2o8 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



her mouth, how she was tempted to take mere 

 how her mother found her out by the spot of treacle 

 on her pinafore, and so forth." ^ 



A second witness is savage Man. Some of the 

 more primitive races, far as they have evolved past 

 the alalus stage, still cling to -the gesture-language 

 which bulked so largely in the intercourse of their 

 ancestors. No one who has witnessed a conversa- 

 tion — one says " witnessed," for it is more seeing 

 "' than hearing — between two different tribes of 

 Indians can have any doubt of the working 

 efficiency of this method of speech. After ten 

 minutes of almost pure pantomime each will have 

 told the other everything that it is needful to say. 

 Indians of different tribes, indeed, are able to com- 

 municate most perfectly on all ordinary subjects 

 with no more use of the voice than that required 

 for the emission of a few different kinds of grunts. 

 The fact that stranger tribes make so large a use 

 of gesture in expressing themselves to one another 

 does not, of course, imply that each has not a 

 word-language of its own. But few of the Lan- 

 guages of primitive peoples are complete without 

 the additions which gesture offers. There are gaps 

 in the vocabulary of almost all savage tribes due 

 to the fact that in actual speech the lacunce are 

 ^ Tylor, Anthropology. 



