Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1893-06-24
SCIENTISTS PUZZLED.
How Did Barbarous Tribes Get the Art
Works of Civilized People.

From the London Daily News
There is question which constantly haunts
the antiquarian mind like a ghost IN an old
house. That question is, how did trifing mat
ters-a song, a story, a game, a 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
nature or from human needs. An ancestor 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. ;
'gul and sab, some party per Jesse of the
same colors," whence Edward Gibbon inferred
that heraldry was ingrafted naturally
into the sense of tine human race" That
Is, heraldry is an Inmate idea" As Mr.
Max Muller remarks in his new volume
OF Lectures on Theosophy." we can no longer
accept this theory of innate ideas 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
Deen adopted everywhere 1t il more puZZling
when we lind what Is called in India the '.syas :
tlka, cross with legs at right angles to the
main limbs. not only existing as a sacred en-
biShi Az Ahuid. Dul carved on stones IN SOufl
America. This does not seem to have an OBJ
vious original meaning as a symbol. Is il
merely an ornamental design TO which the In
dian mind later attached a sacred sense? Ii is
found on pottery from Hissarlik. Dr. Schlie-
mann's Troy, and on old Mexican pottery, II
1t 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 spirals of Mycenaen 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 to Greece and thence to the Morse
men and the Celts, but we can scarcely imagine
that it was carried in prehistoric times TO New
Zealand. Again, Mr.. Tylor has traced an
oriental form of backgammon TO Mexico. and
we cannot be certain whether a rather compli-
Gated game reached America from Asia or was
independently invented by the Aztecs.
A very curious example of this class Of prob
lem has been discovered by Mr.. 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 Egyptian
toy found by Mr.. Flinders Petrie in the ceme-
terry Of Havana. 1t is engraved in his work on
Havana, Beahmu and Arsinoe, 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 a hole through which n
string was tied. and some child of Havana led his
toy about by the string. This is not very OBJ
vious kind Of toy. for the movement of 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 a civilized people. had for thou
sands of years been familiar with wheels
and the toy, though rare in kind, has moth
ing to arouse curiosity. But il is an
other matter when Mr.. Morse discovers
a precisely similar Aino toy. probably so ne
two hundred years old The Amos are pecu-
larly hairy race. who have fable that they are
descended from bears which they ignorantly
worship. They are, or very likely were. saw
ages in low grade, and with wheels they have
no acquaintance any more than Liddesdale had
before Scott drove the first dog cart through
the region. Mr.. Morse decides that the bird
which he engraves. is not of japanese work
the wheels have the peculiarly of being "irreg-
ularly ovate. rather than circular" The hole
for the string is in the tail and the irregular
wheel makes the bird hop when it is dragged.
Here then, we find a rare form OF Egyptian
toy, about so A. D.. and at the ends Of the
earth. among the hairy Amos; similar toy, re-
markable for possessing wheels. otherwise I'M
used by the Amos. The problem is. has the
pattern filtered far east in some unknown man.
ner. or has it been independently invented,
wheels and all, by some Aino genius. who never
carried his valuable invention any further?