"the great inventive power that the 'savage' develops in all those fields that he deems worthy of interest." [My emphasis]
The Technology of Hamitic People: Chapter 2
NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER of invention (although laziness helps!) and food is a necessity. Primitive people have shown extraordinary ingenuity in obtaining food. We have already mentioned one or two devices used by the Eskimo - the spring bone for killing wolves, for example. In other parts of the world there is the same remarkable ingenuity - and not the least remarkable element is the variety.
Food Gathering Techniques
For example, according to George P. Murdock, the Ainu of Northern Japan use dogs to do their fishing for them. (21) To catch the shoals of fish in the shallow water along some of their coasts, the Ainu have trained their dogs to swim straight out to sea in a line. At a given signal, the dogs wheel around and come back in an arc towards the shore, barking and splashing thus driving the fish into even shallower water where each dog seizes one in his mouth, runs ashore, and drops it at his master's feet, receiving the fish's head as a reward!
Ralph Linton speaks of one device for catching wild fowl, which he feels should certainly be awarded top prize for simple ingenuity: (22) A flat stone of about 18" diameter is given a small raised rim of mud or clay, and certain nuts are placed in the enclosure. These nuts are a particular delight of the local guinea fowl. But the natives of several parts of Africa where these birds are found, take care to ensure that the nuts are just too large for the fowl to pick up in their beaks. Attracted to the food, the birds try again and again to get the nuts in their mouth, each time striking the flat rock with their beak instead. They are persistent creatures apparently, and so they keep it up until their beaks are quite swollen and they have literally knocked themselves silly. Each day the owner of the stone comes by and picks up the stupefied birds from the immediate neighbourhood.
Poultry farmers have found that the same thing can happen to chickens fed on a concrete floor. But there is no evidence that Indo-Europeans ever put this observation to any practical use.
In this connection we may mention a further example of native ingenuity found in certain parts of Oceania, where there are cuttlefish which have long sucker-tipped arms that are stretched out to catch fish. The natives attach these cuttlefish to lines and use them to catch food for themselves instead. (23)
Lord Raglan tells how, in some areas of Oceania, the natives of Java, of the Banda Islands, and the Dobuans, catch a particular species of fish that is difficult to approach by using fishing-kites. (24) The kite is flown on a line of some length, and the fish hook dangles from the tail of the kite, thus allowing the fisherman to keep a considerable distance from the fish which would otherwise evade him.
It is well known that the Japanese have for years used cormorants to do their fishing for them. (25) The birds seem to be well trained and to enjoy themselves immensely! The Samoans use a native plant drug which, when poured on the water, makes the fish dopey and easy to catch. (26) According to Carleton Coon, the Australian aborigines poison the water holes with a mild drug that similarly makes the animals who drink from them stupefied. (27) By such means, for example, they easily catch the swift-footed emu. A paper published by the Smithsonian Institution lists hundreds of such poisons used by primitive people in all parts of the world to catch game. (28)
The Terra del Fuegians have so many different traps and other devices for catching ducks and geese, etc., that it would be wearying to detail them. Coon refers to them as being many, ingenious, and varying according to the nature of the locality. (29) They are, moreover, characterized by a remarkable degree of originality, so that it becomes difficult to imagine any further alternatives. Yet these same Terra del Fuegians were considered by Darwin, when he visited them during his voyage with the Beagle, to be the very lowest of all humans - hardly people at all. (30) Sir John Lubbock shared this opinion. (31) Yet their inventiveness, where it had to be exercised, knew almost no limitations. I should like to draw attention to this point.
Inventiveness was exercised where needs arose, seldom otherwise. And this inventiveness did not (as ours so often does) display itself by merely modifying the products of others. The results were as diverse as they were original, and almost always characterized by a grand simplicity that is completely misleading to the Westerner, whose products are so terribly complicated. Simplicity is the very essence of genius!
