Dakota Gesture LanguageFIG.26.—Dakota Indian gesture language.(After Mallery.)
FIG.26.—Dakota Indian gesture language.(After Mallery.)
Speech.—Setting aside the almost unique example of the North American Indians, gestures are generally only theauxiliaries ofspeech. The latter, which is the exclusive appanage of the genusHomo, while it is formed of a somewhat limited number of articulate sounds, nevertheless presents such a mass of varied combinations of these sounds that at first one would expect to be lost in the multitude of languages, dialects, idioms, vernacular forms, etc. Fortunately, linguists have been able to establish the fact that, in spite of their apparent diversity, dialects are capable of being grouped into languages, and the latter into linguistic families, which, in their turn, have been reduced, according to their morphological structure, to three principal groups:monosyllabicor isolating languages,agglutinativelanguages, andinflectionallanguages.
In themonosyllabic languagesall the words areroots, there are neither suffixes nor prefixes nor any modification of the words, and their relation in a proposition is only given by the respective places which they occupy in it. Thus in the Chinese language the wordtamay signify “great, greatness, greatly, to enlarge,” according to its position in the phrase. The grammar is entirely a matter of syntax. Homophonous words of various signification abound in it, and in speech are only distinguished by the way in which they are pronounced, by thetones, high, low, rising, falling, interrogatory, etc.
Inagglutinative languagesthe words are formed of several elements, adhering, agglutinated together, of which one only possesses its own peculiar value, the others being coupled with it to define it, and having an entirely relative signification. The first of these elements is the root of the word, whilst the others are only obsolete roots, having lost their own signification, and are reduced to the rank of determinative particles oraffixeswith a definite meaning. The affixes may be placed before the root (as in the Bantu languages), and then they bear the name of prefixes, or at the end (as in Turkish and Mongolian), and then they are called suffixes. Thus the suffixlarorliarin Turkish gives the signification of the plural of the word to which it is joined (ex.arkan, the rope;arkanlar, the ropes); the suffixtchidesignates the person concerned with something, etc., for instance,arkantchi, rope-maker; the suffixlyindicates possession (ex.arkanly, with a cord, attached). Other suffixes,la,lyk, denote action, quality (arkanla, to attach with a cord;arkanlyk, the best kind of cord).[155]
Among the agglutinative languages we distinguish a special group calledpolysyntheticorincorporating languages; this group is formed exclusively of American idioms. It is characterised by the phenomenon of incorporation, by syncope or by ellipsis, of nouns to the verb, so as to form but one word of the whole proposition; for instance, in Algonkin, the phrase-wordnadholiniu, “bring us the canoe,” is formed of the elided wordsnatenbring,amocholcanoe,ieuphonic, andniuto us. A similar incorporation takes place when in Italian they say, for instance,dicendo-ci-lo, “in telling it to us.”
Theinflectional languagesdiffer from the agglutinative to this extent, that the root may modify its form to express its relations with another root. But this change is not indispensable; sometimes the inflection may be attained by the modification of prefix or suffix. Thus, in Hebrew, the rootmlchgives, when modified,malachhe reigned,malchuthey reigned,melechuthe king,melachimkings, etc.
With the exception of the Chinese, the peoples of Indo-China, and the Thibetans, who speak monosyllabic languages, and also the Indo-Europeans and the Semito-Hamites, who use inflectional languages, all the rest of mankind belongs, by its mode of speech, to the division of agglutinative language. It must not be thought, however, that the difference is very marked in the three categories which I have just mentioned. We have already seen, for example, that the inflectional languages, like Italian, may have agglutinative forms; the Arab, the Frenchman, the Provençal have also recourse occasionally to agglutination; on the other hand, most of the isolating languages of Indo-China and Thibet exhibit several agglutinative characteristics, and even inChinese, that pre-eminently monosyllabic language, there may be distinguished “full”rootshaving their signification, and “empty”rootsplaying the part of affixes.
