The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1906-07-28

Fact That Has Been Demonstrated
In the Customs Of Various
Races,

value Of push and of pull is plain fact
OF nature. II anybody doubts 1t, let him
consider the following details, in which
the Statesman shows the difference be-
tween the Asiatic and the European:
In India, man digging in the gar
den does not throw the earth from him,
as the English gardener does, but pulls
1t toward him. The carpenter saving
wood does not drive the saw, but pulls
1t, In token of which fact the teeth of an
Indian saw are set in the opposite way
from those of an English saw. Even
when the Indian workman has been in
duced to adopt the labor-saving ma
chinery introduced from Europe he
shows strange perversity in sacrific-
ing part of the benefit through his habit
of preferring to pull rather than to
push.
Thus, In turning a wheel, as in rails
ing water from a well or working a
crane. instead of pushing the handle
down and so getting the benefit of the
weight of his body, he pulls it up, and
so sacrifices that natural advantage.
For the same reason the wheelbarrow
has never become naturalized in India,
although specially suited for coun-
try where roads are still comparatively
few, but footpaths abound. The Indian
drill works in the opposite direction
from the European bit and brace, AMI
the pot is stirred not from left to right,
as in the west, but from right to left.
The same rule holds good in weapons
of warfare. The Indian sword is made
for cutting, not for thrusting, and the
common daos and daggers are on the
same principle.
The Indian, In the use Of the weapons
nature has provided for offense and de-
tense, does not hit out straight from the
shoulder like the European, but strikes
from above downward, or from right to
left with sweeping movement. Nor
is the baclkhanded slap Of which most
English school boys have had personal
experience known In the east.
Kicking out is also. rare, although It Is
coming in with football. Another phys
ical exercise in which the difference is
very marked is swimming. In India the
arms are not extended outward, as in
Europe. but the stroke is downward and
inward.
Nor does the Indian take a header into
the water with arms extended. Those
who have seen the famous divers at
Delhi and elsewhere diving from the
roofs of mosques into adjacent tanks
will remember that they came down feet
foremost and assumed a squatting atti-
tude before reaching the water.
Then In riding the Indian horseman
keeps his position, not like the European
(by holding on by the extensor muscles
of the thigh with toes directed inward).
but by grasping the saddle with the
fiexors-that is to say, with the calves
of his legs, the toes being directed out
ward. An Indian scavenger sweeps
toward himself, not away, like his
brother in the west.
When the Indian beckons some one to
approach he does SO with the palm of
the hand downward; the European In
the corresponding act turns the palm up-
ward. Even in Indian writing there r.
an avoidance of movement of extension.
This very apparent in the case of
Persian, which is written from right to
left, but 1t also holds good in Hindi and
other Sanskrit languages. Nearly all
the strokes are written downward; tho
upward sweeps common in English
writing ara very rare.