Take as an illustration of this, the bola: here is a weapon that is effectiveness itself in bringing down small rapidly moving game. The device is composed of a number of stones (usually about 2" to 3" in diameter), around each of which a cord is fastened in a groove with a free end about 12 to 18" long. From four to eight such stones form the weapon, which is made by tying together the free ends of the long cords. Holding these cords at their junction, the native swings the stones around like a windmill and lets the whole affair fly at a flock of birds, or rabbits, or other such small game. The stones tend to part company in flight, but only to the extent of the cords which tie them to one another. The weapon is thus widely spread by the time it reaches the game, and the chance of a hit is greatly increased. The same effect is, of course, obtained with 'shot.' However, if any one of the stones makes contact or if any of the cords do, the whole weapon at once wraps itself around the victim and down it comes! What could be simpler?
These bolas are found in many parts of the world, and even in prehistoric sites - a mute testimony to the inventiveness even of prehistoric man, (32) for it seems hard to believe that they were invented only once and that all modern instances are derivatives.
Of all primitive people, perhaps the Australian aborigines have aroused the most interest, not merely because they are so well-known and among the last to retain, to a large extent, the greater part of their ancient skills and traditions but also because of the extraordinary simplicity of their material culture. Virtually the whole of a man's worldly wealth can normally be carried with him, often in one hand! Of added interest, of course, is the fact that they seem to be Negroid (because their skin is so very black) and yet have much body hair and bushy beards - which Negroes never have: thus their origin is somewhat of an intriguing mystery still.
But their ingenuity is also undoubted, in so far as they have cared to exercise it. Probably the supreme example of this is the boomerang. These weapons are also found in other parts of the world, and even in prehistoric sites. (33) As a weapon, it is remarkable: it has quite justly been called the first 'guided missile.' Of course, all thrown objects are 'guided' in a sense; but the boomerang can be so controlled in the hands of an expert that it will do extraordinary things in the air, and return to the sender if it misses the target - a great saving of effort, and a real advantage in war!
George Farwell recently authored an official Australian government paper on this device, in which the design of the weapon is carefully considered. It is a much more complex affair than would appear to the casual observer. Its response to controlled flight is outlined by the author, who then explains how this is possible. It is a technical achievement of no mean order, and one wonders what was going on inside the mind of the native who perfected it. Even if its special construction features were purely accidentally discovered at first, it is still true that the inventor discovered his discovery. This is not merely a play upon words. As we shall see subsequently, Indo-Europeans are still making notable discoveries and not recognizing them for what they are. Of the boomerang, Farwell writes: (34)
There are sound reasons for its design features. The underside of the arms are flat, the upper have a slight camber, a factor which provides lift. There is also a twist from the horizontal at the outer end of each arm, one upward, the other down, perhaps not more than two degrees in all. It may seem unreal to discuss a prehistoric weapon in terms of aerodynamics, but therein lies the remarkable achievement of the aborigine. His practical mind and acute observation anticipated certain ideas of the 20th century aircraft designers.
Sir Thomas Mitchell, the explorer, made the characteristic twist of the boomerang the basis for a new type of ship's propeller, which he patented 100 years ago. Early in this century G. T. Walker of Cambridge University, spent no less than ten years of research into the boomerang's properties, evolving certain theories on gyroscopic flight.
Farwell then elaborates somewhat on the dynamics of its flight and gives some examples of feats which the natives can achieve with very little effort. He presumes that it was perhaps by observing the flight of falling leaves with their curled up edges that the natives came to the idea. This sounds rather weak to me. At any rate, they created a very ingenious weapon, and we have found no way to improve it yet.
George Sarton (35) uses this weapon as an illustration of "the uncanny ingenuity of 'primitive' people." To this he adds the elastic plaited cylinder of jacitara palm bark, called a tipiti, which is used to extract the poison cyanide from the manioc, to which reference has already been made. As a third illustration, he refers to the prehistoric Chinese pottery vessels which took the form of a tripod, the legs of which were hollow and formed the containers. It thus anticipated by thousands of years the modern trisection aluminium wares! The legs straddled the fire. The shape, of course, permitted cooking three separate dishes at one time.
