CHAP. VI.] MAN. 155 



thought that the comparatively recent use of stone instru 

 ments in the country would have been still fresh in the 

 memory of the people, the natives who dug it up had no idea 

 what it was.&quot; Again : &quot; The Fuegians* have for centuries used 

 a higher method &quot; of making fire than have the Patagonians. 

 This habit looks very much like the survival of a higher 

 culture as to such practice in the midst of a wide-spread 

 degeneracy. Such an explanation is strengthened by the 

 following remark f about the Fuegians : &quot; This art of striking 

 fire instead of laboriously producing it with the drill, is not, 

 indeed, the only thing in which the culture of this race 

 stands above that of their northern neighbours,&quot; their canoes 

 also being of superior quality. Mr. Tylor thinks that the 

 South Australians may have learnt their art of making 

 polished instruments of green jade from &quot; some Malay or 

 Polynesian source,&quot; instead of its having survived the wreck 

 of a higher culture 1 , as the fire-making art of the Fuegians 

 has probably done. But such acquisition is a mere possi 

 bility, and experience shows us how often such arts are not 

 learnt even when we know for certain that the opportunity of 

 learning them has been offered. Thus our author remarks,! 

 that the North Americans never learnt the art of metal 

 work, &c., from the Europeans of the tenth century. That 

 the belief in a persistence of social conditions after death, 

 before referred to, may be a degradation, is shown by the 

 spread of modern &quot; spiritism,&quot; which has widely propagated 

 that belief amongst people whose ancestral creed taught a 

 very different doctrine. 



A curious proof of degradation of one kind or another is 

 exemplified by the ceremonial purifications practised by the 

 Kafirs. Respecting such Mr. Tylor remarks : &quot; It is to be 

 noticed that these ceremonial practices have come to mean 

 something distinct from mere cleanliness. Kafirs who will 

 purify themselves from ceremonial uncleanness by washing, 



* Researches into the Early History of Mankind, pp. 245, 246. 

 t Ibid. p. 259. | Ibid. p. 205. 



Primitive Culture, vol. ii. p. 393. 



