Hear

logoroi

logona

rogo

fanogonoga, Niue.

Die

mat

mate

Fly

lag

lago

rago, garo

rao, Tah., inlag Aneiteum.

Ship

parau

folau

*ProaU}Malay'

Eise up

ragaragai

lagalagai

ragai

proa

Lift

tiki

sii

tiki (fetch) ...

fnikituNiue, Siki Fiji.
\TiI. Tah.,Hiki, Tong.

Land

wanua

fanua

whenua

( fonua, Tah., benua enua,
| vanua, Malay.

Female

wawine

fafine .,.

wahine

vahine, Tah., fefine, N.G.

Tame

lata

rarata

rata, Tah.

Sick

marua

luai

ruaki

ruai, Tah.

First

muA'a

mua

matamua

mua, .Tah.

324 REV. G. BROWN. — Papuans and Polynesians.

Examples of Words in Slightly Altered form or Expressing
Different Shades of Meaning.

English.

Duke of York.

Samoan.

Maori.

Miscellaneous.

Fish (n)

i&a, to fish for

ia (n)

ika . .

ika Niue id

shark

Ta'h.

Clump of bam-

butu

putu, close to-

boos

gether

Shady

madaudau

mahau, verandah

Bamboo

kauru

ofe

kauru, root of ti, to eat . .

Blind

pula

exactly opposite

pura, a mote in the eye . .

Hide

parau

parau, a lie

Shame
Clear land

maimai
raku

ma
lau, carry away

maimai, a taunting song
raku, a rake

Ancestors

tubuna, grand-

tupuga

tupuna

father

Soft

malua

malulu

Stutter

mamaga

maga, to open

the mouth

Thunder

pakpakura ...

paku, to make a sudden

pakulagi, Niue.

noise

Chaplet

parik

pale

pare

Swing

ruarua

luelue

ruru, to shake

To sun

wara

faala

ra>

the Duke of

York here

shews the Poly-

nesian ra.

Cocoa nut

lama

aulama, the dry
leaves

rama, torch, Tah.

Decrease, shrink

mariri

malili, to fall off

marere, to drop

These examples will be sufficient to show that there is a great
similarity not only in words which may have been floated in
upon a language from outside sources, but also in the roots,
particles, and words used in the different groups. Some of these,
it will be seen, which are continually used in Papuan dialects
are not found in Samoa, but appear again in groups still more
remote from the present centre of the Papuan-speaking races,
either expressing the same meaning, or some slightly different
but analogous one. These root words and particles are a greater
proof of the identity of different dialects than a much larger
number of ordinary words of precisely similar form, or expressing
the same shade of meaning.

Much stress has been laid upon the fact that no Polynesian
language has any closed syllables. Every syllable must ter-
minate with a vowel, and there can be no consonantal termina-
tion in any of its dialects. I myself attached great importance
to this at one time ; but I have ceased to do so for some time,
for the simple reason that whilst some Papuan dialects in the
Western Pacific are full of closed syllables there are others
which are equally full of open ones, and are in fact almost as
vocalic as any Eastern Polynesian dialect, though the gram-
matical construction of the language is still Papuan. I have also
noticed a great tendency in some of the Polynesian peoples to
eliminate or cut very short indeed the sound of the final vowel

KEY. G. BROWN. — Papuans and Polynesians. 325

in many words, and this I think is a survival of the closed
sounds of the older Papuan. If then we can find a reasonable
proof of the original identity of the languages in the similarity
of the words and roots, and also in the grammatical construction
of both, this fact of the open syllables of Polynesian dialects, as
against the closed and open ones of the Papuan, will not I think
present any serious difficulty.

By far the most serious difficulty has yet to be met ; and this
presents itself in the fact that the Papuan dialects are all distin-
guished by suffix formations, whilst the Polynesian is said to be
distinguished by a preference for prefixes. But it may be
questioned I think whether the Papuan is not almost as favour-
able as the Polynesian to prefixes ; as also whether the Polynesian
dialects of to-day, which are but slightly agglutinating, do not
present many traces of suffix formations, which for some reason
or other have in many instances been exchanged for prefixes. I
am well aware that in the opinion of many this will be regarded
as -a mark of degeneracy which the present advanced state of
the Polynesian, as compared with the Papuan, does not render
probable, but the fact I think remains. The Papuan, which
is the older tongue, is distinguished by suffix formations, the
Polynesian, which is a later branch of it, has been affected
by outside influences which, whilst enriching the language in
some way, have weakened it by diminishing the number and
power of its pronominal suffixes and transitive terminations. It
will be impossible in the time at my disposal to give anything
like a complete comparison of the two languages. A few words
on each must suffice. The Polynesian (Samoan) has fourteen
letters ; the Papuan (Duke of York) has seventeen. In Samoan
the article le is both definite and indefinite. And in the Duke
of York, a is the same. Se in Samoan is always indefinite and so is
ta in Duke of York. In both languages nouns are formed from verbs
by the addition of terminal particles ; in both the simple form
of the verb may often be used as a noun, as to pray or a prayer.
In both adjectives may be made into nouns by addition of the
article, as lame, a lame man. In both gender is expressed by
distinct names, or when the name is not sex-expressing, by
adding the word male or female.

In both the singular number is expressed by its distinguishing
adjective, the dual or trinal by numerals prefixed, and the
plural is generally expressed by words expressive of quantity or
number. In both, case is indicated by particles and pre-
positions. In the pronouns there appears to be at first a very
great difference between the two, arising from the fact that in
Papuan many nouns take a possessive pronominal suffix, whilst
in Polynesian they only take the pronominal adjective before the

326 REV. G. BROWN. — Papuans and Polynesians.

noun. Passing by for the present the last assertion, which I
venture to think requires some modification, I will simply notice
a few facts which, if fairly considered, will tend I think to show
that there are survivals in Polynesian of these Papuan suffixes,
and that the great fundamental distinction between those pro-
nouns used to express a passive or intransitive relation, and
those used to express an active or transitive action obtain in both
languages, and may fairly be considered as additional evidence
in favour of the theory of the common origin of both.

1. Some nouns in Papuan which take a suffix may also have
the pronoun prefixed, e.g., a rumaig, my house, or a nug ruma.

2. All that class of nouns which in Samoa take o and lona
(implying a passive or intransitive relation), are the same class
which in Papuan take the pronominal suffixes, whilst those
which in Samoan take a and lana (implying an active and tran-
sitive relation), are those which in Papuan generally prefix the
pronouns, evidently showing a generally underlying principle
which is common to both of them.

3. The possessive termination in Samoa is undoubtedly a
distinct word, as it i.s in the Duke of York ; lou, more, is really
lo ou, yams ; lou, lo ou ; lona, his — lo na or lona, as lo matou,
ours, &c., and in lona mata, his eye, the na is precisely the same
word which suffixed to mata in Duke of York makes matana,
with the same meaning.

4. But in addition to this there are not wanting other traces
or survivals of the suffixes in Eastern Polynesian, where some
nouns and verbs take a suffix to the principal noun or verb,
which is, I think, the same as in Papuan ; e.g., tupu, to grow, in
Samoan, takes ga as a suffix, and forms tupuga, ancestors ; and
in Maori the same word takes na, and forms tupuna, ancestors.
Ng and n are interchangeable consonants, and clearly here ex-
press the same meaning, and few will doubt their agreement
with the pronoun suffix na in many Papuan words, e.g., the
Papuan tapuna or tupuna for grandfather. Many other examples
might be given, which show that the suffix is retained in this
form in the third person singular : but I do not at present re-
member any with the other numbers as in Papuan.

The formation of adjectives from nouns, the use of the simple
form of the verb as an adjective, the prefixing of a particle
signifying like, and the form of comparing adjectives are all alike
in the two languages.

The numerals up to five are very much alike, and are in fact
the same words, whilst the Duke of York has also separate
words for the numbers up to ten, which are the same as in
Polynesian, though they are only used in counting couples.
Both peoples have a separate way of counting different articles.

A. W. Ho WITT. — Australian Songs and Songmakers. 327

Both make free use of distributives, and it must be especially
noticed that both use the same form of calling eight ten less two,
and nine ten less one.

Papuan is, undoubtedly, richer in transitive terminations than
is the Eastern Polynesian ; but a more careful study of many
of the so-called particles of Eastern Polynesian dialects, will
show that many of them are really the old transitive termina-
tions. I am also inclined to believe that the Polynesian is richer
in transitive terminations than is generally known, whilst the
suffixes tai and sai (and gai ?) in Samoan certainly change the
action of the verb in precisely the same way that similar suffixes
with the causative prefixed do in Papuan ; e.g. moetai, to run
with a thing, is ivakalai in Duke of York.

But I must conclude for the present this part of my subject
by a quotation from the Introduction to my Grammar and
Vocabulary. "The points of similarity between the two lan-
guages, as in the construction and formation of nouns and
adjectives, the existence of the dual number in both, and traces
of the trinal in the Eastern Polynesian, as in Tonga and Samoa,
the use common to all of inclusive and exclusive pronouns, the
reciprocal and causative forms of the verbs, the formation of the
passive, the use of transitive terminations, and many other points
are neither few nor insignificant as pointing to a common origin
of both languages." I hope at some future time to show that
the opinion here advanced is strengthened if not confirmed by a
comparison of the manners and customs of the different peoples
and especially by the survivals in culture amongst the later
Polynesians of the customs and traditions of their Papuan
ancestors.

The following paper was read by the Secretary : —

NOTES on SONGS and SONGMAKERS of some AUSTRALIAN TRIBES.
By A. W. HOWITT, F.G.S., Corr. Mem. Anth. Inst.

THE songs and dances of the Australian aborigines are usually
spoken of by our own people as " corroborees" and this word is also
even frequently applied to any of their social gatherings. This
application is, however, not correct, for the songs, the song and
dances, and the assemblies for social or other purposes have
each their own distinctive name. The word " corrdboree " has
been adopted by the settlers from some tribal dialect in the
early settled districts, probably of New South Wales, and has

'
328 A. W. HOWITT. — Notes on Songs and

been carried by them all over Aiistralia. It may now even be
regarded as an addition engrafted upon the English language.1

The word " corroboree " probably meant originally both the
song and the dance which accompanied it, as is the meaning of
the word " yunyeru " in the Kurnai languages.

In these notes I purpose to speak of some of the songs which
I have become acquainted with belonging to the Woiworung
tribe of the Yarra River, the Kurnai of Gippsland, and their
eastern neighbours the Murring.

The songs are very numerous, and of varied character, and
are connected with almost every part of the social life, for there
is but little of the life of the Australian savage, either in peace
or war, which is not in some measure connected with song.

Some songs are only used as dance music ; some are descrip-
tive of events which have struck the composer ; some are comic
or pathetic. There is also an extensive class of songs or chaunts
connected with the practice of magic, and of these many are
what may be called "incantations" — words of power chaunted
in the belief that supernatural influence is not asked but com-
pelled by them — influence for evil or for warding off evil.

Connected with this class are songs which are used at the
Initiations, and which are therefore not known to the uninitiated
or to the women.

A very large collection of songs might be made which would
have much interest. For the present I must content myself
with giving a few examples which I have gathered.

1 It is curious to note how words are carried by the settlers from one part of
Australia to another, and even by wild blacks who have visited their friends on
the frontier settlement. By-and-by these words are thought by later comers
to belong to the aboriginal dialect of the place where they are found in use,
while the blacks look upon them as part of the white man's language. For
instance, I found the word " yaraman," as meaning horse, used by the Cooper's
Creek blacks before their country was settled. This word had travelled from
the extreme south-east of New South Wales, where it has been supposed to be
derived from the word " yiramtin " = teeth, as referring to the large teeth of
the horse. I am not satisfied with this explanation. At any rate the word had
been carried to Cooper's Creek where the Yantruwunta used it — as well as the
words "come on wiltfella," to welcome us. In their own language they used the
word " kadli " or " kintala," which means dog, for a horse, as they used the
word " warawati," or emu, for a camel. At the stations which then formed
the frontier, bordering the so-called Lake Torrens Basin, there was at each
homestead a blackfellow whose business it was every morning to bring up the
horses which ran loose in the unfenced country. This man was called " nanto-
shepherd." The word nanto belongs to the language of the tribes about
Adelaide, where it meant kangaroo, and had thence been carried onwards by the
advancing settlers and their black boys, in its secondary and adapted meaning
of horse. I have found such words in vocabularies compiled for ioe by corres-
pondents, as for instance the word lubra = woman, which I think originally
came from one of the Victorian tribes, if not from Tasmania, in a vocabulary
from the Darling Eiver, and which, on my questioning it, was corrected by my
correspondent.

Songmakers of some Australian Tribes. 329

To English ears, unaccustomed to the simple and somewhat
monotonous airs to which the words are set, there seems but
little melody in these chaunts. But with custom they grow
upon one, until at length one feels in some measure the effect
which they produce upon an aboriginal audience in so powerful
a manner.

There is a wild and pathetic music in some songs which I
have heard chaunted by a number of voices together. I
remember especially the air of the song of Ngal-cd-'bal as
I heard it at the Murring Kuringal, and the song of the Bat,
in which at early dawn the whole camp joined one by one in
chorus, the words describing the bats " flitting about in the dim
light which shows between the upper boughs of the tall trees."

The makers of the Australian songs, or of the combined
songs and dances, are the poets or bards of the tribe and are
held in great esteem. Their names are known to the neigh-
bouring peoples, and their songs are carried from tribe to tribe,
until the very meaning of the words is lost as well as the
original source of the song.

It is hard to say how far and how long such songs may travel
in the course of time over the Australian continent. I remember
hearing one song first from one of the Narrinyeri of the Murray
River, in South Australia. I last heard it among the Murring
of Maneroo in New South Wales, and it was a favorite some
forty years ago with the Gewagal tribe of the Hunter Eiver,
in the same colony. The distance between these extreme
points is about five hundred miles in a direct line, but it by no
means gives the length of the course followed by the song in
its travels.

This song has two versions. The following is the one given
to me by Mr. G-. W. Rusden, who sang it from memory as he
learned it from the Gewagal. Unfortunately I have no trans-
lation of the words : —

" Mtila-witile tdria-rara yannanga
Ngwnber&nga ye yandaba.

The second version is the one sung by one of the Murring,
and runs thus : —

" Mula-mtiU Kuruitba tariarara
G-uialtura nanga ebermeranga." l

The singer said that the words spoke of a platypus sitting on
a rock in the river, and that the song came to his tribe from
the Kichmond River. Whether this statement is well-founded

1 Hula-mule = platypus, Kuruitba = large rock, tariarara = bend of river.

330 A. W. HOWITT. — Notes on Songs and

I cannot say, but the man spoke with certainty and apparent
candour.

With some songs there are pantomimic gestures or rhythmical
movements, which are passed on from performer to performer,
as the song is carried from tribe to tribe.

Such an instance is a song which was accompanied by a
carved stick painted red which was held by the chief singer.
This travelled down the Murray Eiver from some unknown
source.1 The same song, accompanied by such a stick, also
came into Gippsland many years ago from Melbourne, and may
even have been the above-mentioned one on its return.

In the tribes with which I have acquaintance I find it a
common belief that the songs, using that word in its widest
meaning, as including all kinds of aboriginal poetry, are obtained
by the bards from the spirits of the deceased, usually their rela-
tives, during sleep in dreams. Thus the Biraark of the Kurnai
professed to receive their poetic inspirations from the ghosts
(mrart\ as well as the dances which they were supposed to have
first seen performed in ghostland. An interesting example of
such an "inspired song" is found among the Woiworung. Accord-
ing to my informant, Berak, it was composed by the headman of
that section of the Woiworung tribe which was located about
Mount Macedon, and in the males of whose family, from one
generation to the other,2 was the custody of the quarry from
which the surrounding tribes obtained the stone for their toma-
hawks. The bard who composed this song came of a poetic
stock. His father and his father's father before him are said to
have been " the makers of songs which made men sad or joyful
when they heard them." The old man who sang this song to
me was moved almost to tears by the melancholy which the
words conveyed to him as he chaunted it.

One must be struck by the existence in an Australian tribe of
a family of bards, the prototypes of the " sacred singers" of olden
times. The song is a good instance of this class of compositions,
and also a good example of the belief held by these " sacred
singers " that they were inspired by something more than mortal
when composing them. In this case it is " Bunjil " himself who
" rushes down " into the heart of the singer.

The words of the song are as follows, and in the Appendix will
be found another slightly different version. I am under very
great obligations to the Rev. G. W. Torrance, M.A., Mus.D., for
most kindly writing down the music from the lips of the singer

1 The Rev. John Bulmer tells me that he saw this performance at the
junction of the Darling and Murray Rivers.

2 1 might perhaps more properly say, successively from " paternal to filial
group," for the brothers all participated in the custody of the quarry.

Songmakers of some Australian Tribes. 331

Berak, and for the most valuable remarks which he has made
upon the songs given in the Appendix and on the singers' musical
powers. To the Rev. Lorimer Fison, M.A., my valued fellow-
worker in this part of the anthropological field, I am also
greatly obliged for the trouble he has taken in bringing about
the meeting between Dr. Torrance and the native bard, and for
writing down with such care the words of the songs.

Wenberi's Song.

Nge tuigdr ngald ngibnba ngalugd

We go all (the) bones to all of them

diudirunding nga Dultir wiluit.

shining white (in) this Dulur . country.

Wa Wdindting Bunjil mameng-ngata ycnin

The noise rushing (of) Bunjil father ours singing

thiilurmeik nga wtirngaluk-eik.

(in) breast mine this inside-mine.

There are other poets who composed under what may be
called natural influences as distinguished from supernatural.
Umbara, the bard of the Coast Murring told me that his words
came to him " not in sleep as to some men, but when tossing on
the waves in his boat with the waters jumping up round him."1
As an example of his songs, I give one which he composed when
going down the coast in his boat to attend the initiation cere-
monies which I have described in a previous paper.2 He sang
the song in the evening, sitting by his fire and beating the time
with two short sticks, while an appreciative and admiring
audience stood round.

Umbara's Song.

Gdlagala biwjd buniwgd ngali

Capsizing me striking me

winbelow3 jend ngdrauan udja

(the) wind blows hard (the) sea long stretched

kdndubai buningd melint/ii buningd

between striking hard hitting striking

ngali mulari binja buningd.

me dashing up me striking.4

1 He is a fisherman and owns a good Sydney-built boat, which he manages
with the aid of his wife. Jn the olden times these " sea coast men " (katungal)
used to go out a mile or more from the coast in their bark canoes to spear fish.

2 "Australian Ceremonies of Initiation," " Journ. Anthrop. Inst.," May,
1884.

3 This is a curious instance of the manner in which English words are being
engrafted on the aboriginal languages. " Winbelow" is really " the wind blows."

4 I am unable to say how it is that " binja " and ': ngali " both mean " me "
in the same grammatical construction.

332 A. W. HOWITT. — Notes on Songs and

This may be freely but yet not incorrectly translated much as
Umbara himself explained it to me, " Between the furious wind
and the dashing waves of the long stretched sea I was nearly
upset."

I have mentioned songs which are accompanied by rhythmical
gestures or by pantomime which greatly adds to the effect. A
favorite one which I have seen describes the hunting of an
opossum and its extraction from a hollow log by the hunter, who
is the principal singer, and his assistants. Every action of
finding the animal, the ineffectual attempt to poke it out of its
retreat, the smoking it with a fire, and the killing of it by the
hunters as it runs out, is rendered not only by the words of the
song but also by the concerted actions and movements of the
performers in their pantomimic dancing.

A very favorite song of this kind has travelled in late years
from the Murring to the Kurnai. It was composed by one
Mragula, a noted song maker of the Wolgal, describing his
attempt to cross the Snowy Eiver in a leaky bark canoe during
flood. The pantomimic action which accompanies this song is
much fuller than the words, and is a graphic picture of the
pushing off in the canoe, the paddling into the stream, the gain-
ing of the leak, and after an ineffectual attempt to bale the water
out by the hand, a hurried return to shore. Then the hole being
carefully stopped with adhesive mud, the performers again push
off and paddle across.

The words are in the Wolgal language, and therefore quite
unintelligible to the Kurnai.

Mragula's Song.

Btiraburai biajdnu kuniberneino wurgdiama

Quickly talking ^ mate his (to) looking about

ngilingud lurbtindu malayud nuna.
now paddling this side (to).

Many other such songs could be given, but these will suffice to
show their character. Nor is it necessary to do more than to
point out that the comic songs all relate so far as I know to
some passing event. A favorite song of this kind with the
Murring is about "going to Melbourne in the steamer/' and I
have heard the Kurnai sing one inviting a friend to come to a
" cool shady place with a bottle."

As connected with magic, or rather with the supernatural,
the following song may serve as an example. It brings into
view a curious belief in some connection supernaturally between
beasts and man which is found in so many Australian beliefs
and tales.

Songmakers of some Australian Tribes. 333

It was composed and sung by a bard named " Kurburu " who
lived many years ago in the early days of the settlement of the
country by the whites, near where the town of Berwick now
stands, in the Western Port District. He was supposed to have
killed a " native bear "* and being possessed by its spirit (murup)
thenceforth chaunted its song.

Kurluru's Song.

Enagurta nung ngalourma

There now cut-a-cross

barein gurukla murnein

track blood ?

burunbai ngantingba

hurt myself

lilira mtiringa.

chipped tomahawk (with).2

The singer, Berak, gave me the following free translation,
" You cut across my track, you spilled my blood, and broke your
tomahawk on me."

Besides the men who were the bards of the tribe, there were
also men of lesser poetic faculty, who devoted themselves to
some branch of " art magic," and who used songs therein. The
songs which they used were rather charms, chaunted by them-
selves alone, or with others who joined in the intention of
producing some ill to another, or to alleviate or remove some
ill done by another person. In many cases these chaunts are
invocations of some supernatural being, as when the wizards
call upon " Daramulun " at the Kuringal,3 or when the epony-
mous ancestors, Yeerung and Djeetgun, are called upon by the
Kurnai at their Jeraeil.4

Such chaunts can scarcely be called songs, but they are part
of the vocal efforts by which the aborigines seek to amuse, to
benefit, to protect themselves, to injure their enemies, or to in-
cline powerful supernatural beings to their good, or to the benefit
and instruction of the young novices. I need not do more now
than notice this as I have described these matters elsewhere,
excepting in so far as to add another of the songs by which the
Bunjil Yenjin5 of the Kurnai aided those in the olden times who

1 Phascolarctos cinereus.

2 I was not able to obtain a satisfactory verbatim translation of this song.

3 " Autsralian Ceremonies of Initiation," " Journ. Anthrop. Last.," May, 1884,
p. 452.

4 "The Jeraeil, &c.," "Journ. Anthrop. Inst," May, 1885, p. 309.

5 As to the Bunjil Yenjin see a paper in " Journ. Anthrop Inst.," August,
1886, p. 409. The word " Yenjin " seems to mean " a song." See Winberi's
song in which, in the Woiworung language, which is allied to the language of
the Kurnai, " yenin " is to sing.

VOL. XV F. 2 A

334 A. W. HOWITT.— Australian Songs and Songmakers.

married by elopement. This Yenjin is in the Miikthang dialect
of the Brabra Kurnai.

Yenjin Song.

Kaidka jirai ytndu Yirting malbretwig
Why cut off beard Yeerung long ago

Djitgtin-Djitgtin muna letjurtinga*

Djeetgun there girl's sleeping place at.

The songs used by the doctors are merely spells chaunted
over and over again, in fact " incantations " in the old sense of
the word. Some of these chaunts are said to have been given
to their possessors in dreams. Such an one I heard at the Kurnai
Jeraeil when an old man endeavoured to cure his wife by it of
some internal ailment. My attention was drawn to it by the
extraordinary energy with which he was singing it, to a curious
tune, ending with a complete explosion of the last word. He
told me that it was a powerful charm which his " other father "
(breba-mungan= father's brother) had taught him in a dream.
I give it as possibly a valuable addition to the science of
medicine.

A Charm.

Mini/an bulun ma naranke.

Show or point with belly the moon to.

Finally, I may conclude these notes by saying that there are
also "lullabys" and children's songs, of which the following will
serve as samples : —

Wa ! Wa ! Wa ! leldndu mri ngu

Stop ! stop \ stop ! sleep eye thine.

The Woiworung had a somewhat more pretentious song, as to
which my informant said that he " got it from his grandfather
who got it from his parents, who got it from the old people, who
got it from Bunjil."

Bolopba thdre thtin kartfngre

Baby leg (from the knee down) standing

Bol6pba melba nguriljeana.

baby lean in over straight up.

When the children of the Wotjoballuk saw the new moon
they sang as follows, in the belief that it would make them grow
well : —

1 Betjurtik is the word applied to that part of the hut in which the un-
married daughter sleeps, that is to say, at her mother's back, and being thus
next to the bough or bark shelter, her position gives opportunity for signalling
to her from without by her youthful admirer.

KEV. G. W. TORRANCE. — Australian Music. 335

Waur waur waur Galimba jera

Grow grow grow Nursing boughs

mamoreik Nurtang ngouretck bapureik.

father mine Wearing woman's kilt mother mine.
It is to be regretted that more attention has not been paid
to the songs of the Australian blackfellow. There is something
to be learned from them as to the mental condition of the
aborigines and their intellectual status. They throw light also
upon their beliefs and upon their customs. No doubt there are
among their songs, as among those of the civilised peoples also,
some which are coarse or indecent. But these can be dis-
regarded, unless by chance even they may prove to have some
bearing upon custom or belief. As it is, the white man knows
little or nothing of the blackfellows' songs. To most people
they are unmeaning or barbarous chaunts, and to the mis-
sionaries, who have some more knowledge of them, they savour
of heathendom, and must, therefore, be altogether pushed into
oblivion and be forgotten. Thus, it is that before long all these
songs, old and new, will be lost. As it is, a source of simple and
innocent amusement is cut off from the aborigines by, no doubt,
well meaning but very narrow minded men.

The following paper was read and illustrated vocally by the
Assistant Secretary : —

Music of the AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINALS.
By Eev. G. W. TORRANCE, M.A., Mus.D.

[An Appendix to Mr. A. W. Howittfs " Notes on Songs and Songmakers of some
Australian Tribes"]

THE following brief description of the music of the Australian
aboriginals, with specimens of their songs from an authentic
source, is offered as a contribution to Mr. Hewitt's paper on
" Songs and Song Makers." Being the result of but a single
interview with a native bard, the particulars here noted are of
necessity imperfect and superficial. Such as they are, how-
ever, it is hoped that they may prove of some little historic
value, and lead to further inquiry into a subject which cannot
fail to be one of interest to the anthropological student.

Generally speaking, the rude attempts at melody exhibited
by these untaught natives may be described as a kind of nasal
monotone, or chaunt, usually preceded by a downward progres-
sion somewhat resembling the " intonation " in Gregorian
music. The songs are marked throughout by sudden, frequent

336 REV. G. W. TORKANCE— Music of the

and ever varying inflections of voice, in compass rarely exceed-
ing the distance of a third, and minor intervals predominating.

Much of the character of the music depends upon the
rhythm which, while very strongly marked, is also most irre-
gular, changing suddenly, and alternating frequently between
duple and triple; the changes, moreover, being sometimes intro-
duced by a slackening of the time, and a curious sliding of one
sound into another, not unlike the slow tuning of a violin string.

In the " Corroboree " the rhythmic measures are emphasized
by clapping of hands and stamping of feet. When one singer
or set of singers is exhausted, others in turn take up and
continue the chaunt ad lib., till the wild dance is concluded.

The native bard alluded to above (William Berak, from
whom the illustrations were obtained), is an intelligent repre-
sentative of his race. His voice is a baritone of average compass
and not unpleasing quality. His ear also is fairly quick and
accurate, though occasionally he would pause long as if
trying to recall the test sounds before repeating them ; and his
patience, good temper, and evident pleasure at seeing his songs
committed to paper, were very remarkable.

In order to ascertain the compass of this aboriginal's voice,
and his power of retaining and expressing some distinct
musical idea, a simple solfeggio passage was sung to him. After
a brief silence, and without attempting to repeat the given
sounds, he began slowly and deliberately, and with much
emphasis on each note, the following impromptu : —

fe=3

La La La La La La La La

As an ear test, he then repeated accurately, pausing first as
before : —

__O_

La La La

an effort which the bard voluntarily supplemented by : —

La La La

evidently much pleased with his own performance, and the
applause of his auditors.

Australian Aboriginals. 337

The appended native songs, jotted down as nearly as possible
in modern notation, will help to illustrate the foregoing ob-
servations. The bard was in each case allowed to choose
his own starting note, and generally pitched on, or about, I) in
the bass.

? i(

<fr.

*!i

-4

4™

p»

fri

^T.

sT1!

if".

The above was repeated several times, without break or pause,
omitting the "intonation" at each repetition, and ending abruptly
nt the double bar.

338

EEV. G. W. TOREANCE.— Music of the

'"6

§
•g

d
o

•8

ffi

ar key sugge
Moderate.

part

A-T

I I

f™

r^ -5

c8 N »

^ K-*3
« -

^ ii C

This song was repeated on B, a third lower, and sung through
to the same sound.

Australian Aboriginals.