Medicine, Psychology and Sociology
In the Peruvian Andes, living at an elevation of 14,000 feet approximately, are the Aymara - believed to be the remnants of the creators of the Inca Empire. They are a rather impatient and ill-tempered people, according to some observers, possibly by reason of the rarefied atmosphere in which they live, and, possibly on the same account, they do not care to exert themselves much to improve their condition - although obviously this was not true in the past. But they have developed their medical skill quite extensively, and so organized the profession that there are specialists in the various fields, who refer patients to one another as seems necessary. (36) Like most primitive people, they mix magic with their medicine, but they evidently realize that the magic has a psychological value as much as anything. This is true of other such native people. A. P. Elkin has written on this point at some length and is convinced that the Witch Doctor is often a man, as he put it, of "High Degree," by which he means, relatively, a Ph.D. in the context of his own culture. (37) In the meantime, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the non-Indo-Europeans far anticipated us in their medical practice, as well as in the field of Psychology. I think this is particularly true in certain areas, such as in the problem of dealing with fear. Speaking of African medical skill, Grantly Dick Read points out: (38)
They had cures for diseases which modern science still finds difficult to heal - and sometimes the knowledge of a good witch doctor could be of very good use to modern psychology.
Frequently, of course, they did not reflect much upon the psychology they used - but it was always very practical in its application, and it represented a kind of deep wisdom which modern physicians sometimes lack. There are often amusing and revealing illustrations of this. In two areas, in particular, they explored widely - in person-to-person relationships (especially with near relatives) and in dealing with the supernatural. For example, they insisted, as a rule, that a man go to live with his wife's people. There are a number of very good reasons for this, not the least of which is the fact that they recognized that most emotional tensions revolve around the lady of the house. When a man goes to his wife's home, the lady of the house 'gains' a son. If, however, the wife goes to the husband's house to live, the lady of the house 'loses' a son! This is a serious thing - the root of much jealousy - and causes emotional tensions which they sought to avoid.
As an illustration of the second area in which Psychology is applied, one can cite a case that occurred in a Pueblo village after the last war. Many young Hopi volunteered for service overseas. This often badly confused their traditional cultural behaviour patterns. One anthropologist, noting this, suggested to a young Hopi veteran that he'd still be afraid to sleep in one of their ancient cemeteries. He laughingly denied this. So he and an old villager agreed to the test. The old man selected a spot to sleep, performed several little rites, sprinkling seed around his bed and urinating on the seed. With a brief prayer, he then lay down and slept like a child. The young man no longer believed in such things - neither the spirits (so he said) nor the 'magic.' He tossed and turned, quite unable to sleep - pretending to be unafraid and having no longer any accepted means to offset the fears he denied. He finally got up and returned to the village! A. P. Elkin gives many instances of this kind of thing in Australia, and says that he often spoke to the old men about their faith in the magic they used and was surprised to find how clearly they understood its psychological value. Some of the witch doctors were Ph.D.s in Psychology, rather than doctors with M.D.s, according to Elkin.
But even in the use of drugs that do actually work chemically the non-Indo-European has been far ahead of us. Aldous Huxley speaks of the use of such drugs and tranquilizers and other remedies for anxiety: (39)
Certain chemical compounds produce certain changes of consciousness and so permit a measure of self-transcendence and a temporary relief of tension. Thus, the so-called "tranquillizing drugs" are merely the latest addition to a long list of chemicals which have been used from time immemorial for changing the quality of consciousness and so making possible some degree of transcendence. Let us always remember that, while modern pharmacology has given us a host of new synthetics, it has made no basic discoveries in the field of the natural drugs; it has merely improved the methods of extraction, purification, and combination. All the naturally occurring sedatives, narcotics, euphorics, hallucinogens, and excitants were discovered thousands of years ago before the dawn of civilization. This surely is one of the strangest facts in that long catalogue of improbabilities known as human history. Primitive man, it is evident, experimented with every root, twig, leaf and flower, with every seed, nut and berry, and fungus, in his environment. Pharmacology is older then agriculture. There is good reason to believe that even in Palaeolithic times, while he was still a hunter and food gatherer, man killed his animals and human enemies with a poisoned arrow. By the Stone Age he was systematically poisoning himself. The preserved heads of poppy in the kitchen middens of the Swiss Lake dwellers shows how early in his history man discovered the techniques of self-transcendence through drugs. There were dope addicts long before there were farmers.
