Chapter XIII: Section VIII (6)

_Language._—Before coming to actual language, remark may be made on the natural communication of all races carried on by pantomimic signs without spoken words. This is the “gesture language” to which we are accustomed among the deaf-and-dumb, and which sometimes also comes into practical use between tribes ignorant of one another’s languages, as on the American prairies. It is so far the same in principle everywhere, that the explorer visiting a new tribe, having to make frequent use of signs to supplement his interpreter, or to eke out his own scanty knowledge of the native language, soon adapts himself to the particular signs in vogue. He will observe that, as to most common signs, such as asking for food or drink, or beckoning or warning off a stranger, he understands and is understood quite naturally. Signs which are puzzling at first sight will prove on examination to be intelligible. Some are imitative gestures cut short to save trouble, or they may have a meaning which was once evident, like the American Indian sign for dog, made by trailing two forked fingers, which does not show its meaning now, but did so in past times, when one of the principal occupations of the dog was to trail a pair of tent-poles attached to his back. Besides its practical use, the gesture-language has much scientific interest from the perfect way in which it exposes the working of the human mind, expressing itself by a series of steps which are all intelligible. It will be particularly observed that it has a strict syntax; for instance, that the quality or adjective must always follow the subject or substantive it is applied to. Thus, “the white box” may be expressed by imitating the shape and opening of a box, and then touching a piece of linen or paper to show its colour; but if the signs be put in the contrary order, as in the English words, the native will be perplexed. It is worth while, in countries where gesture-language is regularly used, to note down the usual signs and their exact order.

In recording a vocabulary of a language not yet reduced to form in a grammar and dictionary, the traveller may seek for equivalents of the principal classes of words in his own grammar: verbs, substantives, adjectives, pronouns, prepositions, etc. But the structure of the language he is examining will probably differ from any he is familiar with, the words actually used not coming precisely into these classes. The best method is for the traveller to learn a simple sentence, such as “the men are coming,” and to ascertain what changes will convert them into “the men are going,” “the women are coming.” He thus arrives at the real elements of the language and the method of combining them. Having arrived at this point, he will be able to collect and classify current ideas, such as the following:—

_Actions_—as stand, walk, sleep, eat, see, make, etc.

_Natural Objects and Elements_—as sun, moon, star, mountain,
river, fire, water, etc.

_Man and other Animals_—as man, woman, boy, girl, deer, buck,
doe, eagle, eagles, etc.

_Parts of Body_—as head, arm, leg, skin, bone, blood, etc.

_Trees and Plants._

_Numerals_ (noticing how far they extend, and whether referring
to fingers).

_Instruments and Appliances_—as spear, bow, hatchet, needle,
pot, boat, cord, house, roof, &c.

_Arts and Pastimes_—as picture, paint, carving, statue, song,
dance, toy, game, riddle, &c.

_Family Relationships_ (as defined by native custom).

_Social and Legal Terms_—as chief, freeman, slave, witness,
punishment, fine, &c.

_Religious Terms_—as soul, spirit, dream, vision, sacrifice,
penance, &c.

_Moral Terms_—as truth, falsehood, kindness, treachery, love,
&c.

_Abstract Terms_, relating to time, space, colour, shape,
power, cause, &c.

The interjections used in any language can be noted, whether they are organic expressions of emotion, like _oh!_ _ugh!_ _ur-r-r!_ or sounds the nature of which is not so evident. Also imitative words which name animals from their cries, or express sounding objects or actions by their sounds, are common in all languages, and strike the stranger. Examples of such are _kah-kah_ for a crow, _twonk_ for a frog, _pututu_ for a shell-trumpet, _haitschu_ for to sneeze. When such imitative words are noticed passing into other meanings where the connection with sound is not obvious, they become interesting facts in the development of language; as, to take a familiar example from English, the imitative verb to _puff_ becomes a term for light pastry and metaphorically blown-up praise.

It is only when the traveller has a long or close acquaintance with a tribe, that he is able to deal satisfactorily with the vocabulary and structure of their language. To be able to carry on a conversation in broken sentences is not enough, for an actual grammar and dictionary is required to enable philologists to make out the structure and affinities with other languages. It used to be customary to send out English lists of thirty or forty ordinary words to have equivalents put to them in native languages. As every detail of this kind is worth having, these lists cannot be said to be quite worthless, but they go hardly any way toward what is really wanted. They are liable to frequent mistakes, as when the barbarian, from whom the white man is trying to get the term “foot,” answers with a word meaning “my leg,” which is carefully taken down and printed. Such poor vocabularies cannot even be relied on to show whether a language belongs to a particular family, for the very word which seems to prove this may be borrowed. Thus, in various African vocabularies, there appears the word _sapun_ (or something similar) with the meaning of _soap_; but this is a Latin word which has spread far and wide from one country to another, and proves nothing as to original connection between languages which have adopted it. While it is best not to under-rate the difficulty of collecting such information as to a little-known dialect as will be really of service to philology, it must be remembered that travellers still often have opportunities of preserving relics of languages, or at any rate special dialects, which are on the point of dying out unrecorded. Where no proper grammar and dictionary has been compiled, it is often possible to find some European or some interpreter fairly conversant with the language, with whose aid a vocabulary may be written out and sentences analysed grammatically, which, when read over to intelligent natives and criticised by them, may be worked into good linguistic material. It is worth while to pay attention to native names of plants, minerals, &c., as well as of places and persons, for these are often terms carrying significant meaning. Thus _ipecacuanha_ is stated by Martius to be _i-pe-caa-guéne_, which in the Tupi language of Brazil, signifies “the little wayside plant which makes vomit.”

