and defensive, especial forms would be used for defence, whilst
others would be retained for offensive purposes; but the shield for
some time would continue to be used merely as a parrying instrument.
Such it is in Australia. In its most primitive form, it is merely a
kind of stick with an aperture cut through it in the centre for the
hand. The fore part varies with the shape of the stem out of which it
was made; in some it is round, in others flat. This form appears to
have branched off into two varieties; one developed laterally, and
at last assumed the form of a pointed oval, as represented in Plate
XVI, figs. 165 to 169; these are frequently scored on the front with
grooves to catch the lance points. The other variety appears to have
assumed a pointed form in front, so as to make the spear glance off
to one side, as represented in figs. 160 to 164. The Australians are
exceedingly skilful in parrying with these shields. One of the feats
of the Australians now in this country, consists in parrying cricket
balls thrown with full force by three persons at the same time. The
‘heileman’ is cut out of the solid tree and, like all their other
weapons, invariably follows the grain of the wood.
In 1861, Mr. Oldfield, when engaged in collecting specimens of timber
for the International Exhibition, came upon one of these shields,
nearly finished, and abandoned, but only requiring a few strokes to
detach it from the growing tree; and he noticed the immense time and
labour it must have cost the native to construct it, not less than 30
cubic feet of wood having been removed in digging it out of the tree
with no better tool than a flint fixed to the end of a stick. Trees
of sufficient size for these shields are not found in all parts of
Australia, and in those places where they are wanting, the natives
only obtain them by traffic with other tribes. The same cause may
also account, in some measure, for the varieties of their form, yet,
notwithstanding these numerous varieties, they never leave the normal
type throughout the continent, and you might as well expect to see the
Australian using a firelock of native manufacture, as to find in his
hands the circular flat shield which is common in Africa, America, and
ancient Europe.
_Transition from Club to Shield (Africa)._
In Africa, the development of the shield appears to have followed
precisely the same course, commencing with the plain stick or club,
Pl. XVI, fig. 170, and passing through the varieties represented in
figs. 171, 172, and 173, which are scarcely distinguishable from the
Australian ‘heileman’, to the oval shield of the Kaffirs, fig. 174,
and of the Upper Nile, figs. 175 and 176, which are of ox hide, but
show their origin by a stick passing down the centre and grasped in
the hand; with this stick they parry and turn off the lances of the
assailant precisely in the same manner that the Australian employs the
projecting point at the end of his oval shield. Judging by the side
views represented in the Egyptian and Assyrian sculptures, similar
shields were used by the ancients, and we may especially notice the
Assyrian shield, of small dimensions, fig. 178, mentioned by Mr.
Rawlinson as being represented in the Assyrian sculptures, and having
projecting spikes on the fore part, to catch and throw off the enemy’s
weapons (_Five Great Monarchies_ (1864), vol. ii. p. 51).
_Development of the Shield._
All these antique shields have one other feature in common with the
shields of existing aborigines, viz. that they are held by a handle
in the centre. It was only in a more advanced age, when armies began
to fall into serried ranks, that the broad shield was introduced
and held upon the left arm, a mode of carrying it ill adapted to
the requirements of the light-armed combatants. Besides the oval,
the shield took other forms, but appears always to have been narrow
in its earliest developments: fig. 176 from the Upper Nile closely
resembles in outline fig. 177 from the New Hebrides. Livy describes
the shields of the Gauls in the attack of Mount Olympus, B.C. 189, as
being too narrow to defend them against the missiles of the Romans,
and he also describes them as brandishing their shields in a peculiar
manner practised in their original country.[181] This must without
doubt have been connected with the operation of parrying. Sir Walter
Scott describes the Scotch parrying with their shields. Shields in the
form of a figure 8 are met with in various countries; Captain Grant
describes the Unyamwezi as carrying a shield of this form.[182] Fig.
179 from this Institution is from Central Africa, of a very primitive
form. Fig. 180 is of the same shape from New Guinea, and the beautiful
bronze shield, fig. 181[183], of the late Celtic period, in the British
Museum, found in the Thames, appears to be of an allied form. Fig.
