552 BOWS AND ARROWS IN CENTRAL BRAZIL. 



customary freedom of intercourse, would immediately impart their own 

 characteristic forms to the peculiarities of their masters. But chief 

 among these, that form which suggested itself as the fittest to adopt, 

 and for which the locality and conditions supplied the necessary mate- 

 rial would be most persistent. It seldom happens that proper material 

 is procured from a distance through trade, or that any other material 

 would be chosen than the one there in use for certain forms. 



As the chart at the end of this article points out with respect to the 

 distribution into ethnographic areas, there occur in the same tribe sev- 

 eral separate types in close contact. This phenomenon is to be referred 

 back chiefly to a certain persistency with which favorite old time forms 

 hold on. This attachment to the ancient is very frequent on types that 

 are completely changed through assimilation, still showing small idio- 

 syncrasies or added decorations and so on, so that it is possible through 

 these marks to obtain a glimpse backward on the original form. 

 Frequently, through trade or capture, certain objects or weapons pass 

 immediately into the employ of the new owner and are more widely 

 diffused in association with the old forms. Especially in these inquiries 

 in which several tribes are brought together in comparison is an 

 association of this kind noticeable, but apparently comparison of dif- 

 ferent forms is possible only when a tribe has been split into several 

 parts and each one has borrowed on other soil different customs and 

 forms from neighboring tribes. These tribal divisions have then had 

 an entirely different ethnographic development. Do we find among 

 a group of originally diverse tribes, which have acquired through 

 assimilation special ethnographic characters, a people with entirely 

 different characteristics, then we are able to conclude that either this 

 people remains out of contact with surrounding tribes or has just come- 

 there. 



This ethnographic association would differ perhaps according to the 

 choice of the object taken for the classification; at least my investiga- 

 tions lead to this result, whether we select the bow or the arrow as 

 object of comparison. But a certain analogy is to be recognized in all 

 grouping of this sort. For an ethnographic classification all the tribes 

 studied should be regarded from the same point of view, namely, that 

 the object selected shall be common to all. 



As is known, the entire population of South America, originally 

 depending on natural conditions, have been hunting peoples, and the 

 greater part of them have held on to this manner of life. The hunting 

 implement is then common to all. ISTow we find among the different 

 tribes generally various methods of capturing animals. One employs 

 the blowtube, the second a sling, the third a bola and a lance, but all 

 have as the chief weapon the bow and arrow, which even the gun can 

 not supplant, because the noiseless shooting of the bow does not 

 frighten the game. Only the tribes of the Pampas, who since the 

 influx of the Spaniards have taken up with the horse, have more and 



