April 6, 1893] 



NATURE 



549 



I but of living among the folk whom He drew and about whom he 



wrote. Even his drawings, valuable as they are, and artistically 

 superior as they are, are far from having the value of the accuracy 

 of photographs. 



The modern anthropological illustrator does indeed generally 

 draw from photographs ; but almost always from photographs 

 taken under non-natural conditions. Mr. im Thurn mentions 

 as an example a picture of the Caribs of his own country of 

 Guiana, which appears in one of the most valuable and accurate 

 of recent anthropological books. This picture was the best 

 attainable, and is evidently taken from a photograph ; yet it 

 gives no hint of what Caribs are like in their natural state. The 

 explanation is easy. During Mr. im Thurn's many years' 

 acquaintance with these Caribs, both in their native wilds and 

 during their brief visits to the town, he has often been struck 

 by the marvellous difference in their appearance when seen under 

 these two differing conditions. It is true that in his natural 

 surroundings the Carib is but very lightly clad, whereas, on the 

 rare occasions when he enters the town he sometimes, but by 

 no means always, puts on a fragmentary and incongruous piece 

 or two of the cast-off clothing of white men, intending, by no 

 means successfully, to adorn his person ; but such separable 

 accidents of rags by no means explain the full change in his 

 appearance. Mr. im Thurn has seen the same men, in their 

 distant homes on the mountainous savannahs between Guiana 

 and the Brazils, though clothed with but a single strip of cloth, 

 two or three inches wide and perhaps a yard in length, and 

 either unadorned or adorned with but a scrap of red or white 

 paint, look like what the novelists describe as well-groomed 

 gentlemen. Yet the same individuals in Georgetown, without 

 any added clothing or adornment, look the meanest and 

 wretchedest folk imaginable. The sense of shyness and mean 

 cringing fear which in the town doubtless drives out from them 

 their innate sense of freedom and happy audacity, seems to find 

 outward expression and completely to alter their bodily form. 

 And it was quite evidently under some such depressing circum- 

 stances as these that the Redmen — who, by the way, were 

 probably Ackawois and not "True Caribs" — who are shown 

 in the illustration referred to, were photographed. 



Just as the purely physiological photographs of the anthropo- 

 metrists are merely pictures of lifeless bodies, so the ordinary 

 photographs of uncharacteristically miserable natives seem to 

 Mr. im Thurn to be comparable to the photographs which one 

 occasionally sees of badly stuffed and distorted birds and 

 animals, 



Mr. im Thurn gives a clear and most attractive account of his 

 own photographs of phases of primitive life in Guiana — photo- 

 graphs which, at the time ot the reading of his paper, were 

 shown on the screen. The following are some extracts from this 

 part of the pr.per : — 



Fifteen years ago I went out to Guiana as curator of the 

 public museum, and in that capacity travelled much in the in- 

 terior of that colony, only the seaboard of which was, and very 

 little more now is, inhabited. Ten years ago I entered the 

 service of the Government, and, as magistrate, took charge of a 

 large district inhabited almost solely by Redmen. And I re- 

 mained under those circumstances until, about two years ago, I 

 was transferred to a neighbouring and still larger district of 

 which it may be said that up to the time of my going there the 

 white men who had visited it might be counted on the fingers 

 of one hand. Throughout this time I have lived really among 

 these pleasant red-skinned folk, now and again, for periods of 

 greater or less duration, living not only among, but as they do ; 

 and throughout that period I have had none but Redmen as my 

 servant friends. They have got used to me, and I have got used 

 to them, and doubtless in this respect I have enjoyed greater 

 advantages in the matter of gaining their confidence than the 

 ordinary traveller, who merely passes through a country, could 

 hope to enjoy. Some ten years ago, in a book on the " Indians 

 of Guiana." I told all that I then knew about them. Though 

 of course further experience has now taught me a good deal 

 more about them, I must not here linger on anything that does not 

 touch my special subject of to-night — my experiences as a photo- 

 grapher among them. 