_Arts and Sciences._—The less civilised a nation is, the ruder are its tools and contrivances; but these are often worked with curious skill in getting excellent results with the roughest means. Stone implements have now been so supplanted by iron that they are not easily found in actual use. If a chance of seeing them occurs, as, for instance, among some Californian tribe, who still chip out arrow-heads of obsidian, it is well to get a lesson in the curious and difficult art of stone-implement making. In general, tools and implements differing from those of the civilised world, even down to the pointed stick for root-digging and planting, are worth collecting, and to learn their use from a skilled hand often brings into view remarkable peculiarities. This is the case with many cudgel or boomerang-like weapons thrown at game, slings or spear-throwers for hurling darts to greater distances than they can be sent by hand, blow-tubes for killing birds, and even the bow-and-arrow, which in northern Asia and America shows the ancient Scythian or Tartar form, having to be bent inside out to string it. Though fire is now practically made almost everywhere with flint and steel or lucifers, in some districts, as South Africa or Polynesia, people still know the primitive method of fire-making by rubbing or drilling a pointed stick into another piece of wood. Europeans find difficulty in learning this old art, which requires some knack. As is well known to sportsmen, different districts have their special devices for netting, trapping and other ways of taking game and fish, some of which are well worth notice, such as spearing or shooting fish under water, artificial decoys, and the spring-traps set with bent boughs, which are supposed to have first suggested the idea of the bow. While the use of dogs in hunting is found in most parts of the world, there is the utmost variety of breeds and training. Agriculture in its lower stages is carried on by simple processes; but interesting questions arise as to the origin of its grain and fruits, and the alterations in them by transplanting into a new climate and by ages of cultivation. Thus in Chili there is found wild what botanists consider the original potato; but while maize was a staple of both Americas at the time of Columbus, its original form has no more been identified than that of wheat in the Old World. The cookery of all nations is in principle known to the civilised European; but there are special preparations to notice, such as bucaning or drying meat on a hurdle above a slow fire, broiling kebabs or morsels of meat on the skewer in the East, etc. Many peoples have something peculiar in the way of beverages, such as the chewed Polynesian _kava_, or the South American _maté_ sucked through a tube. Especially fermented liquors have great variety, such as the _kumiss_ from mares’ milk in Tartary, the _pombe_ or millet-beer of Africa, and the _kvass_ or rye-beer of Russia. The rudest pottery made by hand, not thrown on the wheel, is less and less often met with, but ornamentation traceable to its being moulded on baskets is to be seen; and calabashes, joints of bamboo, and close-plaited baskets are used for water-vessels, and even to boil in. Among the curious processes of metal-working, contrasting with those of modern Europe, though often showing skill of their own, may be mentioned the simple African smelting-forge by which iron-ore is reduced with charcoal in a hole in the ground, the draught being supplied by a pair of skins for bellows. In the far East a kind of air-pump is used, of which the barrels are hollowed logs. The Chinese art of patching cast-iron with melted metal surprises a European, and the Hindu manufacture of native steel (_wootz_) is a remarkable process. No nation now exists absolutely in the Bronze Age, but this alloy still occupies something of its old place in Oriental industry. As an example of the methods still to be seen, may be mentioned the Burmese bell-founding, which is done, not in a hollow mould of sand, but by what in Europe is called the _cire perdue_ process, the model of the bell being made in beeswax and imbedded in the sand-mould, the wax being melted and the hot metal taking its place. The whole history of machinery is open to the traveller, who still meets with every stage of its development, from savagery upward. He sees, for instance, every tilling implement from the stake with fire-hardened point, and the hoe of crooked branch, up to the modern forms of plough. In like manner he can trace the line from the rudest stone-crushers or rubbers for grinding seed or grain up to the rotating hand-mills or querns still common in the East, and surviving even in Scotland. From time to time some special contrivance may be seen near its original home, as in South America the curious plaited tube for wringing out the juice from cassava, or the net hammock which still retains its native Haitian name _hamaca_. Architecture still preserves in different regions interesting early stages of development, from the rudest breakwinds, or beehive huts of wattled boughs, up to houses of logs and hewn timber, structures of mud and adobes, and masonry of rough or hewn stone. Even the construction of the bough-hut or the log-house often has its peculiarities in the arrangements of posts and rafters. Among the modes of construction which interest the student of architectural history is building with rough unhewn stones. Many examples of “rude stone monuments” are to be seen on our own moors and hills. The most familiar kinds are _dolmens_ (_i.e._, “table-stones”), formed by upright stones bearing a cap-stone; they were burial-places, and analogous to the cists or chambers of rough slabs within burial-mounds. Less clearly explicable are the single standing-stones or _menhirs_ (_i.e._, “long-stones”), and the circles of stones or _cromlechs_. Ancient and obscure in meaning as such monuments are in Europe, there are regions where their construction or use comes down to modern times, especially in India, where among certain tribes the deposit of ashes of the dead in dolmens, the erection of menhirs in memory of great men, and even sacrifice in stone circles, are well-known customs. The traveller may also sometimes have opportunities of observing the ancient architectural construction by fitting together many-sided stones into what are sometimes called Cyclopean walls, a kind of building which seems to have preceded the use of squared blocks, fastened together with clamps or with mortar. Vaulting or roofing by means of courses of stones projecting inwards one course above the other (much as children build with their wooden bricks), so as to form what architects call a “false arch,” is an ancient mode of construction found in various parts of the world where the “true arch” with its keystone has not superseded it. It often appears that rude nations have copied the more artistic buildings of higher neighbours, or inherited ancient architectural traditions. Thus traces of Indian architecture have found their way into the islands of the Eastern Archipelago, and hollow squares of mud-built houses round a courtyard in northern Africa have their plan from the Asiatic caravanserai. In boat-building some primitive forms, as the “dug-out,” hollowed by the aid of fire from a tree-trunk, and the bark-canoe, are found in such distant regions that we cannot guess where they had their origin. When, however, it comes to the outrigger-canoe, this belongs to a district which, though very large, is still limited, so that we may at least guess whereabouts it first came into use, and it is important to note every island to which it has since travelled. So there is much in the peculiar build and rig of Malay prahus, Chinese junks, etc., which is worth noting as part of the history of ship-building. This may suffice to give a general idea of the kind of information as to the local arts which it is worth while to collect, and to illustrate by drawings and photographs of objects too large to bring away.

