to8 ELLIOT SMITH, Distribution of Mummification. 



wanderers set out from the East African coast. There 

 is, of course, the possibility that Africa may have been 

 influenced by a cultural reflux from Indonesia, such as 

 has been demonstrated in the case of Madagascar ; but 

 there are reasons for believing that the facts under con- 

 sideration cannot be explained in this way. 



In thus venturing upon criticisms of Rivers' great 

 monograph I should like especially to emphasize the fact 

 that these comments do not refer in any way to his attack 

 on the "orthodox" ethnological position. On the con- 

 trary, the views that I am setting forth in this communica- 

 tion represent a further extension of Rivers' own attitude 

 that the Oceanic cultures have been derived mainly from 

 contacts with other peoples. A series of practices which 

 he has hesitated to recognise as having been introduced, 

 but inclined to regard as local developments, I hold to 

 be part of the immigrant culture. The use of boats for 

 burial, the custom of regarding the head as an efficient 

 representative of the whole body and the practice of 

 *' incision " as well as circumcision (69, p. 432) are examples 

 of customs, which he regards as local developments in the 

 Pacific : but all three are equally distinctive of Ancient 

 Egypt and occur at widely separated localities along the 

 great " heliolithic " track. The linking-up of sun-worship 

 with all the other elements of the "heliolithic cult" also 

 compels me to question his limitation of such worship to 

 certain regions only in Oceania (69, p. 549) ; even though 

 I fully admit that the data Used by Rivers are not sufficient 

 to justify any further inference than he has drawn from 

 them. 



My aim is then, not an attempt to weaken Rivers' 

 general attiiude, but enormously to strengthen it, by 

 demonstrating that each culture-complex was brought 

 into the Pacific in an even more complete form than 



