BOWS AND AEEOWS IN CENTRAL BRAZIL. 1 



By Hermann Meyer. 



The present treatise is an introduction to a larger one now in course 

 of preparation. While this larger work is to discuss the distribution 

 of the bow and arrow throughout South America, and to widen the 

 knowledge of her mixed populations by means of a thorough investi- 

 gation of material in museums and the study of literature, it is the 

 aim of this brochure to point out the system only in general outline, 

 with the comparison of the materials furnished for the classification 

 of bow and arrow, and to set forth for a circumscribed region — the Mato 

 Grosso — how, through the harmonizing of different tribal groups, 

 ethnographic types arise; what share the several associated tribes 

 have had in this creation of groups; and, on the other hand, what 

 ethnographic development within the group each tribe has undergone. 



It will not be possible to make an extended review of individual 

 tribes in a preliminary description of the bow and the arrow. This is 

 in view for the later work, and at this time it will be presented only so 

 far as an ethnographic characterization is necessary. In the same way 

 here the review will be only so extended concerning the meaning' of 

 these weapons for a tribe as to reveal some variation of the arts by 

 which an advancing or retarding momentum in the ethnographic 

 development has been given. 



For investigating the ethnographic materials which furnished the 

 groundwork of my investigation, it was made possible through the rec- 

 ommendation of Professor Bastian, in Berlin, and Professor Ratzel, in 

 Leipzig, to study the collections belonging to the museums in Berlin, 

 Munich, Vienna, Braunschweig, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Christiania, 

 Brussels, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Leiden, London, Kew, Salisbury, 

 Oxford, Cambridge, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast, Dublin, 

 and Liverpool; and I here express to the directors and conservators of 

 the establishments mentioned, above all to Professor Bastian and Pro- 

 fessor Ratzel, and especially to the head of the American section of the 

 ethnographic museum in Berlin, Dr. Seler, my heartfelt thanks for the 



1 Inaugural dissertation by Hermann Meyer, of the University of Jena. Trans- 

 lated from original German " Bogen und Pfeil in Central-Brasilien." Leipzig. 

 Druck von Bibliograpkishen Institut. 1896. 



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