Minutes of Proceedings. xv 



stone is a flat disk. That the stones were used for the alleged 

 purpose by some aborigines is, however, made now clear by Bush- 

 man paintings, tracings of which were exhibited by permission of 

 Professor Young, of Johannesburg. The aborigines are represented 

 with the sticks and stones going a digging, both sexes being 

 delineated. In other drawings some mythical figures were, how- 

 ever, using these stones as club-heads. The author contended that 

 although put to that twofold purpose it did not follow that the 

 stones had been perforated, in the manner they have, for these two 

 special purposes. The great diversity of these perforated, partly 

 perforated, or not perforated spheres or disks precluded the possi- 

 bility of many of them having been intended for a usage of this 

 kind, some were much too large, others too small or too thin. The 

 mode of perforation, however, remains the same in a spheroid 

 4 or 5 inches thick as in an ostrich-shell discoidal bead. Instead of 

 being merely perforated on one side, even the tiniest beads are bored 

 on each side by means of minute rimmers (12 mm. long), which 

 were exhibited. The larger boring tools or rimmers also exhibited 

 could not, with perhaps the exception of one, have been really used 

 for that purpose. Moreover, these perforated stones occur not only 

 in South Africa, but also in Central Africa. He exhibited one that 

 came from the Atacuma desert in Chile and which, but for the 

 texture of the stone, which was lava from the Andes, might be 

 alleged to come from any part of the Cape Colony. Absolutely 

 similar stones were in use among the aborigines of some parts of 

 New Guinea. These perforated stones, the mode of attachment 

 of stone implements, the resemblance in Bushman and Australian 

 mythology are point of resemblance between the aborigines of Africa 

 and Polynesia which are not to be lightly passed over. He came to 

 the conclusion that the manner in which these stones are pierced, 

 and the rinders used, are derived from an unconscious tradition of 

 the emblems of phallic worship. If this conclusion is a correct one, 

 it might point towards the unity of the human family, and its 

 dispersion from a common centre. 



Ordinary Monthly Meeting. 



May 30, 1906. 



Dr. J. C. Beattie, President, in the Chair. 



Messrs. W. T. Saxton, Dr. W. A. Humphrey, E. Jorissen, and 

 D. G. Sandberg were elected Ordinary Members. 