182 is an ox-hide shield of the Basutos; it is allied to that of the
Kaffirs, Fig. 174, by having a stick at the back, and the peculiar
wings with which it is furnished connect it with that of the Fans of
the Gaboon, on the West Coast, fig. 183, which latter is of elephant
hide and has no stick at the back. No connexion that I am aware of is
known to have existed between these remote tribes, which are of totally
different races, but the forms of their shields here represented must,
I think, have been derived from a common source.
_Concluding Remarks._
It would be quite impossible within the space of a single lecture to
produce more than a very small portion indeed of the evidence which is
available in support of my arguments. If the principles which I have
enunciated are sound, they must be applicable to the whole of the arts
of mankind and to all time. If it can be proved that a single art,
contrivance, custom, or institution, sprang into existence in violation
of the law of continuity, and was not the offspring of some prior
growth, it will disprove my theory. If in the whole face of nature
there is undoubted evidence of any especial fiat of creation having
operated capriciously, or in any other manner than by gradual evolution
and development, my principles are false.
It would be a violation of the law of continuity, for example, if the
principles which I am now advocating, in common with many others at the
present time, opposed as they are to many preconceived notions, were
suddenly to receive a general and widespread acceptance. This also,
like other offsprings of the human mind, must be a work of development,
and it will require time and the labours of many individuals to
establish it as the truth, if truth it be.
Meanwhile it may be well that I should briefly sum up the several
points which I have endeavoured to prove on the present occasion.
I have endeavoured to prove in the first place, though I must here
repeat that I have produced only a very small portion of the evidence
on the subject, that all the implements of the stone age are traceable
by variation to a common form, and that form the earliest; that their
improvement spread over a period so long as to witness the extinction
of many wild breeds of animals; that it was so gradual as to require
no effort of genius or of invention; and that it was identical in all
parts of the world.
I have shown in the second place, that all the weapons of the
Australians which I have described, are traceable by variation to
the same common form, or to forms equally as primitive as those of
the stone age of Europe; that it is perfectly consistent with the
phenomena observed, that these variations may have resulted, or at
least may have in a great measure been promoted by accidental causes,
such as the grain of the wood influencing the shape of the weapon;
that they were not invented or designed for especial purposes, but
that their application to such purposes may have resulted from a
selection of the implements already in hand; and that by this process,
the natives of Australia, during countless ages, may have crept on,
almost unconsciously, from the condition of brutes, to the condition of
incipient culture in which they are now found.
I have compared these weapons of the Australians with others of the
same form in various parts of the world, showing grounds for believing
that whenever we shall be able to collect a sufficient variety of
specimens to represent the continuous progression of each locality, the
_modus operandi_ will be found to have been everywhere the same.
Lastly, I have alluded cursorily to the analogy which exists between
the development of the arts and the development of species. It may be
better to postpone any comprehensive generalization on this subject
until a much larger mass of evidence has been collected and arranged.
Sir Charles Lyell has devoted a chapter in his work on the _Antiquity
of Man_ to a comparison of the development of languages and the
development of species. ‘We may compare,’ he says, 'the persistency of
languages, or the tendency of each generation to adopt without change
the vocabulary of its predecessor, to the force of inheritance in the
organic world, which causes the offspring to resemble its parents. The
inventive power which coins new words or modifies old ones, and adapts
them to new wants and conditions as often as they arise, answers to
the variety-making power in the animal creation.’ He also compares
the selection of words and their incorporation into the language of a
people, with the selection of species, resulting in both cases in the
survival of the fittest (4th ed., 1873, p. 503).
Whilst, however, we dwell upon the analogy which exists between the
phenomena of the organic world and the phenomena of human culture,
we must not omit to notice the points of difference. The force of
inheritance may resemble in its effects the principle of conservatism
in the arts and culture of mankind, but they are totally dissimilar
causes.
The variety-making power may resemble the inventive power of man;
nothing, however, can be more dissimilar, except as regards results.
When, therefore, we find that like results are produced through the
instrumentality of totally dissimilar causes, we must attribute the
analogy to some prior and more potent cause, influencing the whole
alike.
It might be premature to speculate upon the course of reasoning which
this class of study is likely to introduce; this much, however, we may,
I think, safely predict as the result of our investigation, that we
shall meet with no encouragement to deify secondary causes.
Another subject to which we must necessarily be led by these
investigations, although, as I before said, it does not fall actually
within the scope of my paper, is the question of the unity or plurality
of the human race.