It was thought until quite recently that originally all the languages of the earth were monosyllabic, that by a process of evolution they became transformed into agglutinative languages, passing thence into the final and most perfect form, the inflectional. But the immense disproportion between the number of peoples speaking the agglutinative languages and that of the other two categories; the presence of the agglutinative forms in monosyllabic languages; the unequivocal tendency of several inflected languages, like English, towards monosyllabism; lastly, the recent researches of Terrien de Lacouperie into the ancient pronunciation of Thibetan and Chinese words, have appreciably shaken this belief: one is rather led to see in agglutination the most primitive form of language. From it would be derived monosyllabism, polysyntheticism, and inflection; the two latter forms would tend in their turn towards monosyllabism.[156]I shall mention with regard to each of the principal ethnic groups, the peculiarities of the languages which they speak, and inChapter VIII.I shall say a few words about linguistic classifications and the relation between “peoples” and “languages.” For the moment it is enough to point out that besides morphological structure, there are other characters: vocabulary, grammatical and phonetic forms, which enable us to group the allied idioms into linguistic families. Let me add that side by side with the thousands of languages and principal dialects distributed among the populations of the earth, there existjargons, that is to say, semi-artificial languages, originating especially in the necessities of commerce.[157]
Let us not forget either that the different sexes and certain castes or classes, especially of sorcerers and priests, have often a special language, sacred or otherwise, but always unknown to persons of the other sex or of other castes, and kept secret. Language varies also among certain peoples (for example, among the Javanese) according as a superior speaks to an inferior, orvice versâ.
Signals.—To communicate at a distance relatively remote, all peoples make use of optic or acoustic signals.Optic signalsare at first amplified gestures; thus the various tribes of Red Indians recognised each other at a distance by making conventional signs with the arms and the body. An arm raised high with two fingers uplifted and the others closed, signified “Who are you?” etc. Signals by means of lighted fires, to announce the tidings of a beast killed, the approach of the enemy, etc., still remain in use among the Indians of America, not only in the north, but also in the south of the continent as far as Cape Horn. Signalling by means of objects visible from afar, of a more complicated kind, is in everyday use even among civilised peoples, forming the basis of optic telegraphy; and there exists for sailors of all nations a truly international language, by means of flags of different colours, the code and the dictionary of which are found on board of every ship bound on a long voyage.
Amongacoustic signals, apart from conventional cries and sounds of instruments, we must note two kinds of language of a quite special character. There is, firstly, thewhistle language, which by means of whistles more or less loud, succeeding in a certain order and produced simply by the mouth, sometimes by introducing into it two fingers, enables a conversation to be held at a distance.
This language has attained a high degree of perfection inthe Canary Islands,[158]but is also known in other parts of the globe (among the Berbers of Tunis, for instance). This language, however, must not be confounded with conventional signals, always the same, given by the whistle for commands in the navy, for example. The other mode of communicating at a distance, a highly developed one, is thedrum languageof the Dualas and other Bantu Negroes of the Cameroons, the Gallas, the Papuans, etc. With simply a drum they succeed, by varying the number and the order of the beats, in forming a veritable language of two hundred to three hundred words, very complicated and difficult to learn.[159]
Writing by NotchesFIG.27.—Writing by notchesof the Laotians.(After Harmand, Engravingof the Soc. Anthrop. Paris.)
FIG.27.—Writing by notchesof the Laotians.(After Harmand, Engravingof the Soc. Anthrop. Paris.)
