44 



NA TURE 



[November 9, 1899 



Prof. Flinders-Petrie has accomplished for prehistoric Egypt, 

 and his demonstration indicated that his system is an important 

 addition to precision in dealing with undateable archaeological 

 remains. A second paper by the same indefatigable and bril- 

 liant investigator dealt with early Mediterranean signaries and 

 the sources of the alphabet. 



The large series of signs used in Egypt about 2500 B.C. is 

 now shown — by such signs existing as far back as 5000 B.C. — to 

 be independent of the hieroglyphic system or any derivatives of 

 that. Similar signs in Crete show this system to have extended 

 to the Mediterranean by about 2000 B.C. 



On looking at the more extended forms of the Greek alphabet 

 found in Karia and Spain, about sixty signs are seen in use, 

 representing about forty-three sounds. Three-quarters of these 

 signs are common to the system found in Egypt and Crete. 



The only conclusion at present seems to be that signs were in 

 use from 5000 B.C. onward, and developed by 2500 B.C. 

 to over 100 in Egypt, of which half survived in the fuller 

 alphabets of Karia and Spain. The compression and sys- 

 tematising of these signs was due to twenty-seven of them 

 being adopted for a numerical system by the Phoenicians, 

 and thus the alpha beta order was enforced by commerce on all 

 the Mediterranean. This accounts in the only satisfactory way 

 for the confusion of the early Greek alphabets, and is a view 

 forced on us by the prevalence of these same signs long before 

 Phcenician commerce. 



On Tuesday Dr. A. C. Haddon read some notes on the 

 Yaraikanna Tribe of Cape York : — 



The Yaraikanna are fairly typical Australians in appearance ; 

 six men were measured, average height 1*625 "i- (S ft. 4 in.), 

 cephalic index 74 7 (extremes, 72 '4- 77 7). A lad is initiated by his 

 mawara, apparently the men of the clan into which the boy 

 must subsequently marrv ; he is anointed with " bush-medicine " 

 in the hollow of the thighs, groins, hollow by the clavicles, 

 temples, and back of knees to make him grow — the bull-roarer 

 is swung. In the Yanipa ceremony the initiates {langa) sit 

 behind a screen in front of which is a tall pole, up which a man 

 climbs and catches the food thrown to him by the relatives of 

 the langa. Then the bull-roarer is swung and shown to the 

 langa ; lastly, a front tooth of the langa is knocked out, with 

 each blow the name of a " land" belonging to the boy's mother 

 or of her father is mentioned, and the land, the name of which 

 is mentioned when the tooth flies out, is the territory of the lad. 

 Water is next given to the boy, who rinses out his mouth and 

 gently empties his mouth into a palm-leaf water vessel ; the clot 

 by its resemblance to some animal or vegetable form determines 

 the art of the lad. The ari appears to be analogous to the 

 manitu or okki (or " individual totem " of Dr. J. G. Frazer) 

 of the North American Indians. After the ceremony the boy is 

 acknowledged to be a man. Other ari may be given at any time 

 by men who dream of an animal or plant, which is the ari of 

 the first person they meet on awakening. The Okara ceremony 

 was alluded to, and various customs, among which may be 

 noted— children must take the " land " or " country" of their 

 mother, a wife must be taken from another country, all who 

 belong to the same place are brothers and sisters. 



Mr. W. Crooke discussed the primitive rights of disposal 

 of the dead, as illustrated by survivals in modern India; the 

 points considered were : customs connected with the preserv- 

 ation of the corpse, such as various forms of mummification ; 

 platform burial ; direct exposure of the dead to beasts of prey ; 

 general exposure of the dead ; the question of the priority of 

 burial to cremation ; transitions from burial to cremation, and 

 •vice versa : disposal of those dying in a state of taboo ; shelf or 

 niche burial ; crouched or sitting burial ; disinterment of the 

 corpse ; jar or urn burial ; and dismemberment of the corpse. 



A theoretical paper on pre-animistic religion was read by Mr. 

 R. R. Marett, his general thesis being : — 



The term religion denotes a state of mind embracing emo- 

 tionaland ideal constituents, whereof the former constitute the 

 universal i and constant, the latter the particular and variant 

 element. Self-interpretation in ideal terms on the part of the 

 religious emotion of the savage has found most complete and 

 definite expression in animism, the "belief in spiritual beings." 

