CHAPTER V
THE DISHONOURED HAND
An interesting discovery made in recent years in the course of some researches into the traces of the neolithic flint-workers of Norfolk invites attention from the evidence it has been thought to furnish of the traces of a left-handed workman of that remote era.
The Rev. William Greenwell carried out a series of explorations of a number of flint-pits, known as Grimes’s Graves, near Brandon, in Norfolk; and in a communication to the Ethnological Society of London on the subject, he states that in clearing out one of the primitive subterranean galleries excavated in the chalk by the British workmen of the Neolithic Age, in order to procure flint nodules in a condition best adapted for their purpose, it was found that, while the pits were still being worked, the roof of the gallery had given way and blocked up its whole width. The removal of this obstruction disclosed three recesses extending beyond the face of the chalk, at the end of the gallery, which had been excavated by the ancient miners in procuring the flint. In front of two of these recesses thus hollowed out lay two picks corresponding to others found in various parts of the shafts and galleries, made from the antlers of the red deer. But Canon Greenwell noted that, while the handle of each was laid towards the mouth of the gallery, the tines which formed the blades of the picks pointed towards each other, showing, as he conceived, that in all probability they had been used respectively by a right and a left-handed man. The day’s work over, the men had laid down their tools, ready for the next day’s work; meanwhile the roof had fallen in, and the picks were left there undisturbed through all the intervening centuries, till the reopening of the gallery in our own day.
The chronicles of the neolithic miners of Norfolk, as of the greatly more ancient flint-workers of the drift, or the draftsmen of the Dordogne, are recorded for us in very definite characters, more trustworthy, but unfortunately as meagre as other early chronicles. But when we come within the range of written records, or analyse the evidence that language supplies among unlettered races, a flood of light is thrown on the subject of a discriminating choice in use of one or the other hand. The evidence derived from this source leaves no room for doubt that the preferential choice is no mere habit; but that everywhere, among barbarous and civilised races alike, one specific hand has been assigned for all actions requiring either unusual force or special delicacy.
Even among races in the rudest condition of savage life, such as the Australians and the Pacific Islanders, terms for “right,” the “right hand,” or approximate expressions show that the distinction is no product of civilisation. In the Kamilarai dialect of the Australians bordering on Hunter’s River and Lake Maquaria matara signifies “hand,” but they have the terms turovn, right, on the right hand, and ngorangón, on the left hand. In the Wiraturai dialect of the Wellington Valley the same ideas are expressed by the words bumalgál and miraga, dextrorsum and sinistrorsum.
The idea lying at the root of our own decimal notation, which has long since been noted by Lepsius, Donaldson, and other philologists, as the source of names of Greek and Latin numerals, is no less discernible in the rudest savage tongues. Among the South Australians the simple names for numerals are limited to two, viz. ryup, one, and politi, two; the two together express “three”; politi-politi, four; and then “five” is indicated by the term ryup-murnangin, i.e. one hand; ten by politi-murnangin, i.e. two hands. The same idea is apparent in the dialects of Hawaii, Raratonga, Viti, and New Zealand, in the use of the one term: lima, rima, linga, ringa, etc., for hand and for the number five. Fulu and its equivalents stand for “ten,” apparently from the root fu, whole, altogether; while the word tau, which in the Hawaiian signifies “ready,” in the Tahitian “right, proper,” and in the New Zealand, “expert, dexterous,” is the common Polynesian term for the right hand. In the Vitian language, as spoken in various dialects throughout the Viti or Fiji Islands, the distinction is still more explicitly indicated. There is first the common term linga, the hand, or arm; then the ceremonial term daka, employed exclusively in speaking of that of a chief, but which, it may be presumed, also expresses the right hand; as, while there is no other word for it, a distinct term sema is the left hand. The root se is found not only in the Viti, but also in the Samoa, Tonga, Mangariva, and New Zealand dialects, signifying “to err, to mistake, to wander”; semo, unstable, unfixed; while there is the word matau, right, dexter, clearly proving the recognition of the distinction. In the case of the Viti or Fijian, this is the more noticeable, as there appears to be some reason for believing that left-handedness is exceptionally prevalent among the natives of the Fiji Islands. In 1876 a correspondent of the Times communicated a series of letters to that journal, in which he embodied anthropological notes on the Fijians, obtained both from his own observations during repeated visits to the Islands, and from conversation with English, American, and German settlers, at the port of call, and on the route between San Francisco and the Australian colonies. “The Fijians,” he says, “are quite equal in stature to white men; they are better developed relatively in the chest and arms than in the lower limbs; they are excellent swimmers, and, if trained, are good rowers. Left-handed men are more common among them than among white people; three were pointed out in one little village near the anchorage.” Yet here, as elsewhere, it is exceptional. Vague statements from time to time appear, affirming a prevalence of left-handedness among certain barbarous races. A writer in the Medical Record in 1886 says: “No purely left-handed race has ever been discovered, although there seems to be a difference in different tribes. Seventy per cent of the inhabitants of the Punjab use the left hand by preference; and the greater number of the Hottentots and Bushmen of South Africa also use the left hand in preference to the right.” But such statements, to be of any value, must be based on carefully accumulated evidence, such as is scarcely accessible in relation to nomad savage tribes. Such comprehensive generalisations generally prove to have no better foundation than the exceptional and chance observations of a traveller. It is otherwise when the evidence is derived from language, or from the observation of traders or missionaries long resident among the people.
