57o 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



challenged as from southern Asia. These 

 may prove to be simply coincidences of ex- 

 pression of peoples of corresponding mental 

 development brought about by correspond- 

 ing natural surroundings and conditions. 



Photographing Savages. — A lively use 

 of the camera is recommended by Mr. E. F. 

 Im Thurn as a means of getting representa- 

 tions of savages in their real life. The usual 

 illustrations in works of anthropology and 

 travel, when they are not merely physio- 

 logical pictures, are pronounced by him al- 

 most universally bad. "Of old, the book 

 illustrator, if, as was usual, he was not 

 himself the traveler, drew as pictures of 

 primitive folk merely the men and women 

 that surrounded him, figures of men and 

 women of his own stage of civilization, 

 and merely added to these such salient fea- 

 tures as he was able, from the traveler's 

 tales, to fancy that his supposed primitive 

 subject had. . . . The modern anthropologi- 

 cal illustrator does indeed generally draw 

 from photographs, but almost always from 

 photographs taken under non-natural condi- 

 tions." They are either taken in town, 

 where the savage is away from his usual 

 haunts and in unaccustomed surroundings ; 

 or the mere thought that he is being photo- 

 graphed puts him under constraint. " That 

 to gain the confidence of uncivilized folk 

 whom you wish to photograph is one of 

 quite the most essential matters you will 

 easily understand. The first time I tried to 

 photograph a red man was among the man- 

 grove trees at the mouth of the Barima 

 River. My red-skinned subject was poised 

 high up on a mangrove root. He sat quite 

 still while focused and drew the shutter. 

 Then, as I took off the cap, with a moan he 

 fell backward off his perch on to the soft 

 sand below him. Nor could he by any 

 means be persuaded to prepare himself once 

 more to face the unknown terrors of the 

 camera. A very common thing to happen, 

 and to foil the efforts of the photographer 

 at the very moment when he has but to 

 withdraw and to replace the cap, is for the 

 timid subject suddenly to put up his hand 

 to conceal his face, a proceeding most an- 

 noying to the photographer, but interesting 

 to the anthropologist, as illustrating the very 

 widespread dread of primitive folk of hav- 



ing their features put on paper, and thus be- 

 ing submitted spiritually to the power of any 

 possessing the picture. ... A curious in- 

 stance may be mentioned of the discovery, 

 thanks to the camera, of that rather rare 

 thing — a personal idiosyncrasy among red 

 men. Some time last year in photographing 

 a number of Carib lads I noticed that one 

 of them at the moment of the taking of the 

 picture suddenly put up his hands and put 

 them, not over his face, but one on each 

 shoulder. The attitude struck me at once 

 as an unusual one, but yet it seemed to me 

 in some way familiar. Some time after, in 

 looking through my old stock of negatives, 

 I found one which showed a much younger 

 Carib lad in the same unusual attitude, and 

 it was only after some inquiry that I realized 

 that this last-named negative was one which 

 I had taken some years before of the same 

 boy." There is a field here for the use of 

 some of the " snap " instruments. 



The Reasons of Conventionalities. — Con- 

 ventionalities are treated by the London 

 Spectator as things which must grow up with 

 the growth of civilization, yet which, while 

 they are not to be despised, are no more to 

 be exalted into absolute and universal obli- 

 gations. Even on matters affecting merely 

 the external order and harmony of life, there 

 are conventions which, though not intended 

 to repress and exclude all overflow of in- 

 dividual genius, are still of great value in 

 controlling the arbitrary eccentricities of in- 

 dividual nature, and in reducing men's man- 

 ners and modes of expression to terms which 

 one might speak of as commensurable with 

 the manners and modes of expression of 

 those who live with them in the same moral 

 atmosphere. The mere beauty of any social 

 life depends on the conformity of all — within 

 variable but definite limits — to conventions, 

 which, though by no means of supreme obli- 

 gation, yet render the give-and-take of life 

 much more natural and gentle and easy than 

 if each man or woman were to blurt out tha 

 feeling uppermost in the individual mind, 

 without any of that toning-down and soften- 

 ing which exclude abrup* and noisy explo- 

 sions of individual self-will. Not all social 

 conventions are beautiful. Sometimes the 

 artificiality of them exceeds whatever is 

 either necessary or advantageous for the pur- 