 Animism, however, as compared with " supernaturalism," 

 namely, that state of feeling almost uncoloured by ideas which 

 is the primary form taken by man's awe of the super- 

 natural (or extraordinary) is but as the strongest sapling in a 

 thicket of heterogeneous growths, which, in the struggle for 

 existence, has come to overshadow the rest and give a character 



NO. 1567, VOL. 61] 



to the whole. The vagueness of primitive " supernaturalistic " 

 utterance is illustrated by, e.g. andriamanitra (Malagasy), ngai 

 (Masai), wa«a (Melanesians), wakan (North American Indians), 

 kalou (^¥\i\2.x\%). A "pre-animistic" validity as manifestations 

 of religion thus attaches to a variety of special observances and 

 cults ; and it may therefore be interesting in the case of some of 

 the more important of these to distinguish between the original 

 basis of " supernaturalistic" veneration and the animistic inter- 

 pretation that as the result of successful competition with other 

 modes of explanatory conception (notably " animatism," 

 namely, the attribution of life and will, but not of soul or spirit, 

 to material objects and forces) is thereon superimposed in ac- 

 cordance with the tendency of the religious consciousness 

 towards doctrinal uniformity. 



In the afternoon Colonel R. C. Temple discoursed on the 

 thirty-seven Nats (or Spirits) of the Burmese. 



The belief in the Nats, or supernatural beings who interfere 

 in the affairs of mankind, is universal among all the native in- 

 habitants of Burma of every race and religion. Every writer 

 about the Burmese and their customs mentions the Nats. The 

 subject is, however, still but vaguely understood. The Nats are 

 of three distinct kinds: (i) the supernatural beings due to the 

 Buddhist cosmogony ; (2) the supernatural beings familiar to 

 the creatures, objects and places with which man is concerned 

 due to the prehistoric animistic beliefs of the people ; (3) the 

 supernatural beings who are ghosts and spirits of the notorious 

 dead. Of the many orders of Nats thus created, that of the 

 Thirty-seven Nats is by far the best known among the people. 

 These are the ghosts of the departed royalties of fame, and their 

 connections. About them nothing seems to have been previously 

 published in England, and this paper was a preliminary attempt 

 at an adequate representation of them, and of the history, real 

 or supposed, connected with them during life. The paper was 

 illustrated by a map in order to explain the relative position of 

 the places chiefly connected with the very complicated political 

 history of Burma and its numerous dynasties, so far as these are 

 concerned with the stories related of the Thirty-seven Nats. 

 The paper was further illustrated by a beautiful lantern slide of 

 an image of each of the Thirty-seven Nats from the unique and 

 authentic collection of large carvings of them in teak wood by 

 Burmese artists in the possession of the author. 



The most important communication on Wednesday morning 

 was a description of two new methods of anthropological re- 

 search by Dr. W. H. R. Rivers. He commenced by emphasis- 

 ing the importance of great accuracy in all anthropological 

 investigations. His first exhibit was a contribution to exactitude 

 in recording colours, more especially those of the skin of natives. 

 Lovibond's tintometer proved of great service in matching 

 colours, but it is not very suitable for matching skin-colours ; 

 for this a colour-wheel is most suitable, the only objection 

 being that the paper discs are liable to fade, and it is not always 

 certain that any two issues of coloured discs would be of exactly 

 the same tint. By having a large number of discs the original 

 records could be filed for future reference and, if kept in the 

 dark, they would not fade. If permanent and absolutely com- 

 parable discs could be produced the colour-wheel would answer 

 all practical purposes. The second was a most important socio- 

 logical method, and consisted in accurately recording the 

 genealogies of all the individuals of an island or limited com- 

 munity for as far back as the informants can remember. It is 

 necessary to use only the terms of " father," "mother," " wife," 

 "children," "man," "woman," "boy" and "girl." The 

 first two were qualified by " proper " or " true," so as to avoid 

 ambiguity. By asking what A calls B, &c., the names and 

 system of relationship can be obtained with absolute precision. 

 In a totemistic people their totems were also recorded, which 

 yielded evidence as to marriage restrictions. This method also 

 furnishes definite statistics on the size of familes, proportion of 

 sexes, number of early deaths, prevalence of adoption, and 

 various other sociological data which are very difficult to obtain 

 with accuracy by any other method. This method of Dr. 

 Rivers' should be adopted by all investigators, as it is almost 

 impossible to overrate its value. 



The rest of the day was devoted to African ethnography. 

 Dr. R. Koettlitz exhibited some interesting ethnographical 

 specimens from Somali, Galla and Shangalla, including some 

 scales and weights of seeds and stones for weighing gold-dust, 

 and the first example of salt-money that has been brought to 

 England. Papers by Lieut. -Colonel J. R. L. Macdonald on 

 the ethnography of the lake region of Uganda, and by Lieut. 



