these functions, all of which are, in some form or other, necessary to
a healthy condition. Suffice, however, to observe, that as regards the
dawn of an Utopia, in which some men who think themselves practical
appear to indulge; whether we study the subject by observing the
uses to which animals apply the various and ingeniously constructed
weapons with which Providence has armed them, or whether we view it in
relation to the prodigious armaments of all the most civilized nations
of Europe, we find no more evidence in nature, of a state of society
in which wars shall cease, than we do of a state of existence in which
we shall support life without food, or propagate our species by other
means than those which nature has appointed.
The universality of the warlike element is shown in the fact, that the
classifications of the weapons of men and animals are identical, and
may be treated under the same heads.
Many constructive arts are brought to greater perfection in animals
by the development of faculties, especially adapting them to the
peculiar implements with which nature has furnished them, than can be
attained by man, and especially by the aboriginal man, whose particular
attribute appears, by all analogy of savage life, to have been an
increase of that imitative faculty which, in the lower creation, is
found only in a modified degree in apes.
The lower creation would thus furnish man not only with the first
element of instruction, but with examples for the improvement of the
work commenced, or, to use the words of Pope:--
From the creatures thy instructions take,
Thy arts of building from the bee receive;
Learn from the mole to plough, the worm to weave;
Learn from the little nautilus to sail,
Spread the thin oars, and catch the driving gale;
Here, too, all forms of social reason find,
And hence let reason late instruct mankind.[26]
In the art of war, as we shall see, he would not only derive his first
instruction from the beasts, but he would improve his means of offence
and defence from time to time by lessons derived from the same source.
It therefore appears desirable that, before entering upon that branch
of the subject which relates to the _progress_ and _development_ of
the art of war, I should point out briefly the analogies which exist
between the weapons, tactics, and stratagems of savages and those of
the lower creation, and show to what extent man appears to have availed
himself of the weapons of animals for his own defence.
In so doing the subject may be classified as follows:--
_Classification of the Weapons of Animals and Savages._
Defensive. Offensive. Stratagems.
Hides. Piercing. Flight.
Solid plates. Striking. Concealment.
Jointed plates. Serrated. Tactics.
Scales. Poisoned. Columns.
Missiles. Leaders.
Outposts.
Artificial defences.
War cries.
Firstly, with respect to the combative principle itself. The identity
of this instinct in men and animals may be seen in the widely-spread
custom of baiting animals against each other, a practice which is not
derived from any one source, but is indigenous in the countries in
which it prevails, and arises from the inherent sympathy which exists
between men and animals in the exercise of this particular function.
In the island of Tahiti, long before the first European vessel was seen
off their shores, the inhabitants were accustomed to train and fight
cocks, which were fed with great care, and kept upon finely-carved
perches.[27] Cock-fighting also prevails amongst the Malays, Celebes,
and Balinese. The Javanese fight their cocks like the Mahommedans
of Hindustan, without spurs; the Malays, Bugis, and Macassars with
artificial spurs shaped like a scythe.[28] It also prevails in Central
Africa, Central America, and Peru. The Sumatrans fight their cocks for
vast sums; a man has been known to stake his wife and children, son,
mother, or sister on the issue of a battle, and when a dispute occurs,
the owners decide the question by an appeal to the sword. In like
manner Adrastus, the son of Midas, King of Phrygia, is said to have
killed his brother in consequence of a quarrel which took place between
them in regard to a battle of quails.
When Themistocles led the Greeks out against the Persians, happening
to see two cocks fight, he showed them as an example to his soldiers.
Cock-fighting was afterwards exhibited annually in presence of the
whole people, and the crowing of a cock was ever after regarded as a
presage of victory.[29]
The Javanese also fight hogs and rams together. The buffalo and
tiger are matched against each other. In Butan the combat is between
two bulls. Combats of elephants took place for the amusement of the
early Indian kings. The Chinese and Javanese fight quails, crickets,
and fish. The Romans fought cocks, quails, and partridges, also the
rhinoceros. In Stamboul two rams are employed for fighting. The
Russians fight geese, and the betting runs very high upon them.[30]
We find horses, elephants, and oxen standing side by side with man in
hostile array, and dogs were used by the Gauls for the same purpose.
Amongst the ancients, the horse, the wolf, and the cock were offered on
the altar of Mars for their warlike qualities.