As an example of the extent to which such people go, it may be mentioned that the Jagga even developed truth serum. (40)
Claude Lévi-Strauss underscores another aspect of this psycho-medical contribution: (41)
The West, for all its mastery of machines, exhibits evidence of only the most elementary understanding of the use and potential resources of that super-machine, the human body. In this sphere on the contrary, the East and Far East are several thousand years ahead; they have produced the great theoretical and practical summae represented by Yoga in India, and Chinese "breath techniques," or the visceral control of the ancient Maoris....
In all matters touching on the organization of the family, and the achievement of harmonious relations between the family group and the social group, the Australian aborigines, though backward in the economic sphere, are so far ahead of the rest of mankind that, to understand the careful and deliberate system of rules they have elaborated, we have to use all the refinements of modern mathematics....
The Australians with an admirable grasp of the facts, have converted this machinery into terms of theory, and listed the main methods by which it may be produced, with the advantages and the drawbacks attaching to each. They have gone further than empirical observation to discover the laws governing the system, so that it is no exaggeration to say that they are not merely the founders of modern sociology as a whole, but are the real innovators of measurement in the social sciences.
Not all sociologists would agree with Lévi-Strauss, of course, but there is no doubt that the social aspects of human relationships have here been subjected to unusual scrutiny. It seems almost a rule, in fact, that the simpler the culture in its materials, the more elaborate its formalized social structure is apt to be, including its rituals. And conversely, the more complex the civilization, the less formal its social patterns are likely to be. Ralph Linton speaks of one occasion in an Australian tribe, where it happened that the regulations had become so involved that a time came when it was found nobody could properly get married any more. (42)
All the American Indians had an extensive medical knowledge. Their surgical skill was remarkable, and like non-Indo-Europeans in many other parts of the world, ancient and modern, they practised such delicate operations as trephination with remarkable success. (43) Such extremely delicate surgery implies the use of some kind of anaesthetic. Robert Lowie reminds us that we owe this very fundamental discovery to the South American Indian. As he says, "What is absolutely certain is that our local anaesthetics go back to the Peruvian Indian's coca leaves, whence our cocaine." (44)
Another important invention from the same source is the enema. Robert Heizer, in an issue of a well-known publication which was devoted to the history of this instrument, states that: (45)
The medical practices of the Indians of North and South America prior to the shattering of their cultures by Caucasian wars and exploitation, were truly amazing in their magnitude and excellence. Our fractional knowledge of these attainments derives from early historical records, ethno-botanical works by botanists and pharmacologists, and from intensive study of skeletal materials by trained observers. Included in the roster of medical techniques was the administration of enemas and lavements by means of a number of instruments - bulb and piston type syringes and clyster tubes.
Nordenskiold, speaking of the American Indian as an inventor, refers to such enema syringes, (46) one of which he illustrates. The illustration is taken from his work, and shows how little we have been able to improve upon it! Even the decorative scheme is in excellent taste, and the mode of manufacture was copied exactly when Indo-Europeans first began to exploit the native development of rubber latex.
The same writer also mentions the invention of tweezers for medical purposes, for which he gives the credit to the Araurcanians, another Peruvian tribe. The Jivaro Indians use the pincers of living ants for the purpose of suturing wounds (47) - a most extraordinary procedure that has been observed in other parts of the world also. The skin is drawn together, the small ant so applied that it seizes the suture and holds it tightly closed in its strong mandibles, and then the animal's body is quickly snipped off! So the series of fine pincers along the wound hold the skin lesions together till healing takes place. Erwin Ackernecht, (48) in writing of this interesting technique, concludes that it is a witness to
"the great inventive power that the 'savage' develops in all those fields that he deems worthy of interest." [My emphasis]
Top: A modern reed house from the Middle East. Center: The first toothbrush? This is reproduced from a Chinese manuscript which dates its invention to June 25, 1498. Bottom Left: A rubber-bilbed enema syringe from the Omagua Indians of Guiana and the Upper Amazon Basin. Bottom Right: One of the Parthian batteries reconstructed from remants found near Baghdad, Iraq.
