776 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol.. 11., No. 4.5. 



and iiulustrioiis. The women are respected, anil irri- 

 gation is carried on by means of bamboo pipes joined 

 with gum. Obsidian is used for many purposes, such 

 as shaving their heads and faces, carving wood, etc. — 

 (Priic. roy. (jearir. soc, Sept.) J. w. P. [501 



The Masai people in East Africa. — Zanzibar is 

 now a commercial cenire, dominated over by British 

 interests and British trade. It is tlierefore a matter of 

 great importance to establish an expeditious caravan 

 route over the range in which are Mounts Kilimanjaro 

 and Kenia to Lake Victoria. In the way of this route 

 are the Masai, a tribe I'eputed to be savage and ag- 

 gressive. Last autumn Mr. J. T. Last, a physician 

 missionary, made a journey to the Masai country, and 

 reports much that is interesting to the ethnologist 

 as well as to the geographer. The Masai seem to be- 

 long to the great Galla race. The extent of their 

 country is very large. The majority are of average 

 height, and the women are about as tall as the men. 

 There is a marked difference in features between the 

 pure and the mixed Masai, the former being of a much 

 higher type. The author describes the scanty dress 

 of thj men, one article of which is the oldlmfori, a 

 heart liaped piece of goat-skin, serving m.ore for a 

 seat '.ban covering. The women are completely 

 clothe i and extravagantly ornamented. There is no 

 iron ill their country, nor do they know how to work 

 it. Their domestic animals, weapons, mythology, 

 burials, marriage, crimes, polygamy, and modes of 

 building are all fully described, and a copious vocabu- 

 lary closes the paper. — (Ihld.) J. w. p. [502 



Serpent venom. — The destruction of human life 

 by the bites^f poisonous serpents is so great in many 

 countries, tliat it becomes really an anthropological 

 problem to ascertain the amount of damage, and to 

 seek the remedy. Dr. Robert Fletcher has biought 

 together much information, and a great deal of the 

 literature, in a paper read before the Washington 

 philosophical society in May last. Sir Joseph Fayrer 

 states the average mortality from serpent-bites in 

 India to be fully 20,000 annually. In 1S69 the re- 

 turns were obtained through official sources, from a 

 large part of India, with unusual care and accuracy. 

 In a population of nearly 121,000,000, representing 

 an area of less than half the laeuinsula of Hindostan, 

 the deaths were 11,410, or nearly one in 10,000. Of 

 these deaths, there were caused by 



Cobra 



Krait (Bungarus ceruleus) . 



Otiier snakes 



Unknown snakes 



No details .... 



2,600- 

 .359 

 830 



6,022 

 600 



11,416 



In 1880, 212,776 poisonous snakes were killed and 

 paid for; and in 18S1, 254,908. 



Even in Europe the number of accidents from 

 snake-bite is very large. In one department of 

 France, La Haute-Marne, the government paid, in 

 six years, for the destruction of 17,415 vipers. — 

 (Amer. journ. mcd. sc, July.) .7. w. p. [503 



Mythologic parallels. — (iaidoz, commenting 

 the tendency lo trace the myths and folk-talcs of Eu- 

 rope t" the Aryans on the high plateaus of India, 

 remarks, " that we cannot rest upon those eminences, 

 but must prolong our inciuiry over the whole earth: 

 they are not Aryan, they are human." The discus- 

 sion of resemblances in culture seems to land us ever 

 in a double corner between the supposition tliat hu- 

 manity reproduces ever the same phenomena under 

 the same conditions, and the theory that similarity 

 proves contact of some kind. M. Gaidoz cites two 

 very interesting but far remote similarities. Among 

 the ancient Romans, driving a nail was a religious 

 pi-actice, oft resorted to as a remedy against certain 

 maladies, or a preservative against enchantments. 

 Numerous references to tliis practice will be found 

 under the word 'clavus,' by M. Siglio, in his ' Dic- 

 tionnaire des antiquites grecques et latines,' p. 12-iO- 

 1242; and in the chapter upon the nail in Iha cella 

 of the temple of Jupiter, in Preller's 'hoemische 

 mytliologie,' 2d'ed., p. 231. The law demanded that 

 the rite {daci fi'jendi causa) should be performed by 

 one high in authority, and, in cases of great public 

 calamity, by the dictator himself. Now pass beyond 

 the Pillars of Hercules to the mouth of the Kongo 

 Biver, and listen to tlie words of Charles de Eouvre 

 [Bidl. soc. (jeor/r., Oct., 1880, p. 32:>): "Finally there 

 are the n'doke fetishes, under the care of priests called 

 r/angazambi, who are reputed to have the jiower to 

 cause to speak. An offering is made to the li'doke 

 of one or more pieces of cloth and tafia. A nail is 

 then driven into the image, while the ganr/a or the 

 suppliant formulates his demand." ' The barbarians 

 are older than we,' said Plato; and this form of nail- 

 driving into the heart of the image, in order that our 

 prayer may pierce the heart of the god, is much older 

 than the Roman custom. M. Gaidoz further con- 

 nects this custom with votives on oratorios, on trees, 

 on church-walls, etc., for many purposes. In con- 

 clusion, the author insists that the beliefs of classic 

 antiquity are to be studied not only in ancient texts, 

 but in a past far more remote. — {Bev. hist, relig., 

 vii. 5.) J. v,-. p. [504 



Hypertrichosis. — The development of hair on 

 abnormal p.irts of the body has received the names 

 Hypertrichosis universalis when it occurs over the 

 whole body, and II. partialis when only over limited 

 portions or in patches. The abnormality may be 

 the period of development, in which case it would be 

 beterochronic. It may be sex, as the beard of cer- 

 tain females, where it would be heterogenic. In the 

 first case mentioned above it is heterotopic. Dr. 

 J. 6. Garson of London has collecled photographs 

 of distinguished cases of hypertrichosis, and states 

 his conclusions as follows: "As to the cause of ab- 

 normal hair-growth, the atavistic theory seems lo 

 me to be the most probable explanation, as here wc 

 would not have to trace the atavus far back, and in 

 the normal body we have the atavistic germ pres- 

 ent, though in a rudimentary condition. It would, 

 therefoie, be what Gegenbauer terms a paleogenetic 

 form of atavism. —(Jo!(rn. antlirop. inst., xiii. fi. ) 

 .1. w. p. [505 