Who can doubt with these examples before us, that an instinct so widely
disseminated and so identical in men and animals, must have been
ordained for special objects?
The causes which give rise to the exercise of the function, vary with
the advance of civilization. We have now ceased to take delight in the
mere exhibition of brute combats, but the profession of war is still
held in as much esteem as at any previous period in the history of
mankind, and we bestow the highest honours of the State upon successful
combatants.
This, however, leads to another subject, viz. the causes of war amongst
primitive races, which is deserving of separate treatment.
_Defensive Weapons._
We may pass briefly over the defensive weapons of animals and savages,
not by any means from the analogy being less perfect in this class of
weapons, but rather because the similarity is too obvious to make it
necessary that much stress should be laid on their resemblance.
_Hides._ The thick hides of pachydermatous animals correspond to the
quilted armour of ancient and semi-civilized races. Some animals, like
the rhinoceros and hippopotamus, are entirely armed in this way; others
have their defences on the most vulnerable part, as the mane of the
lion, and the shoulder pad of the boar.[31] The skin of the tiger is of
so tough and yielding a nature, as to resist the horn of the buffalo
when driven with full force against its sides.[32] The condor of Peru
has such a thick coating of feathers, that eight or ten bullets may
strike without piercing it.[33]
[Illustration: PLATE VII.]
According to Thucydides, the Locrians and Acarnanians, being professed
thieves and robbers, were the first to clothe themselves in armour.[34]
But as a general rule it may be said, that the opinions of ancient
writers upon the origin of the customs with which they were familiar,
are of little value in our days. There is, however, evidence to show
that the use of defensive armour is not usual amongst savages in the
lowest stages of culture. It is not employed, properly speaking, by
the Australians, the Bushmen, the Fuegians, or in the Fiji or Sandwich
Islands. But in other parts of the world, soon after men began to
clothe themselves in the skins of beasts, they appear to have used the
thicker hides of animals for purposes of defence. When the Esquimaux
apprehends hostility, he takes off his ordinary shirt, and puts on
a deer’s skin, tanned in such a manner as to render it thick for
defence, and over this he again draws his ordinary shirt, which is
also of deer-skin, but thinner in substance. The Esquimaux also use
armour of eider drake’s skin.[35] The Abipones and Indians of the Grand
Chako arm themselves with a cuirass, greaves, and helmet, composed
of the thick hide of the tapir, but they no longer use it against the
musketry of the Europeans.[36] The Yucanas also use shields of the same
material. The war-dress of a Patagonian chief from the Museum of the
Institution is exhibited (Plate VII, figs. 11, 12); it is composed of
seven thicknesses of hide, probably of the horse, upon the body, and
three on the sleeves. The chiefs of the Musgu negroes of Central Africa
use for defence a strong doublet of the same kind, made of buffalo’s
hide with the hair inside.[37] The Kayans of Borneo use hide for
their war-dress, as shown by a specimen belonging to the Institution
(Fig. 13). The skin of the bear and panther is most esteemed for this
purpose.[38] The inhabitants of Pulo Nias, an island off the western
coast of Sumatra, use for armour a ‘baju’ made of leather. In some
parts of Egypt a breastplate was made of the back of the crocodile
(Fig. 14). In the island of Cayenne, in 1519, the inhabitants used a
breastplate of buffalo’s hide.[39] The Lesghi of Tartary wore armour
of hog’s skin.[40] The Indians of Chili, in the seventeenth century,
wore corselets, back and breast plates, gauntlets, and helmets of
leather, so hardened, that it is described by Ovalle as being equal
to metal.[41] According to Strabo (p. 306), the German Rhoxolani wore
helmets, and breastplates of bull’s hide, though the Germans generally
placed little reliance in defensive armour. The Ethiopians used the
skins of cranes and ostriches for their armour.[42]
[Illustration: PLATE VIII.]
We learn from Herodotus that it was from the Libyans the Greeks derived
the apparel and aegis of Minerva, as represented upon her images, but
instead of a pectoral of scale armour, that of the Libyans was merely
of skin.[43] According to Smith’s _Dict. of Gr. and Roman Antiquities_
(s.v. _lorica_), the Greek ‘thorax’, called στάδιος, from its standing
erect by its own stiffness, was originally of leather, before it was
constructed of metal. In Meyrick’s _Ancient Armour_, there is the
figure of a suit, supposed formerly to have belonged to the Rajah of
Guzerat (Plate VIII, fig. 15). The body part of this suit is composed
of four pieces of rhinoceros hide, showing that, in all probability,
this was the material originally employed for that particular class of
armour, which is now produced of the same form in metal, a specimen of
which, from the Museum of the Institution, taken from the Sikhs, is now
exhibited (Fig. 16).