339

w
W
O

4i»

n~»

MtS

^ •

j-r-

i 1 1

1 1

•

-«s

-—,

o ^

eg"

•-*

-•

MO)

•

MO)

&0 -^

sO>

fc^ d >
.2

„

^ i

rj '^~~~

1 '

MC3 Q

.
? h

_.-t

sS ®

MC8

_->

o ^

M '""^ ^^^

r
"H

» §

iri

•

- 1 A"

to •§

""•

i
^

::^

This drone or chaunt is repeated ad lib. as long as the ceremony
lasts, a tone lower each time, and accompanied throughout with
clapping of hands and stamping of feet.

DISCUSSION.

Mr. BLOXAM said that it would be observed that each of these
melodies was restricted within the limits of a tetrachord, re-
sembling in this respect some of the ancient Egyptian melodies
still existing in Ethiopia; he ventured to give two or three

340 E, H. BLAND. — On the Aborigines

examples of these melodies in which, although the range was so
limited, there was a considerable amount of swing and vigour,
much more, indeed, than was to be found in the Australian songs,
which consisted, as Dr. Torrance had pointed out, almost entirely
of a nasal monotone. It was interesting to observe the intonation
at the commencement of each song; which, together with the
limited extent o fnotes, may be observed in the Temple melodies of
some of the most ancient civilised nations, and conduces to the
expression of solemnity and grandeur, as well as mystery. The
plain song of the Church, which was originally confined within a
pentachord, is characterised by the intonation, and is still, in the
tones used for the psalms, simply accentuated recitative of a some-
what similar character to the Australian songs ; it is, moreover, of
very great antiquity, and most likely inherited from the Temple
worship of the Hebrews, who may themselves have derived it from
the ancient Egyptians. It is probable that the earliest musical
efforts of savages are directed to the imitation of natural sounds
such as the warbling of birds, and the rippling of a brook, and
some of the ancient Ethiopian melodies to which he had just
called attention fully bore out this view. Mr. Bloxam also gave
an example of the tune of a Chinese hymn in praise of the dead,
which does not go beyond the five tones of the old Chinese scale ;
these sacred hymns have been transmitted unaltered from time
immemorial, and the Chinese trace the commencement of the de-
cadence of their musical system to the time when their five-toned
scale was enlarged to seven tooes. It is worthy of remark also
that these Australian songs were accompanied by clapping of
hands and stamping of feet, a custom still practised by the natives
of Morocco and Tunis, especially by the Jewish maidens, and which
is so often represented on the oldest Egyptian monuments. This
method of marking the rhythmical measure of songs is very wide-
spread, being used not only by the people already mentioned but
also, amongst others, by the Nautch girls of India and by the Zulus
of South Africa

Mr. BERTIN also joined in the discussion.

A few particulars concerning the ABORIGINES of WESTERN
AUSTRALIA in the early history of that Colony.

By E. H. BLAND, Esq.

I LEFT England in May, 1829, and arrived in Western
Australia in August of that year. After settling for a short
time a few miles from Perth, the capital, I was appointed by
Sir James Stirling, the Governor, to settle the York District,
about 70 miles inland, and was shortly afterwards appointed
resident magistrate of that district, one of my principal duties

of Western Australia. 341

being to look after the aborigines and protect the settlers. This
brought me a good deal in contact with the natives, and in-
duced me to ascertain their ideas upon various matters and to
devise the best means of keeping on friendly terms with them,
thus saving life on both sides. I ascertained that they had a
firm belief in a future state of existence, but their ideas on the
subject were very indistinct. They fully believed, however,
that unless they were buried shortly after death there would be
no future state for them, and consequently they had a great
dread of their bodies being unburied and left to the wild dogs
and birds to prey upon. Two special instances I now give.

Shortly after the York District was settled I received an
intimation late one evening that the wife and child of a
shepherd had been killed by the blacks. I went to the place
the next morning, and found that the woman had been speared
and the child killed, and the bodies thrown into the hut, which
had been set on fire, presenting a horrible sight. I reported
the case to the Governor, Mr. Hutt, who ordered me out with a
party, and I, of course, determined not to shoot any but the
real murderers, but these I was not likely to fall in with.

I represented to the Governor that it would be best to
endeavour to apprehend the men, commit them for trial, and
carry out the sentence whatever it was, and Mr. Hutt agreed
to this. I secured the services of a respectably connected
young man who for a time had been living with the blacks
and was acquainted with their habits and language, on condi-
tion that if he brought to me two of the three blacks for whose
apprehension I had issued warrants, he should be appointed
Superintendent of Police for the district. After fitting him
out with a gun and provisions for himself and two friendly
blacks, he succeeded in capturing two out of the three offenders,
named Barrabong and Yughite. I sent them down to Perth for
trial, when they were found guilty and sentenced to be hung in
chains on the spot where the murder was committed. The
sentence was at once carried out, and had the effect of stopping
all further murders by the blacks during the remainder of the
time I had charge of that district, the cause, I fully believe,
being the dread of this method of punishment, and the horror
of being left unburied. As a further proof of this belief, I
state the following case of a young man who, when out with
his tribe, met some blacks of another tribe who commenced
fighting. A spear struck the young man in the leg below the
knee which split the tibia ; suppuration set in and the lower
part of the leg came off. The bones and sinews hanging down
presenting a sad sight, he was taken to the hospital at Perth to
have his leg amputated. The surgeon told him he would not
VOL. xvi. 2 B

342 K. H. BLAND. — On the Aborigines

feel the pain of the operation (intending to administer chloro-
form) but the patient would not allow him to perform the ampu-
tation, when I was sent for, and, after talking to the young man,
I found he was not afraid of the operation and had no fear of
death, but was afraid that if he died they would not take the
trouble to bury him ; so he said plainly to me, " Mr. Bland, if I
die will you bury me?" I, of course, said I would, when he
immediately consented to have the operation performed.

The blacks in those days had a great dread of an ,evil spirit,
of which I will give an instance. In the early days of the
settlement at York, they had been spearing stock, especially a
number of pigs, and I had one man caught and brought to my
house. On talking to him about it he steadily denied having
done anything of the sort. At that time a gentleman named
Norcott, a son of Sir Amos Norcott was staying with me : he was
an excellent hand, at making sketches, a book was on the table
which he opened, and on the fly leaf he drew a sketch of the
black running after a pig which had a spear sticking in it.
On showing this to the black he almost fell down with fright
and admitted at once that he had killed the pigs, and begged me
to shut the book up, calling it the "janga book " that being their
name for the evil spirit who, he considered, must have drawn
the sketch. For some time afterwards, when blacks were charged
with offences of this sort and denied it, I used to threaten to
look at the janga book ; if guilty they would admit it at once,
if not, they would say " Look at the book/' which I pretended to
do, and then merely said " All right, you can go : " this state of
things of course did not last long.

When the white people first came to the colony the natives
were impressed with the idea that we were the spirits of the
departed blacks risen in another form. Being unaware of the
existence of another country beyond the sea, it was the only way
they could account for our arrival.

A young black told me one day my previous history. He said
I had been speared, and told me where I had been buried, and
knew me by the name of the deceased black " Yowanong."
Talking to the young black one day about it, I told him it was
a mistake that I had lived there before, when with great
contempt he said in substance, " How would you have known
there was such a place as this if you had not been here before ?"
I could really give him no reply to this, that he would understand,
so he had the best of the argument.

The blacks, notwithstanding all that has been said against
them, place implicit reliance on the white man when once
favourably known to them. This the following instance will show.
A tribal murder was committed at Albany : it was ascertained

of Western Australia. 343

that three men were concerned in it, and warrants were issued
for their apprehension. Two of the three men left in an
American whaler and never returned. The third man would
not leave, but went into the bush. Shortly afterwards I went
to Albany, and seeing a young black in the town I asked him
where the missing man was, and sent a message telling him to
meet me the next evening after dark outside the town, so that
he might not think I wanted to entrap him. The next evening
I went out alone and found the man sitting on a fallen tree
waiting for me, when after some conversation I said, " You know
you killed that boy," he replied, " Yes, I did." I then said
" You must go to jail, and the judge will try you." He replied,
" I will go along with you," so I arranged with him to meet me
some distance out of Albany, counting the number of days on
my fingers. I started at the appointed time, and the man met
me as arranged, and he walked with me and a mounted black I
had with rne for 240 miles to York, when 1 sent him down in
charge of a constable to Freemantle Jail, another 70 miles, to
await his trial. I was glad that he was acquitted, the evidence
against him being incomplete.

Sir F. Napier Broome, the present Governor of Western
Australia, in a paper read before the Eoyal Colonial Institute in
London, referred to an expedition undertaken by Captain Fitz-
gerald to Champion Bay in 1848, where he was wounded by a
spear ; the following account of the affair is published in the
" Aborigines of Victoria," Vol. II, page 227 : —

" Towards the end of 1848 Captain Fitzgerald, the Governor of
Western Australia, accompanied by his Private Secretary, Mr.
Eivett H. Bland (now of Clunes, Victoria), Mr. Augustus
Gregory, three soldiers and a servant lad, on the return journey
to Champion Bay saw several natives following them, who in-
creased in numbers as they approached a thicket at the foot of
King's Tableland, and came closer to the party every step they
advanced. Notwithstanding an order to keep off, one laid hold
of Mr. Bland by the arm with the intention of striking him on
the head with his dowick, but on a soldier going towards him
let him go. The Governor shortly afterwards was wounded in
the leg by a spear which, however, was removed without diffi-
culty, but we had some difficulty in reaching the bay, the
natives having followed us the whole distance, nearly 20 miles."

ANTHROPOLOGICAL MISCELLANEA.

The LEGEND of NARCISSUS.

It was an old Greek and Indian maxim not to look at one's
reflection in water (Mullach's " Fragm. Philos. Graec.," I, p. 510 ;
" Laws of Mann," iv, 38). The same maxim, with an explanation,
is found among Zulus and Melanesians. Thus in Bishop Callaway's
" Nursery Tales, Traditions, and Histories of the Zulus," I, p. 342,
we read : "It is said there is a beast in the water which can seize
the shadow of a man ; when he looks into the water it takes his
shadow ; the man no longer wishes to turn back, but has a great
wish to enter the pool ; it seems to him that there is not death in
the water ; it is as if he was going to real happiness where there
is no harm ; and he dies through going into the pool, being eaten
by the beast, which was not seen at first, but is seen when it
catches hold of him ; and so it is said, ' Forsooth it has taken his
shadow ; he no longer sees ; his eyes are dark ; he no longer sees
anything ; it is that which causes him to be as he is.' This is the
tale which I hear people tell. And men are forbidden to lean over
and look into a dark pool, it being feared lest their shadow should
be taken away." Similarly of the Melanesians we are told that
" there is a stream in Saddle Island, or rather a pool in a stream
into which if anyone looks he dies ; the malignant spirit takes hold
upon his life by means of his reflection on the water " ( Journ.
Anthrop. Inst., X, p. 313). In view of these facts we cannot doubt
that the classical Greek story of Narcissus who saw his reflection
in water and pined and died in consequence, is to be similarly
explained ; his reflection '(i.e. his soul) was dragged under water
by the water-spirits, leaving him soulless to die. The belief must
have been Indo-European, as it is found both in Greece and India.
It lingers, in a faded form, in the English superstition that any
one who sees a water-fairy must pine and die.

" Alas, the inoon should ever beam

To show what man should never see ! —

I saw a maiden on a stream,

And fair was she !

" I staid to watch, a little space,

Her parted lips if she would sing j

The waters closed above her face

With many a ring.

" I know my life will fade away,

I know that I must vainly pine,

For I am made of mortal clay,

But she's divine ! "

The story of Hylas who, going to fetch water, was drawn under
by the nymphs is probably to be explained in the same way.

J. G. FRAZER.

THE JOURNAL

OF THE

ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE

GEEAT BRITAIN AND IEELAND.

JANUARY HTH, 1887.

FRANCIS GALTON, Esq., M.A., F.E.S., President, in the Chair.

The Minutes of the last ordinary meeting were read and
signed.

The following presents were announced, and thanks voted to
the respective donors : —

FOR THE LIBRARY.

From the AUTHOR. — Notes on the Waganda Tribe of Central

Africa. By Robert W. Felkin, M.D.
— Der Mensch. By Dr. Johannes Eanke.
From the BERLIN GESELLSCHAFT FUR ANTHROPOLOGIE, ETHNOLOGIE,

UND URGESCHICHTE. — Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie, 1886. Heft 5.
From the BATAVIAASCH GENOOTSCHAP VAN KUNSTEN EN WETEN-

SCHAPPEN. — Notulen van de Algemeene en Bestuursvergade-

ringen. Deel xxiv. Aflevering 3.
Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Yolkenkunde.

Deel xxxi. Aflevering 4.

Catalogus der Numismatische Yerzameling. Derde Druk.

From the ACADEMY. — Bulletin de 1' Academic Imperiale des Sciences

de St. Petersbourg. Tome xxxi. No. 3.
Atti della Reale Accademia dei Lincei. Serie Qu-arta.

Vol. II. Fas. 10.
From the ASSOCIATION. — Journal of the Royal Historical and

Archaeological Association of Ireland. January. 1886. No. 65.
From the SOCIETY. — Proceedings of the Royal Society. No. 247.

• Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society. 1887. Jan.

Journal of the Society of Arts. Nos. 1778-1781.

VOL. XVI. 2 t1.

346 DR. G. WATT. — Tlie Aboriginal Tribes of Manipur.

From the SOCIETY — Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal
Society of Canada for the year 1885. Vol. III.

Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. Vol. XIY. 2.

Journal of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society

for the year 1884. Vol. XIX. Part 2.

- Bulletin de la Societe de Borda, Dax. 1886. Part 4.

- Bulletin de la Societe Neuchateloise de Geographic. Tome
II. Fas. 2.

Mittheilungen des Yereins fur Erdkunde zu Leipzig, 1885.

Mittheilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien.

XVI Band. Heft 1, 2.
• Bulletin de la Societe Imperiale des Naturalistes de Moscou.

1886. No. 2.
From the EDITOR.— Journal of Mental Science. No. 104.

- Nature. Nos. 894-897.

- Photographic Times. Nos. 273-275.

- Science. Nos. 200-203.

L'Homme. 1886. Nos. 19-20.

The PRESIDENT announced that the Annual General Meeting
of the Institute would be held on Tuesday, January 25th, and
nominated Mr. G. M. Atkinson and Mr. E. W. Brabrook to act
as Auditors.

The following paper was read by the author and illustrated
by the exhibition of a large collection of objects of ethnological
interest : —

The ABORIGINAL TRIBES of MANIPUR.
By Dr. GEORGE WATT, M.B., C.M, F.L.S., C.I.E.

[With PLATES Y and VI.]

HAVING spent the greater part of a year in Manipur, in con-
nection with the recent boundary expedition, I took some pains
to preserve a diary of my sojournings among the wild tribes of
that country. When asked by your President, Mr. Francis
Galton, to read a paper before the Anthropological Institute, I
was, I now find, a little too hasty in selecting the subject I have
the honour to lay before you this evening. The Journal of
your Institute already possesses some most valuable papers
on the primitive people who inhabit the charming mountainous
country which separates Assam from Burma. Colonel E. G.
Woodthorpe in two most admirable papers has placed before
you a detailed account of the Angami Nagas, and of the other
wild tribes who inhabit the so-called Naga Hills. These are
the northern neighbours of the hill tribes of Manipur, and

DR. G. WATT. — The Aboriginal Tribes of Manipur. 347

are indeed so intimately related to one or two of the Manipur
tribes that they can with difficulty be separated from them. A
most valuable series of papers has also appeared in your
Journal on the monolithic monuments of the Naga Hills and
of the Khasia Hills, from the pens of Colonel H. H. Godwin-
Austin and Mr. C. B. Clarke. A charmingly written paper,
which will ever remain a memorial of the noble-minded officer
whose name it bears — the late most unfortunate Captain J.
Butler — gives a life-like picture of the Angamis. This appeared
in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in the year 1875.
Several other brief notices of the Nagas, and of their moun-
tainous country, have also appeared, but of Manipur proper only
two pamphlets have been published, and these are, I regret to
say, not readily procurable in London. I allude to Color, el
McCulloch's and Dr. Brown's official reports of Manipur. Thf se
two officers were for many years the political agents in that
State, and took great pains (more particularly the former) to
collect trustworthy facts regarding the people amongst whom
their lives were thrown. My distinguished friend, Colonel
(now Sir James) Johnstone, K. C.S.I., who for many years acted
as political agent, in his reports also added greatly to our know-
ledge of the people of Manipur, and I may be pardoned if I
add that to Sir James' friendship I owe entirely the opportunity
of being permitted to visit some of the more distant and there-
fore more interesting races met with in that country.

I have deemed it desirable to give this brief history of the
papers which have appeared on Manipur, since I hope to lay
before you to-night the facts contained in my diary only which
I deem new, or which I think have not obtained sufficient pub-
licity ; but I may here explain that I have consulted very care-
fully, and often borrowed largely, from the works enumerated
above, so as to make my present paper as nearly as possible
a complete though brief abstract of all that is at present
known regarding the interesting region to which I desire to
call your attention. It may, however, be as well to give in this
place a general account of the geographical position of Manipur,
and to indicate its main physical peculiarities, There are
perhaps over twenty different races of human beings met with
in that small region, and.it would seem that the nature of
the country itself has exercised a considerable influence in
the isolation and formation of the separate and antagonistic
races within an area of only about 8,000 square miles.

It may in popular language be stated that from the Bay of
Bengal near Chittagong, a closely packed belt of mountains
rises from the plains of Bengal, Cachar, and Assam, on the
one side, and from Burma on the other. This wall extends

2 c 2

348 DR. G. WATT.— The Aboriginal Tribes of Manipur.

through the so-called Chittagong Hill tracts to Manipur, and
onwards to the north-east to the so-called Naga Hills, and termi-
nates with the Patkoi Mountains at a point where that range
is joined on to the Bhutan Himalaya. Manipur is thus the
middle portion of this highland country, and is traversed by a
perfectly bewildering series of more or less parallel ranges which
are every now and then knotted together by transverse spurs in
proximity to the culminating points. These lofty knots exercise
a most important influence. They cause the rivers which have
been flowing south-west for miles to return down the other side
of the same range only to escape round a second range, and to
thus resume their south-westerly direction. Within these valleys,
and with their villages perched on commanding spurs, the
various tribes seem also to have wandered, and the lofty knots
appear not only to have determined the drainage, but also to have
influenced the diffusion of the people. To the north and north-
west of Manipur, one of the most important ranges (the Barail),
culminates in Japvo — a peak over 10,000 feet in altitude.
From this elevated mass transverse spurs connect the neigh-
bouring parallel ranges. These links not only determine the
watershed of the rivers which are to traverse the valleys of
Manipur from those one might be almost pardoned for viewing
as the northern extensions of the same valleys into the Naga
country, but along these very transverse spurs may be traced
the line which demarcates the Nagas of the north from the
Nagas of Manipur. So again similar though less important
instances occur of the connecting spurs forming the limitations
of the races who have come to live within the aggregation of
parallel valleys or on the enclosing mountains which go to
make up the little state of Manipur.

One of the most striking features of Manipur is the pleasing
way in which the mountains, at intervals, widen apart so as to
enclose the fertile plains formed by the rivers. The valley of
Manipur proper is the largest and most valuable plain of this
nature, but many other smaller ones burst upon the view of the
traveller, each appearing like an oasis, hung from the confusion
of wild and rugged mountains. It is perhaps safe to assume
that the superiority of land of this kind over that laboriously
formed by terracing the slopes of the hills, must have been
the reward ever kept in view by tribes rising into importance
and power. The conquest of one race over another most
probably led to the valleys passing time after time into new
hands. That this idea may be the correct one receives coun-
tenance from the fact that many of the hill tribes have
traditions that they once held the great valley of Manipur.
Modern history fully supports this also, for, in perhaps no

DR. G. WATT. — The Aboriginal Tribes of Manipur. 349

other part of India, have greater or more cruel struggles
taken place, than amongst the tribes of Manipur. Each
great period in the history of that little state has seen one
tribe a terror to all the others, owing to its young men being
entirely devoted to raiding on the villages of the neighbouring
tribes. During these unprovoked attacks and marauding expe-
ditions the villages were completely destroyed, the old and
weak men and women murdered, the strong and young men
and women carried into slavery, and the infants cruelly
butchered before their parents' eyes. This wholesale capturing
of slaves must in time have exercised a powerful influence in
modifying tribal characteristics, for the slaves were often well
cared for, the younger ones being allowed to take wives, or
were given in marriage to their captors. All this has happily
been changed, and the raiding habit, through the strong hand
of the British power, has been almost entirely put down.

The last great race of invaders and conquerors who entered
Manipur was the Kukies or Lushais. These people seem to
have taken their origin in the upper Chittagong Hill tracts, but
finding it necessary to immigrate, the surplus population, during
the past two or three centuries at least, has kept moving to the
north, or in other words into Manipur. One wave of these in-
vaders received the name of the Khongjai Kukies, another the
Kom Kukies, and these two in their numerous clans or sub-
divisions seem to have poured into Manipur territory, and
wandering up the mountains which constitute the western wall
of the valley, ultimately descended into the valley itself. A
third great wave, the Suktis or Kumhaus. now inhabit the
country immediately to the south of the valley of Manipur or
have wandered along a portion of the eastern ranges. A
fourth, the Chasads (or Chuksads), a branch of the Suktis, have
attracted attention within the past few years. These modern
raiding Kukies seem to have come from Burma into Manipur,
and most probably at the instigation of the Eajah of Sumjok, a
Burmese feudatory chief. It was Chasad raidings that led to the
Burma-Manipur expedition, since, while occupying territory
claimed by Manipur they acknowledged allegiance only to
Sumjok.

A fifth great branch of this same family, the Lushais, has not
only been pressing on the Kukies from behind and raiding upon
them, but their attacks on the British district of Cachar led to
the Lushai war. It may thus be observed the Kukies and
Lushais close in the southern extremity of Manipur, and it is
perhaps safe to assert that these southern tribes, broken into
their respective clans, are two branches of the same great
family. They speak dialects of a common tongue and are very

350 l)n. G. WATT. — The Aboriginal Tribes of Manipur.

similar both in appearance, dress, and social customs. Their in-
fluence in Manipur has been great, especially on the races who
now inhabit at least the southern half of that State. Indeed
the Manipuris proper, or the ruling people who inhabit the
fertile plains of Manipur, speak a language acknowledged to
belong to the Lushai group. By the casual observer the so-
called Manipuris (or as they call themselves Meithis) would be
pronounced a mixed race between the Kukies and the Nagas.
Indeed, this is most probably the true definition of that people,
and it may safely be said that it is difficult to limit the influence
of Kukie blood in a very large number of the tribes of Manipur.
Commencing with the Kumhaus in the south and passing north
through Manipur, race after race is seen to blend into each other
so that the neighbouring peoples can scarcely be distinguished.
If, on the other hand, two clans at a greater distance from each
other be compared they are found to be perfectly distinct. It is
perhaps not far from the truth to assume that the present in-
habitants of the plains and hills of Manipur have sprung from
four great influences : the Kukies in the south, the Nagas in the
north, the Shan and Burmese tribes on the east, and certain hill
tribes on the west more or less related to the great Kachari
family now distributed throughout the Valley of Assam. Start-
ing with this assumption, on going north the people are found
to become more and more of the accepted Naga type just as on
passing south they become more and more Lushai, while on
wandering to the east a Shan and Burmese taint appears, and on
passing west tribes more and more allied to the hillmen of the
Northern Cachar hills and to the people of the Khasia and Garo
hills are found. The southern half of the eastern people — the
Murrings, and, in the Kabo Valley, the Kubaiis — are more
Burmese, or rather Shan, than anything else ; while the northern
section lose their Naga type and come to bear a stronger affinity
to some of the wild hill tribes of Burma. Sarameti is the loftiest
peak of the mountain region we are considering. It rises to close
upon 13,000 feet and it may be stated to be north-east of Manipur
or very nearly due east of Khomia, the capital of the Naga Hills.
To the west of this lofty peak occur the powerful Angami
Nagas ; to the south and south-west the great family of the
Tankhul Nagas of Manipur. But on nearing Sarameti both the
Angami and Tankhul types change, and a distinct Burmese
influence makes itself felt. Some of the more important
branches of the wild tribes of the Naga Hills described by
Colonel Woodthorpe in his second paper (read before this
Institute), inhabit the regions lying east and north-east of the
Angamis, or in other words, in proximity to Sarameti. The
people to whom I more particularly desire to draw your atten-

DR. G. WATT. — TJie Aboriginal Tribes of Manipur. 351

tion in this paper are those to the south and south-west (the
opposite side) of Sarameti, in other words, to the Tankhul and
allied Naga tribes.

Having now in a general way indicated the characteristic
features of Manipur and of its people, I shall proceed to
examine in greater detail some of the typical races ; but in so
doing I shall endeavour to be brief, and to follow as closely as
possible the narrative of my own personal travels amongst
these people.

The road from Cachar to Manipur passes over nine nearly
parallel ranges, and these constitute the western wall of the
valley. This road is carried by giddy cane suspension bridges
across the deep and blue rivers which flow between the hills.
These bridges are in many respects unlike the platted bark
bridges of the Himalaya, being stronger and more durable. A
long cane, (the scandant stem of the palm, Calamus Rotang),
three or four hundred feet long is carefully selected and drawn
across the river. This, stretched at each end over a natural
rock, or masonry or a wooden pillar, constructed for the purpose,
is fastened by beams driven into the ground beyond the pillars.
A second or even a third cane is similarly stretched across, and
the belt formed by these canes is thereafter platted into a path-
way of about a foot in breadth. The pillars are then carried to
a farther height of six feet, and two other strong canes are
carried across from the top of the pillars and about three feet
apart ; these are fastened by more distant beams into the ground.
A small doorway is left in the upper portions of the pillars
leading to the pathway. By means of a carefully selected set
of canes cut so as to leave at one extremity a V-shaped stump
of a branch, the upper suspension canes are bound to the path-
way by the V-shaped end being hooked on to one of the upper
canes and carried below the pathway and tied to the opposite
upper cane. The next one is hooked on to the opposite cane,
then carried under the pathway and tied to the other suspension.
In this way the suspension canes are securely bound throughout
the entire length of the bridge to the pathway, and while with
the weight of the passenger the bridge curves and sways to an
alarming degree it is impossible to fall off the tunnel-like struc-
ture through which the traveller has to pass. Some of these
bridges providing for the great rise in the rivers, during the
rains, are carried as much as 50 feet above the ordinary level
of the water, and, while a giddy sensation is caused by the
water being seen to flow beneath the feet — a sensation as if run-
ning violently up the stream sideways— still, at all seasons of the
year the rivers of Manipur may be crossed in safety.

To illustrate more forcibly the deep gorges which cut up the

352 DR. G. WATT. — The Aboriginal Tribes of Manipur.

mountainous tracts of Manipur, it may be here added that on
the road from Cachar to Manipur the following large rivers are
crossed : — the Jiri, the Makru, the Barak, the Irang, the Lengba,
and the Limatak, in a journey of only about 80 miles. So deep
are the gorges in which these rivers flow to the south, that in
most of them the sun sets on the river some hours before its
golden tints have faded away from the forest-clad summits of
the hills which cast their gloomy shadows on the deep and
still waters. Nothing could more forcibly depict the con-
figuration of Manipur than a history of its rivers and their
contortions before they are permitted to escape to the plains
below. The Barak, the largest and most important river of the
country, for example, rises north-east of the Makru and Irang
rivers, and flowing S.W., then N.E., and turning W.N.W. it
resumes again its S.W. course, thus sweeping round the head
streams of the Irang and Makru. Again flowing south-east, it
receives in its course in addition to the Makru several small
streams ; next the Irang ; still pursuing a southerly course it
receives the Tepai, which flows north from the Lushai country
to join it, at this point it now makes a sharp bend and flows
nearly due north until it receives the waters of the Jiri, after
which it enters British territory, and flows west through Cachar.
This is a brief history of the river system within the western
wall of Manipur, a wall in which the Barail constitutes the
most lofty range. An illustration of this kind shows how
closely the mountain tracts of Manipur are packed with parallel
ranges of hills and deep gorges.

The wall which forms the western side of Manipur — the wall
of which I shall presently speak — is inhabited by :

1st. A tribe of Nagas broken into various more or less dis-
tinct clans, which all speak dialects of the same language,
although these are often so different that they have to resort to
Manipuri when conversing with each other. I allude to the
inhabitants of the western ranges, to the north of the road from
Cachar to Manipur ; these may collectively be called the
Kaupuis.

2nd. The Khongjai and Kom Kukies to the south of the
Government road.

I do not propose to describe to you to-night the various
races of Kukies and Lushais, for these are but comparatively
modern invaders of Manipur. The Kaupuis, on the other hand,
are perhaps one of the oldest races, but from being much
more peaceable they have attracted less attention; they are.
accordingly very interesting from an anthropological point of
view.

DE. G. WATT. — The Aboriginal Tribes of Manipur. 353

The Kaupuis.

