214 SAVAGE WEAPONS AT THE CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION. 



fined his illustrations to objects actually exhibited there ; and he is not 

 responsible for the circumstance that the comparatively unknown and 

 little thought of Portuguese colony of Angola had more in his line of 

 search than the whole continent of South America. 



It may be mentioned, however, that the Dutch and Portuguese colo- 

 nies had a manifold better exhibit in Paris in 1878, and that the former 

 had the finest ethnological display of the mechanical ingenuity of an 

 unlettered people w r hich it has ever been the good fortune of the author 

 to see. 



Types of Savage Weapons. — The simplest form of a weapon is a stick ; 

 a heavy stick is a club. The club with a knob becomes a mace ; the swell- 

 ing end sharpened on one edge is an axe. Point the stick and it is a 

 spear; if light, it is a javelin; shorter still, it is a dagger for close quar- 

 ters. Flatten the stick and give it an edge, it becomes a sword ; or, if 

 short, it is a knife. 



So far the weapon is a single piece of wood ; but some ingenious man 

 contrives to mount a stone in a withe, or sling it with a thong or in the 

 skin of an animal's leg, or lash it to a stick ; or he learns how to project 

 a light spear from a bow, or a heavier one by means of a stick or a thong. 

 We find all these modifications in the collections from various countries 

 at the Centennial. 



Another type of weapon is the stone or club which is thrown; the 

 simplest method is, of course, the mere hurling of stones by the hand. 

 Then there are several forms of slings; the one having two thongs and 

 a pocket, and the other a stick for hurling a perforated stone. The stone- 

 on the end of a string may be considered a third kind, and out of this 

 grows the bola* — several associated balls on as many strings — which has 

 a whirling motion when thrown. All of these also were exhibited. The 

 lasso of South America naturally occurs to one in speaking of the bolas, 

 though the noosed lasso belongs to another class of devices, not exactly 

 a weapon but a snare. 



Materials employed. — The statement of Lucretius {Be reruvn naturae) in 

 regard to the discovery of weapons relates rather to the material than the 

 form. "The first weapons of mankind were the hands, nails, and teeth ; 

 also stones and branches of trees, the fragments of the woods ; then 

 flame and tire were used, as soon as they were known; and lastly was 

 discovered the strength of iron and bronze. But the use of bronze was 

 known earlier than that of iron, inasmuch as it is more easy to work and 

 its abundance is greater." Bronze has greatly the antecedence of brass, 

 the former being not less than a score of centuries the more ancient. 



Brass is an accidental alloy, formed originally by melting copper in 

 contact with calamine stone (silicate of zinc), the practice, purely empi- 

 ric, producing what was not known as an alloy, but as a bright copper, 

 valued for its color and other qualities. Certain copper mines were 

 valued as producing this gold-colored copper, but it was found out sub- 

 sequently that by melting copper with a certain mineral (calamine) the 

 same effect was produced. Aristotle, Strabo, and Albertus Magnus re- 