Naturally, nations below the upper levels of culture have little or no science to teach us, but many of their ideas are interesting as marking stages in the history of the human mind. Thus, in the art of counting, which is one of the foundations of science, it is common to find the primitive method of counting by fingers and toes still in practical use, while in many languages the numeral words have evidently grown up out of such a state of things. Thus _lima_, the well-known Polynesian word for five, meant “hand,” before it passed into a numeral. All devices for counting are worth notice, from the African little sticks for units and larger sticks for tens, up to the ball-frames with which the Chinese and Russian traders reckon so rapidly and correctly. It is a sign of lowness in a tribe not to use measures and weights, and where these appear in a rough way, it is interesting to discover whether vague lengths, such as finger, foot, pace, are used, or whether standard measures and weights have come in. If so, these should be estimated according to our standards with as much accuracy as possible, as it may thus become possible to ascertain their history. In connection with this comes the question of money, as to whether commerce is still in the rudimentary stage of exchanging gifts, or has passed into regular barter, or risen to regular trade, with some sort of money to represent value, even if the circulating medium be only cowries, or bits of iron, or cakes of salt, all which are current money to this day in parts of Africa. Outside the present higher civilisation, more or less primitive ideas of astronomy and geography will be found to prevail. Among tribes like the American Indians the obvious view suggested by the senses still prevails, that the earth is a flat round disc (or sometimes square, with four quarters or winds) overarched by a solid dome or firmament, on which the sun and moon travel—in inland countries going in and out at holes or doors on the horizon, or, if the sea bounds the view, rising from and plunging into its waves at sunrise and sunset. These early notions are to us very instructive, as they enable us to realise the conceptions of the universe which have come down to us in the ancient books of the world, but which scientific education has uprooted from our own minds. With these cosmic ideas are found among the lowest races the two natural periods of time, namely, the lunar month and the solar year, determined by recurring winters, summers, or rainy seasons. Such tribes divide the day roughly by the sun’s height in the sky, but among peoples civilised enough to have time-measures and the sun-dial, there is a tolerably accurate knowledge of the sun’s place at the longest and shortest days, and indeed, throughout the year. The astronomy of such countries as India has been of course described by professional astronomers; but among ruder nations there is still a great deal unrecorded—for instance, as to the constellations into which they map out the heavens. This likening stars and star-groups to animals and other objects is almost universal among mankind. Savages like the Australians still make fanciful stories about them, as that Castor and Pollux are two native hunters, who pursue the kangaroo (Capella) and kill him at the beginning of the hot season. Such stories enable us to understand the myths of the Classical Dictionary, while modern astronomers keep up the old constellations as a convenient mode of mapping out the sky. As to maps of the earth, even low tribes have some notion of their principle, and can roughly draw the chart of their own district, which they should be encouraged to do. Native knowledge of natural history differs from much of their rude science in its quality, often being of great positive value. The savage or barbarian hunter knows the animals of his own region and their habits with remarkable accuracy, and inherited experience has taught him that certain plants have industrial and medicinal uses. Thus, in South America the Europeans learnt the use of India-rubber or caoutchouc, which the native tribes were accustomed to make into vessels and playing-balls, and of the Peruvian bark or cinchona, which was already given to patients in fever.

