The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1893-07-27
SCIENTISTS PUZZLED.
How Did Barbarous Tribes Get the Art
Works of Civilized People.


Works of Civilized People.
There is a question which constantly
haunts the antiquarian mind like a
ghost in an old house. That question
is, how did trifling matters-a song, a
story, a game, a toy--Come to be
scattered widely among the most re-
mote and ignorant people? In the
case of customs and of myths we may
often deem that the mind of man re-
acts alike to the same impulses from
nature or from human needs. An an
cestor of Gibbon, who was a herald
and had been Blue Mantle, retired to
America 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, 'gui' and sab, some
party per Jesse of the same colors,"
whence Edward Glbbon inferred that
"heraldry was ingrafted naturally into
the sense of the human race" That is,
heraldry is an climate idea" As Mr..
Max Muller remarks in his new volume
of Lectures on Theosophy," we can
no longer accept this theory of innate
ideas and of party per fesse," or
crests, as ready made parts of the human
intellect. Certain arrangements of
Colors, certain indications of line
age by Crests, are attractive and
convenient so they have been adopt
ed everywhere 1t is more pulling
when we find what is called in India
the 'svastika," a cross with legs at right
angles to the main limbs, not only ex-
isting as a sacred emblem in India, but
carved on stones in South America.
This does not seem to have an obvious
original meaning as a symbol. Is it
merely an ornamental design to which
the Indian mind later attached sacred
senSe2 1t is found on pottery from
Hissarlik, DR.. Schliemann's Troy and
on old Mexican pottery. If it is only
a 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
spirits Of MyCen9an 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 and Greece and
thence to the Norsemen and the Celts,
but we can scarcely imagine that it was
carried in prehistoric times to New
Zealand. Again, Mr. Taylor has
traced an oriental form of backgammon
to Mexico, and we cannot be certain
whether a rather complicated game
reached America from Asia or was in
dependently invented by the Aztecs.
A very curious example of this class
of problem has been discovered by E.
S, Morse and is published in the Bull,
letin Of the Essex Institute, Salen,
Mass. In the Ashmolean Museum at
Oxford may be seen an old Egyptian
toy, found by Finders Petrie in the
cemetery of Havana, Beahmu, and
Arsnoe, 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 a bird on wheels. In the
neck is hole, through which a string
Was tied, and some child of Havana
led his toy about by the string. This
is not very obvious kind of toy, for
the movement of wheels is not like the
hop Of a bird. In modern toyshops
dogs set on wheeled boards are com
mon 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 civilized
people had for thousands of years 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 a
precisely similar Aino toy, probably
some two hundred years old. The
Amos are a peculiar hairy race, who
have fable that they are descended
from bears, which they ignorantly wor-
ship. They are, or very lately were,
savages in a 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
peculiarly of being "rregularly ovate,
rather than circular" The hole for
the string is in the tall and the irreg-
ular wheel makes the bird hop when it
is dragged, Here, then, we find rare
form of Egyptian toy, about 50 A. D.,
and at the ends of the earth, among
the hairy Amos, a smaller toy, remark.
able for possessing wheels, otherwise
unused by the Amos The problem
is, has the pattern filtered far East in
some unknown manner, or has it been
independently invented, wheels and all,
by some Aino genius, who never car
ried his valuable invention any further ?
London Daily M10S.