That to gain the confidence of uncivilised folk whom you wish 

 to photograph is one of quite the most essential matters you 

 will easily understand. '1 he first time I tried to photograph a 

 Redman was among the mangrove trees at the mouth of the 

 Barima River. My red-skinned subject was carefully posed high 

 up on a mangrove root. He sat quite still while I focussed and 



drew the shutter. Then, as I took off the cap, with a moan he 

 fell backward off his perch on to the soft sand below him. Nor 

 could he by any means be persuaded to prepare himself once 

 more to face the unknown terrors of the camera. A very common 

 thing to happen, and to foil the efforts of the photographer at 

 the very moment when he has but to withdraw and to replace 

 the cap, is for the timid subject suddenly to put up his hand to 

 conceal his face, a proceeding most annoying to the photographer, 

 but interesting to the anthropologist, as illustrating the very 

 widespread dread of primitive folk of having their features put 

 on paper, and being thus submitted spiritually to the power of 

 any one possessing the picture. 



With reference to my earlier remarks on the difficulty of dis- 

 cerning in the ordinary illustrations the real bodily appearance 

 of uncivilised folk, photographs of the True Caribs of Guiana 

 will be shown on the screen. And in so doing it may, without 

 entering into elaborate detail, be once more pointed out that the 

 red-skinned inhabitants of Guiana are distinguishable into three 

 groups or branches (see "Among Indians of Guiana," p. 159, and 

 " Proceedings of Royal Geographical Society," October, 1892). 

 Though the actual pre-European history of these three is, un- 

 fortunately, still greatly a matter of conjecture, it is convenient 

 to use such conjectures as seem most reasonable on this 

 subject as a means of distinguishing the branches — that 

 is to say, it is well to bear in mind that probably of the 

 tribes at present in Guiana the Warraus, who inhabit the 

 swamps about the mouth of the Orinoco, were the earliest 

 occupiers, but that there is at present no evidence at all to 

 show whence these people reached their present homes ; 

 that another of the branches, represented only by the Arawacks, 

 who inhabit the whole sea-coast of that country with the 

 exception of the more swampy lands of the Warraus, probably 

 reached their present homes from the West Indian Islands 

 long after the Warraus were already established in those parts ; 

 and that the third branch, usually called the Carib branch, 

 and represented by the Ackawois, Macusis, Arecunas, and by 

 the "True Caribs," came also from the Islands, but at various 

 times, and made their way, in somewhat various directions, 

 into the back lands of the country. The first set of pictures 

 I am about to show you all are of this last or " True Carib " 

 branch. 



The first is of a middle-aged man who lives in the first falls 

 of the Barima River. A single glance at it and a comparison 

 of it with the ordinary, even the best book illustrations of 

 Caribs, will at once serve to make plain the advantage of the 

 photographic method used among the people in their own 

 homes over any other method of showing what these primitive 

 folk are really like. Before shooting ihe falls in their canoes 

 the Redmen always carefully examine the state of the river to 

 see which rocks are exposed, which lurk as hidden dangers 

 beneath the surface in that particular slate of the water ; and it 

 was while he was engaged in this cautious survey that this photo- 

 graph of this Carib was taken. The next is of the same man 

 taken under somewhat different circumstances. The hospitality 

 of these persons is almost unbounded, and the etiquette of its 

 observance is rigidly fixed. The master of the house, when 

 expecting guests, grooms himself carefully and puts on his best 

 dress and ornaments, these often, as in this case, consisting only 

 of a narrow waistcloth by way of dress and of a necklace and 

 armlets of white beads by way of ornament. Thus honouring 

 the occasion to the best of his ability, he sits, somewhat stolidly, 

 outside his house awaiting his guests, with whom, when they 

 arrive, he will, without rising or in any other way testifying any 

 interest, exchange one or two entirely conventional and mono- 

 syllabic sentences, dropping them out one by one at long inter- 

 vals. 



It is generally supposed that these red-skinned folk are un- 

 demonstrative in their bearing towards one another. But this 

 really is only in the presence of strangers. When alone, or 

 before others with whom they are familiar, their bearing toward 

 each other is even caressing. Such a picture as this, of three 

 Caribs standing with their arms round each other's necks, may 

 often be seen. 



The next picture, of a young Carib man, perhaps a little 

 above the average in physique, is intended to show that these 

 people, though not tall, are a fine people in the point of physical 

 and muscular development. 



Again, in the matter of facial expression, the ordinary con- 

 ception of these people as dull and expressionless should give 

 place to the truer idea that, when not made shy by the presence 



NO. 1223, VOL. 47] 