Here a few words may be said of magic, which, though so utterly futile in practice, is a sort of early and unsuccessful attempt at science. It is easy, on looking into the proceedings of the magician, to see that many of them are merely attempts to work by false analogy or deceptive association of ideas. The attempt to hurt or kill a person by cutting or piercing a rude picture or image representing him, which is met with in all the four quarters of the globe, is a perfect example of the way in which sorcerers mistake mere association of ideas for real cause and effect. Examined from this point of view, it will be found that a large proportion of the magic rites of the world will explain their own meaning. It is true that this is not the only principle at work in the magician’s mind; for instance, he seems to reason in a loose way that any extraordinary thing will produce any extraordinary effect, so that the peculiar stones and bits of wood which we should call curiosities become to the African sorcerer powerful fetishes. It will often be noticed that arts belonging to the systematic magic of the civilised world, which has its source in Babylon and Egypt, have found their way into distant lands more readily indeed than useful knowledge, so that they may even be met with among barbaric tribes. Thus it has lately been pointed out that the system of lucky and unlucky days, which led the natives in Madagascar to kill many infants as of inauspicious birth, is adopted from Arabic magic, and it is to be expected that many other magical arts, if their formulas are accurately described, may in like manner be traced to their origin.

_Society._—One of the most interesting features of savage and barbaric life is the existence of an unwritten code of moral conduct, by which families and tribes are practically held together. There may be no laws to punish crime, and the local religion may no more concern itself directly with men’s behaviour to one another than it did in the South Sea Islands. But among the roughest people there is family affection, and some degree of mutual help and trust, without which, indeed, it is obvious that society would break up, perhaps in general slaughter. Considering the importance of this primitive morality in the history of mankind, it is unfortunate that the attention of travellers has been so little drawn to it, that our information is most meagre as to how far family affection among rude tribes may be taken to be instinctive, like that of the lower animals, or how far morality is produced by public opinion favouring such conduct as is for the public good, but blaming acts which do harm to the tribe. It is desirable to inquire what conduct is sanctioned by custom among any people, whether, for instance, infanticide is thought right or wrong, what freedom of behaviour is approved in youths and girls, and so on. For though breaches of custom may not be actually punishable, experience will soon convince any explorer among any rude tribe that custom acts in regulating their life even more strictly than among ourselves. The notion of even savages leading a free and unrestrained life is contradicted by those who know them best; in fact, they are bound in every act by ancestral custom. While each tribe thus has its moral standard of right and wrong, this differs much in different tribes, and one must become intimately acquainted with any people to ascertain what are really their ruling principles of life. Accounts have been often given of the natural virtue and happiness of rude tribes, as in the forests of Guiana or the hills of Bengal, where the simple native life is marked by truthfulness, honesty, cheerfulness, and kindness, which contrast in a striking way with the habits of low-class Europeans. There are few phenomena in the world more instructive than morality thus existing in practical independence either of law or religion. It may still be possible to observe it for a few years before it is altered by contact with civilisation, which, whether it raises or lowers on the whole the native level, must supersede in great measure this simple family morality.

The unit of social life is the family, and the family is based on a marriage-law. Travellers who have not looked carefully into the social rules of tribes they were describing, or whose experience has been of tribes in a state of decay, have sometimes reported that marriage hardly existed. But this state of things is not confirmed as descriptive of any healthy human society, however rude; in fact, the absence of definite marriage appears incompatible with the continued existence of a tribe. Therefore statements of this kind made by former visitors should be carefully sifted, and marriage-laws in general deserve careful study. The explorer will hardly meet with marriage at so low a stage that the union can be described as little beyond annual pairing; but where divorce is almost unrestricted, as in some African tribes, there is more or less approach to this condition, which is possible, though unusual, under such laws as that of Islam. Polygamy, which exists over a large part of the globe, is a well-understood system, but information is less complete as to the reasons which have here and there led to its opposite polyandry, as among the Toda hill-tribes and the Nairs in South India. Among customs deserving inquiry are match-making festivals at spring-tide or harvest, when a great part of the year’s marriages are arranged. This is not only often done among the lower races, but traces of it remain in Greece, where the dances at Megara on Easter Tuesday are renowned for wife-choosing, and till lately in Brittany, where on Michaelmas Day the girls sate in a row decked in all their finery on the bridge of Penzé, near Morlaix. The custom of bride-capture, where the bridegroom and his friends make show of carrying off the bride by violence, is known in Europe as a relic of antiquity, as in ancient Rome, Wales within the last century or two, or Tyrol at the present day; but in more barbaric regions, as on the Malay peninsula or among the Kalmuks of North Asia, it may be often met with, practised as a ceremony, or even done in earnest. On the other hand, restrictions on marriage between kinsfolk or clansfolk are more prominent among the lower races than in the civilised world, but their motive is even now imperfectly understood. Partly these restrictions take the form we are accustomed to of prohibiting marriage between relatives more or less near in our sense, but among nations at a lower level they are apt to involve also what is called exogamy or “marrying-out.” A tribe or people—for instance, the Kamilaroi of Australia, or the Iroquois of North America—is divided into hereditary clans, members of which may not marry in their own clan. In various parts of the world these clans are named from some animal, plant, or other object, and anthropologists often call such names “totems,” this word being taken from the native name among Algonquin tribes of North America. For an instance of the working of this custom among the Iroquois tribes a Wolf was considered brother to a Wolf of any other tribe, and might not marry a Wolf girl, who was considered as his sister, but he might marry a Deer or a Heron. In contrast with such rules is the practice of endogamy, or “marrying-in,” as among some Arab tribes, who habitually marry cousins. But it will be found that the two rules often go together, as where a Hindu must practically marry within his own caste, but at the same time is prohibited from marrying in his own gotra or clan. Researches into totem-laws are apt to bring the traveller into contact with other relics of the ancient social institutions in which these laws are rooted, especially the practice of reckoning descent not on the father’s side, as with us, but on the mother’s side, after the manner of the Lycians, whose custom seemed extraordinary to the Greeks in the time of Herodotus, but may be still seen in existence among native tribes of America or in the Malay islands. Even the system of relationship familiar to Europeans is far different from those of regions where forms of the “classificatory system” prevail, in which father’s brothers and mother’s sisters are called fathers and mothers. In inquiring into native laws of marriage and descent, precautions must be taken to ensure accuracy, and especially such ambiguous English words as “uncle” or “cousin” should be kept clear of.

