Classification of the Weapons of Animals and Savages.Defensive.Offensive.Stratagems.Hides.Piercing.Flight.Solid plates.Striking.Concealment.Jointed plates.Serrated.Tactics.Scales.Poisoned.Columns.Missiles.Leaders.Outposts.Artificial defences.War cries.
Defensive.Offensive.Stratagems.Hides.Piercing.Flight.Solid plates.Striking.Concealment.Jointed plates.Serrated.Tactics.Scales.Poisoned.Columns.Missiles.Leaders.Outposts.Artificial defences.War cries.
Firstly, with respect to the combative principle itself. The identity of this instinct in men and animals may be seen in the widely-spread custom of baiting animals against each other, a practice which is not derived from any one source, but is indigenous in the countries in which it prevails, and arises from the inherent sympathy which exists between men and animals in the exercise of this particular function.
In the island of Tahiti, long before the first European vessel was seen off their shores, the inhabitants were accustomed to train and fight cocks, which were fed with great care, and kept upon finely-carved perches.[27]Cock-fighting also prevails amongst the Malays, Celebes, and Balinese. The Javanese fight their cocks like the Mahommedans of Hindustan, without spurs; the Malays, Bugis, and Macassars with artificial spurs shaped like ascythe.[28]It also prevails in Central Africa, Central America, and Peru. The Sumatrans fight their cocks for vast sums; a man has been known to stake his wife and children, son, mother, or sister on the issue of a battle, and when a dispute occurs, the owners decide the question by an appeal to the sword. In like manner Adrastus, the son of Midas, King of Phrygia, is said to have killed his brother in consequence of a quarrel which took place between them in regard to a battle of quails.
When Themistocles led the Greeks out against the Persians, happening to see two cocks fight, he showed them as an example to his soldiers. Cock-fighting was afterwards exhibited annually in presence of the whole people, and the crowing of a cock was ever after regarded as a presage of victory.[29]
The Javanese also fight hogs and rams together. The buffalo and tiger are matched against each other. In Butan the combat is between two bulls. Combats of elephants took place for the amusement of the early Indian kings. The Chinese and Javanese fight quails, crickets, and fish. The Romans fought cocks, quails, and partridges, also the rhinoceros. In Stamboul two rams are employed for fighting. The Russians fight geese, and the betting runs very high upon them.[30]We find horses, elephants, and oxen standing side by side with man in hostile array, and dogs were used by the Gauls for the same purpose. Amongst the ancients, the horse, the wolf, and the cock were offered on the altar of Mars for their warlike qualities.
Who can doubt with these examples before us, that an instinct so widely disseminated and so identical in men and animals, must have been ordained for special objects?
The causes which give rise to the exercise of the function, vary with the advance of civilization. We have now ceased to take delight in the mere exhibition of brute combats, but the profession of war is still held in as much esteem as at any previous period in the history of mankind, and we bestow the highest honours of the State upon successful combatants.
This, however, leads to another subject, viz. the causes of war amongst primitive races, which is deserving of separate treatment.
We may pass briefly over the defensive weapons of animals and savages, not by any means from the analogy being less perfect in this class of weapons, but rather because the similarity is too obvious to make it necessary that much stress should be laid on their resemblance.
Hides.The thick hides of pachydermatous animals correspond to the quilted armour of ancient and semi-civilized races. Some animals, like the rhinoceros and hippopotamus, are entirely armed in this way; others have their defences on the most vulnerable part, as the mane of the lion, and the shoulder pad of the boar.[31]The skin of the tiger is of so tough and yielding a nature, as to resist the horn of the buffalo when driven with full force against its sides.[32]The condor of Peru has such a thick coating of feathers, that eight or ten bullets may strike without piercing it.[33]
Plate VII.
Plate VII.
Plate VII.
