6o6 SCIENCE IN AFRICA 



Congo Beige at Tervueren. Theories with regard to earUer contacts 

 are based mainly on evidence of this kind; thus in relation to the 

 influence of ancient Egypt, Sir G. Elliott Smith and others have 

 traced similarities in artifacts between Egypt and parts of East 

 Africa. Professor Seligman (1934) concludes that the cultural 

 similarities between ancient Egypt and Negro Africa are the 

 result of a wide diffusion of old Hamitic ideas, rather than of 

 direct borrowing. He cites the harps and a long-necked lute from 

 West Africa which are identical in certain details with examples 

 from ancient Egypt. He has also traced the Egyptian rite of 

 killing the Divine King to Uganda, the northern Transvaal and 

 West Africa. Another line of external influences has been traced 

 from Indonesia via Madagascar to the East African coast and 

 inland even as far as the great lakes. The existence of cultural 

 similarities between different peoples, however, may be alterna- 

 tively explained as a result of independent invention. The view 

 characteristic of early writers on material culture was that certain 

 peoples have been incapable of invention, so that similarities are 

 prima facie evidence of external contacts in the past. To take an 

 example, a unique type of canoe made by the Baganda of Lake 

 Victoria has in the past been held by various authors as evidence 

 of ancient Egyptian influence on the one hand and Indonesian 

 influence on the other. A detailed study of all the canoes on 

 this lake (Worthington 1933 and Fosbrooke 1934) demonstrated, 

 however, that the Baganda canoe is really the climax of a series 

 leading up from the simple dug-out, each member of the series 

 showing progressively better adaptation to the peculiar conditions 

 obtaining on that lake. In this case there seems to be evidence of 

 the ingenuity and adaptability of the local craftsman, and similar 

 examples could be given for many tribes. 



On the other hand, there are many instances in which contact 

 between more than one race, emigration, or direct borrowing, have 

 been proved to account for similar objects or customs. For instance, 

 the beads resembling those of South India dating to the eighth or 

 ninth century a.d., discovered at Zimbabwe in Northern Rho- 

 desia by Miss Caton-Thompson (1931), can be attributed to the 

 Arabs who settled on the coast of East Africa in the seventh cen- 

 tury and probably traded with India. Dr. Lindblom, in the Riks- 



