192 



NA TURE 



[DECEMBEfl 16, 1909 



Indians on their plantations." Yet this people pos- 

 sesses a perfect set of the primitive ideas and prac- 

 tices illustrated in "The Golden Bough." Totemism, 

 tabu, initiation, exogamy, reincarnation, the couvade, 

 new fire, and the medical practice and food regula- 

 tions found among the rude Australians — these and 

 other primitive ways flourish here. They are not 

 " survivals," but living realities, forming the warp 

 of the social fabric. 



This meeting of old and new may be partially 

 realised by the illustration, here reproduced, of the 

 " new fire " ceremony, which forms part of the New 

 Year festival. 



The Yuchis constitute an independent linguistic 

 stock. A hundred years after their incorporation with 

 the Creek Confederacy they left Georgia for the west 

 of the Mississippi, in 1836. They now number about 

 500, in three " towns," and are " a remarkably strong 

 and healthy set of people." 



The clan-system is in use, based on maternal descent 

 and totemism. The members are relatives and de- 

 scendants of certain pre-existing animals, the oiaron 

 of other American tribes. The Bear clan worships 

 and protects the bear, getting bear's meat from the 



kindling of sacred fire, and the ceremonial eating of 

 the new corn. 



Mr. .Speck's interests are chiefly linguistic, but he 

 has made a valuable contribution to general ethno- 

 logv. The Pennsvlvania University Museum is to be 

 congratulated on its first anthropological publica- 

 tion. 



y,._,\ In. 1 ;; ^LLond Day, Annual Ceremony. 



Deer clan, and so on. Above the clan-system is the 

 Society or Class. The entire male population is 

 divided into the Chief Society and the Warrior 

 Society. Above this is the Town or Tribe. 



Mr.' Speck's careful inquiry brings out several in- 

 teresting points. Students of ballistics will be glad 

 to know that the principle of " rifling " was used in 

 barbarous ages. It is applied to the feathers of 

 arrows. They are twisted so as to make the arrow 

 revolve in its flight. 



An important phase of animistic theory is connected 

 with birth. Until the fourth day the child has not 

 " severed all the bonds which link it with the super- 

 natural." On that day it is fed for the first time, 

 and receives a name. " It is then no longer a half- 

 spirit, but a real human being, and belongs to earth." 

 (Mv italics.) 



The origin of the tribe is traced to the Sun, and at 

 the New Year festival the town-square is represented 

 as a rainbow. This festival is a good example of 

 primitive ritual, comprising fasting, various tabus, 

 scarification, the rite of the emetic, totemistic drama, 

 inoculation against evil during the coming year, the 

 NO. 2094, ^'OL. 82] 



MALARIA AND ITS INFLUENCE ON NATIONAL 

 HIST OR Y. 



WIDESPRE.\D disease, in the form of plagues 

 and pestilences, has profoundly influenced the 

 course of events, local or national, in various coun- 

 tries. The Biblical narrative contains instances of 

 this, and the black death left its mark on European 

 history ; in fact. Dr. Gasquet regards the black death 

 as the most important event of the Middle Ages, and 

 a prime factor in the making of modern England. 

 The presence of disease in a locality may in many 

 ways disturb life and enterprise there. Thus the 

 failure of the early attempts to cut the Panama Canal 

 mav ill part be attributed to the terrible mortality 

 among the labourers, principally 

 from malignant malarial fevers, and 

 the existence of tsetse-fly disease 

 (which attacks horses, &c.) in wide 

 tracts of country in Africa has ren- 

 dered the problem of transport and 

 the opening up of such districts a 

 difficult one. Prescott, in his " His- 

 tory of the Conquest of Mexico," 

 though writing without the know- 

 ledge we now possess, remarks that 

 we find no mention in the records of 

 any uncommon mortality among the 

 conquerors, Cortes and his com- 

 panions. Had yellow fever and 

 malaria prevailed in the country as 

 thcv have done in more recent times, 

 in all probability the Spanish con- 

 quest of Mexico would never have 

 been accomplished. 



.Similarly, the introduction of 

 diseases into districts previously 

 free from them may so disturb the 

 balance that the subsequent history 

 of such districts may be entirely 

 altered. .^ modern instance of this 

 is the introduction of malaria into 

 Mauritius. Until fifty years_ ago or 

 thereabouts this disease was unknown in these islands ; 

 it was then introduced, probably from India, and has 

 since caused serious loss through sickness, in life and 

 by depreciation in the value of property. 



It is but a step from a consideration of specific local 

 instances such as these to the suggestion that the 

 introduction of diseases which have the capacity of 

 spreading widely may modify the characteristics and 

 subsequent history of whole nations. This theme in 

 the case of Greece and Rome has been elaborated by 

 Mr. W. H. S. Jones, who sees in the introduction of 

 malaria into these empires at least one of the important 

 factors which helped their decline and fall. 



In his " Malaria and Greek History,"! Mr. Jones 

 corrects and develops the theory put forward in a pre- 

 vious work (see Nature, March 19, 1908, vol. Ixxvii., 

 p. 457), that man, in the struggle for existence, has to 

 compete, among other enemies, with disease-produc- 

 ing parasites, that even if he is not exterminated by 



1 " Malaria and Greek History." By W. H. S. Jones. To which is 

 added " Th^ History of Greek Therapeuiics and the Malaria Theory." By 

 E. T. Wilhlnglon. Pp. x + 175. (Manchester: University Press, 1909.) 