There are said to be three great clans of Kaupuis, namely:
1st. Sungbu ; 2nd. Koiveng; and 3rd. Kaupuis proper. The
number of this tribe has been estimated at about 5,000 persons.
They would appear to have occupied their present position
from great antiquity, having been only compelled to resign
positions they formerly held, through the persecution of the
Kukies. They are much devoted to their village sites, not so
much because they were born there, but because their ancestors
rest in the village cemeteries. The Sungbu branch of the tribe
is the strongest and most powerful.

Characteristics. — They are of moderate stature, sometimes very
short, well-formed, but generally not very muscular. Some of
them have good looks, but the greatest differences in countenance
are often met with. Some have Mongolian faces, others are almost
Aryan, with oblique eyes. This is, however a feature of most
of the tribes of Manipur; oblique eyes, without the flat noses
and high cheek bones of the typical Mongolian, being common.
The hair is worn short amongst the males, sticking straight up
from the head, and cut to within an inch and a half of the
scalp. Others wear the hair long, and cut straight round,
divided in the middle and kept back by means of a thin strip
of bamboo (see Plate V).

The dress of the males is scanty, the working dress consisting
of only a small, square, apron-like piece of cloth, suspended in
front. The more fashionable costume is, however, a kilt-like piece
of cloth bound round the waist, and hanging down in front. The
lower portion of this cloth is often elegantly embroidered, and
has red tassels and tufts of yellow orchid bark forming a neat
fringe. The shawl thrown over the shoulders is generally white,
with an elegant red border, the narrow stripes of which it is
composed having, where these are joined together, red triangular
embroidered ornaments. The women wear a piece of cotton cloth
of a thick texture. This is generally blue with red stripes and
quaint embroidered designs. It is fastened under the armpits
so as to cover the breasts, and hangs down to the knees. A
waist band, with the characteristic yellow and red fringe, serves
as an additional means of fastening up this skirt. In the cold
season the women also wear a sort of short jacket, which seems
to have been borrowed from the Manipuris. Over the shoulders
is also thrown a blue scarf-like piece of cloth with an elegant
fringe.

The men wear in the left ear a bunch of brass earrings, with
generally nothing in the right. The female earrings are often
like those worn by the Garo women, large, numerous and heavy.

I
354 DR. G. WATT.—TJie Aboriginal Tribes of Manipur.

Necklaces of beads and shells, but more particularly of reddish
pebbles, are much prized. On the upper arm a bracelet is worn.
This consists of a wire as thick as a quill, wound tightly ten or
twelve times round the arm, both ends being flattened out into a
head piece about the size of a shilling, and tapering backwards
into the wire. Above the calf of the leg numerous rings of cane
dyed black, or of the black fibres of Caryota urens are worn.
The articles of jewellery prized by the women are similar to those
of the men, only larger and more numerous ; the legs and feet
are, however, left bare.

The Villages. — The villages are built on the commanding
spurs of the hills, and are protected by a wooden palisade. The
houses are strongly built and admirably thatched. The front
gable is large and often ornamented by rudely carved horns
projecting above, in which are fastened bunches of epiphytic
orchids. The roof slopes backward, so that the further gable
is often very small. Each household preserves its grains and
other valuables in a strongly-built granary. As a proof of the
respect which they show for individual property it may be men-
tioned, however, that these store-houses are bolted on the outside,
for they know nothing of locks and keys, and, indeed, have no
need of either, since the habit of stealing from each other is
quite unheard of amongst these simple people. A partition
divides each house into two compartments. In the front com-
partment the family sits, and in the rear apartment they sleep
and cook their meals. The boys of the family from the time
they reach maturity sleep with all the other young men of the
village in what may be called the guard house. The women do
all the heavy work, and the men, when not employed in agricul-
tural labour, sit all day long near the house door, smoking
pipes with bamboo water bowls. They use green tobacco, but
admit that the pleasure of smoking is not to be compared with
that of holding in the mouth a sip of the nicotised fluid from
the water bowl of the pipe.

Every village has its hereditary officers, namely, the Kul-lakpa,
the Lul-laka, and the Lampu. The hereditary chief is a man of
influence according as he is wealthy or has a high personal
reputation for sport or deeds of daring. Usually, however, this
is not the case, and each village is a sort of minature republic,
the safety of which all acknowledge to depend upon the strict
observance of the natural laws of personal rights and property.
Without laws or law-givers, without even an elective governing
body, they live in peace and happiness, the head men sitting in
council only when a crime has been committed. The highest
punishment that such a council can inflict is expulsion from
the village, for blood feuds are left to be avenged by those who

DR. G. WATT. — The Aboriginal Tribes of Manipur. 355

are implicated in them. The certainty of vengeance makes
such rare within a village, but blood feuds between two villages
are never forgotten and are handed down long after the cause of
such feuds has been entirely forgotten.

Marriage System. — Intercourse between the youths of both
sexes is perfectly unrestricted and attachments between in-
dividuals repeatedly spring up, but if such attachments are not
approved by the parents they are broken off, arid the young
man's father goes to the home of the girl of his selection to
treat for a daughter-in-law. These parental forced marriages
never seem to give origin to any unhappiness afterwards,
although young couples often do run away and get married
against their parents' wishes. Such matches create for a time
much indignation, but they are not regarded as sufficiently
serious to necessitate the flight of the parties. The young couple
merely take refuge in a friend's house who looks after them
until a compromise has been come to by the parents. In the
case of adultery the woman escapes without punishment, and
should the adulterer be killed by the offended and injured
husband the wife returns to her father's house.

One of the most extraordinary peculiarities of the Kaupuis
is that of taking " bone money " (Munda). On the death of
a wife her father demands munda from the husband, or if he be
dead, the late husband's nearest relative. On the death of a
child munda is also demanded by the wife's father. The munda
generally consists of a buffalo, and the demander of munda has
to kill a pig for the family feast. No munda is required for a
person killed accidentally or in war, or by cholera or small-pox.
Should a woman die in childbirth the child is not permitted to
live but is buried with her. If the husband dies before the wife
she is taken by his brother or nearest male kin. This curious
system of bone money may be viewed as securing the protection
of individuals under whatever circumstances they may be
thrown, and the munda ensures that every care will be taken
both of wife and offspring.

Polygamy is permitted but is rare. Divorce occurs if all
parties concerned are agreeable, but the wife can only separate
provided her parents return the marriage purchase-money.

Burial Customs. — On the death of a Kaupui a feast is given
by the survivors to their family and friends. The corpse is
buried on the day of the death in a coffin, and under the body
and within the coffin are placed a hoe, a spear, cooking pots,
and cloths, for use in the next world. The grave consists of a
deep trench with an opening or recess excavated at right angles
to the trench ; in the recess the coffin is deposited and the earth
filled in. ' A large flat slab is placed over the mouth of the

'
356 Dii. G. WATT. — TJie Aboriginal Tribes of Manipur.

trench. In the graves of females are buried the wearing cloths
spinning-wheels, and cooking implements. While the Kaupuis
thus bury their dead somewhat after the way the ashes of the
Khasias are deposited in graves over which large slabs are
placed, they do not erect the memorial monoliths so common in
the Khasia and Naga Hills.

Implements. — A short spear not ornamented; wicker-work
shields ornamented with painted figures and dyed hair. These
shields are of great length and slightly curved. The ddo is of
the ordinary curved Bengal pattern, and is worn stuck in the
waist cloth either at the side or more commonly behind. The
Kaupuis are great experts in throwing the spear.

Religious Ideas. — The Kaupuis believe in a supreme being who
is benevolent. This deity is creator of all things. They have an
obscure idea of a future state. In addition to numerous spirits
they recognise the existence of one who is especially employed
in inducing men to do evil. After death they say that men go
to an underground world where they are met by their ancestors
who introduce them to this new life. It is remarkable
that not only does this same idea prevail throughout all the
various Xaga races of Manipur, but most of these aboriginal
tribes believe also that they came into this world by escaping
from a cave which many say was in the country to the south,
others to the east of their present abode. A murdered man meets
his murderer in the next world, and makes him his slave. Each
village generally has a priest who directs the sacrifices. He is
held in sacred esteem, and is not allowed to do any work, but
his office is not hereditary. Before going on a journey or
commencing any important work, the priest is consulted as to a
propitious day, and on these occasions eggs are frequently
consulted. A simple method of divining omens consists in
rapidly scratching the ground with the finger or a piece of
bamboo, and thereafter counting the number of lines made : an
even number is unlucky. Meeting a mole on the road is very
unlucky, and the Kaupuis accordingly try to secure and kill
this objectionable creature. The barking of a deer in front is
also a bad omen.

The Kolyas.

Having now briefly indicated a few of the more striking
peculiarities of the Kaupuis, I shall endeavour to direct your
attention to the people met with during a journey to the north
from the town of Manipur to the British possession now known
as the Naga Hills. The path leads up the valley of the Tiki
River (the river called Imphal in Manipur) for a distance of
about three days' journey, until it reaches the watershed near

DR. G. WATT. — The Aboriginal Tribes of Manipur. 357

the village of Sangopung, and not far from the Manipur police
station of Myang Khong. Still to the north, it follows down
the Khomaru to the outpost of Karong. Here the Barak is seen
to make one of its remarkable reversions. The river from
Meithiphum flows south-west to form with the Khomaru the
Karong head stream of the Barak. From the plateau-like spur
of Karong, however, the Barak flows north-east in a somewhat
confined valley so that its banks are little more than two or
three miles distant from the Meithiphum, the two valleys being
almost quite parallel for a distance of eight or ten miles. Thus
the path from Manipur to the north follows up one stream and
down another but it also skirts along the eastern flank of the
Barail range of rugged and bold peaks. To the west and north-
west of this portion of the Barail, the mountainous country is
broken by the deep and almost precipitous valleys of the Makru,
Irang, and Barak. The head streams of these rivers drain their
waters from the great transverse range which forms the water-
shed of the rivers which flow south through Manipur and
ultimately to Cacliar from those which find their way to the
north through the Naga Hills to Assam. To the south of the
transverse range and within the upper drainage area of the Barak
(the region I have tried briefly to indicate), reside the various
clans of the tribe of Nagas whom the late Dr. Brown was, I think,
the first to designate collectively, as the Kolyas. On the journey
from Manipur to Kohima the visitor has thus the opportunity of
studying one or two of the more important clans of this tribe of
Nagas, and it may be repeated that they occur on the west
and north-west of Manipur between the Kaupuis and the
Angamis, but it may be added that they extend east of the line
of the Tiki until they meet the great tribe of Tankhul Nagas.
Intermediate in geographical position the Kolyas may be said to
resemble the Kaupuis in the south, to blend into the Angamis
on the north, to approximate to the Tankhuls on the east, and
to gradually become more and more like the Kachcha Nagas
on the north and north-west. Isolated, however, within their
respective wild mountain homes the various clans of Kolyas
have come to possess peculiarities in dress, social habits, and
language which render it no difficult task to assign to each hian
his proper clan, if not to fix the very village to which he belongs.
They have little or no dealings with each other, but on the
contrary exist in what one might be almost pardoned for
describing as a chronic and hereditary state of feud one with
the other.

There are said to be eight clans of Kolya Nagas named Tangal,
Mao, Murrain, Pural, Threngba, Meithiphum, Myang-Khong,
and Tokpo-khul. These clans have been returned as about

»
358 DK. G. WATT. — The Aboriginal Tribes of Manipur.

5,000 souls each clan occupying from one to at most ten or
twelve villages. Their customs differ but slightly from those of
the Kaupuis, but in language, dress, and facial peculiarities they
are much more nearly related to the Angamis. Indeed the Mao
and Murrain clans claim to have descended from the Angamis
(or as they are here called the Gnamis) and the Angamis them-
selves tell an amusing story of their history which tends to give
credibility to the Kolya tradition. There was a lake, they say. out
of which emerged three men : one went south and gave origin to
the Mao and Murrain clans, another west, the great ancestor of
the Kachcha Nagas, and the third remained in the country and
became the Angami. Colonel E. G. Woodthorpe has divided the
Nagas of the Naga Hills and the country to the north of the
Angamis into kilted and non-kilted Nagas. The Kaupuis and
many of the Kolyas are non-kilted and wear a ligleaf-like apron
suspended from a waist string, or don a sort of tightly bound
dhoti which covers the back as well as the front of the body.
The dhoti worn by the Mao and Murram Kolyas, however, very
much resembles the Angami Naga black kilt, only that the
ornamental shells on it never (as was formerly the case amongst
the Angamis) denoted a warrior who had captured so many
human heads. The Kolyas as a race are, however, far inferior
to the Angamis or even to the Kaupuis in matters of personal
adornment. The Mao and Murram Nagas rarely wear any other
garment beside their black kilt, and only occasionally do they
possess ornaments or jewellery. The ears are however perforated
by persons who desire to wear earrings during the winter months,
and coloured cotton thread, red and blue, is worked into ear
pendants eight inches long. The upper ends of these pendants
are formed into a sort of long ring which projects in front, the
ends dangling from behind the ear. Amongst both the Maos
and Murrains the young men never sleep in their parents'
houses but live in a club or watch-house, and in this house in
the case of the Murrams, the younger married men are also to
be found. This fact would seem to point to a state of constant
preparedness against the approach of an enemy. The young
unmarried girls however, are never (as amongst the Angamis)
found living promiscuously with the young men. Marriage is
preserved with the utmost rigidity, adultery being punished by
the death of the male offender, and by the woman having her
hair cut off, her nose slit open, and, deprived of her jewellery and
personal property, by being returned to her parents. Divorce
is, however, easily procurable ; the consent of both parties being
obtained, the property is divided and the woman is thus once
more free to marry whom she pleases. Although, as amongst
the Kaupuis and the Angamis, the young parties are consulted

DR. G. WATT. — The Aboriginal Tribes of Manipur. 359

and their likings as a rule followed, marriage is contracted by
the parents. The father of the boy or girl who wishes to get a
daughter or son-in-law goes to the pre-arranged family with a
present, and if this be accepted, marriage arrangements are rapidly
completed arid feasts given to all the friends and relatives. The
rule usual amongst all Nagas, is with the Kolyas strictly
observed, of marriage never being permitted within the same
family.

Theft is extremely prevalent and is practically viewed as a
crime only when detected, but even then the punishment inflicted
is simple, namely the compulsory return of the stolen property.
To charge a man with stealing without being able to prove the
theft might, however, mean a blood-feud. This looseness in the
respect for personal property contrasts most forcibly with that
which has been narrated regarding the Kaupuis where even
the granaries are bolted only on the outside, and still theft is
quite unknown.

The whole of the Mao tribe is under one chief who receives
tribute in the form of one basket of rice a year from each family,
and exercises the usual authority possessed by all monarchs or
rajahs. There are twelve villages of Maos, each comprising on
an average about one hundred houses. In this respect the Maos
are very unlike the Kaupuis, where each village has its nominal
hereditary chief, who is, however, powerless, the village being a
minature republic, and they are equally unlike the Angamis,
where every village is broken into two or more khels, each under
its respective head man. Combination is thus possible amongst
the Maos, but impossible with the Angamis, since nearly every
khel has a feud against at least one other khel in one or more
villages. The Mao houses are like the Kaupui and Angami
houses, gable-ended, but the walls are much higher than those to
be seen in the Kaupui villages.

The Murrains are contained within one large village of nearly
1,000 houses. They have two hereditary chiefs, the greater and
the lesser chief. Colonel W. J. McCulloch gives an amusing
description of the tradition prevalent to account for this remark-
able fact. " A former chief had two sons, of whom the younger,
who was the greater warrior, desired to usurp the place of his
elder brother. He urged his father 'to give him the chiefship.
The old chief, afraid of his younger son, and unable to give up
the birthright of the eldest, determined on a strategem. He
told his eldest son to go and secretly bring home the head of
an enemy. This having been done, the old chief summoned his
sons, and giving each a packet of provisions, desired them to
proceed in such directions as they chose in search of enemies, for
he who brought in first the head of an enemy should be king.

362 DR. G. WATT. — The Aboriginal Tribes of Manipur.

living within a few yards of each other, yet having no dealings
whatever. Each Khel has its own head man, but little respect
is paid to the chief; each Khel may be described as a small
republic. The club system for the youths of the village prevails,
each Khel having its own club-house or dosta-khdna, in which
not merely the young men, but also the young women all live
together instead of with their parents. It has been stated by
some of the writers on the Naga Hills that the young men in the
Angami villages do not live together, as is the case with most of
the Naga tribes. This mistake appears to have arisen from the
fact that the men, not of the whole village, but of each Khel
within the village do so, and indeed the men in the club or
watch-house belonging to one Khel have often to keep as close
a guard against those of another Khel as against the approach
of an enemy outside the common fortifications of the village.
While scrambling over the walls dividing the Khels of Kegwima
I was not a little surprised when I came across a stone 5 feet
long and 3 feet 6 inches broad, covered with cup-shaped
markings. There were at least thirty-one such markings all
apparently very old, most being coated with lichens. Some of
the better markings were 2 inches in diameter and 1J inches
deep. These on inquiry of the bystanders were at first said to
be " nothing at all," then by-and-by an explanation was offered.
Their fathers when they were children made these holes by
imitating the grown-up people husking the rice in the large
wooden mortars. When cross-examined as to how this game of
childhood had disappeared they could give no answer. From
one village to another I wandered with my eyes opened to see a
new fact, which, whatever explanation may be given if it exists,
namely, that numerous stones built here and there, now in the
village fortifications and now in the commemorative piles, are
freely covered with artificial markings closely resembling those
found in many parts of Europe. A few of the more striking of
such stones were photographed. I venture to give no theory
regarding these markings, and I have called them by the name
by which they are known in Europe, " cup-shaped markings,"
because they are identical in size and form with those which my
friend Mr. J. Linn, of the Geological Survey, took me over the
North of Scotland to examine. Still less do I propose that
there is anything more than a coincidence in the fact that they
are in many cases associated, although apparently unconnected,
with the habit of erecting great monoliths, such as are also to
be found near some of the cup-shaped markings of Scotland.
In one or two instances I discovered monoliths, each with
one deep cup-shaped marking on its apex, and I could get no
explanation of this fact. The Angamis are, however, believers

DR. G. WATT. — The Aboriginal Tribes of Manipur. 363

in evil spirits, and pile up great masses of leaves in the
forest foot-paths dedicated to the spirits that dwell there. It
is by no means uncommon to find near these heaps a pole
stuck in the ground with a globular ball cut on its apex, and
even a small hole drilled on the top. Poles of this kind I came
across once or twice while wandering through the more
inaccessible forests of Manipur, and I recollect to have seen a
most remarkable accumulation of this nature in native Sikkim.
Two or three poles, spear-like, were stuck in the ground, and
across the path was drawn a string with feathers and broken
eggs attached to it. Strings, said to be for the spirits of
dying men to cross by, are regularly carried over the rivers
by the Santals of Bengal, and cairns of stones, with sticks
and bits of red-coloured cloth occur on every difficult mountain
pass throughout India. It is worth adding that it is an uni-
versal custom that all cairns of stones or of leaves dedicated
to the spirits that reside there are passed by the traveller on
his right, be he the bold Angami Naga, the miserable looking
Tankhul of Manipur, or the happy Leptcha of Sikkim.

Music is practically unknown amongst the Angamis, and
their only song is the monotonous grunting of the hau-Jiau in
different tones, indulged in and kept up by every man engaged
on any kind of work. A song with words I believe to be
unknown, and with the exception of the cow-bells and bamboo
reed -whistles, they have no musical instruments — except one,
by-the-by, which I do not recollect to have seen described, a
bamboo Jews' harp used both by the Angamis and the Khasias.

Among the Angamis omens are generally consulted by rapidly
cutting the woody stems of Adhatoda vesica into thin slices
and watching in how many cases the dark heart-shaped pith
falls directed towards or away from the operator. The Angami
is an expert cultivator so fa,r as his primitive agricultural
implements admit of his being so. He has most marvellously
terraced the slopes around his villages, cleverly carrying from a
great distance by ingeniously constructed channels the water
necessary for the irrigation of his crops. Bice is the principal
crop, but Indian corn is now largely cultivated along with
several species of beans and peas. De Candolle, in his most
admirable little book on the cultivated plants of the world
excludes the soy-bean (the seeds of G-lycine Soja) from being
Indian on the ground mainly of its having no vernacular
names. It not only has a name in every vernacular in India,
but it is largely grown by the Angamis, a people who have
only taken from India the Indian corn and tobacco, arid
the Angami name for it, Tzo-dza, looks remarkably like
Soya. It may be worth adding that while buckwheat and

2 D 2

364 D&. G. WATT. — The Aboriginal Tribes of Manipur.

amarantus grains, extensively cultivated by nearly all the hill
tribes of India, are apparently nnknown to the Angamis, they
cultivate in their place a labiate plant, Perilla ocimoides, known
to them as kenia. To the Manipuris, the Kolya Nagas, and the
Angamis the wild madder, Rubia sikkimensis, is far more
valuable than the equally abundant manjet, Rubia cordifolia.
Few people can live long among the Angamis and not admire
the beautiful scarlet-coloured human and goats' hair with which
they ornament their spears, earrings, and other ornaments. The
power to dye human hair is doubtfully known to the European
dyer, still less can he stain the siliceous layer of the rattan
cane. Both these arts are fully understood by the Nagas, but
they declare that if manjet be used instead of Rubia sikkimensis
the result will not be obtained. This curious fact appears to
be quite unknown to the hill tribes of other parts of India who
alone use the manjet and pronounce the more extensive
climber, R. sikkimensis, as quite worthless. To obtain the red
dye from the latter plant the bark of the Alnus nepalensis
is employed along with a handful of the seeds of Perilla
ocimoides, and a little of the bark of Symplocos racemosa. The
blue colour used by the Angamis is derived from Strobilanthes
flaccidifolius, the rum plant of all the hill tribes of Assam, and
not from the common indigo plant. This fact is even still more
curious since rtim is the indigo-yielding plant Used in the
adjoining provinces of China.

This apparent digression has been made to explain the red
and blue colours used by the Angamis, for their blue drapery
and red hair ornaments are their most striking peculiarities of
apparel.

The Murring Nagas.

Having now dwelt in some considerable detail with the
people who inhabit the western and northern mountain tracts
of Manipur, I must hasten to say something of the more primi-
tive although none the less interesting people found on the
eastern side. In a general sort of way it has already been
explained that far to the south abutting on the Khongjai Kukis
the Murring Nagas inhabit the Hirok mountains. These are a
very Burmese-looking people who tie the hair in a knot and
allow it to rest almost on the temples. In stature they are
medium-sized. They wear a white sheet striped, or with only a
coloured border. This is folded across the waist and tucked in
at the side. Over the upper part of the body is thrown loosely
a checked shawl. In the ears are worn small rings.

While in many respects these people closely resemble the

DR. G. WATT. — The Aboriginal Tribes of Manipur. 365

Burmans, in religion and social customs they more nearly
approach the Kaupuis, but like the Kolyas they love feasts and
erect a commemorative pile of stones after each great occasion.

The Tankhul Nagas..

From the Hirok mountains north until they are met by the
Murrains and Angamis and certain Burmese hill tribes, said to
reside on the east and south-east of Sarameti, occur the
Tankhul Nagas. These have been divided into two sections, the
more tirnid and wretched Tankhuls to the south, who, like the
Murrings and Kukies, use a bow and arrow, and to the north
the stalwart Lahupa Nagas, who have held their own alike
against the Angamis and the Burmans mainly from the reputa-
tion they enjoy of being from their greater stature able to wield
a much longer spear than any other tribe on the Assam frontier.
The Manipuris call these people Lahupas from the basket-like
helmets which they wear. The Tankhuls in the south are a
diminutive race who wear the hair long behind and on the sides;,
but cut across the crown like the unmarried girls of Manipur.
The Lahupas on the other hand cut off all the hair except a
band across the head from the brow to the neck about two
inches in breadth, in which the hair is left about an inch and
a-half high, and so trained as to stand on end. This gives
them a wild expression which their more stately form greatly
enhances. (See Plate VI.)

The Tankhuls and Lahupas are said to number about 20,000 ;
they regard themselves as consisting of many sub-divisions but
for the most part these are but the distinctions into villages
and districts, for with the exception of the southern- and
northern tribes the others do not deserve separate notice. They
are a tall race with large heads and heavy, stolid features, but
still not unlike the lively Angamis with their small faces, small
eyes, and high cheek bones. Their dress is often very scanty,
especially that of the men, consisting in holiday attire of a
piece of cloth folded around the waist with a portion hanging
clown in front. Over the upper part of the body they throw
loosely a large white shawl with stripes of red composed of
little patches, in a somewhat checkered pattern. But while
working all these garments are rejected, and they are then seen
to possess but one article of dress, a horn or ivory ring about an
eighth to a quarter of an inch in breadth drawn over the person..
Dr. Brown says, " the object of this custom, which is of great
antiquity, is to prevent an erectio penis, they holding apparently
that a mere exposure of the person unless so attended is not a
matter to be ashamed of." This ring is assumed on reaching
puberty and is worn until death. Among the poor people a

»
366 DR. G. WATT.— TJie Aboriginal Tribes of Manipur.

blade of grass is made to serve the same purpose as the ring.
Numerous explanations of this remarkable practice have been
offered but as yet without any satisfactory result. Dr. Brown
seemed to think that it had some relation to the strange habit
of the eldest son, on marriage, turning his parents out of their
home and claiming two-thirds of all they possess. But surely if
this habit proved irksome, rather than to retard the period when
marriage would be desired, it would have been a simpler solution
of the difficulty to alter the inhuman conception of the selfish
rights of a first-born son.

On the birth of a child fowls are sacrificed and the women
only of the village are treated to liquor. The child soon after
birth has chewed rice placed in its mouth and is immersed in
water nearly boiling from a supposed idea to make the child
hardy. The mother is also made to perspire freely by being
wrapped in hot water blankets until faintness ensues ; on the
third day the woman is allowed to go about and to resume her
usual occupation.

Of the personal ornaments worn by the Tankhul little need
be said. The ears are always perforated, the opening being
greatly dilated at first by means of a V-shaped piece of cane,
and afterwards by a W-shaped piece. The process of perforat-
ing the ears is, however, expensive, as a feast has to be given ;
it is accordingly customary to delay until a good number can be
operated on at once. When properly formed the ear is orna-
mented with a minature bale of white cotton wool at least two
or three inches in diameter. At other times six or eight pieces
of solah pith are placed together within the ear. Metal orna-
ments are never worn. The armlets consist of a piece of light
wood about three inches in diameter hollowed out so as to
admit the arm, and reduced until the ring of wood is not more
than a quarter of an inch in thickness. The outer surface of
this armlet is then ornmented with red-coloured cane, covered
over with the yellow bark of an orchid so as to leave exposed
two rows of diamond -shaped spaces surrounded by the yellow.

Whether on the death of a great personage or on the perfora-
tion of the ears, notice is given of the feast by the construction
of a great basket-work triangle of bamboo supported on two
feet. This frame-work is variously decorated, and it is so con-
structed that all persons seeing it can learn the day the feast
has been arranged for. While passing the village of Khongui
I had the pleasure to witness a ceremony to the great god
Kanchin-Kurah praying that rain might come. This consisted
of rice flour kneaded into dough and cut into round, biscuit-
like pieces and fried. Eleven pieces were prepared for each
family, six for the husband and five for the wife. Sitting upon

DR. G. WATT. — The Aboriginal Tribes of Manipur. 367

a conspicuous spot each couple was devoutly engaged eating
a little dog's flesh and breaking the biscuits. At each mouthful
a fragment was thrown to the unseen, while his sacred name
was repeated. Although no Naga will drink milk they all
enjoy dog's flesh immensely, and will eat eggs only when quite
rotten and liquid. They say that once upon a time they were
cannibals, and they point to a distant hill saying the people
beyond it are cannibals to this day. While not eating human
flesh, they will eat anything except horseflesh. Elephant, after
being dead for some time and half putrid, is much relished.

The names for the various hereditary chiefs and headmen in
the Tankhul villages are the same as those which prevail with
the Kaupuis, and indeed their religious ideas are also closely
similar. They do not erect monoliths like the Kolyas and
Angamis, but outside their villages they construct curious memo-
rial tombs in commemoration of their great men. These consist
of great platforms about 20 feet long, and perhaps three feet
in height. They are three feet broad at the end nearest the village,
and become about six feet broad at the further end. They are
paved all over with slabs, and in time become most convenient
resting-places. When recently constructed, however, they bear
at the further end five wooden pillars curiously carved, three in
front and two behind, upon which are placed the skulls and
horns of the animals offered at the great feast. The two shorter
pillars are each bifid at the top. The Tankhuls bury their dead.

In conversation with the Tankhuls, I learned that once upon
a time their villages were just as with the Angamis, broken into
khels, but that long ago this system was abandoned.

