250* THE SERI INDIANS lEin.ANS.n 



been uoted among iiiauy Amerind tribes. Isow the essential basis of the 

 industrial motive has been recognized by all profounder students in zoo- 

 theism, animism, or hylozoism — indeed, the industrial stage is but the 

 retiex and expression of the zootheistic or hylozoic plane in the devel- 

 opment of philosophy; while both the devices and the cultural stage 

 which they repi-eseut have already been outlined by the late Frank 

 Hamilton Cushing, on the basis of surviving vestiges and prehistoric 

 relics, and characterized as " prelithic".' Gushing's designation for 

 the initial stage of technic has the merit of euphony, and of suggest- 

 ing the serial place of the stage in industrial development; but siuce 

 it denotes a most important class of artifacts only by exclusion and 

 negation it would seem desirable to supplement it by a positive term. 

 The class of devices (considered in both matei'ial and functional 

 aspects) and the cultural stage in general might api)ropriately be 

 styled hylozoic, though it would seem preferable to emphasize the 

 actual objective basis of the class and stage by a specific designation — 

 and for this jnirpose the term roo»M'wp/ic (from Zmov, to and /.iti-it/TtKO?), 

 or its simplified equivalent, zoowimic, would seem acceptable. 



A transitional series of devices is represented by awls of wood or 

 iron fashioned in imitation of mandibles or claws, by wooden foreshafts 

 shaped in symbolic mimicry of teeth, and by other vicarious replace- 



' The Development of Form and Function in Implements : an unpublished paper presented before 

 the British Association for the Advancement of Science at the Toronto meeting in 1897. A brief 

 abstract, revised by the author of the paper, was printed in the American Anthropologist, vol. .\. 1897, 

 pp. 325-326; and in the absence of full authorial publication, the more strictly germane passages c)f 

 the abstract are wortliy of »iuotation : "Beginning witli the aemiarboreal [human] i)rogcnitor indi- 

 cated jointly by projecting forward the lines of biotio development and projecting backward the lines 

 of human development, llr Cashing undertook to trace hypotbetically, yet by cou.stant reference to 

 known facts, ( 1) the genesis of artificial devices, and (2) the concurrent difl'erentiation of the human 

 brain and body iu the directions set forth by Sir William Turner; and he gave special force to his 

 exposition by frecjuent reference to commonly neglected characteristics, physical and psychic, of 

 young infants. He pointed out that the prototyjie of man, whether infantile or primitive, is a clumsy 

 ambidexter, the difl'erentiation of Iiaiid and brain remaining inchoate : that one of the earliest artiti- 

 cial processes is a sawing movement, in which, however, the object to be .severed is moved over the 

 cutting edge or surface, and that the infant or savage at first selects sharp objects (teeth, shells, etc) 

 as cutting implements, and only iifter long cultivation learns to make cutting implements of stone; 

 this early stagif in development he called prelltlnc. Pas.sing, then, to the age of stone, he showedthat 

 this substance is first in the form of natural pebbles or other pieces for hammering, crushing, brnis- 

 iug, and jis a missile. That in time the user learns that the stone is made more effective for severing 

 tissues by fracturing it in such way as to give a sharp edge, the fracture being originally accidental 

 and afterwanl designed; yet; that for a long time it is the hammerstone that is fr.aetured and not the 

 object against which the blows are directed. In this stage of development {called protolithic, after 

 McGee) stone implements come into more or less extended use iu connection with implements of 

 shell, tooth, etc ; yet the implements are obtained by choice among natural pieces and by undesigned 

 improvement of these through use. The next stage is that of designed shaping llirougli frac- 

 ture by blows from a hammerstone, followed by inteutioual chipi)ing. This may be regarded as 

 the beginning of paleolithic art, .and also marks the beginning of dexterity and the activital 

 diflerentiation of the hands. IncidentiiUy the author brought nut the importance of that con- 

 cept of mysticism which is found of so .great potency among infantile and primitive minds, in such 

 manner as to suggest the genesis, and the obscure reasons for the persistence of this phase of intel- 

 lectuality; for the inchoate imagination is able to expand only in the direction of mystical explana- 

 tion, so that fertilityinprimitive invention seems to be dependent on appeal to the mysterious powers 

 of nature. At first the mystery pervades all things, but in time it is largely concentrated In animate 

 things; then animate powers are imputed. e.g.,io idiysi(;al phenomena. So to the infant or race-child 

 fire is a mystical animal or demon which, in prelithic or protolithic times, must have been at first 

 tolerated, then fed with fuel and punished with water and eventually subjugated and tamed, much 

 as the real animals were afterward brought intu doraesticati(ni."' 



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