The ethnologist and the anthropologist who has not studied the
prehistoric archaeology of his own country compares the present
condition of savages with that of the Europeans with whom they are
brought in contact. He notices the vast disparity of intellect between
them. He finds the savage incapable of education and of civilization,
and evidently destined to fall away before the white man whenever the
races meet, and he jumps at the conclusion that races so different in
mental and physical characteristics, must have had a distinct origin,
and be the offspring of separate creations. But the archaeologist
traces back the arts and institutions of his own people and country
until he finds that they once existed in a condition as low or lower
than that of existing savages, having the same arts, and using
precisely the same implements and weapons; and he arrives at the
conclusion that the difference observable between existing races is
one of divergence, and not of origin; that owing to causes worthy of
being carefully studied and investigated, one race has improved, while
another has progressed slowly or remained stationary.
In this conclusion he is borne out by all analogy of nature, in which
he finds frequent evidences of difference produced by variation, but no
one solitary example of independent creation. Are not all the branches
of a young tree parts of the same organism; and yet one will be seen to
throw up its shoots with a vigorous and rapid growth, whilst another
turns towards the ground and ultimately decays? Not to mention the
variations produced by the breeding of animals, with which we are
all more or less familiar, we see under our own eyes families of men
diverging in this manner. One branch, owing to causes familiar to us in
everyday life, will become highly cultivated, whilst another continues
to live on in a low condition of life, so that in the course of a few
years the disparity, mental and physical, between these two branches,
bearing the same name, will be greater, in proportion to the time of
separation, than that which, in the course of countless ages, has
separated the black from the white man.
At the present time there is a tendency to rectify these inequalities,
whether in regard to our own or to other races, and there can be little
doubt that in the course of time, all that remains of the various races
of mankind will be brought under the influence of one civilization. But
as this progressive movement is often led by men who have not made the
races of mankind their study, they are perpetually falling into the
error of supposing, that the work of countless ages of divergence, is
to be put to rights by Act of Parliament, and by suddenly applying to
the inferior races of mankind laws and institutions for which they are
about as much fitted as the animals in the Zoological Gardens.
In conclusion, I have only a few words to say upon the defects of our
ethnographical collections generally. It will be seen that in order to
exhibit the continuity and progression of form, I have been obliged to
collect and put together examples from many different museums; and,
as it is, it will have been noticed that many links of connexion are
evidently wanting. This is owing, in a great measure, to the very short
period during which the arts and customs of primaeval races have been
made the subject of scientific investigation; but it also arises from
the absence of system on the part of travellers and collectors, who in
former times appear to have had but little knowledge of the evidence
which these specimens of the industry of the aborigines are destined
to convey, and who have, therefore, neglected to bring home from the
various regions they visited all the varieties of the several classes
of implements which each country is capable of affording, thinking that
one good example of a tool or weapon might be taken as a sample of all
the rest.
I am not so presumptuous as to suppose that the particular arrangement,
which I have adopted, may not require frequent modification as our
evidence accumulates; but I trust that I shall at least have made it
apparent to those who have followed the course of my argument, that
without the connecting links which unite one form with another, an
ethnographical collection can be regarded in no other light than a mere
toy-shop of curiosities, and is totally unworthy of science.
Owing to the wide distribution of our Army and Navy, the members of
which professions are dispersed over every quarter of the globe and
have ample leisure for the pursuit of these interesting studies, this
Institution possesses facilities for forming a really systematic
collection of savage weapons, not perhaps within the power of any
other Institution in the world. The time is fast approaching when
this class of prehistoric evidence will no longer be forthcoming. The
collection is already what, for this country, must be regarded as a
good one, and if I may venture to hope that the remarks I have now the
honour of making will be of service in collecting the materials for the
improvement of it, I trust it may be thought that my labours and your
patience will not have been thrown away.
FOOTNOTES:
[126] A Lecture delivered at the Royal United Service Institution on
June 5, 1868, and printed in the _Journal of the R. U. S. Inst._, vol.
xii (1868), pp. 399-439, pl. xvii-xxi (= Plates XII-XVI herewith).
[127] Klemm, l. c., p. 147.