Writing.—The idea of communicating his thought graphically, in time and in space, to his fellow, must have come to man from the origin of civilisation; but through what stages must it have passed before becoming embodied in a system at once so simple and ingenious as that of alphabetic writing! Before inventing phonetic writing in general, man must have passed through the period of ideographic writing, and this is already an advance on another and prior method of representing and communicating thought, a method much more simple, which may be called in a general waythe use of symbolic objects and mnemonic marks. As typical of this use of symbolic objects we may mention the messages of the Malays of Sumatra, which are formed of packets containing different objects: small quantities of salt, pepper, betel, etc., having respectively the signification of love, hate, jealousy, etc. According to the quantity and arrangement of the objects in the packet the message serves to express such or such a feeling. This system attains its perfection in theWampumsof the Red Indians. These are either chaplets of beads of different colours fashioned from shells (Fig.83, 7), also used as money, or embroideries made with the same beads on long ribbons forming kinds of belts, which havethe value of diplomatic documents to the Indians.[160]The staff-messages in use among the Melanesians, the Niam-Niams, the Ashantis, and the peasants of Lusatia and Silesia, etc., have the same signification. This is often a sort of passport or a summons; the form of the staff, as well as the particular marks which it bears, are so many signs to make known the commands of the chief, or of the mayor, the order of the day for the assembly, etc.
The notches which these staffs sometimes bear form a connecting link with the mnemonic marks which the less civilised peoples have the habit of making on trees, on bits of bark, or pieces of wood. It is the first step towards writing properly so called. Little horn tablets bearing notches have been found in the sepulchral caverns of the quaternary period at Aurignac (Dordogne). Even still the Eskimo, the Yakuts, the Ostiaks, the Macusis of Guiana, the Negroes of the west coast of Africa, the Laotians, the Melanesians, the Micronesians, commonly make use of them to keep their accounts, or note simple facts; they even continue in use among Europeans, as a survival of the old practice under the form of “baker’s tallies,” or words to denote letters (Buchstabe, little staff of “beechwood,” in German), etc. Here, for instance, is the translation of what was conveyed by a notched tablet found by Harmand in a Laotian village attacked by a cholera epidemic (Fig.27): Twelve days from now (12 notches to the right) every man who shall venture to penetrate into our enclosure will remain a prisoner, or pay us four buffaloes (4 notches lower down) or twelve ticals (pieces of money) as ransom (12 notches). On the other side, but doubtful, is the number of men (8), women (9), and children (11) of the village.[161]
An analogous mnemotechnical object is theknotted cord,which is met with among a great number of peoples, Ostiaks, Angola and Loango Negroes, Malagasi, Alfurus of the Celebes, etc. According to the number and colour of the cords, and the number of the knots which they bear, events past or to come are brought to mind, accounts of a bartering transaction kept, etc. Among the Micronesians of the Pelew Islands, when two individuals make an appointment with one another for a certain date, each makes on a cord as many knots as there remain days to run. Undoing a knot each day and coming to the last knot at the date of the appointment, they of necessity recall it. According to Chinese tradition, the first inhabitants of the banks of the Hoang-ho, before the invention of writing properly so called, also made use of little cords knotted to notched staffs as mnemonic instruments. Besides, is not our practice of tying a knot in our handkerchief to remember something a simple survival of these customs? The method of expressing certain events and certain ideas by means of knots made in different ways and variously arranged has been carried to the last degree of perfection in the case of thequipusof the ancient Peruvians. Thequipusare cord rings to which are attached various little cords of different colours. On each of these little cords are found two or more knots variously formed. The Peruvian and Bolivian shepherds again make use of similarquipus, but much less complicated, to keep accounts. Let us also note in the same order of ideas the different marks of ownership, of family relationship, of tribeship (theTotemsof the Red Indians, theTamgasof the Kirghiz, etc.), which it is the custom to put on weapons, dwellings, animals, and even the bodies of themen (New Zealand). Hence are derived trade-marks and armorial bearings.
Lastly, are not the pebbles bearing strokes printed in red, the number of which varies from one to nine, and several other signs (Fig.28), found by M. Piette[162]in the palæolithic stations of the south of France, at Mas-d’Azil (Ariège), also mnemonic objects? It has been asserted that they were playing dice, but the size of the pebbles is against this view.