Rubber Technology
We have mentioned rubber enemas. According to Nordenskiold, there appears to have been a secondary development arising out of the making of hollow rubber balls for games. (49) Such balls were made by forming a core of clay or some such material and then dipping this repeatedly in a solution of latex, allowing each coating to dry before applying the next one. When the skin was thick enough, a small round hole was cut through the rubber to the clay core and the latter was removed through the hole, a small amount at a time. The hole was then plugged with another wad of latex, in a semi-hard condition, and the whole re-dipped once more in latex thus sealing the air inside the ball. Solid balls were also made, which weighed as much as twenty-five pounds. These were used in the well-known games played by the Maya in such open courts as have been found at Chichen Itza, Mexico, and elsewhere.
An article in a rubber journal recently pointed out that these balls are only one example of the use made by the American Indian of this plastic material. (50) He also made watertight shoes, flasks, ponchos, and dolls. The same article states that:
The development and use of natural rubber by the American Indian is impressive, for in 300 years his "civilized" conquerors made little improvement in the ancient method of rubber manufacture.
The natives used a certain sap of a vine (Iponoea bona-nox) or from a liana (Catonyction speciosum) to coagulate the latex. Certain trees have the latex in a form which is rubber in suspension in water. The water can be evaporated and the rubber remains, without any need for a catalyst.
The story of Charles Goodyear's efforts to take over the development of rubber from the natives of Brazil and exploit it in America and elsewhere, is well known. The problem was to treat it so that it would retain its structure, even in hot weather. Their own rubber served the Indians well enough, especially since they had the secret of curing it by using local products as catalysts. (51) Goodyear, again and again, brought himself, his family, and his backers to the point of ruin and bankruptcy because he could not cure the stuff out of which he was trying to make raincoats, mail bags, and overshoes. As soon as warm weather came, his products turned into a sticky useless mess! Of course, he finally discovered how to cure by vulcanizing, using sulphur as a catalyst. But it seems probable that many of his heartbreaks never would have occurred if he had gone back to the originators of rubber articles and asked them to teach him what they knew first.
Moreover, it is very doubtful if Goodyear or anyone else of his cultural background would have seen, in the Brazilian forest, what the natives had seen, i.e., a natural product requiring only to be treated with another natural product to supply a remarkably versatile and useful material.
Textiles
In the matter of textiles, we have been borrowers in almost every detail. It is considered by G. P. Murdock that the Central American Indian excelled here also: (52)
In skill and technique in the textile arts the ancient Peruvians have had no equal in human history. They wove plain webs, double faced cloths, gauze and voile, knitted and crocheted fabrics, feather work, tapestries, fine cloths interwoven with gold and silver threads - employing in short, every technique save twilling known to the Old World, in addition to some peculiar to themselves.... They employed methods identical with those used in the famous Gobelin and Beauvais tapestries; they nevertheless in harmony of colours, fastness of dyes, and perfection of technique, far surpassed the finest products of Europe.
C. Langdon White says that the best of their fabrics were from the wool of the vicuna, softest of all animal fibres, with 270 threads to the inch, as compared with 140 threads otherwise considered to be outstanding. (53) M. D. C. Crawford, (54) writing in 1948 before certain very recent developments, underscores this achievement of the Indian. He made a particular study of this aspect of their art and skill, and concludes:
As a matter of fact, Europe has never produced a single original natural textile fibre or any dye except perhaps wool. She has not contributed a single fundamental or original idea to the basic mechanics of textiles, nor a single original and fundamental process of finishing, dyeing, or printing....
In the broader world history of textiles and cloth, the ingenious English inventions of the 18th century (led by Kay's fly-shuttle) are but incidental mechanical modifications and developments of older ideas which grew out of the social conditions in England, and were directly due to the importation of cotton and silk fabrics from the Far East during the 16th and 17th centuries. No new basic principles either in spinning, weaving, or fabric construction, nor new methods of decoration, dyes, colours, or designs, are involved in the English machines. The ancient principles of twisting and elongating masses of fibre into yarn, the principle of interlacing one set of filaments held in place between parallel bars of a second set of filaments, remains undisturbed. No new raw materials are involved: flax, hemp, wool, cotton, and silk, remain the principle fibres. And for colour the dyes of antiquity were still employed. As a matter of fact, all the dye raw materials of antiquity, both from Asia and America, were still mentioned in English dyer's manuals in the late part of the 19th century, and years after Perkin's experiments with coal tar derivatives in 1856.
