Anthropology

by Edward B. Tylor

The rudest spear, which is a mere pointed stick, is known everywhere in the savage world, the point being often hardened by thrusting it into the fire. Of spears, whether such clumsy sticks or more artificially pointed weapons, the heavier kinds serve for thrusting and the lighter for throwing, while intermediate sizes are fit for both purposes. It is obvious how, to prevent the spear from coming out of the wound, it came to be barbed. Another device, known widely among rude hunters and fishers, is to put the point loosely on to the shaft, attaching it by a cord of some length which uncoils when the point sticks in the animal and the shaft drops off, so that the struck beast cannot break away the shaft but drags it trailing, or the fish is held and marked down by the floating wood. The distance to which the spear can be hurled by hand is much increased by using a spear-thrower, acting like a sling. In Captain Cook’s time the New Caledonians slung their spears with a short cord with an eye for the finger, while the Roman soldiers had a thong (amentum) made fast to their javelins near the middle of the shaft for the same purpose. But wooden spear-throwers from one to three feet long, grasped at one end and with a peg or notch at the other to take the butt of the spear, have been more favourite with savage and barbaric races. Thus [Fig. 59] shows the Australian spear-thrower. This looks a more primitive instrument than the bow, which indeed was not known to these rude savages. It seems as though with the progress of weapons the spear-thrower was discarded, for it is not found among any nation higher than the old Mexicans, and even among them it seems to have been kept up ceremonially from old times, rather than seriously used. The bow and arrow (as General Pitt-Rivers suggests) may very likely have grown out of a simpler contrivance, the spring-trap set in the woods by fitting a dart to an elastic branch, so fastened back as to be let go by a passing animal, in whose track it discharges the weapon. However invented, the bow came into use in ages before history. Its arrow is a miniature of the full-sized javelin, and the old stone arrow-heads found in most regions of the world (see [Fig. 54] d) show the existence of the bow-and-arrow in the Stone Age, though hardly back to the drift-period. The art of feathering the arrow goes back as far as history, and we know not how much further. The simplest kind of long-bow is like that we still use in the sport of archery, made of one piece of tough wood. [Fig. 60] a shows a long-bow of the forest-tribes of South America, unstrung, with its string hanging loose. What may be called the Tatar or Scythian bow is formed of several pieces of wood or horn, united with glue and sinews. Shorter than the long-bow, it gets its spring by being bent outside-in to string it; thus the concave side of the ancient Scythian-bow b would become the convex side when strung. Bows of this class belong especially to northern regions where there is a scarcity of tough wood suited to making long-bows in one piece. As a warlike weapon, the bow lasted on in Europe through the middle ages, and as late as 1814 the world looked on with wonder to see the Cossack cavalry ride armed with bows-and-arrows through the streets of Paris. A further step in the history of the bow was to mount it on a stock, so as to take aim at leisure and touch a trigger to let go the string. Thus it became the cross-bow, which seems to have been invented in the East, and was known in Roman Europe about the sixth century. In the figure, c represents it in its perfected form with a winch to draw the bow, as soldiers used it in the sixteenth century. Cross-bows are still made in Italy for shooting birds with a bolt or pellet.

Fig. 60.—Bows. a, South American long-bow (unstrung); b, Tatar or Scythian bow; c, European cross-bow.

To understand the next great move in missile weapons, it is necessary to look back to savage life. The blow-tube, through which the forest Indian of South America ([Fig. 43]) blows his tiny poisoned plug-darts, or the similar Malay weapon called the sumpitan, may have been easily invented wherever long large reeds grew. With simple darts or pellets the blow-tube served for shooting birds, and it is often kept up as a toy, as in our boys’ peashooters. When, however, gunpowder was applied in warfare, its use was soon adapted to make the blow-tube an instrument of tremendous power, when instead of the puff of breath in a reed, the explosion of powder in an iron barrel drove out the missile. In the early guns of the middle ages, the powder was fired by putting a coal or match to the touchhole, as continued to be done till lately with cannon. For hand-guns, this early match-lock was followed by the wheel-lock. This led up to the flint-lock, which it is curious to compare with the cross-bow, for the bent bow released by the trigger, which in the cross-bow did the actual work of shooting out the missile, has now come down, in the form of a spring and trigger, to the subordinate use of striking the light to ignite the powder which actually propels the ball. In more modern guns, the trigger and spring still remain, the improvement lying in the use of fulminating silver in the cap, ignited by the blow of the hammer. The rifling of the bullet by means of grooves in the barrel is the modern representative of the ancient plan of slightly twisting the spear-head or feathering the arrow to cause it to rotate, this giving increased steadiness of flight. The modern conical shot shows a partial return from the spherical bullet towards the ancient bolt or arrow, and at last breech-loading goes back to the old plan of putting the arrows in at the butt-end of the savage blow-tube.