The Lahupa agriculture is much more primitive than that
practised by the Angamis. Carts and ploughs are of course
absolutely unknown in any part of Manipur territory. The
Tankhul hoe is, however, only a small blade of about two inches
in diameter, lashed on to a bent stick. By this means the
surface is very indifferently scratched, and the wonder is that
he succeeds in getting crops of any kind to grow. One
curiously clever agricultural implement, however, I saw in use
near Khongui. This was an implement to free the ground of
weeds. It consisted of a hoop of iron about half-an-inch in
breadth, the diameter of the hoop being about one foot. To
each end of the hoop a handle was attached, and the imple-
ment was so held in the hand that when dashed on the soft soil
it passed completely underground, cutting off the roots of all
the weeds. This I regard as a much more expeditious weeder
than any hoe I have ever seen in Europe. As far as the
Manipur tribes are concerned, I saw it only amongst the
Tankhuls. In addition to rice, the Tankhul cultivates Job's

•
368 DR. G. WATT. — The Aboriginal Tribes of Manipur.

tears (Coix laehryma) as an article of food, a plant which by the
Santals of Bengal and the hill tribes of most other parts of
India is regarded as a most objectionable weed, and neither tit
for human nor for animal food.

The Manipuris.

Having now briefly enumerated the leading hill tribes of
Manipur , it would naturally conclude any such account to say
something of the Manipuris themselves. This could not be done
satisfactorily, however, in the space which I have at command,
and I shall therefore conclude by saying that both in language and
facial peculiarities the Manipuris would appear to be a mixed
race between the Kukis and Nagas, and most probably the
Kolya Nagas.

Explanation of Plates V and VL

Plate V. Group of Kaupui Nagas.

„ VI. Group of Tankhul Nagas (Northern Lahupa tribe).
Both these plates are taken from photographs by Dr. Brown.

DISCUSSION.

Captain B. C. TEMPLE, with reference to the author's remarks
on the cane bridges of the Nagas, pointed out the analogous rope
bridges of Kashmir, called the jhold and Mkd* The jJiold bridge
consists of a footway composed of a hawser of loosely woven ropes
with another rope about three feet above it as a handrail. The
chikd consists similarly of a hawser from which is swung a large
wooden ring in which the passenger is seated, and which is hauled
across the stream by a second rope. Captain Temple also pointed
out that like the Nagas the inhabitants of Sikkim and Nepal dwelt
on hill tops and high plateaux, so as to bo out of the way of
malaria, while their cultivation was often carried on at much lower
levels.

As regards the ground plan of a Naga house, broad in front and
narrow at the back, it is curiously the very form that is so " un-
lucky" in the West of India that no native will live in one of such a
shape. In the Punjab it is called sherdahdn, and Captain Temple
having about seven years ago to induce certain people to settle in
a portion of a Punjabi town, found it impossible to do so as the
shape of the required spot was slierdahdn (lion-mouthed).

The Karens of Burma, who are related to the Angami Nagas,
north of Manipur, and to the allied tribes of Khyens and Kakhyens
of Burma, have a system of external justice which would account
for the perpetual blood feuds alluded to by Dr. Watt, the origin
of which is unknown to the tribes themselves. A Karen may
revenge a wrong done by an outsider on any member of his race
or family — e.g.y an English planter had a dispute with some

DR. G. WATT. — The Aboriginal Tribes of Manipur. 369

Karens of Henzada about the price of some land, and then left
Burma. Afterwards his son came to the spot from England to
settle, having had no connection with the old dispute. He was
murdered as being a member of the planter's family, according to
the Karen notions of proper justice. Of course, such a notion
would tend to perpetuate blood-feuds for ever. The Karens, too,
Hke the Nagas, have a personal god, but not apparently an evil
ppirit. This god, however, having deserted them, is not wor-
shipped ; but the spirits inherent in every living thing, and indeed
in all the more prominent inanimate things, who have power to
harm men are worshipped, because they are active, and the god
inactive. There is thus a very interesting practical pantheism
within a mystical monotheism.

As regards cup marks, Captain Temple pointed out that both in
India and in Scotland instances were on record of boys and fisher-
men (in the latter country) adding to the cup-marks on stones to
the present day, and making fresh ones. This should make us
cautious about accepting the theories as to the antiquity of some
of these marks.

As to the use of the words Khel for clan and section of a village,
and ddstakhdna for the common hall or house of a village ; these
are words of Persian and Parthian origin from western India,
used in the same senses. This was curious and worth investigation.
Analogous words are Kdji ( = Qdzi) and Di'wdn, used all over the
Himalayas as titles for the ordinary officials of the native states :
though the Muhammadans were never in Nepal, Sikkim, or Bhutan,
they are directly borrowed from them.

Dr. Watt had remarked that the Nagas will eat any living thing,
so will the Karens, excepting, however, the monkey. It would,
therefore, be very interesting to 'know if the Nagas excepted any
one animal from their category of food producers. (Dr. Watt here
remarked that they excepted the horse.) Captain Temple thereon
said that this information was important as it pointed to a possible
totemism now or in days gone by.

Lastly, as to polo — a game which had been mentioned by Dr.
Watt. This was a game equally well known to the Baltis and
Ladakhis of the north-west Himalaya, and was, Captain Temple
understood, very like the form adopted by the Manipuris.

Lieut. -Col. H. H. GODWIN-AUSTEN said that it had been a great
pleasure to him to be present to hear Dr. Watt give an account
of the hill tribes around Manipur. It is a pleasure seldom
accorded in this country to meet those who are familiar with a
distant country which one knows well ; and having been employed
for a long period in those hills the speaker could testify to the
accuracy of what Dr. Watt had told them that evening. He
regretted that the map by which the paper, when read, was illus-
trated, was on too small a scale to convey an accurate idea of
the very extraordinary parallelism of the mountain ridges between
Cachar and Manipur, and the manner in which the rivers break
through it, and show the plain portion of that country. Dr. Watt

370 R. S. POOLE. — The Egyptian Classification

had, the speaker thought, put the elevation of the main range too
high at 13,000 feet. Its mean height is said to be 6-7,000, for only
a few points reach a higher altitude.

Colonel Godwin- Austen took the opportunity now that they were
discussing the tribes of the Manipur Hills, to allude to an. officer
who knew more of them and their language colloquially than any
man now living — viz., the late Colonel McCulloch, who was
resident at Manipur for over twenty years. To him the Kuki tribes
now living on the south of the valley and all around owe their
very existence ; but for him they would have all passed into slavery.
When these tribes were driven north by the Lushais, Colonel
McCulloch found them lands in the hills around Manipur. Colonel
Godwin-Austen said that on their becoming aware that he was
an intimate friend of Colonel McCulloch, they gave him every
assistance that lay in their power. The old men asked after him,
and they called him still their father : it was one of those many
examples which show how some English officers make themselves
beloved by the natives of the country.

Sir JOSEPH FAYREK also made some remarks, and the Author
briefly replied, correcting the mistake as to the altitude of the
mountains.

The EGYPTIAN CLASSIFICATION of the RACES of MAN.
By REGINALD STUART POOLE, Esq., LL.D.

[WITH PLATES YII AND VIII.]
[An address given before the Anthropological Institute on May 25, 1886.J

I SHALL attempt to state in a short space as much as may be
considered certain as to the Egyptian classification of the races
of man.

The Egyptian information on this subject is extremely valuable
as it takes one back at least three thousand years, while the
evidence of other nations is very slight. In the Roman evidence,
the latest, there is very little of value, if we except such subjects
as the reliefs of Trajan's column, and these, from the inferiority of
their art, lack due weight. The Greeks present many precious
memorials of the races with whom they came in contact, in the
portraits of the kings or leading men, but we must remember
that the type of the mass of a people can hardly be represented
by these personages, whose type must have been raised by their
intermarriages with the most beautiful women of their time, not
necessarily of their own race ; and we have also to take into con-
sideration the sense of beauty which pervaded all the Greeks
did, and their leaning towards elimination, the necessary corollary

PROFILES FROM EGYPTIAN MONUMENTS.

of the Races of Man. 371

of measure and form, which caused them, even when making a
portrait, to reject, when possible, anything which appeared to them
ungraceful, or jarred on their sense of beauty ; so we can get little
direct evidence from them except the heads of the Bactrian kings
on their coins, and some of those of the kings of Bosporus. In
the Assyrian and cognate representations where we might have
expected to find abundant evidence we are somewhat at a loss.
The Assyrians themselves are shown to have been of a very
pure type of Semites, but in the Babylonians there is a sign of
Cushite blood, so slight, however, that we should probably pass
it over unperceived, unless we knew it was to be looked for.
There is one portrait of an Elamite (Cushite) king on a vase
found at Susa; he is painted black and thus belongs to
the Cushite race. The Ethiopian type can be clearly seen in
the reliefs depicting the Assyrian wars with the kings of
Ethiopia, but it is hard to discriminate Arabs or Jews from
Assyrians ; in fact it is only in the time of good art that
distinctions ^are traceable. On the Egyptian monuments, how-
ever, we not only find very typical portraits but also an attempt
at classification, for the Egyptians were a scientific people with a
knowledge of medicine, and also skilled mathematicians ; there-
fore their primitive anthropology is I not unexpected.

In the first place the quality of Egyptian art is to be considered,
and in looking at the plates we must first master its peculiarities.
In dealing with the reliefs and fresco paintings we must remem-
ber that the eye was always represented as seen full face. We
must mentally obliterate it and substitute a correct eye to give
the face its proper value. In spite of this, the Egyptians had a
wonderful way of representing in their portraits different types of
race and in giving the character of the person. This is exemplified
in the statues of Nefert and Rahotep, the husband and wife
seated together, found in their tomb by M. Maspero near the
pyramid of Meydum : each face has the characteristics of its
sex, and both are full of strength and repose. Still more
charming is the statue of husband and wife of the Ramesside
period in the British Museum. They have the same distinctive
characters as the Meydum group, and even greater refinement.
The delicacy of execution is specially seen in the woman's feet.
They have a true sympathy, sitting hand clasped in hand
looking steadfastly forward into " God's Underworld," as they
did from their ancient tomb. So beautiful are they that
a high authority has said that our art students could not
do better than make serious studies from these lifelike heads.
Men who could work thus would never fail to catch some
of the characteristics of those they were depicting. Even though
in every king's face we can trace the same dignified calmness

372 R. S. POOLE. — The Egyptian Classification

and repose peculiar to the royal ideal, yet the unrolling of the
mummies of Seti I and Eameses II has verified the difference in
their portraits, and thus we may have faith in the representations,
although we must make allowance for the type of royalty.
Another characteristic of the Egyptian artists was their fondness
for caricature. Perhaps we may account for this : their art was
most employed in depicting solemn scenes, and now and then they
found relief in an outburst of merriment which they could not
repress ; thus we see in a painting where the mummy is shown
rowed across the river in the stately funeral procession, that one
of the boats has suddenly capsized and its occupants are seen
struggling in wild and ludicrous confusion. It is a strange,
curious thing to find such a " painter's license " permitted in so
serious a scene. Then we should remember that the Egyptians,
in common with the Greeks and Romans fand may I not add
we English also), had a great contempt for all other nations, and
would much rather depict them worse and not better than they
really were; and as all the foreign types shown on the wall
paintings are of enemies, and generally captives, they have a
certain woe-begone look natural to men who were being led
with ropes round their necks in the processions of their victors.
But even making full allowance for all these things we need
not be afraid of trusting the Egyptian artist.

The date of the evidence we have extends generally from
1500 to 1200 B.C. The first type of Semites is, indeed, found
in the older tombs of Beni Hasan a thousand years earlier,
and we mark the peculiar type of the Hyksos or Shepherd
Kings about 1700 B.C. The main documents, however, belong to
the period between 1500 and 1200 B.C.

I shall carefully avoid the use of technical terms, for I wish
what I have to state to be as clear as possible and intelligible to
the layman. I am also most desirous to eliminate all disturb-
ing elements, and therefore I will not raise any doubtful questions
which might be disputed, as to the exact position on the map
of all these races, for such debates often lead to an entire
rejection of a truth although it may be quite indisputable,
because it fails to convince, as all the minor details cannot be
settled satisfactorily. An instance of this mistrust is found
in the identification of peoples of the Libyan type , with the
Sicilians and Sardinians. The great majority of scholars
accept this as a fact, but there are some few who deny the
truth altogether, because they are not able to localise these
Sicilians and Sardinians to any exact spot. They will not be
satisfied with the general fact that they came undoubtedly from
the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. All such dis-
putes should be carefully avoided in an elementary statement,

of the Races of Man. 373

as they do but disturb what is certain — the great invasion of
Egypt by these islanders and coastlanders, which is an important
factor in the classification of the different races.

The heads on Plate VII, 1, 2, 4, 5, are taken from the Tomb
of King Seti ; they are from a mythological scene, and are types
representing the four races of man. Two other subjects, Nos. 3
and 6, are representations from other frescoes in the Tombs of
the Kings. No. 1 is the Egyptian race, Nos. 2 and 3 Semitic,
No. 4 Negro, Nos. 5 and 6 Northerners. In Plate VIII are
representations from historical scenes of divisions of these
races. The Egyptians class the four races thus, according to
colour : 1st, the Egyptians or redskins ; 2nd, the Semites or
yellow-skins; 3rd, the Negroes or black men; and 4th, the
Northerners or white men.

We are only entitled to say four races by allowing the
Egyptians to call themselves a distinct race, which they did, as
they considered themselves to be the race of man. (I). They
were marked by their small beard and moustache, and their
abundant crisp black hair ; they are identical with the Copts.
Two other nations come under the Egyptian type : First, the old
Cushite inhabitants of South Arabia and the opposite coast of
Africa, who traded with the Egyptians. Plate VIII, No. 8, is a
representation of one of these, date 1600 BC. This subject is
taken from the famous reliefs of the expedition of Queen
Hatshepu up the Eed Sea and beyond to the Somali coast. The
character of face is similar to the Egyptian, but less refined.
Secondly, the Phoenicians, who are almost identical with the
Egyptians in colour, and can only be distinguished from them
by details of costume, such as the wearing of boots ; some are
lighter in colour than the Egyptians, being a northern variety
of the race. We have, therefore, these two families allied to the
Egyptian type, the inhabitants of the coasts of Arabia and Africa
on the Eed Sea, and the Phoenicians ; but no other nation can
safely be classed in this race. (II). No. 2 on Plate VII
represents the usual Semite type on the Egyptian monuments.
There is a strong likeness to the Assyrians, as shown in their
own sculptures, quite sufficient to enable us to recognise the
same race in both. No. 3 is a curious head resembling
the Egyptian type in the beardless chin and long side lock,
but it represents and really belongs to thfe Semitic type. (III).
No. 5 is most interesting, he is a very typical Libyan northerner,
wearing two ostrich feathers for his head dress, the curious side
lock, and with crisp hair, and small beard and moustache.
This type is the mythological one, and markedly differs from
another of the same class to be next noticed, as well as from
the historical representations of different sub-races. No. 6 is

374 E. S. FOOLE. — The Egyptian Classification

another Northerner. He is drawn in the plate too much
like a Semite, the lower lip being made too projecting, for
it should be parallel with the upper one. The features re-
mind one of the Persian type. Although most of the types
of other nations are represented as savage, the Egyptians did
not look on all beside themselves as such, for this Northerner is
richly clothed in what seems some beautiful Persian shawl robe.
Under the Libyan stock, the Egyptians classed a variety of sub-
races that came from the west and north. Plate VIII, No. 9 is a
typical Libyan from the country to the west of Egypt. His
harsh features are especially marked by the extremely strong
supraorbital ridges, forming a prominence above the nose. An
islander, No. 10, exaggerates these peculiarities, and may be of
an even purer type. Both are very strongly accentuated forms
of the mythological type, No. 5. In the islander or coastlander,
No. 11, we see a less harsh variety, entirely without the supra-
orbital ridges. Our difficulty with these types, except only
No. 9, is in the endeavour to localize them. The Egyptians
were at war with the Libyans and their allies from B.C. 1400 to
1200, when Egypt suffered five invasions from the west, and one
from the east. M. de Eouge identified the invading nations with
the Sards, No. 10, and Sikels, 11 (?), the primitive inhabitants
of Sardinia and Sicily, who he supposed crossed to Africa,
near Carthage, and joined in the invasions of Egypt. There was
no more difficulty in reaching Carthage from Sicily then than
there was later in Homer's time, and as we know the invading
races usually came from the west and are distinctly stated by the
Egyptians to have been inhabitants of the islands of the Great
Sea or Mediterranean, we have no other alternative unless we
bring them from the Grecian Archipelago. There is no question
about the presence in the Mediterranean of these islanders and
coastlanders, as we may call them, though we may not be able
to localize them to any particular coast or island. The remark-
able type, No. 11, is that of a nation represented by three varieties
with similar features, and a remarkable head dress, who invaded
Egypt from the east, and one of which undoubtedly came from
the Mediterranean Islands. These last, M. de Eouge has iden-
tified with the Danai. (IV). No. 4 is not a pure negro type, rather
a Nubian, but we have a negro shown in the captive, No 12,
who is as good a representation as could well be made, except,
perhaps by the Greeks or best modern artists. This race was
sub-divided into Negro and Nubian varieties as just shown.

There are two other most interesting races which lie out-
side all these classifications, the so-called Hyksos, or Shepherd
Kings, and the Hittites. The Hyksos type is best represented by
one of the sphinxes discovered at Zoan, or Tanis, by M. Mariette

of the Races of Man. 375

to whom we owe the recovery of the Hyksos monuments.
(A lithograph of the sphinx was here exhibited " Rev. Archeo-
logique, 1861," pp. 4, 5). They conquered Egypt before 2000
B.C., and were expelled 1600 B.C., the date of the conquest
being doubtful, but that of the expulsion nearly certain. These
kings were the Pharoahs of Joseph's day, and the sphinx's head
may be a portrait of Joseph's master. We do not know how
they conquered Egypt or whence they came ; they began their
rule by destroying the monuments, but soon they adopted
Egyptian manners and language, and organised the country,
retaining much of the old system. They gave many towns
new Shemite names, in addition to their old Egyptian ones ;
and they divided the country into two parts, ruling them-
selves in Lower Egypt but allowing subordinate kings to
rule in Upper Egypt. One of these under-kings rebelled, and
this rebellion led to the final expulsion of the Hyksos, who
fled to Palestine where the whole race disappears from history.
They had a remarkable type marked by an aquiline profile,
enormous supraorbital ridges forming a great prominence above
the nose, very high cheek bones, and flat mouth ; we can find
no type under which to class them. Some think they were
Cushites, others identify them with the Hittites, but these
Hittites are almost as obscure and perplexing ; perhaps some
day among fresh excavations we shall discover an Egyptian
sculpture which will throw light on this enigma or perhaps a
fortunate find of skulls may help us to a solution. The type is
certainly not Egyptian ; for this face so full of energy, firmness,
and resolution, forms the greatest contrast with the air of calm
repose and placid dignity peculiar to the old Egyptian kings.

The Egyptians never called these shepherd kings by the namo of
Hyksos ; sometimes they use a term which may mean shepherds,
but is vaguely employed for easterns generally; they looked on
them with the utmost abhorrence, and when obliged to mention
them on the monuments they sometimes called them " the plague."

No. 7 is a Hittite, a name one almost fears to use, so
much has been written on the Hittites which is extremely
hypothetical. We know there was a great nation west of
Assyria, called Kheta by the Egyptians, Khatti by the
Assyrians ; their capital in the age of Eameses II was Kadesh,
on the Eiver Orontes, and they are identical in name with
the Hittites of the Bible. No doubt they were the Hittites
with whom Solomon traded. The Hittites fought with the
Egyptians, forming the head of a great confederacy, consist-
ing of several other tribes, and in their great mixed army repre-
sented on the monuments of Rameses II, we find distinct types
of Semites and Tartars.

376 E. S. POOLE. — The Egyptian Classification

The head given is that of a Hittite king, but being an old
man and rather stout it is difficult to assign him to a par-
ticular race: possibly we might associate him with the
Northerner, No. 6. Another Hittite king whose daughter
Rameses II married, is sculptured as of quite a different type,
very like an Egyptian.

When we attempt to understand primitive representation and
look at the nations of three thousand years ago to study their
aspect, their dress, their language, arid their art, we perceive
a wonderful revelation of remote times, in an area extending
over a vast expanse including the islands of the Mediterranean,
and reaching from Carthage on the west as far as the source of
the Tigris on the east. Surely it is worth while to obtain some
trustworthy records of this amazing and deeply interesting piece
of the world's history before all the precious remains are
destroyed, which it seems they inevitably will be, and that very
soon. Might we not succeed in securing the services of some
able man combining the knowledge of an archaeologist and man
of science with the skill of a photographer, such as Mr. Flinders
Petrie, who has already done such good work in Egypt ? Could
we not enlist the public sympathy sufficiently to provide the
means necessary to enable us to send out such an explorer to
obtain for us correct photographs of the portraiture of different
races still remaining on the walls of the monuments before these
most valuable records shall be lost to us for ever ?x

Explanation of Plates VII and VIII.

Eig. 1. Eosellini, Monumenti Storici. Plate CLV, Tomb of

Seti^I. Ratu, Mankind.
„ 2. Id. Aamu, Semites.
„ 3. Id. Plate CLVIII. Aamu.
„ 4. Id. Plate CLX, cf. Plate CLVI, Tomb of Seti I.

Nehsiu, Negroes.
„ 5. Id. Plate CLX, cf. Plate CLVI, Tomb of Seti I.

Tamhu, Northerners.
„ 6. Id. Plate CLVIII. Tamhu.
„ 7. Id. Plate CXLIII, 7, Palace of Rameses III. Chief of

Kheta.
„ 8. Diimichen, Flotte einer aegyptischen Konigin. Plate

XVI. A man of Punt.
9. Eosellini, op. cit. Plate CXLII, 3, Palace of Rameses III.

Chief of Lebu.

[l Since the lecture was given, Mr. Galton has obtained a grant from the
British Association, and Mr. Petrie has been entrusted with this important
mission.]

PROFILES FROM EGYPTIAN MONUMENTS.

of tlie Races of Man. 377

Fig. 10. Id. Plate CXLIIT, 10, Id. Shairdana of sea.
„ 11. Id. Plate CLXI, Medinet Habu, cf. Plate CXLIV.

Shakalsha.
„ 12. Id. Plate CXLI, Palace of Kameses III.

DISCUSSION.

Mr. BERTIN, after having pointed out the importance of the state-
ments made with so much clearness by the lecturer, remarked that
the most important was the peculiar characteristics of the Hyksos
King as revealed by the last discoveries ; and he suggested that
the explanation might be found in the racial origin of the invaders
of Egypt, who were generally considered as Semites, but whom
the classics sometimes called Scythians. This name, no doubt,
does not designate any well defined population, but it was
generally applied to the people of Southern Russia, and therefore
might in this case refer to an Ugro-Tartar race. Mr. Bertin added
that Mr. R. S. Poole had set forth the important anthropological
results of the study of the Egyptian monuments with so much
lucidity that it made the speaker wish that the lecturer would now
turn his attention to the Assyrian and Babylonian monuments,
which might also lead to some important revelations.

Professor FLOWER said that the thanks of Anthropologists were
due to Mr. Poole for his careful and exhaustive analysis of the
large mass of materials bearing upon the subject of races, scattered
through the ancient Egyptian monuments. There were two special
points of interest which had occurred to him during the reading of
the paper. First, with regard to the people called by Mr. Poole
"Northerners" (figs. 9 and 10), in the great development of the
supraorbital ridges, and the receding character of Ihe forehead,
they resemble a type recognized in the earliest known crania found
in central Europe, which has received the name of " Neander-
thaloid," because it reaches its extreme development in the famous
skull discovered in the Neanderthal, near Bonn. It is extremely
probable that these " Northerners " were descendants from a
primitive European people which had crossed over to Africa,
probably by the Straits of Gibraltar in prehistoric times. Secondly,
the figure of the Hyksos monarch exhibited by Mr Poole has
certain Mongolian characters, especially in the breadth and promi-
nence of the cheek bones, so much so as to suggest that the
invasion and occupation of Egypt by the so-called " Shepherds,"
was one of the numerous instances in which some of the nomadic
Tartar hordes of Central and Northern Asia, have poured forth
from their native lands, and overrun and occupied for a longer or
shorter period the countries lying to the west and south of them.
If this view can be maintained, the Hyksos invasion and occupation
of Egypt would have been only one of the series, of which the
conquests of Attila, Tchinghis Khan, and Timur, and the more

VOL. XVI. 2 E

378 Discussion.

permanent settlements of the Finns, the Magyars, and the Turks
in Europe, are well-known examples.

Mr. HILTON PEICE said he had listened with considerable interest
and attention to Mr. Poole's lecture, and should like to ask him
a few questions. Could he tell him which of the tribes he had
described he considered to be the Khita and the Rutennu respec-
tively, of whom we read so much upon the Egyptian monuments,
and whether he considers No. 2 or No. 6 of his illustrations to
represent the Rutennu who Champollion said were Lydiaus, and
who held sway over the whole of Syria, including Assyria and
Babylonia, until they were conquered by the Khita.

Referring to the interesting drawing of the Sphinx handed
round, which Professor Flower considers to have a marked
Mongolian type of feature, and which Mr. Poole ascribed to the
Hyksos period, Mr. Hilton Price would like to be informed
whether Mr. Poole thought the Hyksos were the Amou, as we
learn from M. Chabas, in his " Etudes sur 1'Antiquite Historique
d'apres les sources Egyptiennes,"page 92, that the Amou embraced
all the great nations of Central and Eastern Asia, Palestine, Syria,
Asia Minor, Chaldea, and Arabia, and as Professor Flower said
those races of Central Asia were a pastoral sort of people, and as
the Hyksos were often called Shepherds, might not they have been
these Amou ?

Mr. HYDE CLARKE said he would not follow Professor Flower into
the regions of speculation in which he thought the Professor was
coming nearer to a solution. He did not consider that Mongolians
were to be reduced to the one scholastic type, and had always been
disposed to look for the Hyksos among those Turanians who had
played so large a part in prehistoric times in Syria, in Asia Minor,
and indeed throughout Europe and the East. What he wished to
do was to stimulate the Institute to profit by the valuable notes
and suggestions of Mr. Poole on a most important anthropological
topic. He would urge that a committee should be formed to give
effect to Mr. Poole's plans. One part of these was to obtain the
advice of other Egyptologists as to the monuments to be copied.
This should be carried out on their President's plan on some scale
uniform for comparison, and which could be afterwards applied for
comparison with other representations, Akkad, Khita, Etruscan,
Assyrian, Cypriote, &c. He would recommend the President to
bring the matter before the British Association at Birmingham,
forwarding a recommendation and application for a small grant.
This he thought they might naturally expect would be granted.

Mr. THEODORE BENT, Mr. A. L. LEWIS, and the PRESIDENT also
took part in the discussion.

Mr. POOLE in reply expressed a hope that Mr. Bertin would make
a similar endeavour to lay before the Institute the anthropological
evidence of the monuments of Babylonia and Assyria, and agreed
in admitting the importance for the Hyksos problem of the Scythic
element in early history. This Mr. Flower had shown in his
remarkable criticism of the Hyksos head from a sphinx discovered

Discussion. 379

at San (Zoan, Tanis), in which, he saw Mongolian characteristics.
Further, in showing that the earliest European type, that of the
Neanderthal cranium, was seen in the aquiline variety of the
" Northerners " with strongly marked supraorbital ridges and
receding forehead, Mr. Flower had made a most important
discovery. His view received support from the existence of mega-
lithic monuments along the North African coast, extending, he
believed, as far east as Algeria.

2 E 2

380

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING.

JANUARY 25TH, 1887.
FRANCIS GALTON, Esq., F.K.S., President, in the Chair.

The Minutes of the last Anniversary Meeting were read and
signed.

The PRESIDENT declared the ballot open, and appointed the
Rev. E. S. DEWICK and Mr. C. H. BEAD Scrutineers.

Mr. F. G. H. PRICE, the Treasurer, read the following Eeport
for the year 1886, which was adopted.

TREASURER'S EEPORT FOR 1886.

The amount received from subscriptions is less than last year
by £25 5s., although £57 16s. arrears has been paid, against
£48 6s. in 1885. In that year, however, three cornpounders'
fees of £21 each had been received, whereas only one member
has compounded in the year just passed.

The sale of publications has produced £83 12s. 1(M, and a
small sum is still due to the Institute.

The total amount received has been £657 18s. 10c?., which is
£36 8s. Id. less than the corresponding receipts of last year.

The cost of printing the four numbers of the Journal has
been £215 16s., this is £52 17s. 6d. more than last year, when
the amount paid was exceptionally low, but is not above the
average cost of the four numbers for which payment is made in
the course of the year; the increased expenditure has been
caused by the printing of tabular matter which is always
expensive.

The illustrations have cost £30 18s. 10d., against £27 8s. Sd.
in 1885.

The cost of postage and office expenses is within a few
shillings the same as last year.

The house expenses amount to £33, being £9 17s. less than
in 1885.

The fees paid for the incorporation and registration of the
Institute amount to £14 5s. 2d., and the expenses incidental to
the meetings held in the Conference Hall of the Colonial and
Indian Exhibition were £2 4s.

Annual General Meeting. 381

The total current expenses of the year have been £11 15s. 4d.
more than last year, but £34 7s. 7^d. less than in 1884, and
£48 9s. lljd. less than in 1883.

The balance is £119 19s. 2d., against £176 17s. IJd. last
year.

The subscriptions in arrear amount to £189, the greater part
of which may be considered good.

F. G. HILTON PRICE,

Treasurer.