Silk, of course, came to us from China, felt from Mongolia, (55) non-woven materials made from pulps were developed in Polynesia (tapa cloth, etc.). These last are coming into their own in our day, the capacity for greater production being about our only claim for credit. And even here, the claim may be somewhat premature, because considerable difficulty has been experienced thus far in the manufacture of such materials on a large scale. The native products are hand made, of course. Moreover, their methods of decoration, by tie-dyeing, batique, and silk-screen, are simply not applicable to mass production methods at present. We do not have time for tie-dyeing.
Moreover, as we shall see when we come to consider the textile 'industries' of ancient Sumeria, virtually the whole concept of mechanization, of large mills and hundreds of specialized workers each doing a single kind of operation, was well developed at least five thousand years ago in the Middle East.
Meanwhile the Egyptians succeeded in weaving such fine fabrics that they are still equal to our own best products woven by the very latest mechanical means. Some of the garments associated with King Tutankhamen's tomb have 220 threads to the inch. Common handkerchiefs today, of linen, show only about 60 to 70 threads per inch and good linen cloth for such purposes seldom has more than 100 threads per inch, or less than the Egyptian prototype.
Pottery
Pottery has always been a source of amazement, whether in the New World or the Old. Chinese pottery has long been prized for its beauty in form, colour and texture. Central American pottery is remarkable for its complete freedom of form, and for its ingenuity also. In an environment where evaporation rates are high, it is desirable to cut down the size of the opening at the top. But this makes pouring more difficult. The air rushing in suddenly causes the water to flow out unevenly, and to spill easily. But in many places water is too precious to be wasted in this way. The Peruvians and the Maya overcame this by putting two spouts on the pot so that one became both a handle and a separate air inlet. The variations on this theme were both ingenious and aesthetically pleasing. Not content with this, they even went further and so designed the passages, that when water was poured out, the air rushing in caused a whistle to blow. In some cases it is difficult to see why this was done, unless it was to warn the adults when the children were robbing them of a rather precious commodity! Other types seem clearly to have been whistling 'kettles' - a further effort to conserve waste by warning the lady of the house that the water was boiling away. (56)
Many of their vessels are shaped as heads, faces, animals, and even whole people. And these reproductions were not approximations. They were so lifelike, in many cases, that they must surely have been actual portraits. Their artistry and skill seem to have known no limits.
The same is true of Middle East pottery. In Minoan Crete the wares are of such delicacy that it seems they must be copies of originals made in hammered metal. Even the 'rivets' are indicated sometimes. They also reveal that the metal prototypes were sometimes formed by a process akin to deep drawing as we technically understand it now. Some of the pottery from the earliest levels at Tell Halaf and Susa is astonishing in its complete freedom of form and unbelievable delicacy. We shall refer to this subsequently.
Conclusion
The ingenuity and inventiveness of the primitive is impressive, not only in its simplicity and effectiveness, but also in its variety and diversity and can be seen even today where such societies have remained untouched by outside contacts.
Perhaps these abilities are limited and apply only to small societies? In the next chapter we shall examine how this same ingenuity and inventiveness is basic to the civilizations of the past.
References:
21. Linton Ralph, The Tree of Culture, New York, NY, Knopf, 1956, 83.
22. Cotton, Clare M., "Animals: Old Hands at Angling," Science News Letter, March 6, 1954, 155.
23. Raglan, Lord, How Came Civilization? London, UK, Methuen, 1939, 130.
24. Gudger, E. W., "Fishing with the Cormorant in Japan," Scientific Monthly, 29, July, 1929, 5 ff.
25. Murdock, G. P., op. cit., (ref. # 21), 51.
26. Coon, Carleton S., A Reader in General Anthropology, New York, NY, Henry Holt, 1948, 220.
27. Heizer, Robert F., "Aboriginal Fish Poisons," Paper No. 38, in Anthropological Papers, Bulletin 151, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 1953, 225, 283. Several hundred poisons are listed.