[Illustration: PLATE IX.]
In more advanced communities, as skins began to be replaced by woven
materials, quilted armour supplied the place of hides. In those parts
of the Polynesian Islands in which armour is used, owing probably
to the absence of suitable skins, woven armour appears to have been
employed in a comparatively low state of society. Specimens of this
class of armour from the Museum of the Institution are exhibited; they
are from the Kingsmill Islands, Pleasant Island, and the Sandwich
Islands. A helmet from the latter place (Pl. VIII, fig. 17) much
resembles the Grecian in form, while the under tippet, from Pleasant
Island (Pl. VII, fig. 18), may be compared to the pectoral of the
Egyptians (Fig. 19, _a_ and _b_), which, as well as the head-dress (Pl.
VIII, fig. 20), was of a thickly quilted material. The Egyptians wore
this pectoral up to the time of Xerxes, who employed their sailors,
armed in this way, during his expedition into Greece. Herodotus says
that the Indians of Asia wore a thorax of rush matting.[44] In 1514,
Magellan[45] found tunics of quilted cotton, called ‘laudes’, in
use by the Muslims of Guzerat and the Deccan. An Indian helmet of
this description from my collection (Fig. 21) is exhibited; in form
it resembles the Egyptian, and an Ethiopian one (Fig. 22), composed
of beads of the same form, brought from Central Africa by Consul
Petherick, is exhibited. Fig. 23 shows that the same form, in India,
was subsequently produced in metal. A suit of quilted armour formerly
belonging to Koer Singh, and lately presented to the Institution by Sir
Vincent Eyre, is also exhibited (Plate VII, fig. 24). The body armour
and helmet found upon Tippoo Sahib at his death, which are now in the
Museum of the Institution (Plate IX, fig. 25, _a_, _b_, and _c_), were
thickly quilted. Upon the breast, this armour consists of two sheets
of parchment, and nine thicknesses of padding composed of cocoons of
the _Saturnia mylitta_, stuffed with the wool of the _Eriodendron
anfractuosum, D.C._, neatly sewn together, as represented in fig. 25
_b_.[46] The Aztecs and Peruvians also guarded themselves with a wadded
cotton doublet.[47] Quilted armour or thick linen corselets were used
by the Persians, Phoenicians, Chalybes, Assyrians, Lusitanians, and
Scythians, by the Greeks, and occasionally by the Romans.[48] By the
Persians it was used much later; and in Africa to this day, quilted
armour, of precisely the same description, is used both for men and
horses by the Bornouese of Central Africa, and is described by Denham
and Clapperton[49] (Plate VIII, fig. 26). Plate VII, fig. 27, is a suit
of armour in the Institution, from the Navigator Islands, composed of
coco-nut fibre coarsely netted. Fig. 28 is part of a Chinese jacket of
sky-blue cotton, quilted with enclosed plates of iron; it is precisely
similar to the ‘brigandine jacket’ used in Europe in the sixteenth
century, which was composed of ‘small plates of iron quilted within
some stuff’, and ‘covered generally with sky-blue cloth’.[50] This
class of armour may be regarded as a link connecting the quilted with
the scale armour, to be described hereafter.
