Jii.Y 13, 18S3.] 



SCIENCE. 



in Europe and Asia before tliey reache<I tlie tropics, 

 so we iiiuy infer that man existed in Europe and 

 Africa before tlie low types, tlie Akkas and tlie Aetas, 

 occupied tropical Asia and Malasia. Tho present 

 habitat of the apes is not conducive to change : we 

 must look to some region where apes were com- 

 pelled to change tlieir food and modes of locomotion. 

 The stoppage of the southern migration by vast slieets 

 of water shut up the apes in temperate regions. The 

 crowding of other animals in the same locations 

 sharpened the intelligence of the precursor of man. 

 Here, then, Mr. Duncan supposes the great conflict 

 and transition from man-like apes to ape-like men 

 took place. — {Journ. anthrop. insL, xii. .513-525.) 

 J. w. p. [70 



Tyler's lectures at Oxford. — The concluding 

 portion of Dr. Tylor's lectures on anthropology, de- 

 livered in the Oxford museum in February (see i. 

 1035), is devoted to the history of the growth of 

 practical art. " In considering the claims of anthro- 

 pology as a practical means of understanding our- 

 selves, we have to form an opinion how the ideas 

 and arts of any people are to be accounted for as 

 developed from preceding stages. To work out the 

 lines along which the process of organization has 

 actually moved, is a task needing caution. A tribe 

 may have some art which plainly shows progress from 

 a ruder state of things: and yet it may be wrong to 

 suppose this development to have taken pl.ice among 

 themselves; it may be an item of higher culture, 

 that they have learned from sight of a more advanced 

 nation. It is essential, in studying even savage and 

 barbaric culture, to allow for borrowing." Illustra- 

 tions are given by Dr. Tylor of this borrowing, one of 

 which is quite amusing. The later Danish travellers 

 among the Eskimo enter very minutely into the de- 

 scription of the tools and dress of these people, before 

 contact with Europeans, meaning the post-Columbian 

 voyagers; but, unwittingly in many instances, they 

 are describing fashions and forms borrowed from the 

 Skraelling ancestors of these very writers a thousand 

 years ago. Another very important point discussed 

 in the lectures is the possibility of national degrada- 

 tion. Dr. Tylor was the first to discover, after the 

 battle between the advocates of ' degradation ' and 

 those of evolution, that both were right, and that a 

 proper view of human history must include both vi- 

 cissitudes over and over again, and the commingling 

 of both in every degree of complexity. Mr. Tylor 

 gives a succinct account of the formation of the I'ilt- 

 Kivers collection, now housed at Oxford, and, in com- 

 menting upon the evolution of gesture-speech, pays 

 this tribute to our country: "The labor and ex- 

 pense which anthropologists in the United States 

 are now bestowing on the study of the indigenous 

 tribes contrasts, I am sorry to say, with the indiffer- 

 ence shown to such observations in Canada, where 

 the habits of yet more interesting native tribes are 

 allowed to die out without even a record." With 

 very great shrewilness the speaker discussed the sub- 

 ject of magic and the benefit derived from even such 

 useless search as that for the Most tribes of Israel.' — 

 (.V.i/«re, May 17.) .J. w. p. [71 



The Korth-American ludians and the horse. — 

 I'rofessor Hovelacque, in his recent work Les races 

 liumaines, gives as one of the important character- 

 izations of the North-American Indians the state- 

 ment that they do not breed horses, leaving it to be 

 inferred from the context that they obtain their 

 supply from wild herds. It may be remarked, that, 

 however general the use of horses is at this time 

 among the Indian tribes of the great plains, an 

 ethnologic distinction based upon any treatment of 

 that animal — a European importation and intrusion 



— is hardly legitimate. For centuries after the 

 Columbian discovery but a small proportion of the 

 tribes of North America ever saw a liorse. The fact 

 that the horse was not known to or used by them iu 

 their prehistoric condition constitutes an important 

 element in establishing their position in the ethnic 

 scale, their rise from savagery and barbarism having 

 been retarded by that deprivation. Further, it must 

 be suggested that there is little evidence, apart from 

 the novels of Capt. Mayne Keid and similar au- 

 thorities, of the existence in North America of herds 

 of wild horses similar to those in South America, 

 sufficiently large to supply the Plains tribes. There 

 were, doubtless, some wild horses, the descendants of 

 those imported by the Spaniards, in a condition to 

 be captured by a past generation ; but probably no 

 living Indian lias relied upon recruiting his stock 

 from such herds, and his horses have been obtained 

 by the civilized method of purchase or the more 

 convenient process of stealing. The latter expe- 

 dient has of late years been stopped by the powers of 

 the United States authorities: so some of the tribes 

 have learned to breed from their liorses, though as 

 yet the practice is limited by the same want of pru- 

 dence as is shown in their neglect to provide food and 

 shelter for their ponies. The whole connection of 

 the tribes with the horse simply shows a course of 

 education to a certain extent by a fon'igii civilization. 

 The statement of M. Hovelacque is therefore as 

 untrue in fact as it is unphilosophic as an ethnic 

 characterization. — j. w. p. [72 



EARLY INSTITUTIONS. 



Land-holding in South Africa. — Sir II. Bartle 

 Frere gives us an account of tlie systems of land- 

 tenure among the aboriginal tribes of South .Vfrica, 



— Bushmen, Hottentots, Kaffirs. Among the Kaffirs, 

 if a man wishes to leave the paternal kraal, he seeks 

 a tract of unoccupied land, and builds a kraal for 

 himself. His wives proceed to cultivate as much 

 land as they please, and the live-stock is turned out 

 to pasture. The settlement descends from father to 

 sons, unless, as often happens, this is prevented by 

 the chief or an enemy. Titles rest simply on force. 

 .V man owns the land he occupies as long as he can 

 hold it by his own niiaht. or with the aid of the 

 cliief, or the tribe, if this is given. Authority of 

 the chief or elders to resume or recognize possession 

 has not been discovered by Sir Uartle Frere; but he 

 says that it may, perhaps, be discovered by future in- 

 vestigators. — (Journ. anthrop. insl., Feb.) u. w. B. 



(73 



