The Evolution of Culture, and Other Essays

by Augustus Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers

), distinguished by dark chocolate complexions and black eyes, with long heads and soft wavy hair; these the Professor, upon physiological grounds, and after intimate acquaintance with these people in the distant regions in which they are found, traces in three distinct portions of the globe, viz. Australia, the Deccan of India, and Egypt; the three identical countries, it will be observed, in which, unconscious of Professor Huxley’s distribution of races, I had traced the occurrence of the boomerang. I think, therefore, it is not an unreasonable conjecture, assuming the correctness of Professor Huxley’s premises, that this peculiar weapon may be a relic of the original Australioid stock, which having been originally an effective weapon for all purposes amongst the aborigines of this race, and continuing still to be used as such in Australia, survived in India and in ancient Egypt merely as an implement for the chase and for amusement, much in the same way that, in Europe, bows and arrows have survived amongst children to the present day.

Plate XIX.

In the remarks which I made (p. [127]) upon the varieties of the African boomerang, I drew attention to the peculiarly curved form of the Nubian and Abyssinian sword, and I ventured an opinion that its form may have been originally derived from that of the boomerang, of which weapon a variety, constructed of wood, is still in use by the inhabitants of the country; and I see no reason to doubt that the Abyssinian sword may have been the prototype of those numerous allied forms of iron weapons, the ‘hunga-munga’, &c., which throughout Africa are still used as missiles, and thrown with a rotatory motion like the boomerang. My conjecture on this subject appears to receive some confirmation from the very peculiar construction of one of these swords, which has lately been added to the museum of this Institution, and which is represented in Plate XIX, figure 1. The angular form of the blade, swelling in the middle, presents such a close affinity to the Australian boomerang, as to strike even those who have not been led, by the considerations I have mentioned, to look for a coincidence in these weapons. I noticed at the same time the very great resemblance between the rudimentary shields of the Australians and those of some of the inhabitants of the valley of the Upper Nile, which may also perhaps be accounted for in the same way. With a view of further connecting this primitive form of shield with similar defensive weapons in India, it is worthy of notice that the hand-shield, having antelopes’ horns projecting from it, a representation of which was given in my first lecture, Plate X, figs. 66, 67a, and 69 (many of which are furnished with a small iron shield, or guard for the hand, though some are without this accessory), is used—Sir Walter Elliot now informs me—precisely in the same way as the Australian and African parrying-shields, viz. by catching the arrows and darts of the assailant, and parrying them off with the horns, thus favouring the conjecture that I ventured to put forward, that the square, oblong, and circular targets are defensive weapons of comparatively recent origin, being represented in a primitive stage of culture by a simple parrying-stick, derived originally from the club. The club is, as a general rule, the only defensive guard employed by races in the lowest stages of culture. These seem to have been replaced by parrying-sticks, held in the centre, and subsequently hollowed to receive the hand, or furnished with hand-guards, forming rudimentary shields; of which stage in the development of the weapon we are now able to establish connected traces in the three countries under consideration.

If the comparisons which I have made, and the conclusions I have ventured to draw from them, are found to stand the test of further investigation, as it appears to me reasonable to hope they will, the importance of studying the forms and uses of these primitive weapons in connexion with other sociological and biological phenomena, as a means of tracing back the early history of mankind, will be well established. Of this, however, we may feel certain, that if a connexion formerly existed between the inhabitants of India, Australia, and Egypt, the evidence of such connexion will not be limited either to the colour of the hair and skin, or to the resemblance of their weapons, but will be found in other customs and institutions which they brought with them from their fatherland. The important generalizations of Professor Huxley, whether or not they ultimately hold good, have had the good effect of drawing attention to a comparison of the inhabitants of these countries; and though it would be foreign to my present purpose to anticipate the result of these investigations in other branches not immediately connected with my present subject, I may mention that officers acquainted with India and Australia have since pointed out resemblances in the hymeneal and other customs of those countries, which have not before been noticed, but which, when put together and compared, making all due allowance for the variations which are inevitable in the continuous development of all human arts and institutions, will, I doubt not, tend to give confirmation to the theory of races which the author of it has so ably advanced.

Having strayed thus far into the geological and biological aspect of the question, it is necessary to go a step further in order to apply the subject more generally to the origin of weapons, and at the same time to point out some difficulties which stand in the way of accepting this theory of races—difficulties of which Professor Huxley himself appears by his paper to be fully sensible.

The detached portions of the Australioid race are separated from each other by seas of considerable depth, and the same thing applies to the Negroid race. The Australians, he points out, though possessing ample materials for the construction of canoes, have never learnt to make any that are capable of traversing the great seas which separate them from their apparent kindred in other lands, and it is unlikely they should have forgotten the art of navigation if they had once known it. It is inconceivable, therefore, that they should have migrated from Australia to the Deccan, and to Egypt, during the existing geographical arrangement of sea and land, more especially as no trace of such migration is found upon intervening isles. He points out, however, that great geographical changes have probably taken place, and that those changes, in so far as our knowledge of them goes, are of a nature to account for the phenomena observed.

The region of the negro race in Africa is separated from Northern Africa and from Europe by the desert of Sahara, of which there is geological evidence to show that it was sea at a recent geological period. The same applies to the Deccan of India, which is separated from the Himalaya by the great alluvial plains of the Indus and the Ganges, which, having probably formed a strait before the miocene epoch, may have divided the black men inhabiting the Deccan from the Xanthochroid and Mongoloid races to the north. At the same time large tracts now occupied by the sea may then have been land, uniting or connecting by a chain of easily accessible islands the regions in which men of the same colour and physical peculiarities are now found. But it will be seen by the map that the lines of distribution of two of the races, the Negroid and the Australioid, cross each other, and this, according to the theory of migration by land, appears to involve a succession of submersions and upheavals during the human period, which it is difficult to account for.