SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.— H. 393 



of the outward forms of Russian Orthodox Christianity, but the Cossack 

 traders share their belief in the Tungus shaman's powers. 



Miss E. D. Earthy. — The social structure of a Gbande town {Liberia) 



(n-45)- 



A typical village of the Gbande tribe of Liberia is described. The 

 Gbande are allied to the Kpelle. 



A hunter, N., makes his home on a hill-top, and during five generations 

 a village of fifty huts has grown up. The village is divided into three 

 sections, each section, called wubi, being governed by its headman under the 

 chief, who in his turn is subordinate to the clan chief. The community 

 shows a patrilineal — patrilocal society emerging from a matrilineal— matri- 

 local one. Reasons given. The chief totem is the python. The tribal 

 religion has been invaded by a degenerate Mohammedanism. Latterly 

 there have been one or two converts to Christianity. 



The chief occupations are hunting, fishing, cotton and rice cultivation, 

 palm-oil production, cloth-weaving, basketry, mat making, iron smithery. 

 Iron currency is used for bride-wealth, but this is not paid when the man 

 comes to live at his wife's home. 



A ground-plan shows the relative positions of the huts and their 

 occupants, together with the sacred enclosure for the ' Lightning-medicine ' ; 

 the burial mound of the founder of the village, and the graves of important 

 women built as excrescences on the walls of their huts. 



Sir Richard Paget, Bt. (read by Dr. G. M. Morant). — Sign language in 

 relation to human speech (12.20). 



Auditory language is a system of mouth gestures expressing meaning. 

 Its derivation from bodily pantomime is explained by the natural sympathy 

 between hand- and mouth-movements observed by Darwin. 



The natural, universal, pantomimic language of man is still used by 

 uneducated deaf mutes throughout the world. It does not employ gestures 

 corresponding to words — it pantomimes events as a whole. 



Man is not primarily a tool-using animal ; he is rather a symbol-using 

 animal. 



Speech was born when separate signs were evolved for separate ideas. 

 The corresponding mouth gestures were combined with the emotional 

 language of grunts, chuckles and cries, and ultimately produced speech. 



Sign language could be logically developed so as to express the highest 

 and subtlest thoughts of man. 



Auditory speech superseded sign language because it required less effort — 

 left man's hands free — and did not need light or direct vision for its under- 

 standing. 



The development of speech is retarded by pedantry, from which sign 

 language is at present free. 



A rational sign language would appear natural to all races, and be very 

 easy to learn and remember ; its development could be controlled from the 

 start by a world authority through the medium of films and television. 



Afternoon. 

 Mr. E. G. Bowen. — The travels of the Celtic saints in the Dark Ages (2.15). 



The development of prehistoric studies has made possible the reconstruc- 

 tion of a fairly complete sequence of cultures during the last two millennia B.C. 



