644 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1920. 



in hand a bolas, the principal weapon of the tribe. One woman has 

 already mounted, and the boy assists in completing her outfit. The 

 second woman is rolling up the skin robes of the household, while 

 the child halters the pet rhea. The curious bowed cradle containing 

 the sleeping infant stands on the ground near by ready to be fas- 

 tened crosswise over the bundles on the back of the horse. (See 

 pi. 59.) 



TRIBES OF AFRICA. 



The Museum has as yet prepared only one group representing the 

 varied and numerous African peoples and environments, namely, the 

 Zulu, who are the best representatives of the widespread Bantu stock. 

 The Bantu are not as dark and do not possess the pronounced char- 

 acteristics of the Negro. The Bantu also have developed further 

 than the Negro in social organization, though not in arts. Some idea 

 of the extent of the area covered by the Bantu is conveyed when it 

 is said that almost the whole of the peninsula-shaped southern part 

 of the continent is Bantu. The exception are the Hottentot and Bush- 

 men of the southwest tip of the continent, peoples of yellowish skin 

 and whose relationship or origin is conjectural. 



The northern half of Africa is divided among Negroes and Dwarf 

 Negroes, Hamites, Berbers, and Semites. The geographical con- 

 ditions here embrace the greatest desert in the world, the Sahara, and 

 semidesert and semiarid territory. There is little cultivation here 

 without irrigation. In this grand division of the continent, following 

 in the first place the law of the stimulating of progress by environ- 

 ment and in the second place the introductions from other centers 

 of culture by migration, commerce, and such happenings, we find 

 several centers of great civilization and a number of minor centers. 

 The southern half shows no likeness in this respect to the northern. 



DWELLING GROUP OF THE ZULU. 



South Africa. 



The Zulu are representative of the populous and powerful Bantu 

 family. They live in a semiarid country and subsist on maize, wild 

 fruits, domestic animals, and game. They inhabit well-planned vil- 

 lages under the rule of a chief. Their villages are circular and sur- 

 rounded by a fence. The houses have dome-shaped frames thatched 

 with grass. The family occupations are carried on outside the houses. 

 Storehouses, small houses for animals and other purposes are scat- 

 tered among the dwellings. The Zulu make pottery, baskets, wooden 

 vessels, brew beer, and work iron into weapons and agricultural im- 

 plements. (See pi. 60.) 



