Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1895-04-20
SCIENTISTS PUZZLED.
How Did Barbarous Tribes Get tho A.
Works 81 Civilized People?

How Did Barharous Tribes Get tho 49,
Works Of Civilized People?
There Is question which constantly
haunts the antiquarian mind like a ghosv
In an old house. That question is How did
trtling matters--a song, story, game, "
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 herald
and bad been blue mantle, retired to Amer
lea in the seventeenth century, and there
he found heraldic bearings among the red
men of Virginia. The savagedanCers were
painted. some party per pale, gui ana
sab some party per Jesse OF the same
colors." whence Edward Gibbon inferred
that "heraldry was engrafted naturally into
the sense of the human race" That IS
heraldrv 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.
1t is more pu2zling when we find what Is
called in India the "svastika," IL cross with
legs at right angles to the main limbs, not
only existing as Il sacred emblem in india
but carved on stones in South America.
This does not seem to have an obvious orig
inal meaning rs a symbol. Is 1t merely an
ornamental design to which the Indian
mind later attached II sacred senseY 1t Is
found on pottery from Hissarlik, DR., Schle-
mann's Troy and on old Mexican pottery.
If it is only IA 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 to Greece and
thence to the NOrSemeu and the Celts, but
we can scarcely imagine that 1t was carried
in prehistoric times to NewXeaand. Again,
Mr. Tylor has traced an oriental form OF
back CANNON to Mexico, and we cannot be
certain whether Il 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.. +. >.
Morse and is published in The Bulletin OF
the Essex institute, Salem, Mass. In the
Ashmolean museum ut Oxford may be seen
an old Egyptian toy found by Mr.. Flinders
Petre in the cemetery of Hawara. 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 bird on
wheels. In the neck is IA 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 the wheels is not like the
hop of 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 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 precisely similar Ainotoy prob
ably some POO years old. The Amos are
peculiarly hairy race, who have a fable that
they are descended from bears. which they
" were, savages in low grade, and with
wheels they have no acquaintance any
more than Lddesdale 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 ''ir-
regularly ovate, rather than circular" The
hole for the string is in the tail and the
" heel "
it is dragged Here, then, we find a rare
form of Egyptian toy, about so y. d., and
at the ends of the earth, among the hairy
Amos, II similar toy, remarkable for pos
sessing wheels, otherwise unused by the
Amos. The problem is, Has the pattern fill
tered far east in some unknown manner, or
has it been independently invented, wheels
and ALL by some Aino genius, who never
carried his valuable invention any further'
London News.