March, 1933 



FIELD MUSEUM NEWS 



Page S 



RAYMOND FOUNDATION PRESENTS 



PROGRAMS FOR CHILDREN 



There remain nine more free motion 

 picture programs for children to be pre- 

 sented at the Museum in the annual spring 

 series of the James Nelson and Anna Louise 

 Raymond Foundation for Public School and 

 Children's Lectures. These will be given 

 on Saturday mornings during March and 

 April. Following is the schedule of dates, 

 and the titles of the films to be shown on 

 each: 



March 4 — A Beaver and His Indian 

 Friend; The Declaration of Independence 



March 11 — Fathoms Deep; Queen of the 

 Waves; Cotton — From Seed to Cloth 



March 18— The Coyote Family; From Tree 

 to Newspaper 



March 25 — Porcupines, Bears and Badgers; 

 Buried Sunshine 



April 1 — The Tortoise and His Cousins; 

 The Frontier Woman 



April 8— The Rhino Meets an Auto- 

 mobile; A Dyak Wedding; A Trip Through 

 Yellowstone Park 



April 15 — The Realm of the Honeybee; 

 Among the Elephant Seals 



April 22— A Trip to Penguin-land; Peter 

 Stuyvesant 



April 29— From Egg to Butterfly; Flower 

 Friends of Brook and Roadside; Wild 

 Wings 



Each program is given twice, at 10 a.m. 

 and at 11, in the James Simpson Theatre 

 of the Museum. Children from all parts of 

 Chicago and suburbs are invited to attend. 

 No tickets are required for admission. 



Herpetologist Schmidt Returns 



Karl P. Schmidt, Assistant Curator of 

 Reptiles, has returned to Field Museum 

 after six months of research at European 

 museums, carried on under a grant from 

 the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial 

 Foundation of New York. Studies long in 

 hand on the Central American reptilian 

 fauna were concluded by examination of 

 type specimens in these museums. These 

 studies are a part of the program of investi- 

 gation of the reptiles and amphibians of 

 Central America begun in 1923 with Field 

 Museum's expedition to British Honduras 

 and Honduras. 



REMARKABLE AMAZON WOODS 



RECEIVED AT MUSEUM 



By B. E. Dahlgrbn 

 Acting Curator, Department of Botany 



At times an aromatic haze spreads through 

 the offices and workshops of the Museum, 

 and is perceptible even in the exhibition 

 halls. "Traced to its source it will be found 

 to emanate from the quarters of the Depart- 

 ment of Botany, where it is apt to take the 

 form of a blue smoke, becoming denser as 

 one approaches the Department's carpenter 

 shop, where it originates. 



This phenomenon, which recurs periodi- 

 cally, marks the arrival in the Museum of 

 a new sending of Amazonian woods from 

 the Ford Motor Company's concession on 

 the Tapajos River in Brazil. Many of these 

 woods are so hard that it is difficult to cut 

 them into hand specimens with the power- 

 driven band saw. Others are hard and at 

 the same time resinous or gummy. On 

 cutting them, even with the greatest care. 



the rapidly running band saw becomes 

 heated and scorches the gum or volatilizes 

 the resin contained in the wood. The 

 result is a dense fog, sometimes veritable 

 clouds of smoke, which may be pungent 

 almost to suffocation or, almost as often, 

 pleasantly aromatic, spreading like incense 

 through the building. Certain of the woods 

 are, in fact, well-known sources of incense 

 gums. 



Their resistance to cutting instruments is 

 not always due solely to density of structure. 

 Some are known to contain fine particles of 

 silica, capable of dulling the best of saws 

 in a few moments. Such woods are immune 

 to insect attacks and even resistant to the 

 rasping action of the tongue of the toredo 

 or shipworm. Some have their bundles of 

 woody fibers twisted and interlaced so effec- 

 tively that, though they may be sawed, 

 they can scarcely be split with an ax. Others 

 are remarkable for their color which may 

 become more intense, or may disappear, on 

 exposure to light. Many are interesting 

 for their grain — all for their minute struc- 

 ture, and the size and disposition of their 



Sections of Odd Tree Trunks 



Two Amazonian woods of strange contour. In 

 the one on the left the ace of clubs outline indicates 

 a buttressed base. In the other the wood forms bundles 

 enveloped by bark as in some lianas. Both are of the 

 Indian hemp family. 



vessels, which distinguish one genus of 

 trees from another. 



