tattooed on the human body, enabling the members 

 of a tribe to mark their commonality. More elabo- 

 rate tracings, such as a widespread traditional labyrinth 

 design [see photographs on page 45], as well as games 

 such as pachisi, snakes and ladders, hopscotch, and 

 chess, may be variations of the genealogical patterns. 

 Not only do they all involve "getting from here to 

 there"; they also often share subtle graphic elements. 



I am convinced that Schuster's work bears witness 

 to the survival of an ancient iconographic sys- 

 tem. Its earliest known expressions appeared in Eu- 

 rope 30,000 years ago. It crossed continents. Artis- 

 tic styles illustrating the various genealogical con- 

 cepts came and went. Cultures sheltered the iconic 

 system without changing it; it outlived most ot 

 them. American anthropologists may belittle such 

 expressive parallels as "curiosities." In rejoinder, it 

 is worth recalling that the first Neanderthal skull- 

 cap, discovered in 1856, was placed in a curiosity 

 cabinet — and probably would still be there were it 

 not for Darwin's Origin of Species. 



I asked Schuster what it all meant; he was reluc- 

 tant to say. Someone gave him a tape recorder; he 

 never used it. His quest was in the search itself. The 



If forty scholars with forty grants had labored 

 forty years, they couldn't have produced an equal 

 archive. Yet Schuster worked alone. His ceaseless 

 travels, all miracles ot frugality, took him wherev- 

 er the evidence dictated, including villages reached 

 only by camel or dugout canoe. An open, easy man- 

 ner brought acceptance. 



When I promised him I would complete his work, 

 I reckoned the task would take a year. Eighteen years 

 later I published Social Symbolism in Ancient & Trib- 

 al Art, a twelve-volume compendium of Schuster's 

 findings, 3,500 pages with 7,000 illustrations. Sets 

 were deposited in 600 libraries around the world. 

 Subsequently I published a more digestible one-vol- 

 ume summary, Patterns That Connect (1996). Rod- 

 ney Needham, a noted professor emeritus of social 

 anthropology at the University of Oxford, expressed 

 his admiration tor the latter volume: 



Just to scan the illustrations and assess them in relation to 

 their times and places is very exciting. Merely their jux- 

 taposition poses such profound questions that it is hard to 

 understand an anthropology that does not confront them. 



"I find myself lamenting the fact that Schuster is 

 no longer alive," wrote the art historian Leo Stein- 



Designs copied from artifacts collected in various parts of the world bear a striking resem- 

 blance to one another (left to right): New Guinea bamboo pipe, nineteenth century; Iranian 

 pottery, ca. 3000 B.C.; pre-Columbian Brazilian pottery, a.d. 400-1300; Congolese wooden cup, 

 nineteenth century. Because human figures are such a central subject of tribal art, these designs 

 may have been independently invented. But the author hypothesizes that they have embodied 

 the important social concept of genealogical connection since Late Paleolithic times and have 

 continued to convey that concept within traditional tribal groups. 



day before he died — too ill to eat — he mailed funds 

 to a missionary in Panama, asking him to photograph 

 a ladder crafted in anthropomorphic form, located in 

 a distant village. He wanted the record to be as com- 

 plete as possible. 



And what a record! The Schuster archive holds, 

 in addition to the l 8,000 pages of detailed corre- 

 spondence, some 275,000 annotated photographs, 

 more than 70,000 negatives, 5,670 bibliographic ref- 

 erences, and more, all cross-referenced five ways, 

 with a master catalog in thirty languages (including 

 five alphabets). 



berg of the University of Pennsylvania. "A strange 

 sentiment," Steinberg went on, "for I never mind 

 learning that Einstein is dead or Humboldt or 

 Paracelsus. But with this man there is so much I 

 would like to discuss." 



Even more than this one man, though, the ele- 

 gance of genealogical iconography evokes admira- 

 tion. That shouldn't cause surprise. People every- 

 where are pattern-makers and pattern-perceivers. 

 Our Paleolithic ancestors shared that gift. Thanks 

 to Carl Schuster, we descendants can celebrate their 

 achievement. □ 



May 2006 NATURAL HISTORY 



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