448 DIFFERENCES IN WEAPONS. 



him, and naturally prefers those which are of most general 

 utility.* We cannot, however, in this manner account for 

 all the facts. In Columbia, Australia, the Cape of Good 

 Hope, and elsewhere, agriculture was unknown before the 

 advent of Europeans. Easter Island, on the contrary, 

 contained large plantations of sweet potatoes, yams, plan- 

 tains, sugar-canes, etc. Yet the Chinooks of Columbia had 

 bows and arrows, fish-hooks, and nets ; the Australians 

 had throwing sticks, boomerangs, fish-hooks, and nets ; the 

 Hottentots had bows and arrows, nets, fish-hooks, pottery, 

 and at last even a certain knowledge of iron ; all of which 

 seem to have been unknown to the Easter Islanders, all of 

 which would have been very useful to them, and, excepting 

 the iron, might have been invented and used by them. 



If the case of Easter Island stood alone, the absence of 

 bows and arrows might, perhaps, be plausibly accounted for 

 by the absence of game, the scarcity of birds, and the 

 isolation of the little island, which rendered war almost 

 impossible. But such an argument cannot be applied to 

 other cases which are indicated in the table. Let us com- 

 pare, for instance, the Atlantic tribes of North American 

 Indians, the Australians, Caffres, Bushmen, New Zealanders, 

 and Society Islanders. All these were constantly at war, 

 and the two first lived very much on the produce of the 

 chase. They at least had therefore similar wants. Yet 

 spears and perhaps clubs were the only weapons which they 

 had in common ; the North Americans had good bows and 

 arrows, the Society Islanders and Bushmen had bad ones 

 in fact, those of the former were so weak as to be use- 

 less in war the Australians, Caffres, and New Zealanders 

 had none. On the other hand, the Australians had the 

 throwing stick and the boomerang; the Society Islanders 



* "Weapons of war, depending very much on the caprice of chiefs, are probably 

 more liable to change than those used in hunting. 