Another point on which travellers have great opportunity of seeing with their own eyes the working of primitive society is the holding and inheritance of property, especially land. Notions derived from our modern law of landlord and tenant give place in the traveller’s mind to older conceptions, among which individual property in land is hardly found. In rude society it is very generally the tribe which owns a district as common land, where all may hunt and pasture and cut fire-wood; while, when a family have built a hut, and tilled a patch of land round it, this is held in common by the family while they live there, but falls back into tribe-land if they cease to occupy it. This is further organised in what are now often called “village communities,” which may be seen in operation in Russia and India, where the village fields are portioned out among the villagers. Those who have seen them can understand the many traces in England of the former prevalence of this system in “common fields,” etc. There is the more practical interest in studying the working of this old-world system from the light it throws on projects of communistic division of land, which in such villages may be studied, and its merits and defects balanced. On the one hand it assures a maintenance for all, while on the other it limits the population of a district, the more so from the obstinate resistance which the counsel of “old men” who manage a village always oppose to any improved method of tillage. Not less perfectly do the tenures existing in many countries show the various stages of landholding which arise out of military conquest. The absolute ownership of all the land by a barbaric chief or king, which may be seen in such a country as Dahome, whose subjects hold their lands on royal sufferance, is an extreme case. In the East, feudal tenures of land granted for military service still have much the same results as in mediæval Europe.

At low levels of civilisation the first dawning of criminal law may be seen in the rule of vengeance or retaliation. The person aggrieved, or his kinsfolk if he has been killed, are at once judges and executioners, and the vengeance they inflict stands in some reasonable relation to the offence committed. Not only is such vengeance the great means of keeping order among such rude tribes as the Australians, but even among half-civilised nations like Abyssinians and Afghans the primitive law may still be studied in force, carried out in strict legal order as a _lex talionis_, not degraded to mere illegal survival in outlying districts like the “vendetta” of modern Europe, carried on even now, in spite of criminal jurisprudence, which for ages has striven to transfer punishment from private hands to the State. Whether among savages, barbarians, or the lower civilised nations, the traveller will find everywhere matter of interesting observation in the law and its administration. The law may be still in the state of unwritten custom, and the senate or council of old men may be the judges, or the power at once of lawgiver and judge may have passed into the hands of the chief, who, as among the modern Kaffirs, may make a handsome revenue by the cattle given him as fees by both sides, a fact interesting as illustrating the times when an European judge took gifts as a matter of course. Among the nations at higher levels of culture in the East, for instance, most of the stages may still be seen through which the administration of law, criminal and civil, was given over to a trained legal class. One important stage in history is marked by religion taking to itself legal control over the conduct of a nation. The working of this is seen among Oriental nations, whether Mohammedan, Brahman, or Buddhist, whose codes of law are of an ecclesiastical type, and the lawyers theologians. There is much to be learnt from the manner in which such law is administered, and the devices are interesting by which codes framed under past conditions of society are practically accommodated to a new order of things, without professedly violating laws held to be sacred, and therefore unchangeable. Ordeals, which have now disappeared from legal procedure among European nations, are often to be met with elsewhere. Thus in Arabia the ordeal by touching or licking hot iron is still known (the latter is an easy and harmless trick, if the iron is quite white-hot). In Burma, under native rule, the ancient trial of witches by “swimming” went on till lately. In many countries also symbolic oaths invoking evils on the perjurer are to be met with, as when the Ostyaks in Siberia swear in court by laying their hand on a bear’s head, meaning that a bear will kill them if they lie. It shows the carelessness with which Europeans are apt to regard the customs of other nations, that in English courts a Chinese is called upon to swear by breaking a saucer, under the entirely erroneous belief that this symbolic curse is a Chinese judicial oath.

