After this preamble, which has been longer than I expected, we pass to the first or rudest forms of the Weapons Proper used by Savage Man.
CHAPTER II.
MAN’S FIRST WEAPONS—THE STONE AND THE STICK. THE EARLIEST AGES OF WEAPONS. THE AGES OF WOOD, OF BONE, AND OF HORN.
What, then, was Man’s first weapon? He was born speechless and helpless, inferior to the beasts of the field. He grew up armed, but badly armed. His muscles may have been stronger than they are now; his poor uneducated fisticuff, however, could not have compared with the kick of an ass. As we see from the prognathous jaw, he could bite, and his teeth were doubtless excellent[49]; still, the size and shape of the maxilla rendered it an arm inferior to the hyæna’s and even to the dog’s. He scratched and tore, as women still do; but his nails could hardly have been more dangerous than the claws of the minor felines.
He had, however, the hand, the most perfect of all prehensile contrivances, and Necessity compelled him to use it. The stone, his first ‘weapon,’ properly so called, would serve him in two ways—as a missile, and as a percussive instrument. Our savage progenitor, who in days long before the dawn of history, contracted the extensor and relaxed the flexor muscles of his arm when flinging into air what he picked up from the ground, was unconsciously lengthening his reach and taking the first step in the art and science of ballistics. His descendants would acquire extraordinary skill in stone-throwing, and universal practice would again make perfect. Diodorus of Sicily (b.c. 44),[50] who so admirably copied Herodotus, says that the Libyans ‘use neither Swords, spears, nor other weapons; but only three darts and stones in certain leather budgets, wherewith they fight in pursuing and retreating.’ The Wánshi (Guanches) Libyan or Berber peoples of the Canarian Archipelago, according to Cà da Mosto (a.d. 1505), confirmed by many, including George Glas,[51] were expert stone-throwers. They fought their duels ‘in the public place, where the combatants mounted upon two stones placed at the opposite sides of it, each stone being flat at top and about half a yard in diameter. On these they stood fast without moving their feet, till each had thrown three round stones at his antagonist. Though they were good marksmen, yet they generally avoided those missive weapons by the agile writhing of their bodies. Then arming themselves with sharp flints (obsidian?) in their left hands, and cudgels or clubs in their right, they fell on, beating and cutting each other till they were tired.’ An instance is mentioned in which a Guanche brought down with a single throw a large palm-frond, whose mid-rib was capable of resisting the stroke of an axe. Kolben, who wrote about a century and a half ago, gives the following account of the ape-like gestures of the Khoi-Khoi or Hottentots[52]:—‘The most surprising strokes of their dexterity are seen in their throwing of a stone. They hit a mark to a miracle of exactness, though it be a hundred paces distant and no bigger than a halfpenny. I have beheld them at this exercise with the highest pleasure and astonishment, and was never weary of the spectacle. I still expected after repeated successes, that the stone would err; but I expected in vain. Still went the stone right to the mark, and my pleasure and astonishment were redoubled. You could imagine that the stone was not destined to err, or that you were not destined to see it. But a Hottentot’s unerring hand in this exercise is not the only wonder of the scene; you would be equally struck perhaps with the manner in which he takes his aim. He stands, not still with a lift-up arm and a steady staring eye upon the mark, as we do; but is in constant motion, skipping from one side to another, suddenly stooping, suddenly rising; now bending on this side, now on that; his eyes, hands, and feet are in constant action, and you would think that he was playing the fool, and minding anything else than his aim; when on a sudden, away goes the stone with a fury, right to the heart of the mark, as if some invisible power had directed it.’
Nearer home the modern Syrians still preserve their old dexterity: I have often heard the tale, and have no reason to doubt its truth, of a brown bear (Ursus syriacus) being killed in the Libanus by a blow between the eyes.[53] When the Arab Bedawin are on the raid and do not wish to use their matchlocks, they attack at night, and ‘rain stones’ upon the victim. The latter vainly discharges his ammunition against the shadows flitting ghost-like among the rocks; and, when his fire is drawn, the murderers rush in and finish their work. The use of the stone amongst the wild tribes of Asia, Africa, and America is almost universal. In Europe, the practice is confined to schoolboys; but the wild Irish, by beginning early, become adepts in it when adults. As a rule, the shepherd is everywhere a skilful stone-thrower.
Turner makes the ‘Kawas’ of Tanna, New Hebrides, a stone as long as, and twice as thick as, an ordinary counting-house ruler: it is thrown with great precision for a distance of twenty yards. The same author mentions stones rounded like a cannon-ball, among the people of Savage Island and Eromanga. Commander Byron notices the stones made into missiles by the Disappointment Islanders. Beechey, whose party was attacked by the Easter Islanders, says that the weapons, cast with force and accuracy, knocked several of the seamen under the boat-thwarts. Crantz tells us that Eskimo children are taught stone-throwing at a mark as soon as they can use their hands. The late Sir R. Schomburg describes a singular custom amongst the Demarara Indians. When a child enters boyhood he is given a hard round stone which he is to hand-rub till it becomes smooth, and he often reaches manhood before the task is done. Observers have suggested that the only use of the practice is a ‘lesson in perseverance, which quality, in the opinion of many people, is best inculcated by engaging the minds of youths in matters that are devoid of any other incentive in the way of practical utility or interest.’
Fig. 13.—Ancient Egyptians Throwing Knives.
In more civilised times the knife, as a missile, would take the place of the stone. We find that the ancient Egyptians[54] practised at a wooden block, and the German Helden (champions), seated on settles, duelled by casting three knives each, to be parried with the shield. The modern Spaniards begin to learn when children the art of throwing the facon[55], cuchillo or clasp-knife. The reapers of the Roman Campagna, mere barbarians once civilised, also ‘chuck’ the sickle with a surprising precision.