Coloured PebblesFIG.28.—Coloured prehistoric pebbles of the grotto of Mas-d’Azil (Ariège).1 and 1A, two sides of the same pebble; 2, pebble with three marks;3, pebble with four marks differently arranged.(After Piette.)
FIG.28.—Coloured prehistoric pebbles of the grotto of Mas-d’Azil (Ariège).1 and 1A, two sides of the same pebble; 2, pebble with three marks;3, pebble with four marks differently arranged.(After Piette.)
Eskimo PictographyFIG.29.—Journal of the voyage of an Eskimo of Alaska. Example of pictography.(After Mallery-Hoffmann.)
FIG.29.—Journal of the voyage of an Eskimo of Alaska. Example of pictography.(After Mallery-Hoffmann.)
The methods which I have just mentioned are the precursors of true writing. This really only begins with drawings expressing a sequence of ideas, withpictography. Imperfect attempts at pictography are found in the drawings of the Melanesians, representing different events of their life; in certain rock-pictures of the Bushmen (Fig.64) and Australians. But already among the Eskimo, side by side with the simple representation of objects, certain figures are seen to appear denoting action or relations between objects: this is the beginning of ideographic writing. Here, for example, is the gist of a hunting story engraved by an Eskimo of Alaska onan ivory whip (Fig.29). The first figure (1) represents the story-teller himself, his right hand making the gesture which indicates “I,” and his left, turned in the direction in which he is going, means “go.” Continuing our translation, we read the subsequent figures as follows:—(2) “in a boat” (paddle raised); (3) “sleep” (hand on the head) “onenight” (the left hand shows a finger); (4) “(on) an island with a hut in the middle” (the little point); (5) “I going (farther);” (6) “(arrive at) an (other) isle inhabited” (without a point); (7) “spend (there)twonights;” (8) “hunt with harpoon;” (9) “a seal;” (10) “hunt with bow;” (11) “return in canoe with another person” (twooars directedbackward); (12) “(to) the hut of the encampment.” As is evident, this ideography bears a relation to the language of gesture. It might be thus assumeda priorithat it is highly developed among the Indians of North America, and as a matter of fact it is. The number of pictographs on tablets of wood, bits of bark, skins (often on those forming the tent), is enormous in every tribe. These are messages, hunting stories, songs, veritable annals embracing cycles of seventy, a hundred and more years (the latter bear the picturesque name of “winter tales”).[163]We may judge of the degree of development of this art among the Indians by the following example of a petition (Fig.30) presented in 1849 to the President of the United States by the Chippeway chiefs asking for the possession of certain small lakes (8) situated in the neighbourhood of Lake Superior (10), towards whichleads a certain road (11). The petition is painted in symbolic colours (blue for water, white for the road, etc.) on a piece of bark. Figure 1 represents the principal petitioning chief, the totem of whose clan is an emblematic and ancestral animal (seeChapter VII.), thecrane; the animals which follow are the totems of his co-petitioners. Their eyes are all connected with his to express unity of view (6), their hearts with his to express unity of feeling. The eye of the crane, symbol of the principal chief, is moreover the point of departure of two lines: one directed towards the President (claim) and the other towards the lakes (object of claim). In the other pictographs the symbolism is carried yet further by the reproduction either of parts of the object for the object itself (head or footmarks for the whole animal, etc.), or by conventional objects for very complicated ideas. Thus the Dakotas indicate “a fight” by the simple drawing of two arrows directed against each other (Fig.31, 1); the Ojibways represent morning by the rising sun (2), “nothing” by the gesture of a man stretching out his arms despairingly (3), and “to eat” by the gesture of the hand carried to the mouth (4), exactly as the ancient Mexicans and Egyptians have drawn it in their hieroglyphics, or again, the natives of Easter Island (Fig.31, 5) intheir rude attempt at ideographic writing on their “speech tablets.”[164]The writing of these tablets is but a series of mnemonic signs which succeed each other inboustrophedonarrangement (see p.142), being used for sacred and profane songs, or for magical rites.
