450 THE ISOLATION OF SAVAGES. 



Brazilian tribes, the bolas by the Esquimaux and the Pata- 

 gonians ; the boomerang is peculiar to the Australians.* 

 The " sumpitan " or blow-pipe of the Malays occurs again 

 in the valley of the Amazons. Again, different races of 

 savages have but little peaceful intercourse with one 

 another. They are almost always at war. If their habits 

 are similar, they are deadly rivals, fighting for the best 

 hunting-grounds or fisheries ; if their wants are different, 

 they fight for slaves, for women, for oAiaments ; or if they 

 do not care about any of these, for the mere love of fighting, 

 for scalps, heads, or some other recognised emblems of glory. 

 In this condition of society each tribe lives in a state either 

 of isolation from, or enmity with, its neighbours. Delenda 

 est Carthago is the universal motto, and savages can only 

 live in peace when they have a little world of their own. 

 Sometimes a broad sea, or a high range of mountains, at 

 others a wide "march" or neutral territory supply tlie neces- 

 sary conditions, and keep them apart. They meet only to 

 fight, and are therefore not likely to learn ^niuch from one 

 another. Moreover, there are cases in which some tribes 

 have weapons which are quite unknown to their neighbours. 

 Thus, among the Brazilian tribes we find the bow and arrow, 

 the blow-pipe, the lasso, and the throwing stick. The first 

 is the most general, but the Barbados use only the blow- pipe, 

 the Moxos have abandoned the bow and arrow for the lasso, 

 and the Purupurus are distinguished from all their neigh- 

 bours by using, not bows and arrows, but the " palheta," or 

 throwing stick. Again, the Caffres have not generally 

 adopted the bows and arrows of the Bushmen; the Esqui- 

 maux have not acquired the art of making pottery from the 

 North American Indians, nor the southern Columbian tribes 

 from the northern Mexicans. 



* The negroes of Niam Niam, however, have iron crescents resembling boom- 

 erangs, which are thrown in war. 