According to Thucydides, the Locrians and Acarnanians, being professed thieves and robbers, were the first to clothe themselves in armour.[34]But as a general rule it may be said, that the opinions of ancient writers upon the origin of the customs with which they were familiar, are of little value in our days. There is, however, evidence to show that the use of defensive armour is not usual amongst savages in the lowest stages of culture. It is not employed, properly speaking, by the Australians, the Bushmen, the Fuegians, or in the Fiji or Sandwich Islands. But in other parts of the world, soon after men began to clothe themselves in the skins of beasts, they appear to have used the thicker hides of animals for purposes of defence. When the Esquimaux apprehends hostility, he takes off his ordinary shirt, and puts on a deer’s skin, tanned in such a manner as to render it thick for defence, and over this he again draws his ordinary shirt, which is also of deer-skin, but thinner in substance. The Esquimaux also use armour of eider drake’s skin.[35]The Abipones and Indians of the Grand Chako arm themselves with a cuirass,greaves, and helmet, composed of the thick hide of the tapir, but they no longer use it against the musketry of the Europeans.[36]The Yucanas also use shields of the same material. The war-dress of a Patagonian chief from the Museum of the Institution is exhibited (Plate VII, figs. 11, 12); it is composed of seven thicknesses of hide, probably of the horse, upon the body, and three on the sleeves. The chiefs of the Musgu negroes of Central Africa use for defence a strong doublet of the same kind, made of buffalo’s hide with the hair inside.[37]The Kayans of Borneo use hide for their war-dress, as shown by a specimen belonging to the Institution (Fig. 13). The skin of the bear and panther is most esteemed for this purpose.[38]The inhabitants of Pulo Nias, an island off the western coast of Sumatra, use for armour a ‘baju’ made of leather. In some parts of Egypt a breastplate was made of the back of the crocodile (Fig. 14). In the island of Cayenne, in 1519, the inhabitants used a breastplate of buffalo’s hide.[39]The Lesghi of Tartary wore armour of hog’s skin.[40]The Indians of Chili, in the seventeenth century, wore corselets, back and breast plates, gauntlets, and helmets of leather, so hardened, that it is described by Ovalle as being equal to metal.[41]According to Strabo (p. 306), the German Rhoxolani wore helmets, and breastplates of bull’s hide, though the Germans generally placed little reliance in defensive armour. The Ethiopians used the skins of cranes and ostriches for their armour.[42]
Plate VIII.
Plate VIII.
Plate VIII.
We learn from Herodotus that it was from the Libyans the Greeks derived the apparel and aegis of Minerva, as represented upon her images, but instead of a pectoral of scale armour, that of the Libyans was merely of skin.[43]According to Smith’sDict. of Gr. and Roman Antiquities(s.v.lorica), the Greek ‘thorax’,called στάδιος, from its standing erect by its own stiffness, was originally of leather, before it was constructed of metal. In Meyrick’sAncient Armour, there is the figure of a suit, supposed formerly to have belonged to the Rajah of Guzerat (Plate VIII, fig. 15). The body part of this suit is composed of four pieces of rhinoceros hide, showing that, in all probability, this was the material originally employed for that particular class of armour, which is now produced of the same form in metal, a specimen of which, from the Museum of the Institution, taken from the Sikhs, is now exhibited (Fig. 16).
Plate IX.
Plate IX.
Plate IX.