By no means all of these tropical woods 

 are either heavy or difficult to work. Some 

 are of moderate weight and may be cut 

 and shaped with facility. Many take a 

 beautiful finish. A considerable part of 

 them must be classed as soft woods although 

 there are no conifers among them. A few, 

 like the well-known balsa, are almost as 

 light as pith. 



MAGIC RITUAL PLAYS PART 

 IN AFRICAN INDUSTRY 



By W. D. Hambly 

 Assistant Curator of African Ethnology 



In aboriginal negro society, apprentice- 

 ship, initiation as a skilled craftsman, and 

 the production of satisfactory work in 

 native handicrafts and industry, are deeply 

 involved in ritual and magic. Among the 

 objects acquired in Angola by the Frederick 

 H. Rawson-Field Museum Expedition to 

 West Africa (1929) is a set of blacksmith's 

 tools, which are so simple in structure and 

 so obvious in their use, that the difficulty 

 experienced in obtaining them would hardly 

 be suspected. 



On arriving among the Ovimbundu of 

 Angola I was anxious to find to what extent 

 ritual in handicraft survived. No objection 

 was made by the tribesmen to an inspection 

 of their tools and processes, or to making 

 photographs of these; but no monetary 

 offer could persuade a blacksmith to part 

 with his tools, despite the fact that he had 

 the material and skill for making others. 

 The money offered was sufficient to reim- 



burse a man not only for the tools them- 

 selves, but for loss of time suffered during 

 the manufacture of new implements. Yet 

 the blacksmiths remained obdurate. 



The tool to which most importance was 

 attached is the large hammer, now shown in 

 Hall D, which the blacksmith wields at his 

 anvil. This was finally obtained at Elende, 

 Angola, after much difficulty in overcoming 

 the owner's reluctance to part with it. 



A boy who wishes to become a blacksmith 

 must serve an apprenticeship of two years 

 during which he receives no pay^only 

 instruction by the master blacksmith. At 

 the end of this time the youth asks for an 

 examination which the master conducts in 

 a practical way by asking his pupil to make 

 the blade of a hoe, an ax head, or some 

 other article in demand. 



When this task is successfully performed, 

 a day is arranged for formal initiation of the 

 novice, who must stand on the small anvil 

 during the entire ceremony. Meanwhile 

 the master has made for his pupil a complete 

 set of tools, and in his turn the novice 

 promises not to part with these under 

 penalty of dire misfortune. In earlier days 

 death was the penalty of a man who disposed 

 of the large hammer. 



While the large hammer is hot, and at 

 the moment of its completion, a dog is 

 killed with it. About the same time a goat 

 and four chickens are killed. All the newly 

 presented tools are placed close together so 

 that they may be conveniently sprinkled 

 with blood from the sacrificed animals. The 

 master blacksmith turns to his pupil, stand- 

 ing on the anvil, and says, "You may speak 

 and tell us what name you want." The boy 

 may say, "I am Ndumbu," whereupon the 

 spectators clap hands and make a trilling 

 with their fingers in their mouths. Then, 

 in the words of my interpreter, "the boy 

 steps from the anvil; he is a blacksmith; he 

 must work hard, and people must pay him; 

 he used to work hard, but his master took 

 the money." 



I noticed that, although clay for making 

 pottery was easily obtainable at a pit near 

 the village, women made an unnecessary 

 journey to secure clay. The reason for this 

 was the consecration of a particular spot by 

 the medicine-man, who killed a chicken and 

 allowed its blood to drop on the clay. In 

 some mysterious manner this ritual act was 

 supposed to sanctify the clay. Similarly a 

 rock must be consecrated as a surface for 

 pounding grain. Likewise, ritual is im- 

 portant in connection with the hunter's 

 occupation. 



A hunter serves an apprenticeship when 

 young, and his formal initiation is similar 

 to that of a young blacksmith. His bow 

 and arrows are sprinkled with blood of 

 sacrificed animals, and presented to him by 

 his trainer. A hunter is expected to use 

 certain pottery vessels for cooking. These 

 utensils are for his exclusive use. The bows 

 and arrows of dead hunters are kept in a 

 hut which is entered only by a professional 

 adult hunter who lives near-by. The night 

 before the hunt he pours over the weapons 

 of his predecessors a libation of beer mingled 

 with the blood of a sacrificed fowl. 



During life a hunter mounts the skulls of 

 slain animals on poles near his dwelling. 

 At death he is the only person who is 

 buried in a stone tomb, which is situated 

 on the top of a rocky hill. 



Fossil scales of the earliest known fishes, 

 which lived about 590,000,000 years ago, 

 are included among the exhibits in Ernest 

 R. Graham Hall. 



