The morning call., 1893-07-06
THE MAZE,
Market, Taylor and Golden Cate Avenue.
ART AMONG BARBARIANS.
The Same Idea Found Among Peoples
Who Live Far Apart.

London News.
There is question which constantly
haunts the antiquarian mind like ghost
in an old house. That question is, how did
tritling matters-a song. story, game, n
toy-come to be scattered widely among
the most remote and ignorant peoples? In
the case of customs and of myths we may
often deem that the mind of man
reacts alike to the same impulses from ma
ture or from human needs. An ancestor Of
Gibbon, who was q herald and had been a
blue mantle, retired to America in the sew
enteenth century. and there he found
heraldc bearings among the red men
of Virginia. The savage dancers
were painted. some party per pale
'gup and SAB some party per Jesse OF
the soma coors," whence Edward Gibbon
inferred that "heradry was migrated nat
nrally into the sense of the human race"
That is. heraldry is an Inmate idea" AS
Max Muller remarks in his new volume of
Lectures on TheOsophy," we can no
longer accept the theory Of innate ideas
and of party per fessa." or crests, as
ready-made parts of the human intellect.
Certain arrangements OF coiors. certain in
dications of lineage by crests are attractive
and convenient. So they have been
adopted everywhere.
1t is more puZzling when we find what
is called in India the "svastika," cross
with legs at right angles to the main
limbs, n OF only existing as a sacred en-
blem in India. but carved on stones in
South America. This does not seem to
have an obvious original meaning as
symbol. Is it merely an ornamental design
to which the Indian mind later attached
sacred sense? 1t is found op pottery from
Hissarlik. DR.. Settlements Troy. and or
old Mexican pottery. II it is only piece
of decoration, like the Greek key pattern
and wave pattern, also found in old Peru.
we may perhaps decide that the human
mind naturally hits on some simple pat
terms. like the spirals of Mycenaan art,
found also in the ruined palace Kuenaten,
in Egypt and in New Zealand and Celtic
art. We can conceive that the pattern
spread from Egypt to Greece and thence
to the Norsemen and the Celts, but we
can scarcely Imagine that 1t was carried
in prehistoric times to New Zealand.
Again. Mir. Tylor has traced an oriental
form of backgammon to Mexico, and we
cannot be certain whether Il rather COM
plIcated game reached America from Asia
or was independently invented by the
AZtecs.
A very curious example Of this class As Of
problem has been discovered by E. S.
Morse and is published in the bulletin of
the Essex Institute Salem. Mass.) In the
Ashmolean museum at Oxford may be seen
an old Egyption toy found by Flinders
Petrie in The cemetery of Havana. 1t is
engraved in his work on Hawara, Beahmu
ana Arsino. cities of the Fayoum. The
cemetery of Havana is only about as old as
our era, which is modern for Egypt. The toy
is OF wood and represents bird on wheels.
In the neck is hole, through which
string was tied and some child of Hawara
led his toy about by the string. This is
not a very obvious kind Of toy, for the
movement of wheels is not like the hop OF
bird. In modern toyshops dogs set on
wheeled boards are common; in the
Egyptian example there is no board, but
the wheels are under the wings and level
with the hOdy. The Egyptians, of course.
as civilized people. had for thousands of
yeara been familiar with wheels, and the
toy. though rare in kind, has nothing to
arouse curiosity But it is another matter
when Mr.. Morse discovers precisely
similar toy. probably some 200 years old.
among the Amos of far EesterH Siberia.
Tho Amos are of peculiarly hairy race.
who have a fable that they are descended
from bears, which they ignorantly
worship. They are. or very lately were,
savages in very low grade, and with
wheels they have no acquaintance any
more than Liddesdale had before Scott