In more advanced communities, as skins began to be replaced by woven materials, quilted armour supplied the place of hides. In those parts of the Polynesian Islands in which armour is used, owing probably to the absence of suitable skins, woven armour appears to have been employed in a comparatively low state of society. Specimens of this class of armour from the Museum of the Institution are exhibited; they are from the Kingsmill Islands, Pleasant Island, and the Sandwich Islands. A helmet from the latter place (Pl. VIII, fig. 17) much resembles the Grecian in form, while the under tippet, from Pleasant Island (Pl. VII, fig. 18), may be compared to the pectoral of the Egyptians (Fig. 19,aandb), which, as well as the head-dress (Pl. VIII, fig. 20), was of a thickly quilted material. The Egyptians wore this pectoral up to the time of Xerxes, who employed their sailors, armed in this way, during his expedition into Greece. Herodotus says that the Indians of Asia wore a thorax of rush matting.[44]In 1514, Magellan[45]found tunics of quilted cotton, called ‘laudes’, in use by the Muslims of Guzerat and the Deccan. An Indian helmet of this description from my collection (Fig. 21) is exhibited; in form it resembles the Egyptian, and an Ethiopian one (Fig. 22), composed of beads of the same form, brought from Central Africa by Consul Petherick, is exhibited. Fig. 23 shows that the same form, in India, was subsequently produced in metal. A suit of quilted armour formerly belonging to Koer Singh, and lately presented to the Institution by Sir Vincent Eyre, is also exhibited (Plate VII, fig. 24). The body armour and helmet found upon Tippoo Sahib at his death, which are now in the Museum of the Institution (Plate IX, fig. 25,a,b, andc), were thickly quilted. Upon the breast, this armour consists of two sheets of parchment, and nine thicknesses of padding composed of cocoons of theSaturnia mylitta, stuffed with the wool of theEriodendron anfractuosum, D.C., neatly sewn together, as represented in fig. 25b.[46]The Aztecs and Peruvians also guarded themselves with a wadded cotton doublet.[47]Quilted armour or thick linen corselets were used by the Persians, Phoenicians, Chalybes, Assyrians, Lusitanians, and Scythians, by the Greeks, and occasionally by the Romans.[48]By the Persians it was used much later; and in Africa to this day, quilted armour, of precisely the same description, is used both for men and horses by the Bornouese of Central Africa, and is described by Denham and Clapperton[49](Plate VIII, fig. 26). Plate VII, fig. 27, is a suit of armour in the Institution, from the Navigator Islands, composed of coco-nut fibre coarsely netted. Fig. 28 is part of a Chinese jacket of sky-blue cotton, quilted with enclosed plates of iron; it is preciselysimilar to the ‘brigandine jacket’ used in Europe in the sixteenth century, which was composed of ‘small plates of iron quilted within some stuff’, and ‘covered generally with sky-blue cloth’.[50]This class of armour may be regarded as a link connecting the quilted with the scale armour, to be described hereafter.
As a material for shields, the hides of animals were employed even more universally, and up to a later stage of civilization. In North America the majority of the wild tribes use shields of the thickest parts of the hides of the buffalo.[51]In the New Hebrides the skin of the alligator is used for this purpose, as appears by a specimen belonging to the Institution. In Africa the Fans of the Gaboon employ the hide of the elephant for their large, rectangular shields.[52]The Wadi, the Wagogo, and the Abyssinians in East Africa, have shields of buffalo’s hide, or some kind of leather, like the Ethiopians of the time of Herodotus. The ox-hide shields of the Greeks are mentioned in Homer’sIliad; that of Ajax was composed of seven hides with a coating of brass on the outside. The spear of Hector is described as piercing six of the hides and the brass coating, remaining fixed in the seventh hide.[53]The Kaffirs, Bechuanas, Basutos, and others in South Africa, use the hide of the ox.[54]The Kelgeres, Kelowi, and Tawarek, of Central Africa, employ the hide of the Leucoryx antelope.[55]Shields of the rhinoceros hide, from Nubia, and of the ox, from Fernando Po, are exhibited. In Asia the Biluchi carry shields of the rhinoceros horn, and the same material is also used in East Africa. A specimen from Zanzibar is in the Institution. In the greater part of India the shields are made of rhinoceros and buffalo’s hide, boiled in oil, until they sometimes become transparent, and are proof against the edge of a sabre.[56]
In a higher state of civilization, as the facilities for constructing shields of improved materials increased, the skins of animals were still used to cover the outside. Thus the negroes of theGold Coast made their shields of osier covered with leather.[57]That of the Kanembu of Central Africa is of wood covered with leather,[58]and very much resembles in form that of the Egyptians, which, as we learn from Meyrick and others, was also covered with leather, having the hair on the outside like the shields of the Greeks.[59]The Roman ‘scutum’ was of wood covered with linen and sheepskin. According to the author ofHorae Ferales, the Saxon shield was of wood covered with leather; the same applies to the Scotch target, and leather was used as a covering for shields as late as the time of Henry VIII.