[128] Pinkerton (1811), vol. ix. p. 501.
[129] _Walk across Africa_, p. 78.
[130] Klemm, l. c., p. 62.
[131] l. c., p. 78.
[132] l. c., pp. 123-6.
[133] Speke, _Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile_
(London, 1863), p. 460.
[134] _Barth_, Travels, vol. iii. p. 162.
[135] Nilsson, _The Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia_, edited by
Sir John Lubbock (3rd ed., London, 1868), p. 44.
[136] Lloyd Stephens, _Incidents of Travel in Central America_ (London,
1854), p. 94.
[137] Lyell, _Antiquity of Man_ (London, 1873), p. 161.
[138] I am informed by an eye-witness, that the Australian savages, in
climbing trees, use implements nearly similar to these, to cut notches
for their feet. The implement is held in the hand, without any handle.
Others are used in handles, either fastened with gum, or consisting of
a withe passed round the stone and tied underneath.
[139] Mr. Frere’s first discovery was in 1797 (_Archaeologia_,
xiii. p. 204). (M. Boucher de Perthes began work in 1837 (_De la
Création_, Paris, 1838), and published his _Antiquités Celtiques et
Antédiluviennes_ (vol. i) in 1847. His discoveries were, however, not
verified and accepted by the British observers till 1858-9.--ED.)
[140] See figures 23 and 32, as well as figure 17 _a_ from Central
India.
[141] March 5, 1868. _Proc. Soc. Ant. Lond._ 2nd Ser. iv. p. 85:
_Archaeologia_, xlii.
[142] Nilsson, _The Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia_, edited by
Sir John Lubbock (London, 1868), Editor’s Introduction, p. xxiv.
[143] The handle, since its discovery, has been fractured in four
places, and has shrunk a good deal from its original size.
[144] Cf. Kemble, _Horae Ferales_ (London, 1863), p. 134.
[145] Keller, _The Lake Dwellings of Switzerland_, transl. by J. E. Lee
(2nd ed. London, 1878), vol. i. pp. 111-3.
[146] Livingstone, _Missionary Travels and Researches in S. Africa_
(1857), p. 40.
[147] Lartet and Christy, _Reliquiae Aquitanicae_ (London, 1865-75,
passim).
[148] Wilde, _Catalogue of the Antiquities of the Museum of the Royal
Irish Academy_ (Dublin, 1863), vol. i. pp. 19-23.
[149] After having witnessed the process of fabricating flint
arrow-heads, as re-discovered by Mr. Evans, I am able to understand why
it is that the leaf-shaped form is of more frequent occurrence, and why
this and the long-tanged forms are so often rougher and less finished
than the other forms, the deep barbs and hollow base requiring much
greater skill than the former.
[150] Burton, _The City of the Saints_ (London, 1861), p. 146.
[151] Schoolcraft, _Information concerning ... the Indian Tribes of the
U.S.A._ (Philadelphia, 1851-9), vol. i. p. 212.
[152] In the museum belonging to the Cork College, there is a Peruvian
mummy, with which, amongst other articles, two of these arrow-pointed
knives were found.
[153] Siebold, _Nippon_ (Leiden, 1832-52), vol. i. pt. ii (Alte
Waffen), Tab. xi.
[154] Evidence of this transition may be seen by examining any number
of pattoo-pattoos. Some are sharp at the end; others are blunt at the
end, but sharp at the side near the broadest part.
[155] Since this paper was read to the Royal United Service
Institution, Sir John Lubbock has delivered a remarkably interesting
series of lectures on savages, in the course of which he took exception
to my classification of the Indian, African, and Australian boomerangs,
under the same head; giving as his reason that the Australian boomerang
has a return flight, whilst those of other nations have not that
peculiarity. If it could be shown that the Australian weapon had been
_contrived_ for the purpose of obtaining a return flight, I should
then agree with him in regarding the difference as generic. But the
course of my investigations tends to show that this was probably an
application of the weapon accidentally hit upon by the Australians, and
that it arose from a modification of weight and form, so trivial as
to prevent our regarding it as generically distinct from the others.
I therefore consider the Australian weapon to be a mere variety of
the implement which is common to the three continents. The difference
between us on this point, though one of terms, is nevertheless
important as a question of continuity. I am much gratified, however,
to find my opinions on many other points supported by Sir John’s high
authority.