The most undeveloped forms of government are only to be met with in a few outlying regions, as among some of the lower Esquimaux or Rocky Mountain tribes, where life goes on with hardly any rule beyond such control as the strong man may have over his own household. Much oftener travellers have opportunity of studying, in a more or less crude state, the types of government which prevail in higher culture. It is of especial interest to see men of the whole tribe gathered in assembly (the primitive _agora_) to decide some question of war or migration. Not less instructive are the proceedings of the council of old men (the primitive _senate_), who, among American tribes or the hill tribes of India, transact the business of the tribe; they are represented at a later social stage by the village-elders of the Hindus or the Russians. Among the problems which present themselves among nations below the civilised level is that of the working of the patriarchal system, still prevailing among such tribes as the Bedaween, while often the balance of power is seen adjusting itself between the patriarchal heads of families and the leaders who obtain authority by success in war. The struggle between the hereditary chief or king and the military despot, who not only usurps his place but seeks to establish hereditary monarchy in his own line, is one met with from low to high levels of national life. The traveller’s attention may be called to the social forces which do their work independently of men in authority, and make society possible, even when there is little visible authority at all. The machinery of government described in books is often much less really powerful than public opinion, which controls men’s conduct in ways which are so much less conspicuous that they have hardly yet been investigated with the care they deserve.

_Religion and Mythology._—While great religions, like Mohammedanism and Buddhism, have been so carefully examined that European students often know more about their sacred books than the believers themselves, yet the general investigation of the religions of the world is very imperfect, and every effort should be made to save the details from being lost as one tribe after another disappears, or passes into a new belief. Missionaries have done much in recording particulars of native religions, and some have had the skill to describe them scientifically; but the point of view of the missionary engaged in conversion to another faith is unfavourable for seeing the reasons of the beliefs and practices he is striving to upset. The object of the anthropologist is neither to attack nor defend the doctrines of the religion he is examining, but to trace their rational origin and development. It is not only among the rudest tribes that religious ideas which seem of a primitive order may be met with, but these hold their place also among the higher nations who profess a “book-religion.” Thus the English or German peasant retains many ideas belonging to the ancestral religion of Thor and Woden, and the modern Burmese, though a Buddhist, carries on much of the old worship of the spirits of the house and the forest, which belong to a far earlier religious stratum than Buddhism. It is in many districts possible for the traveller to obtain at first hand interesting information as to the philosophical ideas which underlie all religions. All over the world, people may be met with whose conception of soul or spirit is that belonging to primitive animism, namely, that the life or soul of men, beasts, or things, resides in the phantoms of them seen in dreams and visions. A traveller in British Guiana had serious trouble with one of his Arawaks, who, having dreamt that another had spoken impudently to him, on waking up went quite naturally to his master to get the offender punished. So it is reported that our officials in Burma have considered themselves disrespectfully treated when the wife or servant of the person they have come to see has refused to wake him, the Englishman not understanding that these people hold early animistic ideas, believing the soul to be away from the sleeper’s body in a dream, so that it might not find its way back if he were disturbed. As scientific ideas of the nature of life and dreams are rapidly destroying these primitive conceptions, it is desirable to collect all information about them for its important bearing on the history of philosophy and religion. The same may be said as to the ancient theory of diseases as caused by demons, and the expulsion and exorcism of them as a means of cure, which may still be studied everywhere outside the scientific nations. Information as to religious rites is of course valuable, even when the foreign observer does not understand them, but if possible their exact meaning should be made out by some one acquainted with the language, otherwise acts may be confused which have really different senses, as where a morsel of food offered as a pious offering to an ancestral ghost may be taken for a sacrifice to appease an angry wood-demon. A people’s idea as to the meaning of their own rites may often be very wrong, but it is always worth while to hear what they think of the purpose of their prayers, sacrifices, purifications, fasts, feasts, and other religious ordinances, which even among savage tribes have been long since stereotyped into traditional systems.

Mythology is intimately mixed up with religion, which not only ascribes the events of the world to the action of spirits, demons, or gods, but everywhere individualises many of these beings under personal names, and receives as sacred tradition wonder-tales about them. Thus, to understand the religion of some tribes, we have not only to consider the rude philosophy under which such objects as heaven and earth or sun and moon are regarded as personal beings, whose souls (so to speak) are the heaven-god and earth-god, the sun-god and moon-god; but we have to go on further and collect the religious myths which have grown on to these superhuman beings. The tales which such a people tell of their origin and past history may to some extent include traditions of real events, but mostly they consist of myths, which are also worth collecting, as they often on examination disclose their origin, or part of it. This is seen, for instance, in the South Sea Island tale of the god Maui, whose death, when he plunged into the body of his great ancestress the Night, is an obvious myth of the sunset. The best advice as to native mythology is to write down all promising native stories, leaving it to future examination to decide which are worth publishing. The native names of personages occurring in such stories should be inquired into, as they sometimes carry in themselves the explanation of the story itself, like the name of Great-Woman-Night in the Polynesian myth just referred to. Riddles are sometimes interesting, as being myths with an explanation attached, like the Greek riddle of the twelve black and twelve white horses that draw the chariot of the day. It is not too much to say that everything which a people thinks worth remembering as a popular tradition, and all the more if it is fixed in rhyme or verse, is worth notice, as likely to contain something of historical value. That it may not be historically true is beside the question, for the poetic fictions of a tribe often throw more light on their history than their recollections of petty chiefs who quarrelled fifty years ago. The myths may record some old custom or keep up some old word that has died out of ordinary talk, or the very fact of their containing a story known elsewhere in the world may give a clue to forgotten intercourse by which it was learnt.