Head Crests.The origin of the hairy crests of our helmets is clearly traceable to the custom of wearing for head-dresses the heads and hair of animals. The Asiatic Ethiopians used as a head-covering, the skin of a horse’s head, stripped from the carcase together with the ears and mane, and so contrived, that the mane served for a crest, while the ears appeared erect upon the head (Hdt. vii. 70). In the coins representing Hercules, he appears wearing a lion’s skin upon the head. These skins were worn in such a manner that the teeth appeared grinning at the enemy over the head of the wearer (as represented in Plate VIII, fig. 29, which is taken from a bronze in the Blacas collection), a custom which seems also to have prevailed in Mexico.[60]Similar head-dresses are worn by the soldiers on Trajan’s Column. The horns worn on the heads of some of the North American Indians (Fig. 30), and in some parts of Africa[61], are no doubt derived from this practice of wearing on the head the skins of animals with their appendages. The helmet of Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, was surmounted by two goat’s horns. Horns were afterwards represented in brass, on the helmets of the Thracians (Fig. 31), the Belgic Gauls, and others. Fig. 32 is an ancient British helmet of bronze lately found in the Thames, surmounted by straight horns of the same material.[62]Horned helmets are figuredon the ancient vases. Fig. 33 is a Greek helmet having horns of brass, and traces of the same custom may still be observed in heraldry.[63]
The practice of wearing head-dresses of feathers, to distinguish the chiefs from the rank and file, is universal in all parts of the world, and in nearly every stage of civilization. Amongst the North American Indians the feathers are cut in a particular manner to denote the rank of the wearer, precisely in the same manner that the long feathers of our general officers distinguish them from those wearing shorter feathers in subordinate ranks. This custom, Mr. Schoolcraft observes, when describing the head-dresses of the American Indians, may very probably be derived from the feathered creation, in which the males, in most of the cock, turkey, and pheasant tribes, are crowned with bright crests and ornaments of feathers.[64]
Solid Plates.It has often struck me as remarkable that the shells of the tortoise and turtle, which are so widely distributed and so easily captured, and which would appear to furnish shields ready made to the hand of man, should seldom, if ever, in so far as I have been able to learn, be used by savages for that purpose. This may, however, be accounted for by the fact thatbroadshields of that particular form, though common in more advanced civilizations, are never found in the hands of savages, at least in those localities in which the turtle, or large tortoise, is available.
It will be seen subsequently, in tracing the history of the shield, that in the rudest condition of savage life, this weapon of defence has a history of its own; that both in Africa and Australia it is derived by successive stages from the stick or club, and that the broad shield does not appear to have been developed until after mankind had acquired sufficient constructive skill to have been able to form shields of lighter and more suitable materials than is afforded by the shell of the turtle. It is, however, evident that in later times the analogy was not lost sight of, as the word ‘testudo’ is a name given by the Romans to several engines of war having shields attached to them, and especially to that particular formation of the legionarytroops, in which they approached a fortified building with their shields joined together, and overlapping, like the scaly shell of the imbricated turtle, which is a native of the Mediterranean and Asiatic seas.
Jointed Plates.In speaking of the jointed plates, so common to all the crustacea, it is sufficient to notice that this class of defence in the animal kingdom, may be regarded as the prototype of that peculiar form of armour which was used by the Romans, and to which the French, at the commencement of the seventeenth century, gave the name of ‘écrevisse’, from its resemblance to the shell of a lobster. The fluted armour, common in Persia, and in the middle ages of Europe, is also constructed in exact imitation of the corrugated shell defences of a large class of the Mollusca.