[156] Henry Blount, _Voyage into the Levant_, 1634 (London, 1671), p.
91.
[157] Bosman, _Guinea_, Pinkerton (1811), vol. xvi. pp. 505-6.
[158] Kemble, _Horae Ferales_ (1863), p. 65.
[159] This weapon is called ‘leowel’ by the Australians now in this
country (1868).
[160] Duarte Barbosa, _A Description of the Coasts of East Africa and
Malabar_ (by Magellan), translated by the Hon. H. E. Stanley: Hakluyt
Society, xxxv (1866), pp. 100-1.
[161] Rosellini, _Monumenti dell’ Egitto e della Nubia_ (Pisa, 1834),
Monuments Civiles, pl. cxvii. 3; cxix. 1.
[162] Baker, _Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia_ (London, 1867), p. 511.
[163] Barth, l. c., vol. iii. pp. 231, 451, &c., &c.
[164] Petherick, _Egypt, the Soudan, and Central Africa_ (1861), p. 456.
[165] Du Chaillu, _Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa_
(London, 1861), p. 79.
[166] Gregory’s account of his expedition in 1861, _Journal of the
Royal Geographical Society_, vol. xxxii (1862), p. 378.
[167] Oldfield, ‘On the Aborigines of Australia,’ _Trans. Ethnol.
Soc._, vol. iii. pp. 261-2.
[168] _Expedition to the Interior of Eastern Australia_, by Major T.
L. Mitchell, Surveyor-General, _Journal of the Royal Geographical
Society_, vol. ii. pp. 325-6.
[169] [Darwin, _Journal_.] (But the quotation (from Darwin, _Journal of
Researches_ (London, 1845) pp. 433-4) refers to _Australia_, not New
Zealand.--ED.)
[170] Cook, _Third Voyage_ (London, 1842), vol. i. p. 273.
[171] Frobisher, _The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher_, ed. Collinson
(Hakluyt Society, 1867), p. 283.
[172] Cranz, _Historie von Grönland_^2 (1770), pp. 195-6, pl. v. 2 _f._
[173] Markham, _Tribes of the Valley of the Amazon_.--_Trans. Ethnol.
Soc._, N.S., vol. iii. p. 183.
[174] Smith, _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities_ (s. v. Hasta).
[175] Desor, _Les Palafittes ou Constructions Lacustres du Lac de
Neuchâtel_ (Paris, 1865), p. 87.
[176] Petherick, _Egypt, the Soudan, and Central Africa_ (1861), p. 391.
[177] Barth, l. c., vol. iii. p. 450.
[178] Campbell, _Thirteen Years amongst the Wild Tribes of Khondistan_
(London, 1864), p. 40.
[179] Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_ (1829), vol. ii. p. 489.
[180] Kolb, _Reise an das Capo du Bonne Esperance_ (Nürnberg, 1719),
pp. 477-8.
[181] Livy, Book xxxviii. ch. 17 and 21.
[182] Grant, _Walk across Africa_, p. 69.
[183] Kemble, _Horae Ferales_ (1863), p. 190, pl. xiv.
PRIMITIVE WARFARE
III
ON THE RESEMBLANCES OF THE WEAPONS OF EARLY RACES; THEIR
VARIATIONS, CONTINUITY AND DEVELOPMENT OF FORM: METAL PERIOD.[184]
Having in two previous lectures upon ‘Primitive Warfare’, delivered at
this Institution, spoken of the general principles to be observed in
studying the development of the weapons of savages and early races,
I need not preface the remarks I am about to offer by any detailed
allusion to the generalizations which I have already ventured to make,
but I will proceed at once to lay before you some additional facts
which I have collected in continuation of the same subject.
This I do the more readily, because I hold strongly to the opinion that
the value of a communication of this kind may, in a great degree, be
measured by the attention which is paid to the accumulation of facts,
and to the comparative brevity and simplicity of that portion of it
which relates to theory. Without general principles, however, we should
have no incentive to collect and systematize our facts, and they are
therefore valuable even where they involve--and in a new field of
study, such as I am now treating, with very scanty materials as yet at
our disposal to assist conjecture, I can hardly hope they should not
involve--a certain amount of error.