REVIEWS 149 



ZOOLOGY 



The Evolution of the Dragon. By G. Elliot Smith, M.A., M.D., F.R.S. 

 [Pp. XX -}- 234 with 26 plates.] (Manchester: at the University 

 Press. Price los. 6d. net.) 



The introduction by Dr. W. H. R. Rivers of a new method which increased 

 enormously the objectivity of the information which can be elicited from 

 primitive people, and its application to Melanesia, established for the first 

 time the complexity of the history of culture in the Pacific arKl showed how 

 the introduction of a group of customs into an island may be due to small 

 bands of conquerors,, sailing about and imposing themselves as a ruling 

 class on the people already there. At the same period Prof. Elliot Smith, 

 during his residence in Cairo, enjoyed a remarkable opportunity of becoming 

 personally acquainted with all the details of the process of mummification 

 throughout the history of that strange custom in Egypt, and was able to 

 study at first hand the associated funeral customs. 



Subsequently Elliot Smith was able to show that degraded copies of 

 the characteristic mastaba tomb of the early dynastic Egypt were widely 

 spread round the Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean, and were connected 

 with the dolmens and chambered tombs of Western Europe and India. 

 The more magnificent royal tombs, the Pyramids, are represented in similar 

 forms in Mesopotamia, India, Cambodia, Polynesia, Peru and Mexico. Sub- 

 sequent investigations showed that the distribution of these and analogous 

 stone monuments was in reality much wider, covering all those districts 

 where an ancient civilisation is found. 



Prof. Elliot Smith was then able to show that the remarkable mummies 

 made in the Torres Straits reproduced exactly the practices of a definite 

 late period, but whereas in Egypt these details had a functional meaning, 

 being necessary for the preservation of a lifelike appearance, in the Torres 

 Straits they are entirely meaningless, because the accidents which they 

 were intended to avoid in Egypt could not occur under the different condi- 

 tions in Australasia. An example, somewhat gruesome perhaps, but strik- 

 ing, is that in Egypt the embalmers, to restore the shrunken mummy to its 

 lifelike form, stuffed it with mud through slits made in definite positions, 

 the Torres Straits practitioners cut the slits in the skin in the same places, 

 but made no attempt at stuffing. Elliot Smith urged that the great series 

 of parallels between the mummies of Ancient Egypt and modern Torres 

 Straits — all of which in Egypt had a functional explanation, whereas in the 

 East they were useless — was only to be explained by a spread of culture 

 across the globe from Egypt to Australia. This case illustrates the char- 

 acter of Elliot Smith's argument and is of great importance from the stand- 

 point of method. 



A few years ago it was believed by all British and American ethnologists 

 that many customs had developed independently to identical form in separ- 

 ated regions. This " evolution of culture attributed to the similarity of 

 the human mind " was supposed to be analogous to biological evolution. 

 We now know that in the evolution of animals very similar forms may 

 evolve independently, but it is characteristic of such homeomorphs that, 

 although the general effect may be similar, the details always differ in the 

 forms of independent origin. In allied animals the details agree, although 

 the forms viewed as a whole may be very different. 



Applying this well-established biological principle to culture, we should 

 expect to find that widespread customs, were they of multiple origin, would 

 vary greatly in detail, whilst presenting a uniform appearance. In actual 

 fact we find a diverse appearance built up of detail which is identical from 

 Egypt to Mexico. 



In the book under review Elliot Smith shows the absolute identity in 



