20 INTRODUCTION 



work in South Africa, while the rock paintings of Spain find 

 their best analogies among the Bushmen." i 



The Africans, it is true, perfected their engravings on the 

 surface of the rocks more frequently by " pecking." But both 

 they and PalaeoHthic man make free and successful use of 

 colours, of which the African possesses six as against the three 

 or four of his European brethren. Each race depicts fish and 

 animals so Ufe-Hke as to be easily identifiable. 



What evidence as to priority do the Eskimo methods of 

 to-day yield us ? Cartailhac but echoes Rau, Salomon 

 Reinach, and Hoffmann 2 in his assertion that the prehistoric 

 Reindeer Age compares practically with the actual age of the 

 Eskimos. Their fishing spears in material, shape, and barb 

 resemble the Palaeolithic. 



Their carvings and engravings of fishing and whaling 

 scenes on bone and ivory show clear kinship to the Dordognese. 



Hoffmann's able study of the Eskimos not only brings out 

 these similarities, but also specially notes the closeness with 

 which they observe and the exactitude with which they render 

 anatomical peculiarities of fish and animals. As portrayers 

 of the human form, on the other hand, they must be reckoned 

 far from expert. The caves of France and those of Spain in 

 general, although the paintings of the human form at Calapata 

 and other places are far more finished and far more frequent 

 than the French drawings, disclose curiously the same power 

 and the same deficiency as characteristic of Troglodyte art.^ 



No race probably in the world depends so greatly on 

 fishing for a hvelihood as the Eskimos. From them, if from 

 any, we should derive most light and leading. With them the 

 Spear and the Hook form the chief, and till recently probably 

 the only, tackle. Nets, on account of the ice, play little part. 



^ Evans, op. cit., p. 9. See also an interesting essay by Professor E. T. 

 Hamy, L' Anthropologic, tome xix. p. 385 ff., on La Figure humaine chez le 

 sauvage et chez I'errfant. 



- C. Rau, op. cit., Washington, 1884. Salomon Reinach, Antiquit/s 

 Nationales, vol. i., 1889. W. I. Hoffmann, The Graphic Art of the Eskimo, 

 Report to Smithsonian Museum, 1895, P- 75i- 



' At Cogul the sacral dance is performed by women clad from the waist 

 downwards in well-cut gowns, which at Alpera are supplemented by flying 

 sashes, and at Cueva de la Vieja reach to the bosom. \^erily, we are already 

 a long way from Eve 1 Cf. Evans, op. cit., p. 8. 



