TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 691 



for ceremonial use. They are douWe-euded. The second has, in addition to the 

 ornament common to both, two animal figures, one standing over the top of the 

 socket, and the other, a lion, standing in the curve of the sharp end. 



3. Note on the Webster Ruin, Rhodesia.^ By E. M. Andrews. 



This ruin is situated on a kopje in the South Melsetter district, about sixty 

 miles south of the township of Melsetter. The ruin is unique, being situated 

 ■within a sacred enclosure containing a large number of graves. The building 

 is not circular, although it was probably meant to be. It rises in two tiers 

 to a dome or small tower. The stones are carefully laid and form a 

 decided batter — no mortar is used nor any attempt at bonding made. The 

 entrance, on the west side, is rounded. The steps are large flat stones, and 

 come out on the top a little to the south of the dome. Two monoliths are in 

 front of the entrance, and beyond these are two more, and beyond again one 

 monolith. These three sets of monoliths are apparently to guard the entrance. 

 One of the large flat stones at the foot of the monoliths has the ' Fuba ' board cut 

 on it. Among the graves stand other monoliths. The graves face in all directions, 

 but were not examined. The building seems to be a royal tomb, and is apparently 

 of greater age than other ruins in Rhodesia. 



4r. The Origin of the Gidtar and Fiddle. i>2/ Professor Ridgeway, F.B.A. 



It has been long recoj^nised that various stringed instruments have been 

 developed out of the shooting-bow — e.(/., the harp of the North and the Greek lyre 

 of the conventional shape — but no full explanation of the shape of the body of the 

 guitar and the fiddle seems yet to have been given. 



The peoples north of the Alps had originally no instrument with a sounding- 

 board, for the addition of the latter to the harp came late. Thus the harp of the 

 north and the kithara, which Apollo ia fabled to have brought with him from 

 the land of the Hyperboreans, are both simple adaptations of the primitive bow. 

 On the other hand, Greek legend says that Hermes, the indigenous god of Arcadia, 

 mollified the anger of the Northern Apollo by presenting him with a chelys, 

 which Hermes himself had manufactured out of the shell of a tortoise, from 

 which the instrument took its name {chelys). That such an instrument existed 

 in Greece is no myth, for Pausanias {circ. a.d. 180) says that in Arcadia 

 there are tortoises of large size, as well adapted as the Indian tortoises for making 

 lyres. In the tortoise-shell of southern lands Nature had furnished man with a 

 natural sounding-board, whereas in northern lands none was ready to hand. The 

 instruments with sounding-boards are, therefore, the product of the South. 

 Guitars made of tortoise-shell are still commonly used in certain parts of the 

 Mediterranean basin ; e.g., the specimens shown, one from Algeria, the other from 

 North-west Morocco. In addition to the tortoise-shell, Nature has supplied other 

 natural sounding-boards in Africa, c.y., the gourd. Hence most African instru- 

 ments have sounding-boards, not only the banjo and mandolin, but also more 

 elaborate forms, such as the marimba of Loanda. Now, whilst the banjo, mando- 

 lin, and bomba clearly arose from the addition of a gourd as sounding-boai'd to 

 the primitive shooting-bow, in the waist of the guitar and fiddle of South Europe 

 we have a distinct development from the slight narrowing or waist to be seen in 

 the shell of the tortoise. Accordingly, then, the characteristic instruments of 

 South European lands owe their distinctive form to the fact that man in that 

 region had at hand the tortoise-shell with its peculiar conformation. 



To be published in Man. 



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