20 INTRODUCTION 
work in South Africa, while the rock paintings of Spain find 
their best analogies among the Bushmen.” 1 
The Africans, it is true, perfected their engravings on the 
surface of the rocks more frequently by “ pecking.” But both 
they and Paleolithic man make free and successful use of 
colours, of which the African possesses six as against the three 
or four of his European brethren. Each race depicts fish and 
animals so life-like as to be easily identifiable. 
What evidence as to priority do the Eskimo methods of 
to-day yield us? Cartailhac but echoes Rau, Salomon 
Reinach, and Hoffmann ? in his assertion that the prehistoric 
Reindeer Age compares practically with the actual age of the 
Eskimos. Their fishing spears in material, shape, and barb 
resemble the Paleolithic. 
Their carvings and engravings of fishing and whaling 
scenes on bone and ivory show clear kinship to the Dordognese. 
Hoffmann’s able study of the Eskimos not only brings out 
these similarities, but also specially notes the closeness with 
which they observe and the exactitude with which they render 
anatomical peculiarities of fish and animals. As portrayers 
of the human form, on the other hand, they must be reckoned 
far from expert. The caves of France and those of Spain in 
general, although the paintings of the human form at Calapata 
and other places are far more finished and far more frequent 
than the French drawings, disclose curiously the same power 
and the same deficiency as characteristic of Troglodyte art. 
No race probably in the world depends so greatly on 
fishing for a livelihood as the Eskimos. From them, if from 
any, we should derive most light and leading. With them the 
Spear and the Hook form the chief, and till recently probably 
the only, tackle. Nets, on account of the ice, play little part. 
1 Evans, op. cif., p. 9. See also an interesting essay by Professor E. T. 
Hamy, L’ Anthropologie, tome xix. p. 385 ff., on La Figure humaine chez le 
sauvage et chez enfant. 
2C. Rau, op. cit, Washington, 1884. Salomon Reinach, Antiquitds 
Nationales, vol. i., 1889. W. 1. Hoffmann, The Graphic Art of the Eskimo, 
Report to Smithsonian Museum, 1895, p. 751. 
8 At Cogul the sacral dance is performed by women clad from the waist 
downwards in well-cut gowns, which at Alpera are supplemented by flying 
sashes, and at Cueva de la Vieja reach to the bosom. Verily, we are already 
along way from Eve! Cf. Evans, op. cit., p. 8. 