As a material for shields, the hides of animals were employed even more
universally, and up to a later stage of civilization. In North America
the majority of the wild tribes use shields of the thickest parts of
the hides of the buffalo.[51] In the New Hebrides the skin of the
alligator is used for this purpose, as appears by a specimen belonging
to the Institution. In Africa the Fans of the Gaboon employ the hide of
the elephant for their large, rectangular shields.[52] The Wadi, the
Wagogo, and the Abyssinians in East Africa, have shields of buffalo’s
hide, or some kind of leather, like the Ethiopians of the time of
Herodotus. The ox-hide shields of the Greeks are mentioned in Homer’s
_Iliad_; that of Ajax was composed of seven hides with a coating of
brass on the outside. The spear of Hector is described as piercing six
of the hides and the brass coating, remaining fixed in the seventh
hide.[53] The Kaffirs, Bechuanas, Basutos, and others in South Africa,
use the hide of the ox.[54] The Kelgeres, Kelowi, and Tawarek, of
Central Africa, employ the hide of the Leucoryx antelope.[55] Shields
of the rhinoceros hide, from Nubia, and of the ox, from Fernando Po,
are exhibited. In Asia the Biluchi carry shields of the rhinoceros
horn, and the same material is also used in East Africa. A specimen
from Zanzibar is in the Institution. In the greater part of India the
shields are made of rhinoceros and buffalo’s hide, boiled in oil, until
they sometimes become transparent, and are proof against the edge of a
sabre.[56]
In a higher state of civilization, as the facilities for constructing
shields of improved materials increased, the skins of animals were
still used to cover the outside. Thus the negroes of the Gold Coast
made their shields of osier covered with leather.[57] That of the
Kanembu of Central Africa is of wood covered with leather,[58] and very
much resembles in form that of the Egyptians, which, as we learn from
Meyrick and others, was also covered with leather, having the hair on
the outside like the shields of the Greeks.[59] The Roman ‘scutum’ was
of wood covered with linen and sheepskin. According to the author of
_Horae Ferales_, the Saxon shield was of wood covered with leather; the
same applies to the Scotch target, and leather was used as a covering
for shields as late as the time of Henry VIII.
_Head Crests._ The origin of the hairy crests of our helmets is clearly
traceable to the custom of wearing for head-dresses the heads and hair
of animals. The Asiatic Ethiopians used as a head-covering, the skin
of a horse’s head, stripped from the carcase together with the ears
and mane, and so contrived, that the mane served for a crest, while
the ears appeared erect upon the head (Hdt. vii. 70). In the coins
representing Hercules, he appears wearing a lion’s skin upon the head.
These skins were worn in such a manner that the teeth appeared grinning
at the enemy over the head of the wearer (as represented in Plate
VIII, fig. 29, which is taken from a bronze in the Blacas collection),
a custom which seems also to have prevailed in Mexico.[60] Similar
head-dresses are worn by the soldiers on Trajan’s Column. The horns
worn on the heads of some of the North American Indians (Fig. 30), and
in some parts of Africa[61], are no doubt derived from this practice
of wearing on the head the skins of animals with their appendages.
The helmet of Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, was surmounted by two goat’s
horns. Horns were afterwards represented in brass, on the helmets of
the Thracians (Fig. 31), the Belgic Gauls, and others. Fig. 32 is an
ancient British helmet of bronze lately found in the Thames, surmounted
by straight horns of the same material.[62] Horned helmets are figured
on the ancient vases. Fig. 33 is a Greek helmet having horns of brass,
and traces of the same custom may still be observed in heraldry.[63]
The practice of wearing head-dresses of feathers, to distinguish the
chiefs from the rank and file, is universal in all parts of the world,
and in nearly every stage of civilization. Amongst the North American
Indians the feathers are cut in a particular manner to denote the rank
of the wearer, precisely in the same manner that the long feathers
of our general officers distinguish them from those wearing shorter
feathers in subordinate ranks. This custom, Mr. Schoolcraft observes,
when describing the head-dresses of the American Indians, may very
probably be derived from the feathered creation, in which the males, in
most of the cock, turkey, and pheasant tribes, are crowned with bright
crests and ornaments of feathers.[64]
_Solid Plates._ It has often struck me as remarkable that the shells of
the tortoise and turtle, which are so widely distributed and so easily
captured, and which would appear to furnish shields ready made to the
hand of man, should seldom, if ever, in so far as I have been able
to learn, be used by savages for that purpose. This may, however, be
accounted for by the fact that _broad_ shields of that particular form,
though common in more advanced civilizations, are never found in the
hands of savages, at least in those localities in which the turtle, or
large tortoise, is available.
It will be seen subsequently, in tracing the history of the shield,
that in the rudest condition of savage life, this weapon of defence has
a history of its own; that both in Africa and Australia it is derived
by successive stages from the stick or club, and that the broad shield
does not appear to have been developed until after mankind had acquired
sufficient constructive skill to have been able to form shields of
lighter and more suitable materials than is afforded by the shell of
the turtle. It is, however, evident that in later times the analogy
was not lost sight of, as the word ‘testudo’ is a name given by the
Romans to several engines of war having shields attached to them, and
especially to that particular formation of the legionary troops, in
which they approached a fortified building with their shields joined
together, and overlapping, like the scaly shell of the imbricated
turtle, which is a native of the Mediterranean and Asiatic seas.