382

Treasurer's Financial Statement.

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383

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384 Report of Council.

Mr. F. W. KUDLER, the Secretary, then read the following
Report : —

EEPORT OF THE COUNCIL OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE
OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND FOR THE YEAR 1886.

In the course of the year which has just ended the Institute
has held no fewer than eighteen meetings. The presence of an
exceptionally large number of colonial visitors in London during
last year suggested to the Council the advisableness of eliciting
information of an authentic character respecting the present
condition of the Native Eaces of the British Possessions. Five
special meetings were accordingly held during the months of
June and July in the Conference Hall of the Colonial and
Indian Exhibition. In order to make room for these Con-
ferences, the last of the ordinary meetings of the Session, which
would have been held in June, was omitted; the number of
ordinary meetings being thereby reduced to twelve.

During the past year the following forty-four papers and
other communications have been read before the Institute,
namely : —

1. " On Kecent Designs for Anthropometric Instruments." By Francis
G-alton, Esq., F.R.S., President.

2. " On a Skull from an Ancient Burying Ground in Kamtschatka." By
Professor A. Macalister, F.R.S.

3. " On the Cephalic Index." By J. G. Garson, Esq., M.D.

4. " On Australian Medicine Men." By A. W. Howitt, Esq., F.G.S.

5. " On the Numerals of the Yoruba Nation." By Adolphus Mann, Esq.

6. " On the Flint-knappers' Art in Albania." By A. J. Evans, Esq., M. A.

7. " On some Stone Implements found in South Africa." By W. H.
Penning, Esq., F.G-.S.

8. " Notes on Some Prehistoric Finds in India." By Bruce Foote, Esq.

9. " On some Instruments for Anthropometric Research." By J. G. Garson,
Esq., M.D.

10. "On the Present Condition of the Bechuana, Koranna, and Matabele
Tribes." By Captain C. R. Conder, R.E.

11. " The Origin of Agriculture." By H. Ling Roth, Esq.

12. " On the Sengirese." By Dr. S. J. Hickson.

13. "On Permanent Colour-types in Mosaic." By Francis G-alton, Esq.,
F.E.S., President.

14. " On some African Skulls in the Cambridge University Museum." By
Professor A, Macalister, F.R.S.

15. " On the International Agreement on the Cephalic Index." By J. G.
G-arson, Esq., M.D.

16. " On the Skeleton and Cephalic Index of Japanese." By J. G. Garson,
Esq., M.D.

17. " On a Skull from New Ireland." By Professor A. Macalister, F.R.S.

18. "The Ancient Egyptian Classification of the Races of Man." By
Reginald Stuart Poole, Esq., LL.D.

19. " The Present Condition of the Native Population of the Cape of Good
Hope." By R. J. Mann, Esq., M.D.

20. " On the Condition of the Natives of the Gold Coast Possessions." By
Sir James Marshall.

Eeport of Council.

385

21. " On Ethnological Objects from South Africa." By C. D. Webb, Esq.

22. " On the African Tribes of the British Empire." By J. Thomson, Esq.

23. " On the Natives of Cyprus." By Hamilton Lang, Esq.

24. " On the Natives of British Guiana." By E. F. im Thurn, Esq.

25. " On the Caribs." By G. H. Hawtayne, Esq., C.M.G-.

26. " On the Natives of British North America." By Dr. J. Eae.

27. " On the Ethnological Exhibits in the Colonial and Indian Exhibition."
By C. H. Bead, Esq., F.S.A.

28. " On American Shell-work and its Affinities." By Miss A. W. Buckland.

29. " On some Ethnological Objects from Ceylon and the Maldive Islands."
By C. W. Eossett, Esq.

30. " On the Native Eaces of Australia." By James Bonwick, Esq.

31. " On the Natives of New Zealand." By F. W. Pennefather, Esq.

32. " The Aborigines of Fiji." By the Hon. James E. Mason.

33. "On the Native Tribes of the Straits Settlements." By F. A.
Swettenham, Esq.

34. " On the Natives of British North Borneo." By W. B. Pryer, Esq.

35. " On an Interpretation of one of the Copan Monuments." By Dr. E. T.
Hamy.

36. " The Aborigines of Hispaniola." By H. Ling Eoth, Esq.

37. " The Tribes of the Eastern Soudan." By Donald A. Cameron, Esq.

38. " On some West African Symbolic Messages." By George W. Bloxam,
Esq., M.A., Assistant Secretary.

39. " The Eaces Inhabiting Sierra Leone." By T. E. Griffith, Esq.

40. " On Papuans and Polynesians." By the Eev. George Brown.

41. " On Songs and Song Makers of some Australian Tribes." By A. W.
Uowitt, Esq.,F.G.S.

42. " Music of the Australian Aborigines." By the Eev. G. W. Torrance,
Mus.D.

43. " On the Aborigines of Western Australia." By E. H. Bland, Esq.

44. " A Brief Account of the Aboriginal Eaces of Manipur and the Naga
Hills," By George Watt, Esq., M.B., C.B.

The four numbers of the Journal published during the year,
viz., Nos. 54, 55, 56, and 57, contain 482 pages of letterpress,
with 12 plates of illustrations. These Journals have appeared
with punctuality.

During the past year 22 new members have been elected, of
whom 16 are ordinary, 4 honorary, and 2 corresponding members.

The Institute has lost through death or resignation, 21
ordinary members, and 1 corresponding member.

The former and present state of the Institute, with regard to
the number of members, are shown in the following Table : —

Honorary.

Corresponding.

Compounders,

Ordinary.

Total.

January 1st, 1886

285

493

Since elected

+ 4

+ 2

• «

+ 16

Since deceased . .

-1

-2

-7

Since retired

-12

January 1st, 1887

282

493

386 Report of Council.

It will be seen from this table that the total number of
members of the Institute at the present time is precisely the
same as at the corresponding period of last year. At the
same time it is matter of regret that there has been a falling-
off, though a very slight one, in the number of subscribing
members.

The Council appeals to all who are interested in any of the
various branches of the Science of Man to assist in the develop-
ment of the Institute by securing additional members.

With an enlarged income the efficiency of the Institute could
be increased, and it is especially desirable that more funds
should be available for the improvement of the Journal.

The Council regrets to report that the Institute has lost
through death the following Members : — The Viscount Barring-
ton, Mrs. Bathoe, Professor George Busk, Mr. F. T. Hall, Mr.
Andrew Maclure, Major-General Sir Arthur Phayre, Kear-
Admiral Bedford Pirn, Mr. C. H. Williams, Dr. E. J. Mann, and
Dr. J. F. N. Wise.

The Council regrets that Mr. F. G. H. Price, to whom the
Institute has been indebted for so many years for carrying on
the duties of the Treasurership, has felt that the continuance of
these financial cares is incompatible with the active prosecution
of his archaeological investigations. On receiving Mr. Price's
resignation as Treasurer the Council marked its appreciation of
his long and valuable services by a special vote of thanks. In
proposing Mr. A. L. Lewis as his successor in the office of
Treasurer, the Council feels that it is nominating a gentleman
who unites a professional knowledge of accounts with sincere zeal
for the welfare of the Institute.

It was mentioned last year that the Council proposed to take
steps for the incorporation of the Institute under the Companies
Acts, 1862 to 1883. In accordance with the resolution passed
at the anniversary meeting in January, 1886, the incorporation
has been effected, and the members have therefore the satisfac-
tion of knowing that the Institute is now placed in a legal
position superior to that which it had occupied during the
previous period of its existence.

The adoption of the Reports of the Treasurer and Council was
proposed by Mr. G. M. ATKINSON, seconded by Mr. M. BEAUFORT,
and carried unanimously.

The PRESIDENT then delivered the following address : —

President's Address. 387

ADDRESS delivered at the ANNIVERSARY MEETING of the ANTHRO-
POLOGICAL INSTITUTE of GREAT BRITAIN and IRELAND,
January 25th, 1887.

By FRANCIS G ALTON, Esq., F.R.S., President.

OUR Institute, as appears from the Report of the Council, and
as I hope from your own observation also, continues to perform
its self-appointed task with usefulness, and to satisfy to the
best of its opportunity the current needs of anthropological
record and research.

It was formally incorporated under the Companies Acts on
March 26th.

The year that has passed by has been eventful to it in many
respects. The Institute has sustained, as in the course of
nature it must do from time to time, the loss of valued members
by death ; it has also witnessed a considerable widening of the
field of anthropological interest.

The nearest of our losses is through the death of our former
judicious President, Mr. George Busk, distinguished in many
lines, but in those which concern us, more especially as a
craniologist. No one is better qualified to do justice to his
labours in this special department of anthropology than his
intimate friend Professor Flower, who at my request has kindly
drawn up the notice of his life and works which will be found
printed after this Address (p. 403).

Sir Arthur Phayre, G.C.M.G., was an administrator of high
rank, who eminently devoted himself to the study of the men
over whom he had to rule, and whose frequent memoirs, geo-
graphical and others, connected with Burmah, made him for
many years the principal authority upon that country.

Through the death of Dr. Mann we miss a frequent attendant
at many scientific meetings, who had been an eager exponent
of South African ethnology for many years, and always ready to
give or to obtain information for scientific inquirers on African
subjects. In advanced age, though suffering from the severe
bodily infirmities which ended in death, he superintended the

388 President' "s Address.

arrangement of the Ethnological Collection of Natal in the late
Colonial and Indian Exhibition, and almost, if not quite, his
last public appearance was when reading a memoir upon them
at one of our Conferences in that building.

These and other active and efficient members have been taken
from us, while ne\v and zealous men have joined our ranks, so
the Institute as a whole lives and thrives like an organic body ;
each of us in his turn plays his part, then falls away, and
another succeeds to his place.

I will in my further remarks on the past year refer not
directly to our own proceedings, as they appear set forth in our
Journal, under the careful and willing editorship of Mr. Rudler,
but to those instances of our action outside, with which members
have less opportunity of becoming acquainted.

An extensive ethnological inquiry has been initiated by the
Council of the Palestine Exploration Fund. They formed a
Committee upon which I was appointed to serve on behalf of
this Institute, to draw up a list of questions applicable to the
various races inhabiting Syria, which are to be placed in the
hands of the numerous persons who come within the sphere of
their operations. Many of these have had medical instruction
arid are likely to prove competent observers. The task of doing
this was ultimately placed mainly in the hands of Captain
Conder, E.E., to be carried out upon the general lines laid down
in the Anthropological "Notes and Queries," but of course
they have been much modified to suit the special inquiry.
The questions are now printed and will very shortly be
distributed.

The Anthropological " Notes and Queries " to which I have
just referred, are running out of print. They were drawn up by
various members of our Institute, at the suggestion of and under
the editorship of our then President, Colonel Lane Eox, now
General Pitt-Eivers. They were published at the cost of the
British Association, who at their last meeting constituted a
Committee from among the former writers of the little volume,
to consider the propriety of publishing a second and revised

President's Address. 389

edition. The Association also made a small grant to cover
initial expenses.

The British Association has further assisted the objects of our
Institute in another way. It will be recollected by many that in
the course of a discussion last spring that arose after the memoir
read by Mr. Eeginald Stuart Poole on the races portrayed in the
ancient Egyptian monuments, that gentleman pointed out the
urgent importance of obtaining photographs of all those sculptures
and pictures that refer to persons of known races. He also
suggested that Mr. Flinders Petrie might be induced to under-
take the task of making them. Many of our members entered
warmly into this view, and on application being made to the
British Association a grant was made by that body to a Com-
mittee of which I was chairman, to carry this proposal into
effect. The Committee has met and discussed the matter with
Mr. Petrie, who was then in this country. A list of about 70 of
the portraits that appear most desirable to photograph, was
drawn up and carefully considered, and Mr. Petrie willingly
undertook the labour of photographing them, so far as oppor-
tunity should permit. He is now in Egypt.

The Ethnographical Gallery at the British Museum was
thrown open in April last after its re-arrangement in rooms left
vacant through the removal of the Natural History collection to
South Kensington. The adjoining Asiatic saloon, which con-
tains specimens of Oriental art and objects illustrative of the
Oriental religions, was opened at the same time. The collection
now comprises that formed and bequeathed by Mr. Christy 20
years ago, which, for want of space in the Museum had remained
for most of that time comparatively unknown to the public, and
installed in his former private residence. The whole has been
very largely extended and supplemented through the continued
zealous efforts of Mr. Franks. The arrangement of the pre-historic
section is being vigorously proceeded with and will probably be
completed in the spring. It will include the collection of Canon
Greenwell as well as the pre-historic portion of that of Mr.
Christy. Greatly as the space allotted to the collection has been

390 President's Address.

increased, and though it now occupies a magnificent suite of
rooms, it is still seriously cramped in many of its sections. It is
far from being as amply housed as those of Berlin and Vienna.
Its area is too small for the legitimate requirements of a collection
whose object is to explain the development of the faculties of
mankind by specimens of their handiwork, beginning with
those of pre-historic times and passing through successive and
parallel stages of barbarism to the dawn of the higher modern
civilization.

The anthropological collection presented by General Pitt-
Rivers to the University of Oxford, is now nearly arranged by
Professor Moseley in the building erected by the University to
receive it. The ground floor will be thrown open to the public
daily in the afternoon during the present term, and Dr. E. B.
Tylor will lecture every Monday afternoon on the collections in
the building. There is hope that the remainder of the room
will be opened before the end of summer. It is gratifying to
find that this magnificent collection excites much interest in the
University, and is likely to be largely frequented.

Another great event of anthropological interest to us in the
past year was the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, whose
exhibits, so far as they concerned ethnology, were well brought
into notice during the series of Conferences held by our Institute
in the Conference Hall of that building. The subjects of the
various Conferences will be found described in the Eeport of
the Council and in the Journal of the Institute.

It has, moreover, led to the project of an Imperial Institute, that
shall also serve as a memorial of the 50th year of Her Majesty's
reign. Its principal function will be to bring us, who live in
the mother country, into close and permanent touch with our
fellow subjects of all varieties of race, creed, and mode of
thought, who are spread over Her Majesty's dominions. It is a
grand idea, which, if adequately carried into effect, will prove a
noble achievement. Primarily the object of the Imperial Institute
is to afford a centre of intelligence for commerce and emigration ;
but a busy mart and frequent meeting place for representatives

President's Address. 391

of all the races in the British dominions cannot fail incidentally
to become an important centre of anthropological intelligence.
It is in reference to that aspect of the future Imperial Institute,
which also in some degree characterised the past Colonial and
Indian Exhibition, that I offer the following remarks.

I am not sure whether there is any need for me to allude at
all to a proposal that has been publicly urged, that a prominent
feature of the Imperial Institute should be an Ethnological
Museum of the races in the British dominions. There is no
reason, so far as I have heard, to suppose that a museum of this
kind is likely to be included in the plan, but as a proposal for
it has been and may again be brought forward, I think it is
well to show reasons why so costly and large an adjunct would
not be of first-rate importance to us. The British possessions
are spread widely over the globe, but they do not by any
means include representatives of all the races that inhabit it.
It follows that an Ethnological Museum, limited to the handi-
work of populations subject to the British rule, cannot have
the same scientific importance and interest as such general
ethnological collections as those at the British Museum and
at Oxford, of which I have just spoken. There seems to be
no very useful stage half way between a good local and a
good general museum. The former exhausts the peculiarities
of its district, the latter collates analogous objects from every
district where they exist, and makes each help in interpreting
the rest. It therefore seems to me undesirable to ask that a
prominent feature of the future Imperial Institute should be an
ethnological collection, limited to the particular group of races
who happen now to fall within the British possessions; on the
other hand, the desire of any colony to maintain a local museum
of its own would, I conceive, receive warm encouragement from
anthropologists,

In the hope that the proposed Imperial Institute will be a
focus for anthropological reference and information, we ought
cordially to wish it success. With its prospective libraries, with
the opportunities it will afford of personal intercourse with

392 President's Address.

colonists, and by the stimulus that it is capable of giving to a
wide scientific co-operation, it may become a powerful agent in
advancing anthropological knowledge and research.

The Colonial and Indian Exhibition brought forcibly to
notice the rapid diminution in present and future importance of
the barbarous races who inhabit the temperate regions of the
world in which Europeans are now establishing themselves.
Their peculiarities are losing present interest and are becoming
historical and archaic, little to be taken into account in
reckoning upon the future of those regions. They are to the
new European lords of the soil of not much more consideration
than the vegetation of the wilderness might be to the owner of
a newly reclaimed and scientifically cultivated farm. The whole
of the exhibits of native handiwork in the large courts occupied
by Canada made so small a show that they could have been
partly placed on an ordinary sized dinner table and partly hung
up on the wall behind it.

In such colonies as these the anthropological interest of the
future will become less and less concerned with the customs of the
barbarous races who may still inhabit them, and more and more
assimilated to that which we now take in the inhabitants of the
United Kingdom. A vast deal remains to be done at home
before this interest can even be moderately satisfied. It is but
very lately that we have acquired a fairly exact knowledge of
the most marked physical peculiarities of our country men ; as to
their mental characteristics they are almost untouched by the
methods of strict scientific inquiry. Whatever concern we
justly feel in taking stock from time to time of our race at
home, and in discovering how far its quality is improved or
deteriorated by locality, occupation, or other influences, that
concern will be even more keenly felt in extending a similar
inquiry to distant settlements of our race, where the differences
of environment are greater than with us, and their effects are
therefore less liable to be confused with those of concurrent and
hidden influences. In astronomical language they will have
a larger parallax, and therefore the errors of observation will be

President's Address. 393

less liable to vitiate the results. We can be sure that whatever
effort we may bestow upon inquiries into the vital statistics of
the numerous communities of our race who are settled in
diverse climates and under various circumstances, will be more
effective in solving the problems of sociology than the same
amount of effort limited to investigations in the mother
country.

Here I will draw your attention to the very important aid to
sociological ^research that is likely to be given by the Inter-
national Statistical Institute which Sir Eawson W. Eawson has
had the good fortune to succeed in establishing. It is a body of
great administrative weight and influence. It consists of
members and associates, limited to the number of 200, who are
heads of official statistical bureaux in all parts of the world, of
commissions and of societies, and others who have special
statistical knowledge or qualifications. Its object is to introduce
uniformity, as far as may be, in statistical returns, so as to make
those of different countries mutually comparable, and to stimulate
the interests of Governments and individuals in the study of
social phenomena. This Institute as at present arranged, is to
meet biennially. The present year will be that of its second
meeting, and at Rome.

As regards India and the Colonies in which the native
population is large and is likely to subsist, whether owing to its
vitality being strong enough to hold its own against that of the
whites in a fair field of competition, or because the white races
cannot thrive and multiply in their climates, additional objects
of anthropological research will abound. Each of the various
native races call for as much study as our own, and the
sociological problems that arise from the mixture of races
introduce a further complexity. Moreover, they are problems
not only of academic interest, but they are living conditions
that statesmen have to face and deal with.

I must diverge for a moment to express the welcome we
afford to the Anthropological Society newly established at

Bombay, for the discussion of Indian topics. It seems to be
VOL. xvi. 2 F

394 President's Address.

supported on all sides by natives as well as Europeans, with the
utmost cordiality. The first number of its publications reached
me a few days ago, and judging from the variety of its contents,
and the originality of its papers, it seems likely to give valuable
future aid to the advancement of our science. Also, I will take
this opportunity of referring to another new Anthropological
Society, that of Japan. It has already during the few
months of its existence, published two numbers in the Japanese
language, with some illustrations, and English tables of contents.
The society has been instituted at a most propitious moment,
when the traditions and usages of Old Japan remain in full
memory, while the rapidly growing culture of New Japan has
become sufficiently advanced to make their collection and study
a matter of interest to the people. No doubt some of the
more valuable papers in this journal will hereafter appear in
one or other of the chief European languages. The curse of the
Tower of Babel, in whatever sense we may employ the phrase,
has long pressed heavily upon scientific men in Europe; the
contemplation of the additional burden on our descendants of
having possibly to learn Japanese, Eussian, and Chinese as
well as the western European languages can hardly be indulged
in with equanimity.

The recent extraordinary spread and domination of the white
races over the world is forcibly brought into notice by the
various political treaties that have lately assigned vast regions
in the Pacific Islands and in Africa to the protectorate of one
or other of the great European Powers. It makes us again
consider the often discussed problem whether any offshoots
from European races are destined to take root and to naturalise
themselves in the tropics, or whether the conditions of life in
those climates are so prejudicial to their health, vigour, and
fertility as to exclude the possibility of such an event.

It seems strange to say, after the experience of generations
that we have had in India and elsewhere, that adequate data
for the decisive answer to this question by appeal to past fact,
do not appear to exist. Statisticians who have attempted the

President's Address. 395

problem have commonly arrived at this conclusion. The paucity
of available data is due to the habit of successful colonists to
return to their homes in later life, and for their children, even
if they settle in the land where they were born, to marry
European wives, and so to import fresh blood. Besides this
the field of inquiry is full of statistical complexities and pitfalls,
so much so as to render it futile to attempt to fairly state and
weigh such evidence as exists, on an occasion like the present.
However, I am desirous to say something on the subject, and
to bring to your notice two or three general considerations,
that are not without importance in themselves, and which have
an independent interest of their own.

The unsuitability of the tropics for European settlement is
principally due to their heat and to their diseases. I will con-
sider these separately.

As regards heat we should bear in mind the great and
increasing power of man to control within doors the influence
of the out-of-door temperature. It has been almost wholly
exerted until very recent years in resisting cold, with the
happy result that active industries are carried on under
inclement skies throughout the year, irrespectively of season,
and that a highly refined and artificial society exists in
countries which without warming appliances could be inhabited
only by rude races, half dormant during the winter. It is
difficult to assign any limit in the direction of the poles at
which civilisation is impossible on account of the incapacity of
man to battle with the cold. That limit is certainly not reached
at St. Petersburg nor at Archangel.

It has not been the practice until very recent times to pro-
duce cold on a large scale by artificial means. I do not speak
of the cooling produced in dry air by the evaporation of water,
nor of that produced by radiation into space from the surface
of the ground when the air is very still and the sky perfectly
clear ; these are exceptional circumstances, and are absent in
the countries where the oppression of a hot and humid atmo-
sphere is most severely felt. But I mean such cooling as is

2 F 2

396 President's Address.

produced on a large scale and of great intensity by one or
other of the several forms of refrigerating machines worked by
coal that are now used in the transport of frozen meat even
from the Antipodes, and to preserve it for a long time in the
same condition after its arrival in this country. It is reason-
able to ask whether it might not be possible to alleviate the
heat at least of sleeping rooms where there is no opening
and shutting of doors, by some such process, and so to render
the tropics more habitable to Europeans than they now
are.

The idea is not new. It was, I believe, first broached by the
late Mr. Siebe in his examination before the Commission of
1863 into the Sanitary State of the Army in India (pp. liv and
326), and now that his machine and those of many other in-
ventors are largely employed and their use is rapidly extending,
the same idea has again been occasionally brought forward. I
would refer those who desire late intelligence about refrigerating
machines to Mr. T. B. Lightfoot's admirable paper upon them in
May last (1886) before the Institution of Mechanical Engineers,
and to the discussion that followed. A previous memoir by the
same author before the same society was read in 1881. I have,
however, come across no calculations of the expense of cooling
sleeping rooms in hot climates, so I have myself made a
calculation for a single typical case which will afford a
useful basis for hypotheses of what is or may hereafter be
feasible.

In an occupied room when the purity of the air neither in-
creases nor diminishes, the volume of outflowing air in each
unit of time must contain just as much impurity as was being
exhaled into the general body of air in the room during the
same period. The greater the rate of outflow and replacement
by fresh air the less the percentage of remaining impurity.
Experience shows that an outflow of 1,200 cubic feet of air
per man per hour, and a corresponding inflow will keep a room
in these climates in fair condition; 1,500 would probably
suffice in the tropics. This amount is, of course, independent

President's Address. 397

of the size of the room, and it is that which is now allowed
in barracks.1

The volume of air that actually passes through the lungs
is comparatively insignificant, being only from 7 to 8 cubic
feet per man per hour, or the one hundred and fiftieth part
of the air needed for ventilation.

In supplying cold air under the supposed circumstances it
must at the same time be dry air, else its mixture with the
hot humid atmosphere would produce a cloud of vapour.
The special case I will examine is that where it is required
to supply air at 70° Fah., with a dew-point of 60°, when the
temperature of the surrounding atmosphere is 90°, and the air
is damp to saturation.

At a barometric pressure of 30 inches each cubic foot of
the air to be supplied contains a weight of 514 grains troy of
dry air associated with 5 grains of vapour. The same weight of
dry air when raised to 90° and fully saturated will contain no
less than 15 grains of vapour. Therefore for each cubic foot of
supply, 10 grains weight of vapour in excess will have to be
condensed into water, and to do this exhausts no less than 78J
per cent, of the total cooling power that is required.

I find this total cooling power to be such that 68 grains of
ice at 32° will effect it,2 in other words that one ton of ice will
supply air of the desired quality sufficient for one man, namely,
1,500 cubic feet per hour, for 127 hours, or during 16 nights of
eight hours each.

There are some additional items of cooling to be effected, but

1 See " Healthy Dwellings," by Captain Douglas Galton, C.B., F.E.S., 1880.

2 The number of units of heat required —

(1) To melt 68 grains of ice at 32° F. into water of the same temperature
and —

(2) To raise that water to 70°;

Are equal to the number of units of heat parted with —

(3) To condense 10 grains;of vapour at 90° to water of the same.temperature ;

(4) To cool that water from 90° to 70°;

(5) To cool 514 grains of dry air to the same amount, and —

(6) To cool the 5 grains of vapour that are associated with it.

398 President's Address.

they are relatively insignificant in amount. About 530 grains
of vapour per man per hour are given off from the lungs and
skin, and all of this has to be condensed. But as we have
already allowed for the condensation of ten times 1,500 or for
15,000 grains per hour, the additional demand in this respect is
only one twenty-eighth part of that which has been already
met.

Again, the volume of heated expired air is said in the tropics
to be less than in these climates, and to be only 7 cubic feet
per hour; its temperature will be say 98°. The additional
demand for cooling somewhat less than this small quantity of
dry air through 28°, is insignificant compared to the first
charge which has already been met, of cooling 1,200 cubic feet
through 20°.

Again, we may safely assume that the amount of warmth
radiated from the surface of the body or carried away from it by
heated currents is of relative insignificance, but I have no data
to estimate it correctly.

We may fairly conclude that an additional 5 per cent, to the
previously calculated quantity of ice would more than cover the
demand for all these additional purposes.

We have lastly to consider the waste of ice owing to the in-
vasion of heat through the walls and roof. Of course these
would have to be made of very good non-conducting material,
like the walls of refrigerating chambers.

Allowing for everything, it seems that a ton of machine-made
ice, which can be produced at the prime cost of a very few
shillings, might well serve to cool the sleeping room of one man
for a fortnight. Artificially made ice can, as I learn on inquiry,
be bought at the works at any time in London, if on a large
scale, at 20s. a ton. It is carted, delivered, and stored for 30s. a
ton.

The cooling of a sleeping room even by the costly method
of artificially made ice would therefore be by no means a
serious expense in comparison to other luxuries, and the details
of successfully constructing a refrigerated sleeping room seem

President's Address. 399

to present no serious difficulty and to involve no large cost.
It is easy to imagine how the ice would have to be stacked as
in an ice house, above the ceiling of the refrigerated chambers
among air flues ; and how the inlet pipe before entering the,
room might pass by the newly incoming warm air from the
outside in order that the saturated and over-chilled air should
yield some of its cold to it, and enter the room as a somewhat
less cold but dry air. "Whether a better and much cheaper
way of cooling a sleeping chamber by compressed air or other-
wise might not be employed, is another question into which I
do not enter. Certainly experiment is desirable, for whenever
the problem of artificially cooling bed chambers and dwelling
rooms shall have been practically solved, one of the difficulties
in the way of Englishmen naturalising themselves in the tropics
will have been removed.

As regards the diseases of hot climates which severely affect
most Europeans, experience has largely shown that tropical
countries are much more habitable in established settlements
than they were to travellers and to the earlier settlers who were
destitute of wholesome comforts. Sir Bartle Frere laid much
stress on this, and quoted striking instances of it in India, in
his memoirs on Eastern Africa.

Sanitation has within very recent years improved the life rate
of our soldiers in India, so much so that the proportion who die
annually is stated to be only one-quarter as great as it was a
few years ago, their death rate now lying between 15 and 17 per
thousand, while before the Crimean War it was between 60 and
70 per thousand.

There is I presume little chance of mere acclimatisation pro-
ducing much effect in a few generations, or of an acquired
capacity of withstanding tropical disease being transmitted
hereditarily to descendants. The successful settlement of
tropical countries seems to depend on " accidental " varieties of
our race being found able to thrive in them. There is a marked
difference between the power of different Englishmen to with-
stand, for example, the effects of African climate. It has been

400 President's Address.

a prominent feature among the successful explorers of that
country that although they may frequently suffer from fever, it
takes no permanent hold upon their constitution. It is clear
that men possessing such natural peculiarities, have a far better
chance than others of naturalising themselves and their de-
scendants in tropical homes. There is therefore some hope of
vigorous varieties of the English race being found able to
establish themselves in our tropical possessions. The process
would be effected least wastefully to life, through a step-by-step
fashion ; emigrants from families already thriving in sub-
tropical countries being likely to include a much larger pro-
portion of individuals capable of thriving in still hotter climates
than those coming directly from England.