Petition of Chippeway IndiansFIG.30.—Petition of Chippeway Indians to the President of the United States. Example of pictography.(After Schoolcraft.)
FIG.30.—Petition of Chippeway Indians to the President of the United States. Example of pictography.(After Schoolcraft.)
From a similar pictographic method is derived the figurative writing in hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, the Chinese, the Mexicans of the table-land of Anahuoc and their neighbours the Mayas of the peninsula of Yucatan. This mode of writing is a step in advance; certain figures have the phonetic value of the first syllable of the word which they represent. It is the rebus or “iconomatic” system, as Brinton calls it. Thus the first words of the Lord’s Prayer are represented in the Mexican code by the figures of a flag (Fig.32) (pantli), a stone (tetl), the fruit of the Indian fig (nochtli), and another stone (tetl), the first syllables of which form pa-te-noch-te (Pater-noster).[165]The drawings not representing more than sounds, in this species of writing there is a tendency to simplify them, and thus we see the primitive figure being transformed into a conventional sign representing a sound, asyllable. This transformation may be traced in the Egyptian hieroglyphics as well as in the cuneiform writing of the ancient Assyrians. In Chinese writing the same phenomenon has taken place, as is evident from Fig.33, which represents the ancient hieroglyphics side by side with the modern—morning, 1; the moon, 2; a mountain, 3; tree, 4; dog, 5; horse, 6; man, 7. These characters, though simplified, have kept their first signification corresponding to the figure. The association of these figures with the purely phonetic signs constitutes one of the principal resources of Chinese writing, which enables homophonic words,[166]etc., to be distinguished.
Symbolic PictographyFIG.31.—Various signs of symbolic pictography:1, war; 2, morning; 3, nothing; 4 and 5, to eat.
FIG.31.—Various signs of symbolic pictography:1, war; 2, morning; 3, nothing; 4 and 5, to eat.
Paternoster; Mexican HieroglyphicsFIG.32.—Paternoster in Mexican hieroglyphics.
FIG.32.—Paternoster in Mexican hieroglyphics.
Chinese characters have been adopted by only one people with an agglutinative language, the Japanese, who along with these characters (Mana) use another method of writing (Kana), which is syllabic. The Egyptians, speaking an inflectional language, had, on the contrary, to abandon hieroglyphic writing at an early period in order to pass on to syllabicwriting and running characters (hieratic and demotic). It is supposed that from the Egyptian (hieroglyphic and hieratic) writing was derived the alphabet styled the Phœnician, the prototype of most of the alphabets of the world.[167]
Chinese HieroglyphicsFIG.33.—Ancient Chinese hieroglyphics (top line),Modern (bottom line).
FIG.33.—Ancient Chinese hieroglyphics (top line),Modern (bottom line).
Thedirectionof the lines in writing is especially determined by the nature of the materials written upon. As long as it is a question of tracing on rocks, monuments, etc., there is no dominant direction, and the signs are disposed, as in the pictograph, at hazard, in any direction whatever. Even the ancient Greeks wrote sometimes from right to left, sometimes from left to right, sometimes in “boustrophedon”—that is to say, alternately, in both directions, as oxen walk during ploughing.
But from the time people began to write on palm leaves, on bits of bark, on tablets, papyrus, paper, it has been found necessary to choose a uniform direction.
