December 22, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



823 



>vell-rounded Eskimo type (of form befit- 

 ting a frigid home and reflecting frequent 

 frosting) were represented in the depart- 

 ment by reason of the risk of life of 

 Arctic folk attending the average St. Louis 

 summer; though a concession concern on 

 the grounds assumed the risk, to the in- 

 terest and benefit of many thousands of 

 visitors. Various other physical types 

 were represented in connection with na- 

 tional pavilions or exhibits, or with conces- 

 sions on the 'Pike'; and in the exhibit pal- 

 aces and elscAvhere within the exposition 

 walls there were numerous typical repre- 

 sentatives of the principal varieties of the 

 Caucasian, Mongolian and Malayan races 

 gathered from all the leading countries of 

 Eurasia as well as from modern America, 

 Africa, Australia and the larger islands of 

 the Pacific region— and in addition to these, 

 a constant stream of visitors from every 

 quarter of the globe. On the whole, the 

 gathering of ethnic types of the genus 

 Homo was fairly representative, and might 

 have been considered fully so save for the 

 absence of the Australian aborigines, the 

 natives of certain Pacific islands, and a few 

 Asiatic tribes; even with these defects, the 

 assemblage of physical types of mankind 

 was unquestionably much more nearly com- 

 plete than was ever before brought to- 

 gether. 



2. The activital or culture types first con- 

 sidered comprised the lowest and least 

 known; and the groups finally selected 

 served to represent cultural and physical 

 types combined. The failure of the Seri 

 expedition and the negotiations for Aus- 

 tralian Blackfellows was particularly re- 

 gretted, since the former and some of the 

 latter lack knife-sense and only use fire 

 ceremonially, thus representing the lowest 

 known culture; and to make up so far as 

 might be this defect in the exhibits of the 

 department, a protohistoric collection of 



relics and models (called the synthetic 

 series), designed to illustrate the conquest 

 of fire, the genesis of the knife and the 

 development of the wheel, was brought to- 

 gether and installed in the anthropology 

 building. The Seri savages of Tiburon and 

 the Blackfellows of the Australian bush 

 also exemplify the lowest known types of 

 law and faith ; the former are organized in 

 maternal clans in which the clanmother 

 (or elderwoman) is viewed as the vicar of 

 an animal tutelary or beast-god, while her 

 eldest brother is the executive or war-chief 

 of the clan, and the purity of the tribal 

 blood is maintained by most rigorous regu- 

 lations concerning marriage ; the latter have 

 one of the most primitive yet complex so- 

 cial and fiducial organizations known, in 

 which marriage is an elaborate arrange- 

 ment, men are made to symbolize women 

 by a severe surgery, and the control of 

 movements and affairs is imputed to animal 

 tutelaries. The African pygmies were se- 

 lected in part to represent the maternal 

 family (or clan) in which the intratribal 

 control resides in an avuncular council, 

 i. e., the elder brothers of the clanmothers ; 

 though tribal law is partly overplaced by 

 the control of full-size tribesmen, much as 

 the industrial arts of the little people are 

 affected by contact and barter with iron- 

 making peoples ever since the iron age 

 dawned probably in northern Africa some 

 thousands of years ago. The Ainu were 

 selected to illustrate industries connected 

 with bodyward movements, a primitive 

 agriculture which has produced a distinct- 

 ive, form of millet, specialized architecture 

 befitting a trying climate, a most primitive 

 musical system, and a bear-cult — and in the 

 hope of acquainting the world for the first 

 time with the full law and faith of a little- 

 known primitive folk; while the Patago- 

 nians were selected to illustrate the char- 

 acter and use of one of the most effective 



