Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1893-08-05
SCIENTISTS PUZZLED.
flow Did Barbarous Tribes Get the Art
Works OF Civilized People?

Works OF Civilized Peopiee
There is a question which constantly
haunts the antiquarian mind like ghost
in an old house. That question is How did
trifiing sll,:t, a's "a song, a, story a game
toy-come 10 be scattered widely among
the most remote and ignora 1Npeoples? In
the case of customs and of myths we may
often deen that the mind OF man reacts
alike to the same impulses from nature or
from human needs .Hf.f
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
colufs, whence Edward Gibbon inferred
that heraldry was engrafted naturally into
the sense OF the human race" That is,
hcraldry 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 fesse,'' or
crests, as ready made parts Of the human
intellect. Certain arrangements of colors,
certain indications OF lineage by cges;ts, are
attractive and convenient, so uEcy have been
adopted everywhere.
1t is more puzZling when we find what is
legs at right angles 10 the main limbs, not
only existing as a sacred emblem in India,
but carved on stones in south America.
This does not seem to have an obvious orig
inal meaning as Il symbol. Is it merely an
ornamental design to which the Indian
mind later attached q sacred sense? 1t is
found on pottery from Hissarlik, DIR. Schlie-
mann's Troy, and on old Mexican pottery.
If 1t is only piece of decoration like the
Greek key pattern and wave pattern, also
found in old Peru, We may perhaps decide
that Tire human mind naturally hits on some
simple patterns, IKE 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 co;c eive that the
pattern spread from Egypt to Greece and
thence to The NCrsemcn and the Celts, bat
we can scarcely imagine that it was carried
in prehistoric tiul,,s so New Zealand. Again,
Mr.. Tylor has traced an oriental form of
backgammon to Mexico, and we canIrc, be
certain whether Z rather complicated game
| reached America from Asia or was indie
pendently invented by the Aztecs. "
4 Very curious example of this class If
problem has been discovered by Mr.. Z. 5.
Morse and is published il The Bulletin of
the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass. In the
AshmolGau Ii:J:scum II Oxford may be seen
an ola Egyptian toy found by Mr.. Flinders
| pctrie in the ce3iietery.tf Hasvarn Ii j.
l engraved III his " orit' on i..W;;i'a BeahmU
, and Arsiuoc, cities of the F;syouyn. Tie
cemetery Of li2w;:ra is only about as old us
| our era, witch is modern for Egypt The
| toy is OF wood and represents a bird on
wheels. In the neck is Il hole, through
| which Il St ring was tied, and some child of
| HawaI1 led his toy ;:jotit blythe string.
| This is rot 4 very CJVious kind of toy, for
the movement Of tho wheels * not like the
| hop of a bird. In nioderii toy shops dogs
set on wheeled boarG% are Common. In tnc
| Egyptian example titrc is no board, bat
| the wheels are ursicr tlcwincs and level
with the BODY. The Egyptiafis of course
as civilized pconis' had For tlcrsnnds'Gf
! years been familiar with wheels. and the
| toy though rare in kind has nothing to
arouse curiosity. 90
| But It is another mat; c;' when Mr. Morse
| discovers precisely similar Aino toy, prob
| ably some 600 years old. THE Amos are q
| peculiarly hairy race, who have a fable that
| they are descended from bears, which they
| iGnorantly worship. They are, or very late
| ~ were, s;ivages in low Grade aud Will
| wheels thev have no acquaintance any
more than LidGest,alc had before Scott
| drove the first dcgcart Through the region.
Mr.. Morse decides that the, bird, which he
| cngraves, is not Of Japancse work-the
| wheels have the popularity Of being ''ir-
| regularly ova:e, ratLe. than circular" The
hole for the string is IN The tail. and the
irregular wheel makes tic bird hop when
it is dragged. Eerc then, we find a rare
form of EGyptiCa TOY, about 80 \. D., and
at the ends OF the earth, among the hairy
Amos, similar TOY, remarkable for pos
sessing wheels, otherwise unused by the
Amos. The probiesnlis, Has the pattern fl
tered far east in some unknown manner, or
has it been independently invented, wheels
and all, by some Aiuo genius, who never
carried his valuable invention any further9
LONDON News.