The brush of the Chinese determined the direction downwards and from right to left, as for painting. The ancient Syriacestranghelowas also written in the same way, but from left to right; this direction still persists in Mongol writing, which is derived from it, while Arabic had transformed it into horizontal writing from right to left. And to-day certain peoples, for instance the Somalis, yet write Arabic downwards, and read it from right to left, turning over the leaf at 90°. Writing from right to left may have been favoured by the sacred custom of the Arabs placing themselves with their face to the east, the light coming from the right; besides, contrary to what takes place with us, in Arabic writing the paper must be made to move from left to right with the left hand, while the right hand, which writes, remains motionless.[168]
The propagation of the different methods of ancient and modern writing and their adoption by different peoples, are closely bound up with the religion and progress in civilisation of these peoples. Thus the Mussulman world has adopted the Arabic writing; the Buddhists of the north, without distinction of race, hold in great esteem the sacred Thibetan characters, whilst those of the south venerate the Pali writing. The Mongol and Manchu alphabets are remains of the Uighuro-Nestorian influence and of the Syriac writing in Central Asia, as the Javanese alphabet is the remains of the civilising domination of the Hindus in Java. With the expansion of European colonisation the characters of the Latin alphabet become more and more prevalent; in Europe even, they tend to relegate to the second place the other characters (gothic, cyrilic, etc.). At the same time, new modes of writing are coming to the front, the telegraphic alphabet, stenography, precursors of a writing of the future, universal, international, simple, and rapid.
II.—SOCIOLOGICAL CHARACTERS.
1. MATERIALLIFE:Alimentation: Geophagy—Anthropophagy—Preparation of foods—Fire—Pottery—Grinding of corn—Stimulants and narcotics—Habitation: Two primitive types of dwellings—Permanent dwelling (hut)—Removable dwelling (tent)—Difference of origin of the materials employed in the two types—Villages—Furniture—Heating and lighting—Clothing: Nakedness and modesty—Ornament precedes dress—Head-dress—Ethnic mutilations—Tattooing—Girdle, necklace, and garland the origin of all dress—Manufacture of garments—Spinning and weaving—Means of existence: tools of primitive industry—Hunting—Fishing—Agriculture—Domestication and rearing of animals.
Alimentation.—The first and most imperious preoccupation of man at all times is the search for food. It is therefore natural that we should begin our brief account of sociological characters with those relating to this preoccupation.
In tropical countries man finds in nature without effort edible plants in sufficient quantity for his support. It is said that in the island of Ceram a single sago-tree will yield what will nourish a man for a whole year.
In temperate countries there are also not wanting vegetable species which, with only slight effort on man’s part, produce nutritive substances. The animal world also supplies everywhere a great variety of species suitable for food. These, for the most part, belong to the division of vertebrates or molluscs; however, certain of the arthropods (crustaceans, insects, etc.),echinoderms (sea-urchins), nay, even worms (large earthworms of China, Tonkin, and Melanesia), also furnish their contingent to human gluttony.
The mineral kingdom contributes only salt, which, however, is unknown to certain tribes, as, for example, the Veddahs (Sarazin), the Somalis (Lapicque), etc. Besides, according to Bunge,[169]peoples whose food is almost exclusively animal (as is the case of the Veddahs, Eskimo, etc.) never eat salt, while those whose chief food is of vegetable origin experience an irresistible need for this condiment, probably because of the insufficiency of mineral substances in plants.
Perhaps also to this need of supplying the deficiency of mineral substances (calcareous or alkaline salts) is due the habit of eating certain earthy substances—kaolin, clay, limestone.Geophagyhas, in fact, been observed in all parts of the world: in Senegal (the earth called “konak”), in Persia (argillaceous earth from Nichapur and the saline steppes of Kirman, composed of carbonate of magnesia and chalk),[170]and especially in the Asiatic archipelago, in India, and South America. In the markets of Java are sold little squares or figures in baked clay (“ampo” in Javanese) which are much valued, especially by pregnant women.[171]In Calcutta are sold similar products, and in several towns of Peru hawkers offer for sale little figures in edible earth. The Indians of Bolivia eat a white clay, a kind of kaolin called “pasa.”[172]The Whites settled in South America are likewise addicted to geophagy. Women assert that the eating of earth gives a delicate complexion to the face. The same custom has also been pointed out among women in several countries of Europe, more especially in Spain, where the sandy clay which isused for making the “alcarrazas” is especially in vogue as an edible earth.[173]
We must now pass on to speak of another food—human flesh.Anthropophagyis much less general than is usually believed. Many peoples have been wrongly accused of this crime against humanity by travellers who have had neither the time nor the means necessary to verify the fact, and by writers who here formed a hasty generalisation from isolated facts.[174]
Cannibalism has also been too hastily inferred from the observation of facts like “head-hunting,” or the practice of adorning houses with human skulls and bones. As with human sacrifices, these are perhaps survivals of ancient cannibalism, but not proofs of its existence at the present time.