Much has recently been written on the difficulty of any rare
accidental variety of animal or plant establishing itself, when it
has unrestricted opportunity of intercrossing with the parent
stock. It is urged that the peculiarity would be halved in each
successive generation, and would very soon cease to be apparent
in the descendants. It seems to me that this argument is
sometimes pressed too far. It cannot be a general truth that
characteristics blend, else, to take a conspicuous example, there
would be a growing tendency in every mixed population for
the eye-colour to become of a uniform hazel or brown gray
tint, through the intermarriage of persons whose eye-colours
differ widely. On the contrary, I have lately shown by a con-
siderable body of statistics1 that among the English, the pro-
portions between the eye-colours, as sorted under seven headings,
has not changed at all during four generations. The fact is
that heritages are only partially liable to be blended together ;
partially they are mutually exclusive. No case of inheritance
probably falls altogether under either of these opposed extreme
conditions, but some approximate to one, and others to the other.
I am not aware that the respective results of these two extreme
conditions have yet been put forward quite as forcibly as they
admit and deserve to be.

1 " Family Likeness in Eye-Colour," " Proc. Royal Soc.," 1886.

President's Address. 401

I will explain what I mean by rude but sufficient illustrations.
Let us suppose a black population with a single white individual
in it, and endeavour to trace the tints of his descendants under
each of the two ideal conditions of completely blending and of
mutually exclusive heritages. We will reduce the problem to its
simplest form by assuming that intermarriage with the parent
stock is the rule, and that there is no change in the vitality or
the fertility of the hybrid offspring. It will be best to begin by
supposing each pair to leave just two children to succeed them.
Let us, for illustration sake, imagine a large number of similar
glasses, each intended to represent a single individual, and the
tint of their contents to represent those of the persons to whom
they severally refer. In illustrating the effect of perfectly
blending inheritance we have merely to mix a glass full of
black fluid with a glass full of white fluid and to pour the
mixture into two other glasses which represent the two
children. That mixture will be of course the same in both, and
of a pure mulatto tint. Eepeating the process with each of
the two glasses we obtain four glasses all of quadroon tint, then
eight of octoroon tint, and so on. All this is plain enough ; but
now let us take the case of mutually exclusive heritages. I
will represent the tint of each individual by a cylinder that
just fills the glass. There will be a large number of glasses
each filled with a black cylinder and one with a white cylinder.
We will now treat their contents in the same outward form as
before. We mix, that is, we throw and shake together in a
separate jar the contents of the two glasses, namely, a white
cylinder and a black cylinder, and then fill two other glasses from
out of the jar. The contents of these two glasses will not be
mulatto, but one of them will be pure white and the other pure
black. We repeat the process and obtain four grand children,
one of whom will still be of unmixed white and the other three
of unmixed black ; we repeat it again and obtain eight grand-
children, one of whom will be pure white and the other seven
pure black, and so on for any number of generations, the
one white cylinder appearing unchanged in every one of them.

402 President's Address.

It would be tedious and of little profit to endeavour to modify
this rude but distinct illustration so as to apply to families of
varying numbers of children. In some cases the offspring
would fail and the race of the white cylinder would come alto-
gether to an end, in others it would be prolific and increase. In
all cases the broad fact remains conspicuous that when heritages
are mutually exclusive a rare variety may have numerous
chances of establishing itself, one in each of many successive
generations. Until it is wholly abolished, it will present itself
again and again for competitive examination without diminution
of vigour, and if it has natural advantages over the general
population it has a corresponding number of chances of pro-
fiting by them. The conditions are far different with the
heritages that blend. In these cases the peculiarity of one
parent is diluted to half its amount in the very first generation,
so that under the most favourable supposition of the offspring of
that parent mating together and never mixing their blood with
outsiders, and of not suffering from this close interbreeding,
they would only be mulatto. No more than one-half of the
original peculiarity of the one black parent could possibly
become an established characteristic.

It is between these two extreme conditions that the facts of
inheritance really lie. They might be roughly illustrated by sup-
posing each of the glasses to contain neither a volume of fluid
nor yet a single cylinder, but a moderate number of large beads
partly strung together as on a broken necklace, from which
some fall off each time it is handled ; but I will not pursue this
illustration further. Suffice it to conclude that the establishment
of a somewhat rare variety as that of white men naturally suited
to thrive and multiply in tropical climates, is not so great an
improbability as those anticipate, who lay exclusive stress on
the tendency of rare peculiarities to disappear in a very few
generations, through free intermarriage with the ordinary
members of the original stock.

Bvthe death c» the 10th rf

He was horn on the 12th of August, 1807, at SL 1VO*J«|^
being the second aon of Mr. Eobert Bosk, an Eagfiafc merchant
residing in that city. He early devoted fr™»lf to the study of

Street, near St. Bartholomew's Hospital
of the Boyal College of Smgeons in 1
honorary fellow of that body in 1843.
Surgeon to the Seamen's Hospital — *
Dreadnought, an old man-of-war moored
which he resigned in 1856. Akhoogh
iLirdT ;~iz^ :; :lr iirz-izi:^ :ir-."izi?:iL
the necessity of JgwnAlng liium^lf to th
he acquired a

of surgical knowledge. It was,
that he was best known to the world,
microscopic research, and
time when it was in
the lower forms of
r -.\ i n s " c. k in ^ .\n ".
which he

fication of the potyxoa had already in 1856
great a reputation that when in that year Sir
resigned the Hunterian l>tnfcMMBehip at the Boyal College
of Surgeons, which he had long held with great

Jfe.B»*OTdMMl7toCbMnl<**ftGtll«ft*»

him. His strength, however, lay

in exposition, and his

lecturing an uncongenial pursuit, after three

the chair. He did, however, adianabfr service to the college

•
404 Obituary Notice of the late Professor Busk.

for many years, as a Member of the Council and of the
Board of Examiners, and in 1871 was chosen to serve in
its highest office, that of President. He was also an examiner
in the University of London and the Army Medical Board ; for
many years Secretary to the Linnean Society, a member of the
Council and Vice-President of the Eoyal Society, a Member of
the Council and Vice-President of the Zoological Society,
a Member of the Council of the Geological Society, Treasurer
of the Eoyal Institution, a Member of the Senate of the
University of London, Trustee of the Hunterian Museum, and
one of the Governors of Charterhouse School. The number
and variety of these appointments show the esteem in which
his sound judgment, wide knowledge, excellent common sense,
unwearied industry, and sterling integrity of character were held
by his friends and colleagues.

For his numerous and varied researches in zoology, physiology,
and comparative anatomy, the Eoyal Society in 1871 awarded to
Mr. Busk a Eoyal medal, and he also received the Lyell and
Wollastou medals from the Geological Society for his labours in
palaeontology, mainly the description of mammalian remains
found in caves. It is, however, chiefly his work in connection
with anthropology, a subject to which he devoted much of his
time in the later years of his life, that must be spoken of here.
He was elected a member of the old Ethnological Society in
1863, and soon after became one of its Vice-Presidents. In the
negotiations connected with the fusion of that society with the
Anthropological, which resulted in the formation of the present
Institute in 1871, he took a considerable part. Of this body he
was a Member of the Council from its foundation until the
advance of illness about a year before his death compelled him to
cease from attending. In 1873 he was elected President, an office
which he served for two years with great advantage to the Insti-
tute, having been most assiduous in the discharge of its duties.

Mr. Busk's taste for anthropology appears to have been first
roused by the opportunities for its study afforded by the seamen
of the most varied races and nationalities who became patients

Obituary Notice of the late Professor Busk. 405

at the Dreadnought Hospital ; and a small collection of typical
crania which he then formed, furnished the materials for com-
mencing those investigations into the distinctive characters of
the skulls of races, which will always be associated with his
name. He was the first in this country who seriously attacked
this difficult problem, and he expended a vast amount of careful
observation and experiment in devising methods of measuring
the external form and estimating the internal capacity of crania.
Since he first took up this question, the science of craniometry
has engaged the attention of numerous anatomists in all parts of
the civilised world, and has made advances which naturally
have left Busk's methods somewhat in the rear, but still the
ingenuity of his modes of procedure, and the thoroughly
scientific and conscientious spirit in which his investigations
were carried on will never fail to meet their due recognition. A
large work which he had for many years in hand, entitled
" Crania typica," containing descriptions and carefully executed
lithographic figures, either by his own hand or of that of one of
his accomplished daughters, was never published ; but the plates,
as far as they were completed, have been deposited in the library
of the Institute.

The following list of Mr. Busk's published memoirs in
anthropological subjects will give some idea of the extent and
scope of his researches in this branch of science.

1. " Observations on a Systematic Mode of Craniometry."
"Trans. Ethnol. Soc.," I, 1861, p. 341.

2. Translation of Schaaffhausen, " On the Crania of the most
Ancient Eaces of Man ;" with remarks, and original figures,
taken from a cast of the Neanderthal Cranium. " Nat. Hist.
Review," 1861, pp. 155-176.

3. " Observations on some Skulls from Ceylon, said to be
those of Veddahs." "Linn. Soc. Journ.," VI (Zool.), 1862, p
166.

4. (With Carpenter and Falconer). "An account of the
proceedings of the late Conference held in France to enquire
into the circumstances attending the reported discovery of a

406 Obituary Notice of the late Professor Bush

Human Jaw in the gravel at Moulin-Quignon, near Abbeville ;
including the Proces Verlaux of the sittings of the Conference,
with notes thereon." "Nat. Hist. Review," 1863, pp. 423-462.

5. "Note on the Skeleton found at Bennet Hill, Elgin."
" Journ. Anthrop. Soc.," II, 1864, pp. 9, 10.

6. " On a very Ancient Human Cranium from Gibraltar."
"Brit. Assoc. Rep.," XXXIV, 1864 (Sect.), pp. 91, 92.

7. " Account of the Discovery of a Human Skeleton beneath
a bed of peat on the coast of Cheshire." " Trans. Ethnol. Soc.,"
IV, 1866, p. 101.

8. " Description of two Andamanese Skulls." " Trans. Ethnol.
Soc.," IV, 1866, p. 205.

9. " Description of an Aino Skull." " Trans. Ethnol. Soc.,"
VI, 1868, pp. 109-111.

10. " Description of, and Remarks upon, an Ancient Calvaria
from China, which has been supposed to be that of Confucius."
" Journ. Ethnol. Soc.," II, 1870, p. 73.

11. " Supplementary Remarks to a note on an Ancient
Chinese Calva." " Journ. Ethnol. Soc.," II, 1870, p. 156.

12. " Remarks on a Collection of Skulls from Roth well, in
Northamptonshire." " Proceedings Ethnol. Soc.," 1870, p. xci.
[In " Journ. Anthrop. Inst.," I, 1872, Appendix.]

13. (With W. Boyd Dawkins). "On the Discovery of
Platycnemic Men in Denbighshire." " Brit. Assoc. Rep.," XL,
1870 (Sect.), p. 148.

14. " Note on a ready method of Measuring the Cubic Capacity
of Skulls." " Journ. Anthrop. Inst.," Ill, 1874, p. 200.

15. "Remarks on a Collection of 150 Ancient Peruvian
Skulls, presented to the Anthropological Institute by T. J.
Hutchinson." " Journ. Anthrop. Inst.," Ill, 1874, p. 86.

16. "Description of a Samoiede Skull in the Museum of the
Royal College of Surgeons." " Journ. Anthrop. Inst.," Ill, 1874,
p. 494.

17. " Notes on some Skulls from Palmyra, presented to the
Institute by the late Mr. Cottesworth." " Journ. Anthrop. Inst.,"
IV, 1874, p. 366.

Election of Officers. 407

18. " Presidential Address to the Anthropological Institute."
" Journ. Anthrop. Inst," III, 1874, p. 499.

19. " Presidential Address to the Anthropological Institute.'*
"Journ. Anthrop. Inst.," IV, 1875, p. 469.

20. " Notice of a Skull from Ashantee, and supposed to be
that of a Chief or Superior Officer." " Journ. Anthrop. Inst.,"
IV, 1875, p. 62.

21. " Description of two Beothuc Skulls." " Journ. Anthrop.
Inst.," V, 1876, p. 230.

22. "Notes on a Collection of Skulls from the Islands of
Mallicollo and Vanikoro in the New Hebrides Group." " Journ.
Anthrop. Inst," VI, 1877, p. 200.

W. H. F.

The following resolution was moved by Professor MOSELEY,
seconded by Mr. HYDE CLARKE, supported by Professor FLOWER,
and carried unanimously ; namely,

" That the thanks of the meeting be given to the President
for his Address, and that it be printed in the Journal
of the Institute."

The Scrutineers gave in their Report and the following
gentlemen were declared to be duly elected to serve as Officers
and Council for the year 1887: —

President.— Francis Galton, Esq., M.A., F.RS.

Vice-Presidents. — Hyde Clarke, Esq.; J. G-. Garson, Esq.,
M.D. ; Prof. A. H. Keane, B.A.

Secretary.— F. W. Eudler, Esq., F.G.S.
Treasurer. — A. L. Lewis, Esq., F.C.A.

Council. — G. M. Atkinson, Esq. ; Sir W. Bowman, Bart. ; E.
W. Brabrook, Esq., F.S.A. ; Sir George Campbell, M.P. ; C. H.
E. Carmichael, Esq., M.A. ; A. W. Franks, Esq., M.A., F.E.S. ;
Lieut.-Col. H. H. Godwin- Austen, F.E.S. ; Col. J. A. Grant,
C.B. ; T. V. Holmes, Esq., F.G.S. ; Prof. A. Macalister, F.E.S. ;
E. Biddulph Martin, Esq., M.P. ; Prof. Meldola, F.RS. ; Prof.
Moseley, F.E.S. ; C. Peek, Esq., M.A. ; F. G. H. Price, Esq.,

408 Election of Officers.

F.S.A. ; Charles H. Bead, Esq., F.S.A. ; Lord Arthur Kussell,
M.P. ; H. Seebohm, Esq., E.L.S. ; Prof. G. D. Thane ; M. J.
Walhouse, Esq., F.K.A.S.

A vote of thanks to the retiring Treasurer, retiring Vice-
President, retiring Councillors, the Auditors, and the Scruti-
neers, was moved by Prof. KEANE, seconded by Dr. GAESON, and
carried unanimously.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL MISCELLANEA.

SKETCH of NGUNA GRAMMAR.
By SIDNEY H. KAY.

NGUNA is a small island in the New Hebrides, situated to the
north of Fate", in 18° 34' S. lat., and 168° 20' E. long. It was
discovered in 1774 by Captain Cook, and by him called Montagu
Island. The population of the island is about 1,000. European
missionaries have been established there since 1870.

The following sketch was drawn up for comparison with Dr.
Codrington's " Melanesian Languages."1 It is founded on
translations of the Gospels of S. Matthew arid S. John, published
in 1882.2

According to Dr. Steel,3 the Nguna dialect is understood on
thirteen islands, viz., Nguna, Fate, Pele, Mau, Metaso. Makuru,
Tongoa, Tongariki, Falea, Buniga, Ewosi, Mai, and Api.

§ 1. ALPHABET.

1. Vowels : a, e, i, o, u.

2. Consonants : k, g ; t ; p, v, p, w ; m, m, n ; r ; s.

3. Diphthong: au.

4. Two sounds are probably represented by g, viz., the ng in
sing, and ng=ngg in finger. In the alphabet of the Melanesian
mission the first is written n, and the second g. In a short
specimen of Nguna given by Dr. Codrington he writes g for g in
the words naga, ega, go, gani, rogo.

p is the Melanesian q=kpw (in Fate pw, kw). Nguna,
patoko, body ; po, heart, are the Fate qatoko, qp\ q is here used
instead of the p of the gospels; m is the Melanesian m=mw,
t sometimes = tr.

The other consonants as in English, vowels as in Italian.

5. The letter changes so common in Sesake and Fate", occur
also in Nguna. k changes to g, p to v, q to w, r to t, as in
ganikaavi, to eat ; paki, vaki, to go in ; qia, ivia, good ; rolu, tolu,
three.

1 " The Melanesian Languages," by E. H. Codrington, D.D., Oxford, 1885.

2 " The G-ospels according to Matthew and John, translated into the language
of Nguna, New Hebrides," London, 1882.

3 " The New Hebrides," by Eobert Steel, D.D., London, 1880.

VOL. XVI. 2 G

410 Anthropological Miscellanea.

§ 2. ARTICLE.

The demonstrative is na, or n- before a vowel ; na tamoli, a
man ; na wota, a chief ; n-ata, a spirit ; n-oai, water.

The demonstrative waina has frequently the sense of the
definite article , natamoli waina, man that, or the man.

There seems to be a personal article Id (i of the Banks Is. and
N. New Hebrides). It is most commonly used with the per-
sonal pronouns and after the verb soso, to call ; eu soso qilana
ki Maria, they call his mother Mary ; euga wo soso ko ki Keva,
they shall call thee Cephas.

§ 3. NOUNS.

1. There are two classes of Nouns. The first takes the
suffixed possessive pronouns, the second does not. Names of
things in close connection with the possessor, such as parts of
the body, and relations, belong to the first class, as do also
nouns used as prepositions. Names of other objects belong to
the second class.

Examples : na rugu, my hand ; taima, thy brother ; qilana,
his mother ; qoqomu, your hearts ; naraegu, before me, i.e., my
before; na suma aneana, the house his possession, his house; na
wota anigo, thy chief.

2. There is no independent form of the first class of nouns as
in Mota. Verbal substantives are formed by a suffix -ana ; tagi,
to weep ; tagiana, a weeping ; mari, to do ; mariana, a deed.

3. Personal substantives are formed from verbs and adjectives,
by the indefinite pronoun, tea, one ; tea tavagi, a builder ; tea
vasapiseiki, a teacher ; tea tatago, one who asks, a beggar ; tea
mari, a maker. With the verbal substantive tea has a passive
signification ; tea vasapiseikiana, one taught, a disciple ; tea
roromiana, a beloved one. See § 7.

4. Names of places are formed with malo (Florida, malei) ;
malo tasake, a seat, from tasake, to sit ; malo garagara, a dry
place, beach, from garagara, dry.

5. Gender is distinguished by the words noai, male, and goroi,
female ; na wota, a chief ; na wota na goroi, a female chief ;
natuna na noai, a son ; natuna nagoroi, a daughter.

6. Plurality is denoted by maga, or lapa (Fate*, lala) following
the noun ; taina maga, his brothers ; tea mitiri maga, writers ;
na mariana lapa, doings ; na pua lapa, paths. " The whole " is
expressed by m.amau, (Fate, mau) or puti ; na tokoana mamau,
the whole city; na vata mamau the whole herd; na vanua
wanogoe mamau puti, all that land ; eu pei nara mau, they were
alone, lit., they were all themselves.

7. Juxtaposition of two nouns gives a genitive character to

Anthropological Miscellanea. 411

the first ; Maria anawota, Mary's husband ; Tavita natuna,
David's son ; na suma nasaisaiana, the assemblage of the house.
The preposition ni is also used ; natu ni Tavita, son of David,
ara ni nakau, branch of a tree.

8. The words wota, husband ; goroi, wife, take a prefix varying
with the person of the possessor ; amagoroi, anagowi, amugoroi,
thy, his, your wife ; amawota, anawota, thy, her husband.

9. A few nouns are met with having the prefix vei; na
veinawotaana, authority; na veileperoana, leprosy. Here vei
expresses a state or condition, and is probably the same as the
verb vei pei, to be.

10. A suffix ri, which may perhaps denote companionship, is
seen in taguri, tanari, tagitari, tarari, my, his, our, their friend ,
tea waia e pei Natugu roromiana aginau ri, this is my son, the
beloved one my possession.

§ 4. PRONOUNS.

1. The personal pronouns are : —
Singular, 1. kinau ; 2. nigo ; 3. nae.

Dual and plural, 1. inclusive of the person addressed, nigita,
exclusive of the person addressed, kinami ; 2. nimu ; 3. nara.

Ni, na are demonstrative prefixes as in Sesake.

The dual is distinguished from the plural by a different verbal
particle, or by the addition of the numeral rua, two.

Where a singular pronoun and a noun are used in English,
the Nguna idiom requires a dual pronoun ; e pilosi garni ma
mama, he hates me and the father, she hates us, the companion,
the father ; kinami ma mama aro pei tea sikai man, I and the
father are one ; nara ma Suqe ero rua roko, he with God abode,
they, the companion God, they two abode.

2. The personal pronouns suffixed to verbs and prepositions
are : —

Singular: 1. -au, -nau ; 2. ko, go ; 3. -a, -nia.

Dual and Plural : 1. inclusive -gita, exclusive -garni ; 2. -mu ;
3. -ra.

The forms -nau, -nia, are used only after the verbal suffix or
preposition ki. The n or ni is introduced for euphony as in
Oba.

Examples of verbs : kinau a pei vaini, nimu kupei aragu maga,
I am the vine, you are my branches ; kinami au atae, we know ;
nigita ma tuga vano, we also go ; kinami aro atae, we two know ;
nara euga soso ko, they call thee ; a soso mu, I call you ; ku
punusi au, ye see me ; ku noakinau, ye tell me ; e piiuakinia, he
brings him.

3. The possessive pronouns suffixed to nouns are :
Singular : 1. -gu ; 2. -ma : 3. -na.

2 G 2

412 Anthropological Miscellanea.

Dual and plural : 1. inclusive -git a, exclusive -garni, -ginami $
2.-wm; 3. -ra.

Examples: Narugu, my hand; naruma, thy hand; naruna,
his hand ; natugami, our son ; mamaginami, our father ; qatokomu,,
your body ; namatara, their eyes.

Some verbs and prepositions take this pronoun suffixed rather
than the one which properly belongs to them (as in Florida, and
Sesake) ; eu masauna, they desire it ; kiagu, from you ; kianav
from him.

4. The interrogative pronouns are Sei ? who ? na sava ? what ?
seve ? which ? sa ? what thing ? They are used as nouns.

Sei e pei tete aginau ? who is my mother ? auga wo peani nasa ?
vve shall have the what ? kn masau nasava ? thou desires t
what ? ku laga sei ? thou seekest whom ? se^e tea maga ? which
ones ?

5. Demonstrative pronouns : tea waia, this ; ifca waina, that ;.
tea wanogoe, that; ^o^o, ra^oe, that; tea maga, these, those.
These are used also in the place of relatives.

6. Indefinite pronouns : tea, one, anyone ; tea sikai, one ; tea
qota, another ; tea lapa, many ; seara, some ; tea mamau puti, all,
every one ; sikasikai, each ; te nata, no man ; sa, what ; pisay
few.

§ 5. POSSESSIVES.

1. The words a and ma are used as equivalent to the posses-
sives of other Melanesian tongues, and are used with the second
class of nouns instead of the possessive pronouns. With
suffixed pronouns they appear as follows :

Singular: 1. aginau; 2. anigo ; 3. aneana.

Dual and plural : 1. inclusive anigita ; exclusive aginami ;
2. animu ; 3. areara.

Singular: 1. maginau\ 2. manigo ; S.maneana.

Dual and plural : 1. inclusive manigita ; exclusive maginami >
2. manimu ; 3. mareara. With nouns a is used in the sense of
my possession, thy possession, &c., whilst ma is used with verbs
and means a thing for me, for thee, &c.

With nouns the forms are agi, and magi.

Examples : Nasuma aginau, the house my possession ; na
vanua aneana, the field his possession ; na sulu aginami, the
torches our possession ; ku maginau mari a, ye for me did it ; e
manigo mari nasava, he for thee did the what ? e ta maginau
umai mau, ma e manimu umai, not for me it came, but for you
it came ; agi Mosesa sikai, a thing for Moses one ; ku wo magi
natamu paqai na maromaroana, ye shall for them your souls-
find rest; qa maginami qolagati, open for us.

Anthropological Miscellanea. 413

§ 6. ADJECTIVES.

1. Demonstrative : Waia, waina, wanogoe, wanae, wanana.
Kana o waia, this fellow ; na manumatua waina, this wisdom ;
aura wanogoe, that hour ; tokora wanana, yonder place ; tea
.suasua paroro wanae, that unprofitable servant.

2. Indefinite : Te, any ; sarasara, each ; tapalana, such ;
sikesikai, ea,ch ; sara, all, every ; kerua, another, sikaimau, one
<only. Te natamoli, any man ; sarasara ra, each of them ;
navaivaiana maga tapalana, such signs ; e atae sara natamoli,
he knows every man ; taleva kerua, the other side.

3. Comparison is made by the verb liu, to pass, or by two
positive statements ; e qarua liu tea mamau puti, he is greater
than all ; namauriana e ta qarua liu navinaga kite ? is not life
•greater than food ? e sa liu, it is worse ; na varatiana ni navanua
ni Sotoma ega wo kiki, ma na varatiana anigo eg a wo qarua, the
punishment of the town of Sodom shall be small, but your
punishment shall be great.

4. The word siJd, alone, only, (connected with the numeral
.sikai, one) is a noun and takes the suffixed pronouns.

Singular : siki-gu, -ma, -na.

Plural : siki-gita, -garni, -mu, -ra.

Nae e sikina, he was alone, lit., he was his only ; a ta sikigu
mau, I am not alone, I am not my only ; mama e sikina atae a,
the father alone knows it : a ta magi nara waia sikira tapasavasa
mau, I do notrpray for these only.

A few simple adjectives are found, such as wia, good ; warua,
large ; sa, bad ; kiki, small ; vau, new ; pura, full.

The prefixes of condition ma and ta, are seen in makalikali,
prickly ; matulu, deep ; malari, cold ; taqolaga, opened ; tageh,
unjust ; taper aver a, scattered ; taqotae, divided.

An adjectival termination a appears in ulua, growing, from
ulu, a blade of grass ; turua, trembling, from ruru, a trembling ;
qpa, stinking, from qo, a smell. A termination ta may perhaps
occur also in matagauta, thorny, from tagau, a hook.

§ 7. VERBS.

1. Verbs are distinguished from other parts of speech by
verbal particles. Those in common use are :

Singular : 1. a ; 2. ku ; 3. e.

Dual : 1. inclusive toro, exclusive aro ; 2. koro ; 3. ero.

Plural : 1. inclusive tu, exclusive au ; 2. ku ; 3. eu.

These particles are used with or without the personal
pronouns, and frequently have added the directive adverb, ga.

Examples : A noaki mu, I tell you ; ku tua au taleneta. lima,
thou gavest me five talents ; nae e pasatara, he answered ; aro

414 Anthropological Miscellanea.

munu atae, we two can drink ; koro ratago, ye two ask ; ero1
noakinia, they two say to him ; kinami au lotu, we worship ;
tu sake paki Yerusalema, we go up to Jerusalem ; nimu ku noar
ye say ; eu rumai punusi a, they came to him.

2. The sign of quotation is naga, used with a particle as
though a verb ; ku noa wia, ku naga, a ta peani nanoai man,
thou sayest well, I have no husband ; ku ratagovi au naga qa
munu, ye ask me give drink ; nigo ku atae naga a roromi koy
thou knowest that I love thee.

3. A conditional mood is expressed by the conjunction pe, if,,
joined to the verbal particle ; te nata epe magindu suasua, ega
tausi au, if any man serves me he follows me ; kupe tatagovi
mama te navatuna, epe wo tua mu, if ye ask the father any-
thing, he will give it to you.

4. The imperative is shown by the auxiliary qa, come or go ;
qa leo, look ; qa tausi au, follow me. In the dual and plural the
verbal particles, koroga, kuga, are more commonly used ; koroga
paki na tokoana, go ye two into the city ; kuga veresi a, loose
him.

5. The potential is expressed by the verb atae, to know, or
mari atae, to know how, used after the principal verb. Ku
mari atae mari au ape tautau, thou canst make me clean ; aro>
munu atae, we two are able to drink, eu mari atae susuwe, they
can mourn. Inability is expressed by mari sa ; ku mari sa, ye
cannot ; a mari sa tausi ko, I cannot follow thee. The word
saqo has the same meaning ; natamoli eu mari saqo tea wanogoe,.
men cannot do this.

The verb one, to lie, used impersonally with another verb,
expresses necessity ; nara ma e one au one naga aga viragi rar
them also I must bring, or, they also, it is necessary for me that
I bring them ; e one mu one naga kuga vakilina pau, ye must
be born anew.

6. A passive voice is formed by tea and the verbal noun,,
kuga wo pei tea veresiana, ye shall be free, lit., ye shall be a thing
of freeing.

7. The infinitive usually takes the form of a direct statement ;
e mari namatama ero leo, he made thine eyes, they two see.

