SOUTH AFRICAN MAN-APES — DART 333 



them away (or abducting), and twisting (or rotating) them inwardly 

 or outwardly. 



The named results of those movements depend, of course, on the 

 amount of bodily weight and momentum added to these adducting, 

 abducting, and rotating manual movements in the three dimensions of 

 space. Thus the unaided body can squeeze and crush with its hands 

 and arms (as can the great apes and many other mammals) ; but only 

 heel-furnished man can rotate the whole body aromid stabilized feet 

 and therewith dance a jig, plant a fist in a face, throw an opponent in 

 wrestling, or hurl a projectile with accuracy. 



Amid the superabundant nomenclature our predecessors have in- 

 vented for the entertainment and instruction of their fellows to de- 

 scribe the movements of their own limbs and hands, and of their own 

 and other creatures' bodily parts, however, we cannot afford to lose 

 sight of the basic simplicity of adducting (pulling), abducting (push- 

 ing or thrusting), and rotating (twisting) manual and body move- 

 ments ; because, so far as the tools held in human hands are concerned, 

 their actions and effects are equally simple at root. They depend for 

 their named effects simply upon whether what we pull or push or ro- 

 tate is sharp or blunt, and the speed or force with which the movements 

 are executed. 



Amid the glut of household and teclinical terms word-making 

 human beings have further elaborated down the ages as names and 

 synonyms for their various tools, to express all the different actions 

 they have named as being performed by means of those tools, and to 

 describe all the seemingly divergent results or end products of those 

 actions, we should also recognize that there are only two things a man 

 can do with a tool, namely, hold it or let it go. If in the process of let- 

 ting it go, throwing or hurling it, he aims it at an object, he may 

 hit or miss, but, if his throwing is accurate, its result will be the same 

 as that of the tools in his hands. If he retains the tool in his hands it 

 can only cut or pound according as it is sharp or blunt. 



If a hooked, sharp object, like the canine tooth in the upper or 

 lower jaw of a hog, hyena, or baboon, is pulled through soft tissues it 

 is said to slash or lacerate ; if we push or pull a serrated edge, like the 

 mandible of an antelope, over skin or meat it slices or saws; if we 

 rotate any long, sharp object, like a bone sliver or quill, we bore, drill, 

 or penetrate into cavities or tissues and doubtless twist their contents 

 around the slender tool we have inserted. 



The forceful pulling (or downward or inward blow) of a sharp, 

 pointed object, whether incisor tooth, horn, or broken bone, results 

 in the piercing or stabbing of flesh or the digging of earth, the name 

 depending on the thing pierced ; a forceful pushing or upward and 

 outward blow may poke, jab, split, thrust, or gouge objects, the named 