Throughout the widely scattered islands of the Pacific the recognition of native right-handedness as the normal usage is confirmed alike by trustworthy witnesses and by the definite evidence of language. The Samoan word lima, hand, also signifying “five,” and the terms lima maira, right hand, and lima woat, left hand, are used as the equivalents of our own mode of expression. But also the left hand is lima tau-anga-vale, literally, the hand that takes hold foolishly. In the case of the Samoans, it may be added, as well as among the natives of New Britain and other of the Pacific islands, the favoured hand corresponds with our right hand. My informant, the Rev. George Brown, for fourteen years a missionary in Polynesia, states that the distinction of right and left hand is as marked as among Europeans; and left-handedness is altogether exceptional. In the Terawan language, which is spoken throughout the group of islands on the equator called the Kingsmill Archipelago, the terms atai or edai, right, dexter, (entirely distinct from rapa, good, right,) and maan, left, sinister, are applied to bai, or pai, the hand, to denote the difference, e.g. te bai maan, the left hand, literally, the “dirty hand,” that which is not used in eating. The languages of the American continent furnish similar evidence of the recognition of the distinction among its hunter-tribes. In the Chippeway the word for “my right hand” is ne-keche-neenj, e being the prenominal prefix, literally, “my great hand.” “My left hand” is ne-nuh-munje-neenj-ne. Numunj is the same root as appears in nuh-munj-e-doon, “I do not know;” and the idea obviously is “the uncertain or unreliable hand.” Again, in the Mohawk language, “the right hand” is expressed by the term ji-ke-we-yen-den-dah-kon, from ke-we-yen-deh, literally, “I know how.” Ji is a particle conveying the idea of side, and the termination dah-kon has the meaning of “being accustomed to.” It is, therefore, the limb accustomed to act promptly, the dexterous organ. Ske-ne-kwa-dih, the left hand, literally means “the other side.”
Analogous terms are found alike in the languages of civilised and barbarous races, expressing the same inferiority of one hand in relation to the other which is indicated in the classical sinistra as the subordinate of the dextra manus. The honourable significance of the right hand receives special prominence in the most sacred allusions of the Hebrew scriptures; and in mediæval art the right hand in benediction is a frequent symbol of the First Person of the Trinity. In the Anglo-Saxon version of the New Testament the equivalent terms appear as swythre and wynstre, as in Matthew vi. 3: “Sothlice thonne thu thinne aelmessan do, nyte thin wynstre hwaet do thin swythre;” “When thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.” Again the distinction appears in a subsequent passage thus: “And he geset tha scep on hys swithran healfe, and tha tyccenu on hys wynstran healfe” (Matthew xxv. 34). Here the derivation of swythre from swyth, strong, powerful, swythra, a strong one, a dexterous man, swythre, the stronger, the right hand, is obvious enough. It is also used as an adjective, as in Matthew v. 30: “And gif thin swythre hand the aswice, aceorf hig of;” “And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off.” The derivation of wynstre is less apparent, and can only be referred to its direct significance, se wynstra, the left. In the Greek we find the isolated ἀριστερός, ἀριστερά, left, ἡ ἀριστερά, the left hand. Whatever etymology we adopt for this word, the depreciatory comparison between the left and the more favoured δεξιά, or right hand, is obvious enough in the σκαιός, the left, the ill-omened, the unlucky; σκαιότης, left-handedness, awkwardness; like the French gauche, awkward, clumsy, uncouth. The Greek had also the term derived from the left arm as the shield-bearer; hence ἐπ’ ἀσπίδα, on the left or shield side.
The Gaelic has supplied to Lowland Scotland the term ker, or carry-handed, in common use, derived from lamh-chearr, the left hand. In the secondary meanings attached to ker, or carry, it signifies awkward, devious; and in a moral sense is equivalent to the English use of the word “sinister.” To “gang the kar gate” is to go the left road, i.e. the wrong road, or the road to ruin. There is no separate word in the Gaelic for “right hand,” but it is called lamh dheas and lamh ceart. Both words imply “proper, becoming, or right.” Ceart is the common term to express what is right, correct, or fitting, whereas dheas primarily signifies the “south,” and is explained by the supposed practice of the Druid augur following the sun in his divinations. In this it will be seen to agree with the secondary meaning of the Hebrew yamin, and to present a common analogy with the corresponding Greek and Latin terms hereafter referred to. Deisal, a compound of dheas, south, and iùl, a guide, a course, is commonly used as an adjective, to express a lucky or favourable occurrence. The “left hand” is variously styled lamh chli, the wily or cunning hand, and lamh cearr, or ciotach. Cearr is wrong, unlucky, and ciotach is the equivalent of sinister, formed from the specific name for the left hand, ciotag, Welsh chwithig. According to Pliny,[5] “the Gauls, in their religious rites, contrary to the practice of the Romans, turned to the left.” An ancient Scottish tradition traces the surname of Kerr to the fact that the Dalriadic king, Kynach-Ker or Connchad Cearr, as he is called in the Duan Albanach, was left-handed; though the name is strongly suggestive of a term of reproach like that of the Saxon Ethelred, the Unready.
[5] Hist. Nat. lib. xxviii. c. 2.