DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SAVAGES. 555 



On the whole, then, from a review of these and other similar 

 facts which might have been mentioned, it seems to me most 

 probable that many of the simpler weapons, implements, etc., 

 have been invented independently by various savage tribes, 

 although there are no doubt also cases in which they have 

 been borrowed by one tribe from another. 



The contrary opinion has been adopted by many writers 

 on account of the undeniable similarity existing between the 

 weapons used by savages in very different parts of the world. 

 But however paradoxical it may sound, though the imple- 

 ments and weapons of savages are remarkably similar, they 

 are at the same time curiously different. No doubt the neces- 

 saries of life are simple and similar all over the world. The 

 materials also with which man has to deal are very much 

 alike ; wood, bone, and to a certain extent stone, have every- 

 where the same properties. The obsidian flakes of the Aztecs 

 resemble the flint flakes of our ancestors, not so much because 

 the ancient Briton resembled the Aztec, as because the frac- 

 ture of flint is like that of obsidian. So also the pointed 

 bones used as awls are necessarily similar all over the world. 

 Similarity exists, in fact, rather in the raw material than in 

 the manufactured article, and some even of the simplest im- 

 plements of stone are very different among different races. 

 The adze-like hatchets of the South Sea Islanders are unlike 

 those of the Australians or ancient Britons ; the latter again 

 differ very much from the type which is characteristic of the 

 Drift or Archseolithic period. 



Again, the habits and customs of savages, while presenting 

 many remarkable similarities, which, as it seems to me, go far 

 to prove the unity of the human race, still differ greatly, and 

 thus give strong evidence of independent development. Many, 

 indeed, of those differences which must have struck any one 

 in reading the preceding part of the chapter, follow evidently 

 and directly from the external conditions in which different 