_Customs._—It remains to say a few words as to the multifarious customs which will come under the traveller’s observation. It does not follow that because these may be mentioned or described in books they need not be further looked into. The fact is that accurate examination in such matters is so new, that something always remains to be made out, especially as the motives of so many customs are still obscure. The practice of artificially deforming the infant’s skull into a desired shape, which is not quite forgotten even in Europe, may be noticed with respect to the question whether the form to which the child’s head is bulged or flattened is the exaggeration of the natural form of an admired caste or race. If not, what can, for instance, have induced two British Columbian tribes, one to flatten their foreheads and the other to mould them up to a peak? In tattooing, an even more widespread practice, it is well to ascertain whether the pattern on the skin seems to have been originally tribe-marks or other signs or records, or whether the purpose is ornament. In South-East Asia the two motives are present at once, when a man has ornamental designs and magical charm-figures together on his body. With regard to ornaments and costumes, the keeping-up of ancient patterns for ceremonial purposes often affords curious historical hints. Thus in the Eastern Archipelago, the old-fashioned garments of bark-cloth are used in mourning by people who have long discarded them in ordinary wear, and another case is found among some natives of South India, whose women, though they no longer put on an apron of leaves as their real ordinary garment, wear it over a cotton skirt on festival-days. Among the amusements of a people, songs are often interesting musically, and it is well to take them down, not only for the tunes, but also for the words, which sometimes throw light on old traditions and beliefs. Dancing varies from spontaneous expression of emotion to complex figures handed down by tradition and forming part of social and religious ceremony. The number of popular games in the world is smaller than would be supposed. When really attractive they may be adopted from one people to another till they make their way round the world. Any special variety, as of ball or draughts, should therefore be noticed, as it may furnish evidence of intercourse by which it may have come from some distant nation.

Though the subjects of anthropological interest are not even fully enumerated in the present chapter, some idea may have been given of the field of observation still open to travellers, not only in remote countries, but even in Europe. In taking notes, the explorer may be recommended not to be afraid of tedious minuteness, whereas the lively superficiality of popular books of travel makes them almost worthless for anthropology.[15]

* * * * *

In looking through the above remarks, written some years since, alteration has seemed hardly needful. The writer thinks, however, that it may be useful to call attention to the increased opportunities of travellers to study and obtain implements of the rudest and most ancient Stone Age. Up to a few years ago they could only have expected to find proof of the recent use among savages of stone hatchets, knives, arrow-heads, etc., such as in Europe are relics of ancient tribes. These, indeed, have been known for more than a generation not to be the oldest relics of the kind, but have been called neolithic or of the New-Stone Age, to distinguish them from the far older and lower types of the mammoth period, called palæolithic or of the Old-Stone Age. Implements of this class, after their discovery in Europe, were soon noticed in India, and are now especially recognised as found over a great part of Africa. Of later years, in the islands of the South Pacific, stone implements of an even lower class have not only been found in the ground, but there is evidence that they had remained in use into modern times. In Tasmania it is on record from European eye-witnesses that tools made from chips of hard stone by trimming to an edge on one side, and which were grasped in the hand without any handle, were the cutting and hacking instruments of the natives into the last century, almost up to the time of their extinction. Thus apparently the oldest known phase of human life endured in this region untouched by civilisation, and travellers have the opportunity of studying its recent relics in Tasmania, while similar traces of rude Stone Age life, though not reaching up to so late a time, are making their appearance both in West Australia and New Zealand. Travellers should be careful to consider whether chipping is really artificial, and not due to natural action of water or wind-blown sand. There is no doubt that many “implements” in our museums are freaks of nature, _e.g._, those found in such quantities in the desert plateaux above the lower Nile.

Travellers of the present day have still opportunities of observation in the history of culture which will have disappeared in another generation. Inquiry in outlying countries should be made for the vanishing survivals of arts and customs, stories, and even languages. In Europe there is much of this kind to be met with by the inquirer, especially off the beaten track. Thus the dug-out canoe, the monoxyle of Hippokrates, need not be sought on African lakes, for it is still the fisherman’s craft of Hungary and Bosnia; and in the same region the apparatus for producing the ceremonial need-fire by friction of wood, which disappeared from Scotland towards the beginning of last century, and the “whithorn” of coiled bark, the rustic musical instrument just vanishing from English peasant life, are still in ceremonial use. As for savage tribes which come within the traveller’s ken, though their stone implements have been mostly superseded by the white man’s cutlery, many arts of the remote past may still be seen. The yet simpler means of producing fire by drilling a stick with the hands without further mechanical adaptation may still be seen among savages who have not lost their old arts, and the twisting of thread with the hands, which preceded the use of even the spindle, is not everywhere forgotten. Though the study of the religion and folk-lore of the savage and barbaric world must be left to those who are residents rather than visitors, the passer-by who inquires may see primitive rites of religion or magic. Thus in many an Indian house in Arizona or New Mexico the traveller is reminded of his classic recollections when he sees the first morsel of the meal thrown into the fire as an offering to the ancestral spirits.

NOTE BY PROFESSOR R. R. MARETT.

