36 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE ARROW 
most fantastically barbed. It is believed that the use of 
barbed arrows among these primitive folk is due to their 
contact with the more highly civilised tribes, like the Zandih 
to the north, who are perhaps the best aboriginal iron-workers 
in Africa. Very little detailed information is yet available 
about these skilled craftsmen, but possibly each clan or family 
had its own particular fashion of barb. 
Monbuttu Arrows with extravagant barbing.- 
In East Africa proper this elaborate barbing of the arrow 
never reached a high development ; the detachable point is 
usual, but the iron point is either leaf-shaped or of the usual 
sagittate form. Now, why is this ? If one may venture a 
theory I am driven to the conclusion that the aboriginal 
peoples inhabiting the forests in the centre of the continent 
passed direct from the use of natural thorns to the use of iron 
points, but the people east of Lake Victoria began with natura 
