328 ON SECLITDED TRIBES OF UNCIVILIZED MEN. 



want of generous and regularly supplied nutrition, stunted in their 

 physical development. In the children, particularly, alternate starva- 

 tion and repletion produce an abnormal development and distension 

 of the abdomen. The limbs, on the contrary, appear almost devoid 

 of muscle. They are all filthy in their habits and unscrupulous as to 

 the disgusting nature of their food, many eating insects and other 

 vermin with avidity, though one known tribe, at least, refrains from 

 certain kinds of wholesome flesh. In the construction of their dwel- 

 lings and couches, which may with more propriety be termed dens 

 and lairs, they approximate to the habits of the lower animals. Like 

 most of the carnivora, they appear to have nothing gregarious in 

 their nature. Sometimes a few families are to be found in the same 

 district, but each has its own solitary abode. As might be expected 

 they are wild and shy, often running at the approach of a stranger. 

 Some are cruel and vindictive, others mild and harmless. In general 

 they have hardly any tradition, an apparently imperfect language, 

 and but vague ideas concerning the existence of spiritual beings. 



In examining these characteristics it is exceedingly difficult to dis- 

 tinguish cause from efiect. We may, of course, reasonably conclude 

 that dietetic influences may produce unshapeliness of form ; gorging, 

 to an extent unknown amongst civilized men, distending the abdo- 

 men without permitting the due assimilation of the ingesta for the 

 development of tissue. The nutrition of muscle would also be want- 

 ing in seasons of famine which with such people are exceedingly 

 common, or, indeed, we might say that starvation With them is the 

 rule and repletion the exception. The natural result of this defici- 

 ency and irregularity in diet would be an incomplete development 

 and a deformed aspect. But concerning other peculiarities of their 

 position and character there are several obvious questions which may 

 be propounded, and which are not easy of solution. For example, 

 as the majority of known secluded tribes dwell in sterile regions, is 

 it their habitat which degrades the men, or is it their naturally de» 

 graded character which depresses their desires to so low a point that 

 they long for nothing better ? Is a love of seclusion a natural and in- 

 nate characteristic of these tribes in contradistinction to the gregari- 

 ous nature of other men, or has the accident of their seclusion engrafted 

 that nature secondarily upon them? Has that seclusion been the chief 

 cause of their present degradation ? If fortuitous circumstances have 

 originally caused their segregation from a large body of men, how is 