28. Coon, C. S., op. cit., (ref. #27), 220.
29. Darwin, Charles, Journal of Researches, New York, NY, Ward, Lock, & Co., preface dated 1845, 206ff.
30. Lubbock, Sir John, Prehistoric Times, New York, NY, New Science Library, J.A. Hill, 6th. ed., revised, 1904, 201.
31. Bolas: see Robert Braidwood, Prehistoric Men, Chicago, IL, Field Museum of Natural History, in Popular Series: Anthropology, No. 7, 1948, 56.
32. Boomerangs: these have also been reported from Egypt at Badari by Vere Gordon Childe, (New Light on the Most Ancient East, London, UK, Kegan Paul, 1935, 65) and in Europe, by Herbert Wendt, (I Looked for Adam, London, UK, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1955, 356).
33. Farwell, George, "The First Known Guided Missile," reprinted in the Globe & Mail, Toronto, ON, Saturday, August 29, 1953, 17, as a feature article, from the Australian Government Publication, South West Pacific.
34. Sarton, George, A History of Science, Cambridge, MA, Harvard, University Press, 1952, 5.
35. Tschopik Jr., H., "The Aymara," in the Handbook of South American Indians, published by the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1946, Vol. 2, Bulletin 143, 501-573.
36. Elkin, Adolphus P., Aboriginal Men of High Degree, Queensland University John Murtagh Macrossan Memorial Lectures of 1944, published by Australasian Publications, 1946.
37. Read, Grantly Dick, No Time for Fear, reviewed by W. A. Deacon in the Saturday Review of Books, Globe & Mail, Toronto, ON, August 11, 1956.
38. Huxley, Aldous, "History of Tension," Scientific Monthly, 87, July, 1957, 4, 5.
39. Truth serum: referred to by Robert Lowie, Social Organization, New York, NY, Rinehart, 1948, 168, 169.
40. Levi-Strauss, C., op. cit., (ref. #1), 27.
41. Linton, Ralph, The Study of Man, New York, N.Y, Appleton Century, Student's Edition, 1936, 90.
42. Popham, Robert, "Trepanation as a Rational Procedure in Primitive Surgery," University of Toronto Medical Journal, 31(5), February, 1954, 204, 211.
43. Lowie, Robert, An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, New York, NY, Farrar & Rinehart, 2nd ed., 1940, 336.
44. Heizer, Robert, "The Use of the Enema by the Aboriginal American Indians," Ciba Symposia, 5, February, 1944, 1686.
45. Nordenskiold, Erik, "The American Indian as an Inventor," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 59, 1929, 273, ff.
46. Ants used for suturing: see E. A. Underwood, (Nature, 175, February 19, 1955, 318) reviewing Lewis Cotlow, Amazon Head Hunters (London, UK, Robert Gale, 1954).
47. Ackernecht, Erwin, in Ciba Symposia, 10, July-August, 1948, 924, in a note under the title "An Ingenious Device for Stitching Wounds." The same author has a paper entitled "Primitive Surgery," American Anthropologist, New Series 49, January-March, 1947, in which he gives a bibliography on the subject of 204 references.
48. Rubber enemas: this is the opinion of E. Nordenskiold, op. cit., (ref. #46), 298.
49. Anonymous article in Rubber Age, November, 1956, 365..
50. Charles Goodyear: see on this, H. Stafford Hatfield, The Inventor and His World, Harmondsworth, UK, Penguin Books, 1948, 41-44.
51. Murdock, G. P., op. cit. (ref. #21), 428, 429.
52. White, C. Langdon, "Storm Clouds over the Andes," Scientific Monthly, May, 1950, 308.
53. Crawford, M.D.C., op cit., (ref. #17), 184, 185.
54. Felt: see Mabel C. Cole and Fay Cole, The Story of Man, Chicago, IL, Cuneo Press, 1940, 374.
55. Whistling kettles: on this see, T. Athol Joyce, "Marvels of the Potter's Art: In South America" in Wonders of the Past, edited by Sir John Hammerton, London, UK, Putnam's, 1924, Vol. 2, 464, 465.
Corrections, May 13, 1997.
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