‘Although Sir Edward Tylor’s summary account of the task of the field anthropologist was written many years ago, and is now reproduced in a substantially unaltered form, one can confidently recommend it as still adequate to the needs of a rapidly progressing science. The general plan of campaign, so brilliantly sketched here, remains much the same. On the other hand, the traveller in these latter days, instead of opening up fresh fields, must for the most part be content to work over old ground more carefully than his predecessors. Unless, therefore, he is prepared to discard superficial modes of observation and devote himself to a critical and intensive study of the available facts, he had much better leave the subject alone. It will help greatly if he has been through a course of special training, such as several of the leading Universities can nowadays provide.’—R. R. MARETT.

The following books will be found useful to the traveller, besides those mentioned above:—

‘Handbook of Folk-lore’; published by the Folk-lore Society. Ed. C. S. Burne.

‘Anthropology’: Prof. R. R. Marett. Home University Library. Williams & Norgate.

QUERIES OF ANTHROPOLOGY.

_By the late SIR A. W. FRANKS, K.C.B., F.R.S._

I. _Physical Character._

Average height of men and women in each tribe. Character of hair: straight, wavy, curly, frizzy, or woolly. Prognathism. Strength in lifting and carrying weights, &c. Speed in running. Accuracy of aim. Knowledge of numbers, weights, and measures.

II. _Mode of Subsistence._

Whether mainly by hunting, or by pastoral or agricultural pursuits. Any instances of dwellings in caves.

Use of boats; forms of boats and of paddles; mode of paddling.

Any particular stratagems used in hunting, snares and traps; implements for hunting; use of dogs and of cross-bows, as well as bows and arrows.

Fishing; nets; fish-hooks; spears; any javelins or arrows with loose heads attached by a cord.

Modes of cooking, and implements used; any particular observances in cooking or at meals; any separation of sexes at meals. How is fire produced? and are any persons charged with the preservation of it?

Forms and construction of houses. Separation of the sexes.

Furniture of houses.

Plans of towns and fortifications.

Plants cultivated for food or manufactures; agricultural implements.

III. _Religion and Customs._

Birth ceremonies.

What are the idols and their names? Is there any distinction between them in importance? What worship is paid to them? and what offerings are made, and on what occasions?

Are there any particular superstitions? What fetishes or amulets are used? by whom are they made? Are there any forms of divination, any use of casting lots with cowries, ordeals by poison or otherwise?

Vampire beliefs and ghost beliefs generally.

Cannibalism, and motives for the same.

Funeral rites. Belief in a future state. Deposit of objects with the dead, and whether deposited broken or whole, in or on the graves.

Are burial customs associated with belief in destiny after death?

It is important that the traveller should distinguish between genuine native traditions and those acquired through contact with civilised peoples.

Peace survivals among newer peoples.

IV. _Arts and Manufactures._

Mode of spinning and weaving; patterns and materials employed.

Dyeing and nature of dyes.

Any mode of preparing and working leather.

Any knowledge of glass-making. If not acquainted with the manufacture of glass, do they melt down broken European glass and beads to make armlets and other ornaments?

Musical instruments: their forms, nature, and names.

Knowledge of pottery and mode of manufacture.

Use and manufacture of tobacco and other narcotics; forms of tobacco-pipes; any ceremonies connected with smoking; use of snuff; snuff-bottles.

Manufacture and trade in salt, wine, beer, or other liquors.

Knowledge of simple medical remedies, cupping, etc.

Ivory and wood-carving.

Metallurgy: working in the various metals, whether by a special class of people or tribes; implements used in smelting, etc. Where are the ores obtained?

Is there any knowledge of precious stones?

V. _Personal Ornaments, Disfigurements, etc._

Are there any special marks made by tattooing or cicatrices to distinguish the various tribes? are they the same in both sexes? Drawings of these marks would be very desirable, distinguishing each tribe.

Are the teeth filed or knocked out? If the former, into what shapes are they filed? when is the filing effected? and is it the same for both sexes?

Is antimony used for the eyelids? and how is it applied?

Are ear-ornaments worn by either sex? are they pendent or inserted in the lobe? Are there any nose or lip ornaments?

Is the hair cut into any peculiar shape, or is its colour altered by dyeing?

Is any cap or protection worn on the penis, as by the Kafirs and other tribes?

Any peculiarities of dress for men and women? any distinction between married and unmarried?

What protection is worn in battle? What are the forms of the weapons? and is any missile weapon in use?

Is there any mutilation of the sex organs?

Are any marks used as distinctions for bravery, success in hunting or rank?

VI. _Ivory and Wood Carving._

If elephant ivory is not of native origin, where is it obtained? Are any other materials of the same nature employed in carving, such as walrus-tusk, cachalot teeth, etc.? Are any very hard woods employed; and if so, how are they worked?

VII. _Money._

What kinds of money are in use? Do the coins pass by weight as bullion, or have they a recognised value? Are any objects such as iron bars or tools, salt, pieces of cotton, cowries, beads, wampum, etc., employed as a means of exchange? If so employed, is there any recognised way in which their value is certified, or is their value the subject of bargain in each case?

ANTHROPOLOGICAL NOTES.

_By W. L. H. DUCKWORTH, M.D., SC.D., M.A._