IO THE FEEBLY INHIBITED. 



further (p. 233) that it "is nomadic and rarely ever spends two nights 

 in the same place. Each family roams about from place to place in 

 the brush in search of food, and wherever they may be when night 

 comes on there they select a place to sleep." The wanderings are fre- 

 quently made in groups of as many as 10 or 12. If a gorilla is met with 

 "alone in the forest, it is usually a young male about reaching the state 

 of manhood ; it is probable that he has then set out for himself and that 

 he is in search of a wife." All the facts that we have thus indicate that 

 the group of animals to which the ancestors of man belonged were 

 typical nomads. 



2. THE WANDERING INSTINCT AMONG PRIMITIVE PEOPLES. 



If we regard the Fuegians, 1 Australians, Bushmen, and Hottentots 

 as the most primitive men, then we may say that primitive man is 

 nomadic. These nomadic peoples are hunters ; it is frequently assumed 

 that they are nomadic because they hunt, but it is more probable that 

 their nomadic instincts force them to hunting rather than agriculture 

 for a livelihood. 



In some people that are less primitive the wandering instinct still 

 persists. Many nomadic tribes live in Central Asia, alongside of culti- 

 vators of the soil, and some of these are here briefly referred to. "The 

 Kirghiz-Kazak (Cossacks) of the plains between the Irtish and the 

 Caspian, with the Kara-Kirghiz of the Tian-chan Mountains" are 

 typical nomads (Deniker, 1906, p. 376). "The Turkomans who 

 occupy sterile lands from the Caspian Sea to Balkh and from the Oxus 

 south to Herat and Asterbad in Persia" offer the purest Turkish type, 

 since the desert in which they have lived for ages has protected them 

 from contamination; some are settled, others nomads; "they recog- 

 nize no chief; everyone is independent." The Mongols of Central 

 Asia, whom Genghis Khan in the thirteenth century organized into a 

 great empire, were, and their descendants still are, a wandering people. 

 From Asia also came forth the Polynesians, the most remarkable 

 nomads the world has seen. At about the beginning of our era they 

 began to spread from India to Java, to Samoa, and to Tahiti, whence 

 they traversed 2,000 miles of ocean in one direction to New Zealand, 

 2,500 miles in another direction to Hawaii, 2,500 miles in still another 

 direction to Easter Island, and they went these vast distances over 

 uncharted seas in open boats propelled by paddles ! 



In Asia also has originated the race of Gypsies whose nomadic traits 

 have forced them upon the attention of the civilized world. The 



1 "Of the social relations of the Pechere (Fuegians) * * * little can be said. They have no 

 villages and rarely any fixed abodes or houses or huts, but lead an unsettled life, which they spend 

 mostly upon the water" (Kingsley, 1885, p. 264). "The free Bushmen are the Gypsies of South 

 Africa, for they have an unconquerable desire for wandering and never become accustomed to 

 fixed abodes" (Kingsley, 1885, p. 273-74). "Everything which the Hottentots have and do has 

 the impress of their tendency to roam" (Kingsley, 1885, p. 281). 



