The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1893-09-03
SCIENTISTS PUZZLED.
How Did Barbarous Tribes Get the Art
Works of Civilized PeOpfeY


There is a question which constantly
haunts the antiquarian mind like ghost
in an old house. That question is, How did
trifing matters-a song, story, game,
toy-come to be scattered widely among
the most remote and ignorant peoplesf In
the case Of customs and Of myths we may
often deem that the mind of man reacts
alike to the same impulses from nature or
from human needs.
An ancestor Of Gibbon, who was herald
and had been blue mantle, retired to Amer
lea IN the seventeenth century, and there
he found heraldic bearings among the red
men Of Virginia. The savage dancers were
painted, some party per pale gull and
sab some party per Jesse of the same
eolors." whence Edward Gibbon Inferred
that 'heraldry was eRgrafted naturally into
the sense of the human race" That Is,
heraldry is an Inmate idea" As Mr.. Max
Muller remarks in his Lectures on Theos-
ophy," we can no longer accept this theory
of innate ideas and of party per Jesse or
crests. as ready made parts Of the human
intellect. Certain arrangements OF colors,
certain indications OF lineage by crests, are
attractive and convenient, so they have, been
adopted everywhere
II is more puzzling when we find what Is
called in India the 'svastika," cross with
legs at right angles to the main limbs. not
only existing as sacred emblem In India,
but carved on stones in South America.
This does not seem TO have an obvious orig
inal meaning as a symbol Is 1t merely en-
ornamental design to which the indian
mind later attached a sacred sensei Ii Is
found on pottery from Hissarlik, DR.. Schlie-
manns Troy, and on old Mexican pottery.
If 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 patterns, like the spirals Of Myce-
mean art, found also in the ruined palace OF
Kuenaten, IN Egypt and In New Zealand
and Celtic art We can conceive that the
pattern spread from Egypt 10 Greece and
thence to the Norsemen and the Celts, but
we can scarcely imagine that 1t was carried
I'm prehistoric times to New Zealand. Again,
Mr. Tylor has traced an oriental form Of
backgammon TO Mexico, and we cannot be
certain whether rather complicated game
reached America from Asia or was indie
pendently invented by the Aztecs.
A very curious example OF this class OF
problem has been discovered by Mr.. +. 5.
Morse and is published in The Bulletin OF
the Essex institute, Salem, Mass. In the
Ashmolean museum at Oxford may be seen
an old Egyptian toy found by Mr. Flinders
Petrie In the cemetery OF Havana. III Is
engraved in his work on Hawara, Beahmu
and Arsinoe, cities of the Fayonm. The
cemetery of Havana is only about as old as
orr era. which Is modern for Egypt. The
TOW is of wood and represents a bird on
wheels. In the neck is a hole, through
which string was tied, and some child OF
Havana led his toy about by the string
This is not O very obvious kind OF toy, for
the movement Of the wheels is not like the
hop of a bird. In modern toy shops 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 body. The Egyptians OF course
as d civilized people had for thousands OF
years been familiar with wheels, and the
tov though rare in kind has nothing TO
arouse curiosity.
But It is another matter when Mr.. Morse
discovers precisely similar Ainotoy, prob
ably some 800 years old. The Amos are a
peculiarly hairy race. who have fable that
they are descended from bears, which they
ignorantly worship They are, or very late
ly were, savages In low grade and with
wheels they have no acquaintance any
more than Liddesdale had before Scott
drove the first dogcart through the region
Mr.. Morse decides that the bird, which he
engraves, is not Of japanese work-the
wheels have the popularity OF being sir
regularly ovate, rather than circular" The
hole for the string is in the tall, and the
irregular wheel makes the bird hop when
IL Is dragged Here, then, we find rare
form of Egyptian toy, about so A. D., and
at the ends Of the earth, among the hairy
Amos, similar toy, remarkable for pos
sesslng wheels, otherwise unused by the
Amos. The problem is Has the pattern fill
tered far east in some unknown manner, or
has II been Independently invented. wheels
and all, by some Aino genius, who never
carried his valuable invention any furtheri
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