Scale Armour.That scale armour derived its origin from the scales of animals, there can be little doubt. It has been stated on the authority of Arrian (Tact.13. 14), that the Greeks distinguished scale armour by the term λεπιδωτός, expressive of its resemblance to the scales of fish; whilst the jointed armour, composed of long flexible bands, like the armour of the Roman soldier, and the ‘écrevisse’ of the middle ages, was called φολιδωτός from its resemblance to the scales of serpents. The brute origin of scale armour is well illustrated by the breastplate of the Bugo Dyaks, a specimen of which, from the Museum of the Institution, is represented in Plate IX, fig. 34. The process of its construction was described in a notice attached to a specimen of this armour in the Exhibition of 1862. The scales of the Pangolin are collected by the Bugis as they are thrown off by the animal, and are stitched on to bark with small threads of cane, so as to overlap each other in the same manner that they are arranged on the skin of the animal. When the front piece is completely covered with scales, a hole is cut in the bark for the head of the wearer. The specimen now exhibited appears, however, to be composed of the entire skin of the animal. Captain Grant, in hisWalk across Africa, mentions that the scales of the armadillo are in like manner collected by the negroes of East Africa, and worn in a belt ‘three inches across’, as a charm.[65]
It is reasonable to suppose that the use of scale armour,in most countries, originated in this manner by sewing on to the quilted armour before described, fragments of any hard material calculated to give it additional strength. Plate VIII, fig. 35, is a piece of bark from Tahiti, studded with pieces of coco-nut stitched on. The Sarmatians and Quadi are described by Ammianus Marcellinus as being protected by a ‘lorica’, composed of pieces of horn, planed and polished, and fastened like feathers upon a linen shirt.[66]Pausanias also, who is confirmed by Tacitus, says that the Sarmatians had large herds of horses, that they collected the hoofs, and after preparing them for the purpose, sewed them together, with the nerves and sinews of the same animal, so as to overlap each other like the surface of a fir cone, and he adds, that the ‘lorica’ thus formed was not inferior to that of the Greeks either in strength or elegance. The Emperor Domitian had, after this model, a cuirass of boar’s hoofs stitched together.[67]Fig. 36 represents a fragment of scale armour made of horn, found at Pompeii. A very similar piece of armour (Fig. 37), from some part of Asia, said to be from Japan, but the actual locality of which is not known, is figured in Meyrick’sAncient Armour, pl. iii. 1. It is made of the hoofs of some animal, stitched and fastened so as to hold together without the aid of a linen corselet. An ancient stone figure[68](Plate IX, fig. 38), having an inscription in a character cognate to the Greek, but in an unknown language, and covered with armour of this description, is represented in the third volume of theJournal of the Archaeological Association. The Kayans, inhabiting the eastern coast of Borneo, form a kind of armour composed of little shells placed one overlapping the other, like scales, and having a large mother-of-pearl shell at the end. This last portion of the armour is shown in the figure of the Kayan war-dress already referred to (Plate VII, fig. 13). Plate VIII, fig. 39, is a back- and breast-piece of armour from the Sandwich Islands, composed of seals’ teeth, set like scales, and united with string.
Similar scales would afterwards be constructed in bronze andiron. It was thus employed by the Egyptians (Plate IX, fig. 40), two scales of which are shown in Fig. 41; also by the Persians, Assyrians, Philistines, Dacians, and most ancient nations.
