46 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



opinions of travelers that savages were able to distinguish colors per- 

 fectly. He also pointed out that the decorations of the early Egyptians 

 and of other ancient races showed the existence of a well-developed 

 sense long before the time of Homer. 



The controversy was carried on for some years, especially in Germany. 

 Magnus* showed that the same defect of terminology for green and 

 blue, which characterizes ancient writings, still exists among many 

 primitive races at the present day, and argued that this wide-spread 

 peculiarity must have had some definite cause, probably of a physio- 

 logical nature. Nevertheless, the general trend of opinion was strongly 

 against the views of Gladstone and Geiger, and the idea of the evolu- 

 ^tion of the color sense in man has been almost universally rejected. 



As a member of the anthropological expedition which went out from 

 Cambridge to Torres Strait and New Guinea in 1898, under the leader- 

 ship of Prof. A. C. Haddon, I had an opportunity of re-investigating 

 this question. In addition to a full examination of the color vision of 

 two tribes of Papuans inhabiting one the eastern and the other the 

 western islands of Torres Strait, I was able to make observations on 

 natives of the Island of Kiwai, at the mouth of the Fly River, and on 

 members of several Australian tribes. The languages of these people 

 showed different stages in the evolution of color terminology, which 

 correspond in a striking manner with the course of evolution deduced 

 by Geiger from ancient writings. In an Australian tribe, from the 

 district of Seven Eivers, on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Carpen- 

 taria, several natives only used three color epithets; red, purple and 

 orange were called by the same name, 'oti'; white, yellow and green 

 were called 'yopa,' while black, blue, indigo and violet were all called 

 'manara.' Other natives from an adjoining tribe used the names 'owang,' 

 Svapok' and 'unma' in the same sense; some natives applied other names 

 to green and yellow, but those given appeared to be the only terms 

 which were used with any definiteness and constancy. 



The next stage in the evolution of a color vocabulary was found in 

 Kiwai. In the language of this island there was a very definite name 

 for red, 'd6g6-d6g6,'f and a less definite name for yellow, 'ago-ago ago- 

 ago.' Greens were called by most individuals, 'emasoro' and 'tigiro,' 

 which were also used for white and black respectively, and may prob- 

 ably be translated 'light' and 'dark.' A few used a special word for 

 green, 'poroporona.' Blue and violet were usually called 'wibu-wibuna,' 

 the word for black, others calling these colors 'tigiro' or 'poroporona.' 

 The brilliant blue of the sky received from these people the same name 

 as the deepest black. 



* 'Untersuchungen iiber den Farbensinn der Naturvolker, Jena, 1880,' and 

 'Ueber ethnologische Untersiichungen des Farbensinnes,' Breslau, 1883. 

 t '0' stands for the sound of 'aw' in the word 'law.' 



