TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. — DEPT. ANTHROPOLOGY. 589 



trophy ; and oysters from a kitchen midden, the latter being remarkable from the 

 fact that the Andamaus of the present day do not, it is said, eat oysters, thou"h 

 they do eat other shell-fish. In conclusion the author remarked that ingenious in 

 construction as some of the objects were, their invention probably dated back to a 

 long distant time, since, in his experience, no savages of the present day ever invented 

 a new implement or changed the manner of performing any single custom of their 

 lives. 



3. Notes on the Tribes of Miction. By Captain R. F. Burton. 

 See Section E, p. 630. 



4. Notes on some Tribes of Tropical Aborigines. By T. J. Hutchinson, 

 late Her Majesty's Consul at Gallao. 



The memoir commenced by the author's statement of the tribes he was about to 

 speak of being some of those in the tropical regions of West Africa and South 

 America, with whom he had become acquainted during his twenty-three years of 

 going to and fro in climes beyond the seas. Its chief object was to tell peculiarities 

 of these tribes — to show the analogies in superstitions and social barbarities, as 

 well as in a sort of indigenous civilization, amongst peoples of different races, 

 dwelling on different sides of the globe. The Aborigines of Tropical Africa were 

 first introduced under the different heads of — 1. Pagan Superstitions. 2. Domestic 

 Slavery. 3. Polygamy. 4. Cannibalism. 5. Social Barbarities. 6. Idioms or 

 Languages. A description was given of the peculiar ideas in parts of Western Africa 

 about the first Creation of Man. From this the author went on to the Tropical African 

 system of polytheism — Serpent worship in Fernando Po was described as existing in 

 the fact of the skin of a large kind of boa constrictor, called the " Roukaronkon " 

 being annually suspended from a tree in the " Reossa " (or large forum space for 

 palavers), and all the children born within the previous year being carried out by 

 their mothers, and their little hands held up to touch the tail of the serpent. The 

 people of the Egbo or ' tiger ' tribe have an idea of an Almighty power, whom they 

 entitle " Abasi Ibuni." But as he is believed to be the Creator of all things incom- 

 prehensible, they worship a subordinate god-head whom they entitle Idem-Efik. 

 Their superstition of making what they entitle " devil houses " in obsequies for the 

 dead, wherein are put furniture, drink, eatables, and cloth, were shown to be pre- 

 cisely the same as exist amongst the Mongolian tribes in the Feejee Islands, as 

 described by Dr. Leeman. This people (the Efiks) at Old Calabar, likewise ad- 

 minister " Afias," or Ordeals, pretendedly to detect crime, but in reality to keep the 

 slave class in subjugation. They have also a biennial custom of purifyino- their 

 towns from evil spirits. Domestic slavery was described in Western Tropical 

 Africa, where all the women, from the wives of Kings and Chiefs downwards, were 

 described as slaves. There is a custom on the Gold Coast to buy or appropriate 

 out of the menage of domestic slavery a boy or girl, and bestow on him or her the title 

 of Crabbah or " Oerah." This signifies that thev are to be looked on as the soul or 

 spirit of master or mistress. They are treated well, never asked to work, wear chains 

 of gold round their necks, with a medallion of gold, and when their owners die they 

 are killed to accompany them into the next world. The two social institutions of 

 Polygamy and Cannibalism were touched on briefly. — An analogv was pointed out 

 between the practice which existed amongst the Moxos, a tribe of South Americans 

 now extinct, and the people of Old Calabar, when the author was out there twenty- 

 five years ago, of the barbarous practice of killing twins. The paper touched on the 

 tribes of South American Indians— the Tobas, Guaicaruses, Abipons, and Mocovis 

 — seen by the author in the tropical parts of the Gran Chaco, which he traversed in 

 1863. The Chiuioo people of Peru were also spoken of. Differences of idioms be- 

 tween the tropical Africans living almost in contiguous districts were related, and 

 the same shown to exist in Bolivia (within the tropics also), where in one province 

 thirty-seven different tribes of Indians existed in former times, each tribe havino- a 

 different idiom, and many of them having such a limited knowledge of arithmetic 

 as to be able to count only to five, and some to three. 