As thus plainly appears, the ingenuity of man has been eminent in the art of destroying his fellow-men. In surveying the last group of deadly weapons, from the stone hurled by hand to the rifled cannon, there comes well into view one of the great advances of culture. This is the progress from the simple tool or implement, such as the club or knife, which enables man to strike or cut more effectively than with hands or teeth, to the machine which, when supplied with force, only needs to be set and directed by man to do his work. Man often himself provides the power which the machine distributes more conveniently, as when the potter turns the wheel with his own foot, using his hands to mould the whirling clay. The highest class of machines are those which are driven by the stored-up forces of nature, like the saw-mill where the running stream does the hard labour, and the sawyer has only to provide the timber and direct the cutting.

As to how simple mechanical powers were first learnt, it is of no use to guess in what rude and early age men found that stones or blocks too weighty to lift by hand could be prized up and moved along with a stout stick, or rolled on two or three round poles, or got up a long gentle slope more easily than up a short steep rise. Thus such discoveries as those of the lever, roller, and inclined plane, are quite out of historical reach. The ancient Egyptians used wedges to split off their huge blocks of stone, and one wonders that, knowing the pulley as they did, it never appears in the rigging of their ships (see [Fig. 71]). A draw-well with a pulley is to be seen in the Assyrian sculptures, where also a huge winged bull is being heaved along with levers, and dragged on a sledge with rollers laid underneath.

Fig. 61.—Ancient bullock-waggon, from the Antonine Column.

The wheel-carriage, which is among the most important machines ever contrived by man, must have been invented in ages before history. To see what constructive skill the leading nations had already attained to in times we reckon as of high antiquity, it is worth while to examine closely the Egyptian war-chariots, with their neatly-fitted and firmly-tired spoke-wheels turning on their axles secured by linchpins while the body, pole, and double harness show equal technical skill. In looking for some hint as to how wheel-carriages came to be invented, it is of little use to judge from such high skilled work as was turned out by these Egyptian chariot-builders, or by the Roman carpentarii or carriage-builders from whom our carpenters inherit their name. But as often happens, rude contrivances may be found which look as though they belonged to the early stages of the invention. The plaustrum or farm-cart of the ancient world in its rudest form had for wheels two solid wooden drums near a foot thick, and made from a tree-trunk cut across, which drums or wheels did not turn on the axle but were fixed to it; the axle was kept in place by wooden stops, or passed through rings at the bottom of the cart, and went round together with its pair of wheels, as children’s toy carts are made. It is curious to notice how, under changed conditions, the builders of railway-carriages have returned to this early construction. In the ancient cart, [Fig. 61], the squared end of the axle shows that it must turn with the wheels. In such countries as Portugal the old classic bullock-cart on this principle is still to be seen, and it has been reasonably guessed that such carts tell the story how wheel-carriages came to be invented. Rollers were early used, on which a block of stone or other heavy weight was trundled. Suppose such a roller made of a smoothed tree-trunk to be improved by cutting the middle part smaller, so that it became an axle and pair of broad wheels in one piece, then by making this axle work underneath the rudest framework, the simplest imaginable wheel-carriage is made. If the first notion of a cart were thus suggested, the wheels might afterwards be made separately and pinned on to the square axle, and provided with tires. Then, for light wheels and smooth ground, the wheels would at last be made to turn on fixed axles. This is only conjecture, but at any rate it puts clearly before our minds what the nature of a carriage is.

Another ancient machine is the mill. The rudest tribes of savages had a simple and effective means ready to hand for powdering charcoal and ochre to paint themselves with, or for the more useful work of bruising wild seeds gathered for food. The whole apparatus consists of a roundish stone held in the hand, and a larger hollowed stone for a bed. It is curious to notice how closely our pestle and mortar still keeps to this primitive type. Now any one using the pestle and mortar may notice that it works in two ways, the stuff being either pounded by striking, or ground by rubbing against the side of the mortar. When people took to agriculture, and grain became a chief part of their food, and mealing it the women’s heavy work, forms of mealing-stones came into use suited not for pounding but for grinding only, and doing this more perfectly. An example may be seen in [Fig. 62], a rude ancient corn-crusher dug up in Anglesey, the stone muller or roller having its sides hollowed for the hands of the grinder, who worked it back and forward on the bed-stone. The perfection of such a corn-crusher may be seen in the “metate” with its neatly shaped bed and rolling-pin of lava, with which the Mexican women crush the maize for their corn-cakes or tortillas. But it is by one stone revolving upon the other that grain is best ground, and here we have the principle of the mill. The quern or hand-mill of the ancient world in its simple form consisted of two circular flat mill stones, the upper being turned by a handle, while the grain was poured in through the hole in the centre, and came out as meal all round the edge. This early hand-mill has lasted on into the modern world, and [Fig. 63] shows “two women grinding at the mill,” as they might be seen in the Hebrides in the last century; the long stick, which hangs from a branch above, has its end in a hole in the upper stone, and a cloth is spread on the ground to catch the meal. The quern is still used in north Scotland and the islands. If the reader will notice the construction of a modern flour-mill, it will be seen that the neatly faced and grooved millstones are now of great weight, and the upper one balanced on the pivot which gives it rapid rotation from below by means of water or steam-power, but notwithstanding these mechanical improvements, the essential principle of the primitive hand-mill is still there.