638 THE ORIGIN OF AFRICAN CIVILIZATION. 



Nothing more beautiful, for instance, can be imagined than an iron club 

 carefully wound round with strips of metal, the handle covered with 

 snake skin. 



Wolf, Wissmann, Pogge in the south, Schweinfurth and Junker in the 

 north, justly demanded ''What sort of civilization is this"? Whence 

 does it come?" 



For years I have been occupied with the problems of the evolution of 

 the African nations; that is, the history of African civilization, and 

 long the origin of the peculiar civilization of the Congo Basin haunted 

 me as the most difficult of all the questions involved. Some time after 

 the solution had been found a first essay was published in Peter mann's 

 Mitteilungen (1897, Parts X and XI), where, I hope, by the way, that its 

 continuation will shortly be published. In this article various aspects 

 of African culture were subjected to an examination as to their con- 

 stituent elements, the composition of each, its prevalence, and its origin. 

 The areas of distribution of elements of the same origin were represented 

 on charts, and it was made to appear that elements of the same origin 

 were of equal range. With regard to the affinity of the elements of 

 African civilization, the new and astonishing fact of their Malayo- 

 Xegrito relationship was established. Once only it had been referred 

 to before, by Friedrich Ratzel in his well-known work on African bows, 

 where, however, the consequences following from it were not traced. 



The article was misunderstood in various ways. The daily press took 

 hold of the matter, and credited me with the opinion that Malays are 

 living in West Africa. The fact that the Malayo-Xegritos were left 

 undefined was taken amiss, etc. It therefore seems advisable to review 

 the whole statement briefly. It must be borne in mind that the article 

 in Petermann's Mitteilungen was but the beginning of a more extended 

 treatise, the continuation of which will appear shortly. 



The question concerning the origin of the civilization of the interior 

 of Africa can not be solved without reference to the composition of 

 African civilization in general, and this in turn requires consideration 

 of the question: How can culture affinities be determined? 



1» The proof of culture affinity 1 depends upon our conception of civ- 

 ilization. Consideration of our own culture and that of others teaches 

 that the history of peoples and the history of civilizations fall short of 

 identity only in the measure in which forms of civilization, more than 

 peoples, are the creatures of their surroundings and of the home soil. 

 Though Roman culture was derived from Greek, the culture of North 

 America from that of England, the Renaissance in Germany, in the 

 Netherlands, and in France, from the Renaissance in Italy, yet they 

 are not the same, On the soil which produced the classic culture of 



'The whole of this is a sketch-like reproduction of the detailed investigations 

 contained in the work: Der Ursprung der Knltur, Vol. I; Der Ursprung der afri- 

 kanischen Kulturen, which is to be published before the end of the year by Gebriider 

 Borntrager, Berlin. 



