180 SAVAGE SUEVIVALS 



The savage takes pride in building his hut in the 

 same way that his ancestors built theirs, and in 

 thinking the same thoughts that his ancestors 

 thought a thousand years before him. Sir Sam- 

 uel Baker, in a paper on ^^The Races of the Nile 

 Basin,'' points out that each tribe of men in Cen- 

 tral Africa has its own peculiar style of hut, and 

 that the huts of various tribes are as constant in 

 their types as are the nests of birds. The same 

 thing is true of their dress, language, customs, 

 and religions. The Creek Indians laughed at 

 those who suggested that they should change their 

 long-established customs and habits of living. 

 *^ Because same ting do for my father, same ting 

 do for me,'' say the Houssa negroes. Livingstone 

 says of some of the natives of Africa: *^I often 

 presented them with iron spoons, and it was cu- 

 rious to observe how the habit of hand-eating 

 prevailed, tho they were delighted vfith the 

 spoons. They would lift out a little milk with the 

 spoon, but instead of putting the milk in their 

 mouths with the spoon, they would pour it into 

 their left hand, and eat it out of that." Tylor 

 says that the Dyaks (natives of the island of Bor- 

 neo) were so opposed to any changes in their 

 usages that they made it a finable offense for any 

 one to chop wood in the European fashion. It is 

 only sojne races that are able to flow and to re- 

 gard flowing as an appropriate activity for hu- 

 man beings ; and only some men of these special 

 races. 