_Jointed Plates._ In speaking of the jointed plates, so common to all
the crustacea, it is sufficient to notice that this class of defence in
the animal kingdom, may be regarded as the prototype of that peculiar
form of armour which was used by the Romans, and to which the French,
at the commencement of the seventeenth century, gave the name of
‘écrevisse’, from its resemblance to the shell of a lobster. The fluted
armour, common in Persia, and in the middle ages of Europe, is also
constructed in exact imitation of the corrugated shell defences of a
large class of the Mollusca.
_Scale Armour._ That scale armour derived its origin from the scales of
animals, there can be little doubt. It has been stated on the authority
of Arrian (_Tact._ 13. 14), that the Greeks distinguished scale armour
by the term λεπιδωτός, expressive of its resemblance to the scales of
fish; whilst the jointed armour, composed of long flexible bands, like
the armour of the Roman soldier, and the ‘écrevisse’ of the middle
ages, was called φολιδωτός from its resemblance to the scales of
serpents. The brute origin of scale armour is well illustrated by the
breastplate of the Bugo Dyaks, a specimen of which, from the Museum
of the Institution, is represented in Plate IX, fig. 34. The process
of its construction was described in a notice attached to a specimen
of this armour in the Exhibition of 1862. The scales of the Pangolin
are collected by the Bugis as they are thrown off by the animal, and
are stitched on to bark with small threads of cane, so as to overlap
each other in the same manner that they are arranged on the skin of
the animal. When the front piece is completely covered with scales, a
hole is cut in the bark for the head of the wearer. The specimen now
exhibited appears, however, to be composed of the entire skin of the
animal. Captain Grant, in his _Walk across Africa_, mentions that the
scales of the armadillo are in like manner collected by the negroes of
East Africa, and worn in a belt ‘three inches across’, as a charm.[65]
It is reasonable to suppose that the use of scale armour, in most
countries, originated in this manner by sewing on to the quilted armour
before described, fragments of any hard material calculated to give
it additional strength. Plate VIII, fig. 35, is a piece of bark from
Tahiti, studded with pieces of coco-nut stitched on. The Sarmatians and
Quadi are described by Ammianus Marcellinus as being protected by a
‘lorica’, composed of pieces of horn, planed and polished, and fastened
like feathers upon a linen shirt.[66] Pausanias also, who is confirmed
by Tacitus, says that the Sarmatians had large herds of horses, that
they collected the hoofs, and after preparing them for the purpose,
sewed them together, with the nerves and sinews of the same animal,
so as to overlap each other like the surface of a fir cone, and he
adds, that the ‘lorica’ thus formed was not inferior to that of the
Greeks either in strength or elegance. The Emperor Domitian had, after
this model, a cuirass of boar’s hoofs stitched together.[67] Fig. 36
represents a fragment of scale armour made of horn, found at Pompeii.
A very similar piece of armour (Fig. 37), from some part of Asia, said
to be from Japan, but the actual locality of which is not known, is
figured in Meyrick’s _Ancient Armour_, pl. iii. 1. It is made of the
hoofs of some animal, stitched and fastened so as to hold together
without the aid of a linen corselet. An ancient stone figure[68]
(Plate IX, fig. 38), having an inscription in a character cognate to
the Greek, but in an unknown language, and covered with armour of this
description, is represented in the third volume of the _Journal of the
Archaeological Association_. The Kayans, inhabiting the eastern coast
of Borneo, form a kind of armour composed of little shells placed one
overlapping the other, like scales, and having a large mother-of-pearl
shell at the end. This last portion of the armour is shown in the
figure of the Kayan war-dress already referred to (Plate VII, fig. 13).
Plate VIII, fig. 39, is a back- and breast-piece of armour from the
Sandwich Islands, composed of seals’ teeth, set like scales, and united
with string.
Similar scales would afterwards be constructed in bronze and iron.
It was thus employed by the Egyptians (Plate IX, fig. 40), two scales
of which are shown in Fig. 41; also by the Persians, Assyrians,
Philistines, Dacians, and most ancient nations.