492 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIII. Xo. 587 



trated lantern demonstration on artificial 

 deformation in Africa. The majority of 

 the deformations, he holds, have been in- 

 troduced from elsewhere and form part of 

 an extensive amount of cultural borrowing 

 by Africa from the East; perhaps indig- 

 enous are 'tattooing in relief and the de- 

 formation of the lips. A second paper by 

 Dr. von Luschan dealt with the origin of 

 the Hottentots; he came to the conchision 

 that they were originally of Hamitic stock, 

 mixed with Bushman blood, and that they 

 are not, as generally believed, a Bantu- 

 Bushman hybrid. Miss B. Pullen-Burry 

 read a paper on the social and political 

 position of the American negro. This was 

 the only paper which did not deal directly 

 with South African matters, but it had a 

 definite bearing upon problems that are 

 exercising the minds of colonists. All re- 

 maining papers were by local authors. 



Stone implements of various kinds and 

 the flakes and chips which resulted from 

 their manufacture are very numerously and 

 widely distributed in South Africa, and are 

 receiving the attention of several collectors, 

 who are attempting to allocate them to the 

 various periods and types recognized by 

 European archeologists. The refractory 

 nature of a given rock or the lack of skill 

 of the operator has a marked effect on the 

 implement; but apart from these there are 

 certain methods of technique which char- 

 acterize European implements of known 

 relative date. A great diversity of forms 

 has been found in South Africa and most 

 of these forms can be perfectly matched by 

 European types, and to this extent South 

 African archeologists are justified in speak- 

 ing of paleolithic or, neolithic or of inter- 

 mediate types. Mr. J. P. Johnson, of 

 Johannesburg, even goes so far as to dis- 

 tinguish eolithic types in South Africa, or 

 at all events types intermediate between 

 eolithic and paleolithic implements. Tech- 

 nique is, however, a very different matter 



from chronology, and until the stratigraph- 

 ical evidence has been more satisfactorily 

 studied it would be rash to speak of a South 

 African paleolithic period as being neces- 

 sarily synchronous with that of Europe; 

 but our South African colleagues are thor- 

 oughly alive to this point. A further prob- 

 lem is the racial affinities of the makers of 

 the stone implements, and here again evi- 

 dence is slowly being accumulated. We 

 had papers by Messrs. L. Peringuey and 

 J. P. Johnson on these subjects, and they 

 exhibited many types of stone implements. 



A paper on the arts and crafts among 

 the natives of South Africa by Dr. S. 

 Schonland conveniently summarized our 

 knowledge on the subject. This was fol- 

 lowed by a paper by Mr. W. A. Squire on 

 the art of Bushmen, which was illustrated 

 by the exhibition of copies of Bushman 

 paintings; these, and some other drawings 

 that were exhibited, were a revelation to 

 us all of the spirited and realistic skill of 

 these clever draughtsmen. 



The remaining papers by government 

 officials and missionaries dealt with the 

 ethnography of various Bantu peoples. 

 Among the more important of them were 

 the following: One on the mental charac- 

 teristics of the Bechuana, as deduced from 

 a study of their language by the Rev. 

 Canon Crisp, threw a new light to many of 

 us on the intellectual capacities of these 

 people and on their extraordinary command 

 of language. Mr. H. E. Mabille presented 

 a valuable memoir on the Basuto, an inter- 

 esting tribe that still retains some measure 

 of independence. M. Junod, who has al- 

 ready published two valuable works on 

 natives, gave us an account of the Thonga 

 tribe and still further enlivened his bright 

 paper by singing native songs ; he also pro- 

 vided a native to sing and play upon a 

 xylophone. The Rev. W. C. Willoughby 

 read an instructive paper on the totemism 

 of the Becwana. The totem was a sacred 