8. Tense. The verbal particles are indefinite in time. A
definite past is denoted by the adverb sua, already. Elia e po
pano sua umai, Elias has already come hither ; e po mate sua, he
was dead already. The future sign is wo ; euga wo pituaki mu,
they shall give you up ; aga wo noa, I will say. The verb to, to
stand, makes a kind of imperfect tense ; e to mitoaki nia, he was
thinking, or, he stood thinking it ; e to liu ra pano, he was
passing them. In the same way po, to make, forms a perfect ;
ku po punusi au, ye have seen me ; eu po puluti namatara, they

Anthropological Miscellanea. 415

have shut their eyes. The English yet, still, till now, is
expressed by ko • a ko paqai mau , 1 have not yet found ; ragi
waina naleatia e ko toko, while day still remains; a ko tika
nasava ? what lack I yet ?

9. Prefixes. The causative prefix vaka, paka, is seen in
pakamauri, to quicken, make alive ; vakavura, to fulfil ; pakasa,
to disfigure, make bad. A shorter form va or pa is also used ;
vautu, to cause, to flow, to draw ; vagani, to feed ; pavatu, to
trust, put a stone ; vamawota, to open. The verb mari, to do
often, takes the place of vaka-, maripauri, to make new, to
heal ; marimata, to make ready, to prepare. For the prefixes
of condition ma and ta, see § 6.

10. Suffixes. As in other Melanesian languages, an intran-
sitive verb is made transitive, or a transitive verb has its action
determined upon some definite object by means of a suffix. In
Nguna, the suffixes found are i, gi, ki, li, mi, ni, ri, si, ti, and vi.

Examples : munu, to drink ; koroga wo mimugi a, ye shall
drink it ; sua, to fall ; suai natano, to fall on the ground ; noa,
to say ; noaki, to tell ; va, to go ; vagi, to go into ; puoli, to pass
away ; roromi, to love ; su, to clothe ; suni, to dress ; maripauri,
to make well ; tagi, to weep ; tagisi natuna, to weep for a child ;
laga, to shine ; lagati, to lighten ; tatago, to ask ; tatagovi, to ask
for anything. It is not always easy to distinguish the suffix ki
from the preposition of motion ki, to or from. It is, however,
plainly seen to be a suffix in verbal nouns such as natikiana, a
casting ; namitoakiana, a thinking.

11. Many adverbs are used to form compound verbs. Such
adverbs are goro} against ; hta, out, off ; roa, backwards ; soki,
carefully.

Examples : pasagoro, to speak against, deny ; logoro, to look
at, watch ; tugoro, to stand against, resist ; sailua, to draw out ;
taelua, to cut off ; tapelua, to take out ; mitoakiroa, to think
back, repent ; malar va, to look back, to choose ; loroa, to reject ;
leosoki, to look steadily at ; pasasoki, to say carefully, to betroth ;
noasokisoki, to bear witness, to speak carefully.

12. The negative verb is ti, usually in the form tika, with
the demonstrative adverb ; e tika, there is not ; eu tika waini,
they have no wine ; a ko tika nasava ? what lack I ?

13. An interrogative verb is formed by sa ? what ? kinami
auga kasa kinia ? what have we to do with it ? we what it ? aga
kasa ? what do I ? The adverb, kite, or, at the end of a sentence
makes it interrogative ; ku roromi au kite ? lovest thou me ?
nimu ma ku pei teavilasuruweana kite ? are ye also led astray ?

14. The verb " to be " is pei : na vanua e pei maramana, the
field is the world. " To be " in the sense of dwelling, living,
staying in anything is toko ; na maramana waina e toko ako toko,

416 Anthropological Miscellanea.

the light that is in thee ; e toko au toko, he abides in me ; a toko
asa toko, I abide in him ; nae e toko sava ? where does he live ?

15. A reflex action is expressed by means of the noun, tuma,
self, and the possessive pronouns.

Singular: 1. tumagu, -ma, -na.

Plural : 1. inclusive tumagita, -garni, -mu, -ra.

Kuga tumamu roromi mu, love one another, ye yourselves
love you ; eu tumara noaki ra, they said to one another.

§ 8. ADVEKBS.

1. Directives : umai, hither ; vano, pano, thither ; sake, sike,
upward ; siwo, downwards ; kopu, inwards ; elan, seaward ; euta,
landward.

2. Interrogative : seve ragi ? when, how long ? wai ? where ?
seve tokora ? where ? e sava ? whither ? ekasana ? why ? tapale
sava ? how ? like what ?

3. Time : ragi waia, now ; ragi waina, then, while, as ; pea,
formerly ; ragi etaku, afterwards ; sua, already ; tuai, of old ;
sara naqogi, always, every day ; moro, again ; masoso, to-day ;
matamai, to-morrow ; nanova, yesterday ; pakalapa, often.

4. Place : nea, here ; tokora waina, here, this place ; tokora
wanogoe, that place, there ; e, there ; pea, in front ; e taku, last
behind; tila (noun) out; uvea, far away ; katama (noun) outside,
e lagi, from the east ; etano, from the west.

5. Manner : tapala waina, as, so, like this ; moli, for no reason ;
mau, only, at all, used at end of sentence for emphasis ; ta, not ;
me, also ; tapale nogoe, so, thus ; alagoro, about, nearly ; iisuraki,
entirely, thoroughly.

Examples : qa umai, come hither ; qa vano, go thither ; tuga
sake, let us go up ; eu mamau paki kopu punusi navitauriana,
they all went in together to see the marriage ; nara wai ? where
are they ? ku atae au tapale sava ? how dost thou know me ?
ekasana koro tumamu pasa paki mu *? why do ye two talk to one
another ? a ta atae a mau, I do not know ; nae me umai, he also
came ; e alagoro pei paune ponotia sikai, it was about a hundred
pound weight ; eu pakalapa mamau paki asa, they often went
together to that (place).

6. Adjectives are often used as adverbs; warua, great; tea
maramara e maga grarua, the governor wondered greatly.

§ 9. PREPOSITIONS.

1. Simple. Locative, a, at, in ; a Petania, at Bethany ; a
Tairo, in Tyre ; a sa, at that, there, and by a Melanesian idiom,
from ; au atae tokora waina e pae asa umai, we know the place
he comes from that hither. With the pronouns suffixed, au,

Anthropological Miscellanea. 417

ako, asa, ara, this preposition has almost the force of a relative
pronoun and refers to something mentioned before : a noaki sua
asa, I told you thereof ; e pasa asa, he speaks of that ; kinau a
noaki mu ara, I told you of them ; na maramana waina e toko
ako toko, the light which abides at you ; a melu ako, I came
from thee.

Instrumental, ki, with ; e puri na virina ki naio, he pierced
his side with a spear ; kinau a to papetaiso ki noai, I am baptiz-
ing with water. Also of motion, ki tea mate, from the dead
ones.

Genitive, ni, of ; nawoka ni natamoli, the mouth of a man.

2. Nouns. Many words used as prepositions are plainly seen
to be nouns. Such are : na rae, the front; narigi, the side ; na
taku, the hinder part ; nawoka, the opening, mouth, inside ;
kaka, among, of ; oli, for, the stead ; lo, the sake ; na qalau, the
inside. Many of them take the suffixed pronouns : tea lapa
kakara, many among them ; natowoana kakana, the falling of it ;
narae ni natamoli, before men ; e umai paki natakuna, he came
after him, he came into his after ; naleo kakama sikai, one of
thy things ; oli tamana, instead of his father ; narigi napua,
by the side of the way ; nawoka ni lasa, under a vessel, the
under of the vessel ; nalo nagisagu, for the sake of my name.

3. Verbs. Many verbs are used as prepositions : punusi, to
see, to ; paki, to go, to ; pae, to come, from ; kia, away from ;
sikoti, with ; pa pa pa pa, until ; kuga umai punusi au, come to
me ; paki na tasi, into the sea ; e pae nard ni Apela pa pa pa pa
nara ni Sakaria, from the blood of Abel until the blood of
Zachariah ; e tapelua e kiagu, he takes it from me ; Peter o me
sikoti ra, Peter also was with them.

§ 10. CONJUNCTIONS.

Copulative, go, and. Disjunctive, kite, or, used also at the
end of a sentence in asking a question. Conditional, pe, if.
joined to the verbal particle. There are also na lakena, because,
for, the reason, (a noun) ; ma, a companion, used with person's
names ; naga, that, used as a verb and introducing a dependent
sentence or a quotation ; and tea waina, therefore.

Examples ; a noaki sikai, a naga, qa vano, go e pano, I tell one,
I thus go, and he goes ; kinami ma mama, I and the father ;
mama e tumana roromi mu, nalakena waia, nimu ku po roromi
au, the father himself loves you, the reason this, ye have loved
me.

The verb po often serves as a conjunction; Tea waina e
pano, po pavanoy po leo umai, he went away, and washed and
seeing came.

418 Anthropological Miscellanea.

§ 11. NUMERALS.

1. Cardinals : sikai, one ; rua, two ; lolu, three ;pati, four; limar
five ; latesa, six : larua, seven ; latolu, eight ; loveti, nine ; rualima,
ten; tamate, the unit above ten; rualima tamate sikai, eleven;
rualima sikai tamate rua, twelve ; rualima rua, twenty ; rualima,
tolu, thirtv, &c. ; ponotia sikai, one hundred ; takuna, the unit
above a hundred ; ponotia sikai rualima takuna lima tamate tolu,
one hundred and fifty three ; ponotia rua, two hundred ; manu
sikai, one thousand ; tivilia, ten thousand ; pisa ? how many ?

Ordinals are formed by prefixing ~ke to the cardinals; kerua,
second ; kerualima sikai tamate rua, twelfth.

Multiplicatives take the causative prefix vaka : vaka sikai, once ;
vaka rua, twice ; vaka lapa, many times ; vaka pisa ? how many
times ?

Distributives are formed with a conjunction : sikai go sikai, one
by one.

§ 12. EXCLAMATIONS.

He ! No ; lo ! yea ; Ai \ woe ; 0, vocative after the noun, mama-
yinami o, 0, our father !

THE NATIONALITIES OF THE UNITED KINGDOM.

Extracts from letters to the " Times"

By Sir JOHN LUBBOCK, Bart, M.P., F.RS.

Revised ly the Author.

I OBSERVE' that the supporters of Home Rule place in the fore-
front of their argument the assertion that " we have within the
compass of the United Kingdom no less than four real nationali-
ties." By this I do not suppose that allusion is meant to the
modern and, so to say, accidental divisions between England and
Scotland in the first place, England and Wales in the second, or to-
the silver streak between Britain and Ireland, for we are hardly
so degenerate as to reverse our old boast and allow the waves to
rule Britannia. At any rate, thousands of those who listen to, or
read, these statements understand them to mean that there are
actually separate races in England, Scotland, and Ireland respec-
tively; in fact, the addition of the adjective " real " is, of course,
intended to give emphasis to the declaration, which is indeed
almost unmeaning, unless it implies that there are in the United
Kingdom four distinct races. It is, therefore, worth while to in-
quire what the facts really are.

As regards South Britain, it will be generally admitted that,
omitting the question of pre- Celtic races (probably a more im-
portant factor in our population than is generally recognised),
vVales and Cornwall are predominantly Celtic ; that the south and

Anthropological Miscellanea. 419-

east are predominantly Anglo-Saxon, with a considerable Norman
intermixture; that certain districts are mainly Scandinavian; in
fact, that our population is built up of three principal elements —
Celtic, Saxon, and Scandinavian.

In Ireland the population of the east and north is mainly Saxon,
in the north-west Celtic, while in the extreme south-west the basis
is Iberian, akin to the population of parts of Spain. Very many
of those who imagine themselves to be Celts, and the natural foes
of the Sassenach, are descendants of English colonists, even in
Munster and Connaught. The Parnells, Grays, Moores, Burkes,
Fitzgeralds, Barrys, Butlers, &c., are Anglo-Norman.

I pass to North Britain. Here we are met at once by the
curious fact that the Saxons entered Caledonia if not before, at
any rate about the same time as the Scots. In fact the Scots were
an Irish tribe. " Ireland," says Bede, " was the original country of
the Scots," — " Ibernia propria Scotoruni est patria." " Scotia was
originally Ireland," said Bozius, — " Scotia, qusB turn erat Ibernia."
The Scotch came from Ireland, says Marianus, " Scotus de Ibernia
insula natus." Ireland, says Chalmers in his great work, was
" known at the end of the third century as the native country of
the Scots, and in after ages by the name of Scotland ; this appella-
tion was afterwards transferred from Ireland to Scotland ; " and he-
asserts, as the resnlt of all his enquiries, that no permanent settle-
ment of the Scotch in Caledonia took place till towards the close
of the sixth century.

In fact, down to the middle ages, if a person was called a Scot
it was meant that he was born in Ireland. I must not overwhelm
you with quotations, but, having given several of the earliest
authorities, perhaps you will allow me to quote two of the latest.
Mr. Bonwick says, "the real Scotia was Ireland, whose name got
transferred to North Britain;" and Mr. Taylor, in "Words and
Places," remarks that " the Scots, this conquering Irish sept,
which appears to have actually colonised only a part of Argyle,
succeeded in bestowing its name on the whole country." Argyle
is indeed the country of the Gael, or Irishman. In the north of
Scotland, the Orkneys and Shetlands, the population is mainly
Scandinavian, Sutherland being so named as the southern portion
of their territory. In the east and south the population is mainly
Saxon. Edinburgh is a Saxon city, built by Edwin, King of
Northumbria, and called after him.

Of the great Scotch families, the Baliols are named or came
from Bailleul or Baliol in Normandy, the Bruces from Yorkshire r
the Stewarts from Shropshire, the Hamiltons from Hambleton in
Buckinghamshire, the Lindsays from Lindsay in Essex, the Sinclair^
from St. Clair in Normandy, the Comyns from Comines in Flanders,
the Camerons, according to some authorities, from Cambronne.
Some even of the Highland clans are Teutonic. "The Gordons,"
says MacLaughlan, "the Erasers, the Chisholms, &c., are without
any trace of a connexion with the Celts, and originally without
doubt, of purely Teutonic blood." So are the Maclaughlans, while

420 Anthropological Miscellanea.

the Kennedys, Macdonalds, and Muiiroes are Irish, and the Elliotts,
Frazers, Maxwells, Mathesons, and Keiths English.

" The great heroes of Scottish history," says Bonwick, " Bruce
and Wallace, were of English origin." The Lothians, says Hume,
were " entirely peopled with Saxons."

Thus, then, in Scotland, as in England, the east is mainly
Teutonic, the west mainly Celtic.

Huxley and Beddoe have both pointed out, and it will be gene-
rally admitted, that the people north and south of the line dividing
England and Scotland are practically identical. On the other
hand, so far from Scotland being inhabited by a single homogeneous
people, the struggle between the east and west was bitter and
prolonged. The Wolf of Badenoch with his Highlanders burnt
Elgin in 1390 ; and, says Burton, " it will be difficult to make
those not familiar with the tone of feeling in Lowland Scotland at
that time believe that the defeat of Donald of the Isles (at Harlaw)
was felt as a more memorable deliverance even than that of
Bannockburn."

I maintain, therefore, that the defence of Home Rule, on the
ground that there are four " real nationalities " in our islands is
entirely without foundation. If, however, we are to be divided at
all according to blood, the divisions would not be into England,
Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. The main division in Great Britain
would be not from east to west, but from north to south ; the
Saxon division would include the greater portion of the east of
England, the east of Ireland and of Scotland ; the Celtic division
would comprise most of the west of Ireland and west of Scotland,
with Cornwall and most of Wales ; the Scandinavian the north of
Scotland, several maritime districts on the east, Westmoreland,
Cumberland, and Pembroke, while the extreme south-west of
Ireland, and part of Wales, would be Iberian. The exact limits
would give rise to an endless number of bitter disputes. Indeed,
so much intermingled are the different races that one of our
highest authorities, Dr. Beddoe, after careful and prolonged study,
says : — " With respect to the distribution and commixture of race
elements in the British Isles, we may safely assert that not one of
them, whether Iberian, Gaelic, Cymric, Saxon, or Scandinavian, is
peculiar to, or absent from, or anywhere predominant in, any one
of the three kingdoms. "

If we recognise the undeniable ethnological fact that English,
Irish, and Scotch are all composed of the same elements, and in
not very dissirniliar proportions, it would do much to mitigate
our unfortunate dissensions and add to the strength and welfare of
our common country.

Professor Bryce having called in question some of the foregoing
statements, the following reply was published : —

The points on which he contradicts my statements are (1) the
origin of Sir W. Wallace ; (2) the origin of the Bruces ; (3) that
Argyle was called after the Gaels ; (4) that the Saxons were

Anthropological Miscellanea. 421

in Scotland before the Scots ; (5) thafc Sutherland was so named
from its relation to the Scandinavian settlements in the Orkneys
and Shetlaiids, and one or two minor points.

As regards the first point, Mr. Bryce asserts that Wallace " was
not an Englishman, but, if we are to go by his name at all, a
Welshman." But what says Chalmers P " The original country,"
he states, "of this great man's family is idly supposed to be
Wales; but his progenitors were undoubtedly an Anglo-Norman
family." . . " The Scottish antiquaries suppose, "he adds, "the
families of Wallace and Valoines, who both came from England
into Scotland, to have been the same ; but that these two families
were distinct is apparent."

" Wallace," says Bonwick, " was descended from Waleys, or
Waleuse, of English-Norman family, who left England to settle
under the Stewarts of Renfrew. ... . Sir W. Wallace came
forward as the advocate of the independence of Anglo-Norman
rale in Scotland. . . . The Celtic Scotchmen took no manner
of interest in the question, for Wallace represented the party of
Anglo-Scots that had virtually triumphed over the real Irish-Scots
and Caledonians."

With reference to Mr. Bryce's second point. I quoted Mr.
Bcnwick's statement that " Bruce was of English origin." He was,
in fact, descended from Robert de Bruis, "who," says Chalmers,
"• was an opulent baron in Yorkshire at the epoch of the Domes-
day Book." I do not doubt that the family are originally
Scandinavian, but this does not affect the question.

Thirdly, Mr. Bryce asserts that "the name Argyle had nothing
to do with the Gael." "The old Scotch form of Argyle," says
Skene, " is Earrgaoidheal, from * earr,' a limit or boundary, and
this approaches most nearly to the form of the name in the old
descriptions, with its etymology of margin or limit of the Gael."

" Argyle," says Chalmers, " signified merely the limit or
boundary of the Irishmen or Gael."

"Here also," says Rhys, in his Celtic Britain, " may be men-
tioned Argyle, as it is found variously called Oirir Gaithel, Airir
Gaethel, and Arregaethel, meaning the region belonging to the
Goidels or Gaelic speaking people."

"The name Gael," says Taylor in "Words and Places," was
used " as a national appellation by the Gaels of Caledonia and the
Gauls of Gallia. Galway, Donegal, Galloway, and Argyle are
Gaelic districts." " Northern Argyle," says Robertson, " was that
portion of the territories of the Oirir-Gael which reached from the
northern boundaries of the modern county to the frontiers of the
Gall-Gael," and in his map the district is marked as Oirir-Gael.

Fourthly, Professor Bryce asserts that the Saxons were not in
Scotland before the Celts. Chalmers says " The Britons were the
first, the Saxons were the second people, whose descendants have
finally prevailed over the posterity of the other two ; and the
Irish-Scots were the third race." Professor Bryce will, I think,
admit at any rate that there was no great difference in point of time.

422 Anthropological Miscellanea.

Fifthly, I stated that Sutherland was so named by the Scandi-
navians. " On the contrary," says Mr. Bryce, " in Sutherland
there is very little Scandinavian blood." In support of my asser-
tion I may again quote Isaac Taylor, who says : " It may seem
strange that the extreme north-western corner of Great Britain
should be called Sutherland. No inhabitant of Scotland could
have bestowed so inappropriate a name. The name of Sutherland
was evidently given by a people living still further to the north.
Here, as well as in Caithness, we find numerous Norwegian
names." In the map he gives the straths and glens of Sutherland
are coloured as Norwegian.

" The Scandinavians," says Burton, " spread over the northern
mainland, occupying large tracts in Caithness and Sutherland."
"Caithness and Sutherland," says Skene, "became more Nor-
wegian than Scotch," and again, "in 989 Sigurd was in possession
of the four provinces of Moray, Ross, Sudrland or Sutherland,
and Dali." " The descendants of the Scandinavians," says
Chalmers, "may still be distinguished within Caithness and
Sutherland, as a distinct race of Gothic people, from the Saxon
inhabitants of the more southern districts."

PSYCHO-PHYSICAL RESEARCH in AMERICA.

By JOSEPH JASTROW.
(Extracts from a letter to Mr. Galton.)

I THINK it is proper to put John Hopkins University first.
Dr. Stanley Hall has charge of the department, and it is the only
instance at any American College or University where the head of
the philosophical department is a physiological psychologist. The
laboratory is only a room in the general biological laboratory, and
there will be more rooms, &c., next year. The number of special
workers is small, it varies from four to six or more. The labora-
tory is rather well equipped with apparatus : brain models, a
chronoscope, Wundt's reaction-time apparatus, a perimeter, colour
charts, &c., simple anthropological instruments, and so on. Besides
this there is the apparatus invented for the special researches
carried on in the laboratory and mostly published in " Mind "
during the last three years. The course in psychology covers
two years' work (the first devoted to the senses, &c., the second
to the higher mental processes) and is very well attended. Dr.
H. H. Donaldson will next year take charge of the biological
courses preparatory to psychology. Besides this there is a
seminary, journal club, and a strong interest in psychological
subjects generally.1

1 Dr. Cattell writes that there is a fellowship (worth. £100) in psychology,
usually held but for one year by the same person. Mr. Jastrow held it last
year. G-ood work has been done in the psychological department by Hartwell
(left'handedness), Stevens (rhythm), and Donaldson (temperature- sense).

Anthropological Miscellanea. 423

At Harvard, Professor James has a room devoted to research,
but he has few or no advanced students, and little has yet
been done. His lecture course to undergraduates is very popular
under the election system there in vogue. He is in the habit of
asking his students to record their own sensations, &c., as for
example, with regard to visual imagery, &c. But the interest
there has lately been diverted largely into the Psychic Research
Society, and the two numbers of the Proceedings of that Society
show what they are doing. At the Harvard Medical School
Professor Bowditch is deeply interested in such work, and was
conducting a series of experiments on the effect of alcohol on the
reaction-time when I saw him in April. Besides this there is in
Boston, and pretty much everywhere, a strong medical interest in
the psychology of the insane. Our medical journals are quite
full of psychological topics, and morbid psychology is almost a
specialty with some physicians.

At Princetown,1 there is an elementary course in psychology,
largely physiological, also one at the University of Michigan.
There will be one at Cornell and perhaps at Columbia College.
The University of Pennsylvania has just elected Dr. Cattell
Lecturer on that subject, and other institutions will doubtless take
similar steps.

With the anthropological work at Washington (vide Reports of
Bureau of Ethnology) and that of Mr. Putnam at Cambridge you
are doubtless well acquainted. Dr. Billings is also putting .some
psychological apparatus in the Army and Medical Museum.
From the educational side an interest is rapidly arising in the
development of the mind, and the outlook, especially in New
England, is very hopeful.

There is also a strong interest in the psychological aspects of
blindness, deaf -mutism, idiocy, &c. Laura Bridgman has had
much to do in cultivating this.

The interest in psychic research is intense, and I ought not omit
that the " crank" element which is strong in the West, makes all
sorts of spiritualistic and other kinds of charlatanry nourish.

PREHISTORIC REMAINS in SOUTH AFRICA.

Mr. A. A. ANDERSON has just issued a little book under the name
of " Terra," full of weighty matter, although we think some of
the discoveries claimed by the author, will be much disputed by
geologists and astronomers. With that, however, we have nothing
to do, it is only the last chapter of the book, dealing with the
antiquity of man which will be of interest to anthropologists,
and here we find two or three announcements which, unless Mr.

1 Dr. Cattell informs me of a desire expressed at Princetown College to fit
up a laboratory there for psycho-physical research.

424 Anthropological Miscellanea.

Anderson has been greatly deceived, carries the human race in
Africa back to a fabulous antiquity. Hitherto the flint imple-
ments found in South Africa have been on the surface, or in
situations which rendered their antiquity doubtful, but Mr.
Anderson believes that he has found flint implements in all re-
spects similar to those found on the surface, at a depth of 70 feet,
in sinking a well at Kimberley, and one at Bultfontein in a well
40 feet deep. He also relates the discovery of several flint im-
plements in the diamondiferous blue ground at Kimberley. We
will give the description of this discovery in Mr. Anderson's own
words.

" At present the depth of the blue is not known, as some parts
of the Kimberley mine have been worked down 440 feet ....
At that time (1883) we obtained some of this blue ground from a
private company .... When sorting the coarse gravel we
found many of these arrow heads, being easily seen from their red
appearance when all the rest was blue. When one of the overseers
«ame to see if any more ground was wanted, we showed him those
we had found. He laughed and said they were only common
flints ; when sorting himself, he found some of the same kind in
the mine, where the Kaffirs were picking the blue loose from the
great mass upon which they were working, and at our request he
said he would bring some, which he did, four very good specimens.
This made us inspect the blue that had not been removed or dis-
turbed ; and as the Kaffirs were working with their pickaxes, the
ground being very hard, we found in the course of the day one
broken and one perfect scraper, both of the same description of
red stone as the others. In no case did we find any other descrip-
tion of stone mixed with the blue; and two others we found,
making in all four obtained in situ and eleven in sorting, with
several broken ones."

Mr. Anderson describes other similar finds, one " a very good
quartz arrow-head was found at the bottom of a diamond-digger's
claim, 32 feet from the surface, under a large boulder weighing
several tons, on the bed-rock of the ancient river. Again, " at
Pniel, Klip Drift, Gong Gong, Waldeck's Plant, and Good Hope,
we procured in all 57 specimens, some from the deep sinking of
the claims by the river, and on the side of the adjacent hills where
the ground was worked down to the bed-rock to the depth of
40 feet, in the ancient river-bed and 81 feet above its present
level."

Another interesting discovery is reported by Mr. Anderson, who
says : — " Very ancient pieces of broken pottery have been fre-
quently found deep in the ground, which contain much mica, that
is not now used by natives in making their pots; several pieces
were unearthed in an extensive landslip, that took place on the
slope of a hill in the Kalahari Desert, where pottery was never
known to have been used by the Bushmen, and no other natives
have been known to live in those parts."

If these " finds," are verified they would carry back the antiquity

Anthropological Miscellanea. 425

of man in South Africa to an unknown age, tallying however
somewhat with the discoveries made by General Pitt-Rivers in
Egypt.

A. W. BUCKLAND.

AUSTRALIAN TUNES.

IN reference to the melody of Aboriginal Australians near
Sydney, taken down by the Rev. G. W. Torrance, and published
in the last number of the " Journal," the following extract from
Mr. Barren Field's " Geograph. Memoirs," p. 433 (London, 1825),
will be of interest. The anonymous author states : " The song is
sung by a few males and females, who take no part in the dance.
One of the band beats time by knocking one stick against another.
The music begins with a high note, and gradually sinks to the
octave, whence it rises again immediately to the top."

A-bang a-bang a-bang a-bang a-bang a-bang a-bang a-bang

guna-b-ry jah jin-gun ve-lah gum-b-ry jah, jin-gun ve-lah

abang a-bang a-bang a-bang a-bang a-bang a-bang a-bang a-bang, etc.

HT. LING ROTH.

INTRODUCTION A L'ETUDE DES RACES HUMAINES : QUESTIONS GENE*-
RALES. PAR A. DE QUATREFAGES. Royal 8vo., pp. xxviii, 283,
with 225 wood engravings, 4 plates, and 2 maps. (Paris : A.
Hennuyer, 1887).

THIS volume is introductory to a large work which will appear
under the title of " Histoire Generale des Races Humaines," and
will itself form part of the great " Bibliotheque Ethnologique," to
be edited. by Professor De Quatrefages and Dr. E. T. Hamy. It
VOL. XVI. 2 H

426 Anthropological Miscellanea.

is divided into thirteen chapters, bearing the following titles : I.
Regne Humain ; II. Unite de 1'Espece Humaine ; III. Origine
Primiere de 1'Espece Hamaine ; IY. Antiquite de I'Sspece Humaine
et de ses Races Fossiles, Populations Actuelles ; V. Origine Geo-
graphique de 1'fispece Humaine; VI. Peuplement du Globe; VII.
Acclimatation de I'lDspece Humaine ; VIII. Homine Primitif,
Anciennete des Types Ethniques ; IX. Formation des Races
Humaines ; X. Des Caracteres Ethniqaes en general ; XI. Carac-
teres Physiques ; XII. Caracteres Intellectuels ; XIII. Caracteres
Moraux et religieux.

The second part of the Introduction will be devoted to a dis-
cussion of the Classification of the Races of Mankind. It will be
followed by a volume on " Les Races Noires," by Dr. E. T. Hamy,
a second on " Les Races Jaunes," by M. J. Montano, and a third on
" Les Races Rouges," by M. Lucien Biart. The " Bibliotheque
Ethnologique " is to include a series of complete monographs, the
first of which — "Les Azteques," by M. L. Biart — has already
appeared.

By the courtesy of Professor De Quatrefages a copy of the first
part of his Introduction has been placed in the library of the
Anthropological Institute. The work may be obtained in London
from Messrs. Triibner and Co., of Ludgate Hill.

The ROYAL ETHNOGRAPHIC MUSEUM at DRESDEN.