Besides, it must be noted that most of the statements of authors have reference to bygone times, which would lead us to suppose that anthropophagy is a custom tending to disappear among all peoples, even among those who have not been converted to one of the religions whose dogmas condemn this practice (Christianity, Buddhism, worship of Riamba in Africa,[175]Islamism, etc.).
It appears from the very conscientious work of P. Bergemann,[176]that actually the only regions of the world where anthropophagy has been really proved to exist are Oceania (including the Asiatic Archipelago), Central Africa, and Southern America.
The Battas of Sumatra, the natives of the Solomon Islands, of New Britain, and of certain islands of the New Hebrides, as well as a large number of Australian tribes, are known asincorrigible cannibals. We can speak less confidently as to the other inhabitants of Oceania. Dyaks, Fijians, New Caledonians, Karons of New Guinea, seem to have abandoned cannibalism. In South America positive facts abound concerning the anthropophagy of the Arovaques and certain Indians of Columbia, the Botocudos and some other Brazilian tribes; but for the rest of the continent they resolve themselves into the statements of ancient travellers or to the report of survivals. On the other hand, Central Africa appears to be the chief seat of anthropophagy. It is of frequent occurrence among the Niam-Niams, the Monbuttus, the Bandziris, and other tribes of the River Ubangi, as well as among the tribes of the Congo basin, the Basangos, the Manyuema, the tribes of Kassai, etc. We have likewise genuine proofs enough for the Fans of French Congo and certain tribes of the Benguelas. In general, cannibalism appears to be unknown in Africa beyond the tenth degree of latitude to the north and south of the Equator.
Cannibalism is practised for three reasons: necessity, gluttony, superstition.
Necessary Anthropophagymay take place in consequence of the want of animal food, as in Australia, or in consequence of accidental circumstances (shipwreck, famine), as it may occur even among civilised peoples; but this kind of cannibalism is as rare as that which is attributable togluttony. It is said, however, that the Melanesians of the Solomon Islands, the New Hebrides, and New Britain hunt man merely to satisfy their taste for human flesh. The Niam-Niams pursue the same kind of sport not only for the flesh, but for the human fat which they utilise for lighting purposes. Various tribes of the Ubangi buy slaves or capture men separated from their fellows in order to fatten them up and eat them afterwards; sometimes, to improve the flavour of this kind of meat, the carcasses are left to soak in water; similar facts have been observed among the Manyuema. However that may be, the majority of cases of cannibalism may be explained bysuperstitious beliefs. There is especially abelief in the possibility of appropriating the virtues and the qualities of a man by eating the whole or certain portions of his body—the heart, the eyes, the liver. Sometimes drinking the blood of the victim is regarded as sufficient.[177]
Of the three causes which I have just enumerated the first two are probably the remains of downright anthropophagy—that is to say, of the habit of eating one’s relatives and especially one’s offspring just the same as any other flesh, as it exists among many animals. The Australians, for example, are known to eat their children which they have killed for other reasons (restriction of progeny).