The armour of Goliath is believed to have been of scales, from the fact of the word ‘kaskassim’, used in the text of 1 Sam. xvii, being the same employed in Leviticus and Ezekiel, to express the scales of fish.[69]Amongst the Romans, scale armour was regarded as characteristic of barbarians, but they appear to have adopted it in the time of the Emperors. A suit of Japanese armour in my collection shows four distinct systems of defence, the back and breast being of solid plates, the sleeves and leggings composed of small pieces of iron, stitched on to cloth, and united with chain, whilst other portions are quilted with enclosed pieces of iron (Fig. 42,aandb). Fig. 43,aandb, is a suit of Chinese armour, in the Museum, having large iron scales on the inside (Fig. 44). This system was also employed in Europe. Fig. 45 is the inner side of a suit of ‘jazerine’ armour of the fifteenth or sixteenth century, in my collection. Fig. 46 represents a similar suit in the Museum of the Institution, probably of the same date, having large scales of iron on the outside. A last vestige of scale armour may be seen in the dress of the Albanians, which, like the Scotch and ancient Irish kilt, and that formerly worn by the Maltese peasantry, is a relic of costume of the Greek and Roman age. In the Albanian jacket the scales are still represented in gold embroidery.[70]
Plate X.
Plate X.
Plate X.
Piercing Weapons.The Gnu of South Africa, when pressed, will attack men, bending its head downwards, so as to pierce with the point of its horn.[71]The same applies to many of the antelope tribe. The rhinoceros destroys the elephant with the thrust of its horn, ripping up the belly (Plate X, fig. 47). The horn rests on a strong arch formed by the nasal bones; those of the African rhinoceros, two in number, are fixed to the nose by a strong apparatus of muscles and tendons, so thatthey are loose when the animal is in a quiescent state, but become firm and immovable when he is enraged, showing in an especial manner that this apparatus is destined for warlike purposes.[72]It is capable of piercing the ribs of a horse, passing through saddle, padding, and all.[73]Mr. Atkinson, in his Siberian travels, speaks of the tusk of the wild boar, which in those parts is long, and as sharp as a knife, and he describes the death of a horse which was killed by a single stroke from this animal, delivered in the chest.[74]The buffalo charges at full speed with its horn down.[75]The bittern, with its beak, aims always at the eye.[76]The walrus (Fig. 48) attacks fiercely with its pointed tusks, and will attempt to pierce the side of a boat with them.[77]The needle-fish of the Amazons is armed with a long pointed lance.[78]The same applies to the sword-fish of the Mediterranean and Atlantic (Fig. 49), which, notwithstanding its food is mostly vegetable, attacks the whale with its spear-point on all occasions of meeting. There is an instance on record, of a man, whilst bathing in the Severn near Worcester, having been killed by the sword-fish.
The weapon of the sword-fish is used as a spear-head by the wild tribes of Cambodia, and some idea may be formed of its efficiency for this purpose, and of the confidence with which it is used, by the following account of an attack on a rhinoceros with this weapon, by Mons. Mouhot.[79]He says:—
‘The manner in which the rhinoceros is hunted by the Laotians is curious, on account of its simplicity and the skill they display.... They had bamboos, with iron blades, something between a bayonet and a poignard. The weapon of the chief was the horn of a sword-fish, long, sharp, strong, supple, andnot likely to break. Thus armed, we set off into the thickest part of the forest, with all the windings of which our leader was familiar, and could tell with tolerable certainty where we should find our expected prey. After penetrating nearly two miles into the forest, we suddenly heard the crackling of branches, and rustling of the dry leaves. The chief went on in advance, signing to us to keep a little way behind, but to have our arms in readiness. Soon our leader uttered a shrill cry, as a token that the animal was near; he then commenced striking against each other two bamboo canes, and the men set up wild yells to provoke the animal to quit his retreat.
‘A few minutes only elapsed before he rushed towards us, furious at having been disturbed. He was a rhinoceros of the largest size, and opened a most enormous mouth. Without any sign of fear, but on the contrary of great exultation, as though sure of his prey, the intrepid hunter advanced, lance in hand, and then stood still, waiting for the creature’s assault. I must say I trembled for him, and loaded my gun with two balls; but when the rhinoceros came within reach, and opened his immense jaws to seize his enemy[80], the hunter thrust his lance into him to a depth of some feet, and calmly retired to where we were posted.’ After the animal was dead, the chief withdrew his sword-fish blade, and presented it to Mons. Mouhot.