THE series of publications of this Institution, under the direction
of Dr. A. B. Meyer, has been recently enriched by a memoir
descriptive of various objects in wood and bamboo from the north-
western parts of New Guinea, by Dr. M. Uhle, an Assistant at the
Dresden Museum (" Holz- und Bambus-Gerathe aus Nord West
Neu Guinea, hauptsachlich gesammelfc von A. B. Meyer, mit
besonderer Beriicksichtigung der Ornamentik." Leipzig, Julius
Klinkhardt, 1886). The objects described and figured in this
memoir include ornamental woodwork from canoes, images for
ancestral worship, amulets, carved spoons, bamboo holders, orna-
mented arrows, neck rests, &c. Most of the specimens were col-
lected by Dr. Meyer, and all are now deposited in the Ethnographic
Museum in the Z winger at Dresden. Seven folio plates give
admirable photographic figures of the objects, and these plates are
accompanied by letterpress, in which the writer not only describes
the specimens, but enters into a discussion of the character and
origin of the ornamentation.

A copy of this interesting memoir has been presented to the
Institute.

INDEX.

Abercrombie, Sir Ralph, 196.

Adam, Louis, 243.

Address by the President, 387.

Africa— see Gold Coast, 180.

see Soudan, 287.

Conference on the Native Eaces

of, 174.

Native Eaces of, 175, 182.

South, Stone Implements from,

68, 423.

see Bechuanaland, 76.

177, 178.

African, West, symbolic messages,
295.

Agriculture, on the origin of, 102 ;
savage views, 103 ; modern views,
105 ; conditions necessary for a
predisposition to cultivate the soil,
109 ; position of women and their
connection with the soil, 118; the
first step. 120 ; rotation in which
plants became cultivated, and the
homes of agriculture, 122; spread
of agriculture, 124 ; development of
digging implements, 128; Stuart's
contact with the Australian natives,
130 ; memoranda on the aborigines
of Australia, by A. C. Gregory, 131;
notes on the farming, etc., of the
Kafirs and Basutos, by H. E. Eou-
quette, 133 ; letters from Sir J. B.
Lawes, on the exhaustion of soils,
etc., 135.

Ahearne, Dr., 201.

Ali Bey, 289.

America, conference on the native
races of, 189.

North, British, on the natives of,

199.

psycho-physical research in, 422.

American family peculiarities, 98.

shell-work, 155.

Ampthill, Lord, 146.

Anderson, A. A., on prehistoric re-
mains in .South Africa, 423.

Annual General Meeting, 378.

Anthropological Miscellanea: — On a
new craniophore for use in taking
composite photographs of skulls, 97;
on American family peculiarities in
the 18th century, 98 ; Eomano-
British mosaic pavements, 99 ; the
legend of Narcissus, 344 ; sketch of
Nguna grammar, 409.

Anthropometric instruments, descrip-
tion of, 9 ; discussion, 10.

Anthropometric instruments, recent
designs for, 2 ; objects of measure-
ments, 3 ; measurement of the head,
4 ; standards of colour for eyes and
hair— dynamometer — sight — colour-
sense, 6 ; sound, 7 ; distinction of
notes, 8 ; discussion, 8.

Anton, C. J., 105.

Ashton, Eev. W., 76, 82, 90.

Atkinson, E. A., 193.

Atkinson, G. M., 346, 386.

Australia, conference on the native
races of, 201.

Western, on the aborigines of,

340.

Australian Aborigines, music of the,
335.

Australian medicine men ; or, doctors
and wizards of some Australian
tribes, 23 ; supernatural powers
claimed, 25 ; the Guliwill, 28 ; the
omental fat, 29 ; the Yulo, 32 ; the
lesser magic familiars, 33 ; rain-
makers, 34 ; the Yenjin, 35 ; the
wizard as a healer, 38 ; the Woi-
worung Wirarap, 40 ; the Murring
G-ommera, 42 ; the Kurnai Biraark,
44 ; magical omens, 46 ; doctors'
fees — how men become doctors or
wizards, 47 ; conclusion, 52 ; dis-
cussion, 58.

Australian Natives, 201 ; physique,
201 ; origin, 202 ; arts, 203 ; manu-
factures— clothing, 204 ; food — home
life — marriage, 205 ; religion, 206 ;
language — wizards, 208 ; young-men-
making — dances — freemasonry, 209 ;
decline of the race, 210.

Australian songs, 327.

Australian tunes, 425.

428

INDEX.

Baker, Sir S., 110.

Bancroft, Dr. Edward, 116.

H. H., 104.

Barrington, the Viscount, 386.

Barth, Dr. H., 110, 122.

Bates, H. W., 106, 111.

Bathoe, Mrs., 386.

Batula, Ibn, 165.

Beaufort, W. M., 386.

Bechuanaland, condition of the native
tribes, 76 ; population, 77 ; Korannas
— Matabele,78 ; BatlapingandBara-
long — language, 79; physique deteri-
orating, 80 ; morality — psychology —
astronomy, 81 ; food — religion, 82 ;
initiatory rites — ordeals — supersti-
tions— the Totem, 83 ; birth, marriage
and death, 84 ; polygamy and dower,
85; government — la,nd laws— punish-
ments, 86 ; native trade — hospitality
— clothing — towns, 87 ; fortifications
— arms, 88 ; game — society, 89 ;
manufactures — education, 90; con-
servatism and variation, 91 ; dis-
cussion, 92.

Beddoe, Dr. J., 17.

Bell, H. C. P., 165, 166.

Belt, T., 110.

Beniowsky, 22.

Bent, Theodore, 378.

Benzoni, G-irolamo, 253, 256, 257, 258,
259, 262, 265, 275.

Berak, William, 336.

Bertin, G-., 69, 93, 153, 247, 377.

Billings, Dr. J. S., 97.

Bird, Miss I., 113.

Birks, Eev. W., 2.

Bland, E. H., on the aborigines of
Western Australia, 340.

Bligh, Captain — , 217.

Bloxam, G-. W., exhibition of West
African symbolic messages, 295.

335, 339.

Blumer, J. G-., 2.

Bock, Carl, 125.

Bon wick, James, the Australian natives,
201 — see Australian.

Borneo, British North, on the natives
of, 229; Bajaus — Balignini, 230;
Illanuns — Sooloos — Booloodoopy,
231 ; Sabahans— Tunbunwhas, 232 ;
Dusuns — dress — weapons, 233 ;
dancing — human sacrifice, 234 ; em-
balming the dead, 235 ; the sarong
and the Scotch kilt — Tagaas pros-
pects, 236.

Boucher, Kev. Jonathan, 99.

Boyd, Justin, 74.

Brabrook, E. W., 346.

Bradley, — , 110.

Brett, Eev. W. H., 192.

Briggs, Sir Thomas Graham, 193.

Brinton, Dr. — , 192.

Broca, P., 4.

Broome, Sir F. Napier, 343.

Brown, C. Barrington, 253.

Brown, Eev. G-., Papuans and Poly-
nesians, 311 — see Papuans.

211, 310.

Brown, Dr. — , 347, 357, 365, 366.

Bruce, James, 104.

Buckland, Miss A. W., on American
shell-work and its affinities, 155.

247, 425.

Buller, Dr. — , 212.

Bulmer, Eev. J., 330.

Burchell, W. J., 116.

Burton, Sir Eichard, 304.

Busk, Professor Greorge, obituary
notice of, 403.

386.

Butler, Captain J., 347, 361.

Butler, Major W. E., 117.

Caillee, — , 110.

Cameron, Donald A., on the tribes of
the Eastern Soudan, 287 — see
Soudan.

Cameron, Captain Y. L., 110, 111, 112.

Campbell, Sir G-., 78, 95, 221,

CandoUe, A. de, 102, 109, 123, 363.

Carey-Hobson, Mrs., 70.

Caribs, 196.

Carmichael, C. H. E., 92.

Carter, Brudenell, 6, 8, 10.

Cattell, Dr. — , 8.

Cephalic index, 11 ; discussion, 15.

Cephalic index, international agree-
ment on the classification and
nomenclature of the, 17.

Chanca, Dr. — , 256, 267, 270, 272, 275,
276, 281, 284.

Chesson, E. W., 93.

Christopher, Lieutenant — , 165.

Clarke, C. B., 347.

Clarke, Hyde, 92, 198, 378, 407.

Codrington, Eev. E. H., 319.

Collin, — , exhibition of anthropometic
instruments, 2.

Collins, E. H., 2.

Colour types in mosaic, 145 ; discus-
sion, 147.

Columbus, C., 247, 250, 251, 260, 266.

INDEX.

429

267, 268, 272, 275, 276, 279, 280,

281, 282, 283, 285, 286.
Columbus, Ferdinand, 247, 249, 250,

260, 264, 268, 276, 277, 283.
Composite photographs of skulls,

craniophore for use in taking, 97.
Conder, Captain C. E., the present

condition of the native tribes in

Bechuanaland, 76.

95.

Conferences held at the Colonial and

Indian Exhibition, 174.
Cook, Captain J., 217.
Copan monuments, an interpretation

of one of the, 242; the Tai-Ki,

244 ; discussion, 247.
Coppinger, Captain E. W., 113.
Council, Eeport for 1886, 384.
Craniophore for use in taking compo-
site photographs of skulls, 97.
Curr, E. M., 116.
Cust, Eobert N., 59, 295, 299.
Cyprus, archaic survivals in, 186.

Ball, W. H., 161, 162.

Dalrymple, — , 236.

Darwin, C., 102, 108, 114, 115, 117,

118.
Darwin, Horace, exhibition of anthro-

pometric instruments, 2, 9.

2, 3, 5, 6, 8.

Davis, J. F., 244.

Dawson, Dr. Gr. M., 199.

Devereux, W. C., 211.

Dewick, Eev. E. S., 380.

Dieftenbach, E., 107, 110, 129.

Digna, Osman, 292, 293.

Dresden, Ethnographic Museum of,

426.

Egyptian classification of the races of
man, 370 ; peculiarities of Egyptian
art, 371 ; fondness for caricature,
372 ; the four races, 373 ; the
Hyksos, or Shepherd Kings, 374 ;
the Hittites, 375 ; discussion, 377.

Elias, Peter, 139.

Ellis, Eev. W., 104, 117.

Erskine, Commander J. E., 127.

Evans, A. J., exhibition of Albanian
flints and old English strike-a-
lights, 65 ; on the flint-knapper's
art in Albania, 65.

65,

Evans, Mrs. Arthur, 98.

Evans, Dr. J., exhibition of worked
flints from Albania, 65 ; exhibition
of stone implements from India, 65.

65, 67, 69, 74.

Exhibitions : — Anthropometric instru-
ments made by the Cambridge
Scientific Instrument Company —
traveller's box of anthropometric
instruments — skull from Kamchatka,
2 ; photographs of Africans, 23 ;
instruments for anthropometric
research — worked flints from Albania
— stone implements from India —
Albanian flints and old English
strike-a-lights — stone implements
from South Africa, 65 ; cakes of
Eoman enamel suitable for standards
of colour, 144 ; ethnological objects
from the Maldive islands, 164; ethno-
logical objects from Africa and Cy-
prus, 175 ; Bantu musical instru-
ments, 176 ; ethnological objects from
the West Indies and British Gi-uiana,
189 ; ethnological objects from New
Guinea and from Australia, 201 ;
ethnological objects from New Zea-
land, 216 ; ethnological objects from
the Straits Settlements and from
Borneo, 221 ; the Perak Eegalia,
224 ; ethnological casts, 241 ; West
African symbolic messages, 295.

Fatima, Shereef Mohammed Abu, 294.

Fayrer, Sir Joseph, 370.

Field, Barron, on Australian tunes,

425.
Fiji, on the natives of, 217 ; history,

217 ; geography — population, 218 ;

language — civilization, 219 ; re-
sources, 220.
Finsch, Dr. Otto, 241.
Fison, Eev. Lorimer, 54, 331.
Fitzgerald, Captain — , 343.
Fitzroy, Captain — , 129.
Flint-knapper's art in Albania, 65 j

discussion, 67.
Flower, Professor W. H., exhibition of

a Nicobarese skull, 147 ; exhibition

of ethnological casts, 241 ; notice of

Professor Busk, 403.
5, 11, 15, 19, 147, 148, 151, 153,

189, 200, 377, 407.
Foote, E. Bruce, notes on pre-historic

finds in India, 70.
Forbes, H. O., 119.

2 H 2

430

INDEX.

Gaberlentz, Yon der, 318.

Gabriel (a young Cobungroo), 191.

Galindo, Colonel D. Juan, 242, 243.

Galton, F., on recent designs for
anthropometric instruments, 2 ;
exhibition of cakes of enamel suit-
able for standards of colour, 144;
notes on permanent colour types in
mosaic, 145 ; remarks on the races
of Africa, 175 ; remarks on the
native races of America, 189 ;
address delivered at the anniversary
meeting, 1887, 387.

9, 98, 144, 182, 189, 201, 378.

Garson, Dr. J. G., the cephalic index,
11 ; the international agreement on
the classification and nomenclature
of the cephalic index, 17 ; exhibition
of anthropometric instruments, 65.

5, 15, 65, 151, 408.

Gibbon, Edward, 103.

Gill, Captain — , 199.

Godwin-Austen, Colonel H. H. 347,
369.

Gold Coast, 180.

Gomme, Lawrence, 58.

Gorman, Dr. — , 149.

Gouin, Lieutenant — , 245.

Gregory, Augustus, 343.

Gregory, A. C., 109, 120, 125, 131.

Grey, Sir George, 109, 112, 128.

Griffith, T. E., on the races inhabiting
Sierra Leone, 300 — see Sierra Leone.

Guarionexus, 251.

Guillemard, Dr. — , 21.

Gunther, — , 139.

Guppy, Dr. H. B., 160.

Haast, Sir Julius von, 211.

Hale, Abraham, 227.

Hale, H., 119.

Hall, F. T., 386.

Hambleton, G. W., 237.

Hamilton, James, 116.

Hamy, Dr. E. T., an interpretation of

one of the Copan monuments, 242.
and Professor de Quatrefages,

425.

Hardman, W., 130.
Hawtayne, G. H., remarks on the

Caribs, 196.

189, 191.

Herford, Brooke, 105.
Herodotus, 103, 104.

Herrera-TordesiUas, 249, 268, 274,
278, 279, 283.

Hervey, D. F. A., 237.

Hickson, Dr. S. J., notes on the Sen-
girese, 136 — see Sengirese.

Hispaniola, the aborigines of, 247 ;
constitution, 249 ; character, 250 ;
history, 251 ; archaeology, 252 ;
astronomy — arithmetic — medicine,
253; food, 256; narcotics, 258;
crimes and morals, 259 ; religion,
260 ; superstitions, 264 ; magic and
witchcraft — government, 265 ; cus-
toms, 266; property— trade, 267;
war, 268 ; hunting and fishing, 269 ;
agriculture, 270 ; domestic animals
— marital relations, 272 ; education
— games and amusements, 273 ; com-
munications, 274 ; clothing, 275 ;
personal ornaments, 276 ; burials,
277 ; poetry and music, 278 ; lan-
guage, 279 ; navigation — habitations,
280 ; fire— string, 282 ; weaving —
poetry — basketwork, 283 ; stone
implements, 284 ; metallurgy — topo-
graphy— swimming, 285.

Hodson, Dr. F. O., 150.

Hoffman, W. J., 310.

Holmes, W. H., 155, 157, 159, 163.

Hooker, Sir Joseph, 117.

Hoskins, G. A., 288.

Howitt, A. W., on Australian medi-
cine men, 23 ; notes on songs and
songmakers of some Australian
tribes, 327.

Humphry, Professor G. M., 150.

Hutt, Governor — , 341.

Huxley, Professor T. H., 20.

India, prehistoric finds in, 70 ; discus-
sion,, 74.

Jacobs, Joseph, 10.

Jastrow, J., on psycho-physical re-
search in America, 422.
Jenkins, H. M., 113.
Johnson, Major E. Cecil, 59.
Johnston, H. H., 111.
Johnstone, Sir James, 347.
Joly, N., 102, 107.
Jones, Professor T. Eupert, 68, 69,75.

INDEX.

431

Kamtchatka, description of a skull

from, 21.

Karatong, Rajah of, 139.
Keane, Professor A. H., 287, 314, 315,

316, 317, 318, 319, 322, 408.
Keate, George, 129.
Kelling, — , 137.
King, C. M., 55.
Kittoe, Lieutenant — , 128.
Kollmann, Professor J., 2.
Kouveray, — , 1 38.

Lang, Andrew, 126.

Lang, R. Hamilton, on archaic sur-
vivals in Cyprus, 186.

175.

Lathyrns, Ptolemy, 188.

Laval, F. Pyrand de, 165.

Lenhossek, Professor J., 20.

Lawes, Sir J. B., 114, 115, 135, 136.

Layard, Sir A. H., 103, 112.

Lewin, Captain T. H., 114, 252.

Lewis, A. L., 65, 69, 378, 386.

Linn, J., 362.

Livingstone, Dr. D.} 89, 111, 117, 129.

Lubbock, Sir J., on the nationalities of
the United Kingdom, 418.

105, 106, 112, 118.

Lucas, W., 36.

Macalister, Professor A., exhibition of
a skull from Kamtchatka, 2 ; de-
scription of a skull from an ancient
burying place in Kamtchatka, 21 ;
notes on some South African skele-
tons, 149 ; notes on a skull from
New Ireland, 150.

2, 17, 20.

Macarthy, Sir Charles, 180, 181.

Maccullough Bey, 65.

Mackenzie, Eev. J., 76, 83, 84, 88, 89,
94.

Maclean, George, 181.

Maclure, Andrew, 386.

Maiobanexus, 251.

Maldive Islands, 164; trade, 166;
population, 167; castes— marriage,
168; divorce — burial, 169; language,
171 ; punishments — religion —
dress, 172 ; games and dances, 173.

Male Atol, 164— see Maldive.

Man, E. H., 147, 148, 149.

Manipur, the aboriginal tribes of, 346 ;
invasions, 349 ; cane suspension
bridges 351 ; Kaupuis, 353 ; charac-
teristics— dress, 353 ; villages — here-
ditary village officers, 354 ; marriage
system — bone money — polygamy —
divorce — burial customs, 355; imple-
ments— religious ideas, 356 ; Kolyas,
356 ; dress — ornaments — marriage,
358 ; Mao chiefs — Murrain chiefs,
359; Kolya commemorative stones,
361 ; Angamis, 361 ; cup-shaped
markings — monoliths, 362 ; belief in
evil spirits — superstitions — music —
omens — crops, 363 ; arts, 364 ; Mur-
ring Nagas, 364; Tankhul Nagas,
365 ; dress, 365 ; birth ceremonies —
ornaments — ceremony to the god
Kanchin - Kurah, 3G6 ; memorial
tombs — agriculture, 367 ; Manipuris
— discussion, 368.

Mann, Adolphus, notes on the numeral
system of the Yoruba Nation, 59.

Mann, Dr. R. J., remarks on some of
the races of South Africa, 177.

174, 175, 386.

Manouvrier, Dr. L., 2.

Mariette, — , 375.

Markham, Clements, 130.

Marshall, Sir James, on the natives of
the Gold Coast, 180.

174, 175, 182, 299, 309.

Mason Bey, 289.

Mason, Hon. J. E., on the natives of
Fiji, 217— see Fiji.

211.

Mason, Professor Otis T., 2, 192.

Maspero, — , 371.

Matthews, Dr. Washington, 97.

Maudsley, — , 246.

McAlpine, J., 36, 38, 42.

McCulloch, Colonel W. J., 347, 359.

Meeting, Annual General, 378.

Meetings, Ordinary, 1, 23, 64, 75, 101,
143, 151, 154, 237, 286, 310, 345.

Meldola, Professor R., 147.

Members, new, 2, 23, 65, 101, 154,
237, 286, 310.

Messages, symbolic, 295.

Meyer, Dr. A. B., 3] 8, 426.

Miclucho-Maclay, Baron, 227.

Moloney, Captain C. A., 299, 310.

Montano, Dr. — , 232.

Mooney, Joseph J., 154.

Moorhouse, Protector, 208.

Moralis, Andreas, 248, 251, 252, 265,
271, 273, 277, 279, 285.

Moresby, Captain — , 165.

Morgan, — de, 227.

Morgan, Thomas, 99, 100.

432

INDEX.

Morcmg, Eajah of, 138.
Morrison, W., 93.
Moseley, Professor H. N., 160, 407.
Mukhtar, Sheikh, 288.
Music of the Australian aborigines,
335 ; discussion, 339.

Narcissus, legend of, 344.

Nationalities of the United Kingdom,
418.

New Guinea, Dr. Uhle on objects from,
426,

New Zealand and the Fiji Islands,
conferenceon the native races of, 211.

New Zealand, on the natives of, esti-
mated population, 212 ; the land
question, 214 ; education, 215 ;
half-castes. 216.

Nguna Grammar, sketch of, 409 ;
alphabet, 409 ; article — nouns,
410 ; pronouns, 411 ; possessives,
412 ; adjectives — verbs, 413 ; ad-
verbs— prepositions, 416 ; conjunc-
tions, 417; numerals — exclamations,
418.

Nichols, Dr. H. A. Alford, 193.

Norcott, Sir Amos, 342.

Numeral System of the Yoruba
Nation, 59.

Obituary Notice of the late Professor
Busk, 403.

Origin of agriculture, 102 — see Agri-
culture.

Othman Sheikh, 288.

Oviedo y Valdez, Fernandez, 248,
249, 250, 251, 252, 258, 259, 264,
268, 271, 272, 274, 277, 278, 280,
282, 286.

Palacio, Diego Garcia de, 242.

Pallme, J., 113.

Pane, Eamon, 247, 252, 253, 254, 261,
265, 279.

Papuans and Polynesians, 311 ; names
of races and their location, 320 ;
language, 321 ; examples of words
used in the same sense in Samoan,
Maori, etc., 323 ; examples of
words in slightly altered form or
expressing different shades of mean-
ing, 324.

Park, Mungo, 111.

Payne, J. A. Otonba, 175, 295, 299, 310.

Pennefather, F. W., on the natives

of New Zealand, 211 — see New

Zealand.

216.

Penning, W. H., exhibition of stone

implements from South Africa, 65 ;

notes upon a few stone implements

found in South Africa, 68

65, 70.

Petrie, Flinders, 376.
Phayre, Sir Arthur H., 386.
Pickering, Dr. C., 102, 107, 121.
Pirn, Eear- Admiral Bedford, 386.
Pinto, Major Serpa, 119, 129.
Poole, Eeginald Stuart, the Egyptian

classification of the races of man,

152, 370 — see Egyptian.

378.

Powel, Lieut. — , 165.

Prehistoric finds in India, 70.

Prescott, — , 129, 130.

Presents, 1, 23, 64, 75, 101, 143, 152

154, 237, 286, 310, 345.
President's address, 387.
Prezhevalsky, 122.
Price, F. G. H., 100, 378, 386.
Price, J. E., 99.
Pritchard, Dr. — , 109.
Pryer, W. B., on the natives of

British North Borneo, 229 — see

Borneo.

221.

Psycho-physical research in America,

422.
Pulutan, Eajah of, 138.

Eae, Dr. John, remarks on the natives
of British North America, 199.

189.

Eanke, Professor J., 2, 15, 18.

Eauken, W. L., 313, 314.

Eawson, Sir Eawson, 189.

Eay, Sidney H., sketch of a Nguna
Grammar, 409 — see Nguna.

Eayner, Dr. H., 11, 23.

Eead, C. H., 155, 380.

Eeid, Dr. W. E., 237.

Eeport of Council for 1886, 384.

Eeport of Treasurer, 378.

Eoberts, C., 11, 95, 147.

Eomauo-British mosaic pavements, 99.

Eosset, C. W.,on the Maldive Islands,
164 — see Maldive.

286.

Eotb, H. Ling, on the origin of agri-
culture, 102 — see Agriculture ; the

INDEX.

433

aborigines of Hispaniola, 247 — see

Hispaniola.

192, 425.

Eouge, — de, 374.

Eouquette, H. E., 133.

Eousselot, Th., 193.

Kudler, F. W., 59, 147, 384.

Eusden, G-. W., 329.

Eussell, Odo — see Ampthill, Lord,

146.
Eyle, Dr. E. J., 237.

Salvado, Fr., 206.

Schoolcraft, J., 119.

Schuyler, Bug., 103.

Scillacio, Nicolo, 247, 273.

Selwyn, Dr. A. E. C., 190.

Sengirese, notes on the, 136 ; house of
the rajah — curious time-piece, 137 ;
marriage customs, 138; inhabitants
of the Talauer Islands and of the
Nanusa Islands, 139 ; growth of
houses, 140 ; rajah's house — slavery,
141 ; names of the days of the
month, 142.

Sergi, Professor Giuseppe, 4, 20.

Serra, Fr., 206.

Shell-work, American, and its affinities,
155 ; discussion, 163.

Sierra Leone, on the races inhabiting,
300 ; population, 300 ; Akus, 301 ;
Eboes, 302; Kroomen, 303; Tim-
manees, 304 ; Mendis — Mandingoes,
306 ; Foulahs— Soosoos, 307 ; Sher-
bros — Yeis— "Boondoo,"308 ; " Por-
roh " — discussion, 309.

Quatrefages, Professor de, on ethology,
426.

Skertchley, S. B. J., 67.

Smith, Dew, 3.

Smith, Sir Andrew, 117.

Smyth, E. Brough, 112.

Smyth, Eear- Admiral W. H., 283.

Songs and songmakers of some Austra-
lian tribes, 327.

Soudan, Eastern, on the tribes of the,
287 ; Suakinese, 287 ; Amarrars—
Hadendoas, 292; Ashraf, Shurefa,
or Shereef s, 293 ; Artegas — Bishareen
— Beni Amers, 294.

South Africa, stone implements from,68

Speke, Captain J. H., 110, 111.

Spielman, I., 2, 4.

Stanley, H. M., 105.

Stanley, W. F., 237.

Steller, — , 137, 138, 141.

Steller, Miss, 137.

Sterndale, — , 211.

Stevens, E. T., 193, 284.

Stirling, Sir James, 340.

St. John, Spencer, 111, 129.

Stone Implements from South Africa ;
68 ; discussion, 69.

Straits Settlements and Borneo, con-
ference on the native races of the,
221.

Straits Settlements and Malay States,
on the native races of the, 221 ;
population, 222 ; Malay and Negrito
races, 223; history of the Perak
Eegalia, 224; manufactures and
industries, 225 ; religion, 226 ; Orang
Utan, 227; art of the Negritos, 228;
discussion, 229.

Stuart, J. M., 125, 130.

Sturt, Captain — , 210.

Swettenham, F. A., on the native
races of the Straits Settlements and
Malay States, 221 — see Straits
Settlements.

229.

Symbolic messages, West African, 295 j
discussion, 299.

Tasman, Abel, 217.

Temple, Captain E. C., 368.

Tennent, Sir Emerson, 113.

Thane, Professor G-. D., 5, 31, 16, 20,
65, 147, 149, 151.

Thomson, Joseph, exhibition of photo-
graphs of Africans, 23 ; note on the
African tribes of the British Empire,
182.

23, 174, 175.

Thurn, E. F. Im, on the races of the
West Indies, 190.

104, 113, 125, 189, 198, 255.

Topinard, Dr. Paul, 3, 4, 12, 13, 18, 19,
146, "42.

Torrance, Eev. Gr. W., music of the
Australian aborigines, 335.

330, 331.

Toufflet, Captain — . 243.

Treasurer's Report, 378.

Turner, Sir William, 17.

Tylor, Dr. E. B., 102, 104, 108, 126,
129, 130, 136, 161, 299, 311.

434

INDEX.

Uhle, Dr. *M., on objects from New

G-uinea, 426.
United Kingdom, nationalities of, 418.

Yaca, — de, 116.

Vaux, W. S. W., 313, 314.

Wake, C. Staniland, 316, 317, 318,

319, 322.

Walhouse, M. J., 163.
Wall, T. L., 2.
Wallace, A. E., 312, 313, 314, 315,

316, 317, 319.
Warren, Sir C., 84, 88.
Watt, Dr. George, the aboriginal tribes

of Manipur, 346 — see Manipur.
Webb, C. D., exhibition of ethno-

logical objects from South Africa

178.

174, 175, 176, 177.

Welcker, Professor, 20.

West, T., 123.

West Indies, on the races of the, 190.

Western Australia, on the aborigines

of, 340.

Whitmee, Eev. S. J., 318, 319.
Williams, C. H., 386.
Williams, T., 107.
Wilson, Dr. Daniel, 102, 105, 107.
Wise, Dr. J. F. N., 386.
Wolseley, Lord, 92.
Woodthorpe, Colonel E. a., 346, 358,

361.

Yaseen, Sheikh Seyyid, 291, 294.
Yoruba Nation, notes on the numeral

system, 59.

Young, Lieutenant — , 165.
Young, Sir William, 196.

HARRISON AND SONS. PRINTERS IN ORDINARY TO HER MAJESTY, ST. MARTIN'S LANE.

GN
2

R63
v.16

Royal Anthropological Ins-
titute of Great Britain and
Ireland

Journal

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