R. S. Steinmetz[178]has thought it possible to bring together all these cases of anthropophagy under the name of “endocannibalism,” or the practice of eating parents and relatives. He mentions a great number of tribes in which this practice exists alone or combined with “exocannibalism,” that is to say the habit of eating the flesh of strangers. This second sort of cannibalism, much more widely diffused, however, than endocannibalism, is alone amenable to moral, religious, or social ideas, while endocannibalism is but the remains of a natural state of primitive man, the residue of instincts which still stirred his soul at the period when he wandered solitary through the virgin forests without realising the possibility of forming any social group whatever.[179]
Ritual anthropophagy persists for a considerable length of time, and may accord with a relatively developed civilisation. The Battas, the Monbuttus, the Niam-Niams, are tribesalmost half civilised; one has a well-developed method of writing and a style of ornament, the others have a fairly advanced social organisation. As a survival, anthropophagy manifests itself not only in the practice of cutting off the heads (Dyaks) in human sacrifices, but also in a multitude of religious or superstitious practices among a great number of even civilised peoples. The belief in the supposed curative properties of human flesh, especially that of executed criminals, is still in full force in China,[180]and was so in Europe in ancient times and in the Middle Ages; the Salic law forbade the magical practices associated with anthropophagy. To drink from the skull of an enemy was a very widespread custom in Asia and Europe, and even until the beginning of this century the remains of the skull of a hanged criminal figured among the remedies in the pharmacopœias of Central Europe.
Preparation of Foods.—There is no people on earth which eats all its food quite raw, without having subjected it to previouspreparation. Some few northern tribes, the Eskimo, the Chukchi, eat, it is true, reindeer’s flesh and fish quite raw, but they cut these up, prepare dried provisions from them, and moreover they cook their vegetable food.
Food is prepared by cutting it into pieces, subjecting it to a fermentation, moistening it, triturating it, and especially by exposing it to the action of fire.
Fire-Making by RubbingFIG.34.—Method of fire-making by rubbing.(After Hough.)
FIG.34.—Method of fire-making by rubbing.(After Hough.)
No tribe exists, even at the bottom of the scale of civilisation, which is not to-day acquainted with theuse of fire, and as far back as we can go into prehistoric times we find material traces of the employment of fire (cinders, charcoal, pieces of worn-out pyrites, cracked flint, etc.). However, thepreservationof fire produced by the natural forces (conflagrations, lightning, volcanoes, etc.) must have preceded theproductionof fire (Broca, Von den Steinen). Most of the forces of nature transformable into heat—light, electricity, motion, and chemical affinity—have been turned to account by man in the production of fire with more or less success. Kindling flame by concentrating the solar light with bi-convex glasses and mirrors, mentioned from the remotest antiquity, could never have become general. It is the same with electricity. On the other hand, motion and chemical affinity have been at all times, and still are, pre-eminently the two productive forces of fire. Motion is utilised in three different ways: by the friction of two pieces of wood, by the striking together of two pieces of certain mineral substances, or by pneumatic compression. The last method is little used; it has been observed among the Dyaks of Borneo and in Burma. It is based on the principle of thepneumatic tinder-boxof our scientific demonstration rooms. But the two other modes of utilising motion are still in general use among all savage peoples.[181]
A little red-hot ember capable of setting fire to certain substances (tinder, down, dry grass, etc.) may be obtained either by rubbing together two pieces of wood, or by sawing one across the other, or by turning the end of one in a little hole made in the other. Hence, three ways of making fire by friction, each having a well-defined geographical area. The first way (simple rubbing), the most primitive and the least easy, is employed especially in Oceania. It consists in rubbing a little stick of hard wood, bending it downward, against a log of soft wood held between the knees (Fig.34). A little channel is thus hollowed out of the log, and in the end the operator succeeds in obtaining incandescent particles of pulverised wood, which gather at the bottom of the channel. He has only to throw in a little dry grass or tinder and to blow upon it to obtain the flame.
Thesawingmethod (Fig.35) is employed by the Malays and by some Australian tribes, as well as in Burma and India. A piece of bamboo split longitudinally is sawn with the cutting edge of another piece of bamboo until the sawdust becomes hot and sets fire to the tinder on which it falls.