The narwhal has a still more formidable weapon of the same kind (Pl. X, fig. 50). It attacks the whale, and occasionally the bottoms of ships, a specimen of the effect of which attack, from the Museum of the Institution, is represented in Fig. 51. The Esquimaux, who, in the accounts which they give of their own customs, profess to derive much experience from the habits of the animals amongst which they live, use the narwhal’s tusk for the points of their spears. Fig. 52 represents a ‘nuguit’ from Greenland, of the form mentioned by Cranz[81]; it is armed with the point of the narwhal’s tusk. Fig. 53, from my collection, has the shaft also of narwhal’s tusk; it is armed with a metal blade, but it is introduced here in order to show the association which existed in the mind of the constructor betweenhis weapon and the animal from which the shaft is derived, and for the capture of which it is chiefly used. The wooden shaft, it will be seen, is constructed in the form of the fish, and the ivory fore-shaft is inserted in the snout in the exact position of that of the fish itself. At Kotzebue Sound, Captain Beechey[82]found the natives armed with lances composed of a walrus tooth fixed to the end of a wooden staff (Fig. 54). They also employ the walrus tooth for the points of their tomahawks (Fig. 55). The horns of the antelope are used as lance-points by the Djibba negroes of Central Africa, as already mentioned (p. 52), and in Nubia also by the Shillooks and Dinkas.[83]The antelope’s horn is also used in South Africa for the same purpose.[84]The argus pheasant of India[85], the wing-wader of Australia[86], and the plover of Central Africa[87], have spurs on their wings, with which they fight; the cock and turkey have spurs on their feet, used expressly for offence. The white crane of America has been known to drive its beak deep into the bowels of a hunter.[88]The Indians of Virginia, in 1606, are described as having arrows armed with the spurs of the turkey and beaks of birds.[89]In the Christy collection there is an arrow, supposed to be from South America, which is armed with the natural point of the deer’s horn (Fig. 56). The war-club of the Iroquois, called GA-NE-U´-GA-O-DUS-HA, or ‘deer-horn war-club’, was armed with a point of the deer’s horn (Fig. 57), about 4 inches in length; since communication with Europeans, a metal point has been substituted (Fig. 58). It appears highly probable that the ‘martel-de-fer’ of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which is also used in India and Persia, may have been derived, as its form indicates, from a horn weapon of this kind. Horn points suitable for arming such weapons have been found both in England and Ireland, two specimens ofwhich are in my collection.[90]The weapon of the sting-ray, from the method of using it by the animal itself, should more properly be classed with serrated weapons, but it is a weapon in general use amongst savages for spear or arrow points (Fig. 59), for which it has the particular merit of breaking off in the wound. It causes a frightful wound, and being sharply serrated, as well as pointed, there is no means of cutting it out. It is used in this way by the inhabitants of Gambier Island, Samoa[91], Otaheite[92], the Fiji Islands[93], Pellew Islands[94], and many of the Low Islands. Amongst the savages of tropical South America, the blade of the ray, probably theTrygon histrix, is used for arrow-points.[95]
In theBalistes capriscus(Fig. 60a), a rare British fish, the anterior dorsal is preceded by a strong erectile spine, which is used for piercing other fishes from beneath. Its base is expanded and perforated, and a bolt from the supporting plate passes freely through it. When this spine is raised, a hollow at the back receives a prominence from the next bony ray, which fixes the spine in an erect position, as the hammer of a gun-lock acts at full-cock, and the spine cannot be forced down till this prominence is withdrawn, as by pulling the trigger. This mechanism may be compared to the fixing and unfixing of a bayonet; when the spine is unfixed and bent down, it is received into a groove on the supporting plate, and offers no impediment to the progress of the fish through the water. These fishes are also found in a fossil state, and, to use the words of Professor Owen, from whose work this description of theBalistesis borrowed, exemplify in a remarkable manner the efficacy, beauty, and variety of the ancient armoury of that order.[96]The stickleback is armed in a similar manner, and is exceedingly pugnacious. TheCottus diceraus, Pall.(Fig. 60b), has a multi-barbed horn on its back, exactly resembling the spears of the Esquimaux, South American, and Australiansavages. TheNaseus fronticornis, Lac.(Fig. 60c), has also a spear-formed weapon. The Yellow-bellied Acanthurus is armed with a spine of considerable length upon its tail.
