44 MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



according as the object is present, near, not near, and distant, 

 for which there are again four possible vowel changes (/, u, o. a), 

 or twenty-four altogether, a tremendous redundancy of useless 

 variants as compared with the single English form the. Thus 

 this Protean particle begins with b, d or w to agree with bdye, 

 father, digene, woman, or /0s, horse, and then becomes bi^ bu, bo, 

 ba ; dij du, &c. ; wt, wu &c. to express the presence and the 

 varying distances of these objects: ddye-fo=faiher-the-here; bdye- 

 bu father-the-there ; b dye-bo father-the-yonder ; bdye-bd = father- 

 the-away in the distance. 



All this is curious enough ; but the important point is that 

 it probably gives us the clue to the enigmatic alliterative system of 

 the Bantu languages as explained in Ethnology, p. 273, the position 

 of course being reversed. Thus as in Zulu in- kose requires en- 

 kulu, so in Wolof bays requires />/, tfVgene di\ and so on. There 

 are other indications that the now perfected Bantu grew out of 

 analogous but less developed processes still prevalent in the 

 Sudanese tongues. 



Equally undeveloped is the Wolof process of making earthen- 

 ware, as observed by M. F. Regnault amongst the 

 w^VoTpottery natives brought to Paris for the Exhibition of 1895. 

 He noticed how one of the women utilised a 

 somewhat deep bowl resting on the ground in such a way as to 

 be easily spun round by the hand, thus illustrating the transition 

 between hand-made and turned pottery. Kneading a lump of 

 clay, and thrusting it into the bowl, after sprinkling the sides 

 with some black dust to prevent sticking, she made a hollow in 

 the mass, enlarging and pressing it against the bowl with the 

 back of the fingers bent in, the hand being all the time kept in 

 a vertical position. At the same time the bowl was spun round 

 with the left palm, this movement combined with the pressure 

 exerted by the right hand causing the sides of the vessel to rise 

 and take shape. When high enough it was finished off by 

 thickening the clay to make a rim. This was held in the right 

 hand and made fast to the mouth of the vessel by the friction 

 caused by again turning the bowl with the left hand. This trans- 

 itional process appears to have been observed nowhere else \ 



1 Bui. Soc. cCAnthrop., Paris, 1895, p. 734 sq. 