The Australians of King George’s Sound use the pointed fin of the roach to arm their spears[97]; the inhabitants of New Guinea also arm their arrows with the offensive horn of the saw-fish, and with the claw of the cassowary. The sword of the Limulus, or king-crab, is an offensive weapon; its habits do not appear to be well understood, but its weapon is used in some of the Malay islands for arrow-points (Fig. 61). The natives of San Salvador, when discovered by Columbus, used lances pointed with the teeth of fish.[98]The spine of the Diodon is also used for arrow-points (Fig. 62). Amongst other piercing weapons suggested by the horns of animals may be noticed the Indian ‘kandjar’ composed of one side of the horn of the buffalo, having the natural form and point (Fig. 63). In later times a metal dagger, with ivory handle, was constructed in the same country (Fig. 64), after the exact model of the one of horn, the handle having one side flat, in imitation of the half-split horn, though of course that peculiar form was no longer necessitated by the material then used. The same form of weapon was afterwards used with a metal handle (Fig. 65). The sharp horns of the ‘sasin’, or common antelope, often steel pointed, are still used as offensive weapons in India (Figs. 66, 67, 68). Several examples of these are in the Museum of the Institution. Three stages of this weapon are exhibited, the first having the natural point, the second a metal point, and the third a weapon of nearly the same form composed entirely of metal. The Fakirs and Dervishes, not being permitted by their profession to carry arms, use the pointed horn of the antelope for this purpose. Fig. 69 is a specimen from my collection; from its resemblance to the Dervishes’ crutch of Western Asia, I presume it can be none other than the one referred to in theJournal of the Archaeological Association, from which I obtained this information respecting the Dervishes’ weapon.[99]Mankind would also early derive instruction from the sharp thorns of trees, withwhich he must come in contact in his rambles through the forests; the African mimosa, the Gledischia, the American aloe, and the spines of certain palms, would afford him practical experience of their efficacy as piercing weapons, and accordingly we find them often used by savages in barbing their arrows.[100]
Striking Weapons.Many animals defend themselves by blows delivered with their wings or legs; the giraffe kicks like a horse as well as strikes sideways with its blunt horns; the camel strikes with its fore legs and kicks with its hind legs; the elephant strikes with its proboscis and tramples with its feet; eagles, swans, and other birds strike with their wings; the swan is said to do so with sufficient force to break a man’s leg; the cassowary strikes forward with its feet; the tiger strikes a fatal blow with its paw; the whale strikes with its tail, and rams with such force, that the American whalerEssexis said to have been sunk by that animal.[101]There is no known example of mankind in so low a state as to be unacquainted with the use of artificial weapons. The practice of boxing with the fist, however, is by no means confined to the British Isles as some people seem to suppose, for besides the Romans, Lusitanians[102], and others mentioned in classical history, it prevailed certainly in the Polynesian islands[103]and in Central Africa.[104]
Serrated Weapons.This class of weapons in animals corresponds to the cutting weapons of men. Amongst the most barbarous races, however, as amongst animals, no example of a cutting weapon is found[105]: although the Polynesian islanders make very good knives of the split and sharpened edges of bamboo, and the Esquimaux, also, use the split tusk of the walrusas a knife, these cannot be regarded, nor, indeed, are they used, as edged weapons. These, strictly speaking, are confined to the metal age, and their place, in the earliest stages of civilization, is supplied by weapons with serrated, or saw-like edges.