Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub

Los Dioses Astronómicos de los antiguos Mexicanos. (Appendix to Interpretacion del Codice Borgiano, by J. L. Fabrega. Anales del Museo Nacional, Mexico, 1900.)

Pinturas Jeroglificas. Two parts. Mexico, 1900-01. (The original codex reproduced by Señor Chavero in Part 2 was presented by him to the American Museum of Natural History at the time of meeting of the International Congress of Americanists at New York, 1902.) Calendario ó Rueda del Año de los Antiguos Indios. Estudio Cronológico. Mexico, 1901.

Calendario de Palemke: Los Signos de los Dias. Mexico, 1902.

Palemke Calendar: The Signs of the Day. (Transactions International Congress of Americanists, New York, 1902.)

Calendario de Palemke: Los Signos de las Veintenas. (Anales del Museo Nacional, Mexico, 1903.)

Apuntes Viejos de Bibliografia Mexicana. Mexico, 1903.

El Monolito de Coatlinchan. (Anales del Museo Nacional, Mexico. Also separate edition, 1904.)

Bibliographic Notes on Morfi, Vega, Tovar, Veytia. (Anales del Museo Nacional, Mexico, 1903, 1904, 1905.)

Editor of

Obras Historicas de Don Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl. Two volumes. Mexico, 1892.

Historia de Tlaxcala, by Camargo. Mexico, 1892.

American students always found it a great pleasure to meet Señor Chavero, especially in his home in Mexico, surrounded by the books relating to Mexican history which he loved and knew so well. In his death American archeology and early history have lost one of their oldest and most devoted workers.

MARSHALL H. SAVILLE.

Traité des variations des os de la face de l'homme, et de leur signification au point de vue de l'anthropologie zoologique. Par M. LE DR A. F. LE DOUBLE. Paris: Vigot Frères, 1906. 8°, xx, 471 pp., 163 figs.

The present work of Professor Le Double is one of a series by the same author dealing with variation. Like the preceding volume on variations in the bones of the cranial vault, already reviewed in these pages (vol. vi, no. 5), this represents the first important effort toward a résumé of the entire subject, supplemented with personal observations.

In his preface the author enumerates, with some superfluity, his services to science. The treatment of the variations of the nasal bones occupies 37 pages of the text; of the lachrymal bone, 34; inferior turbinated, 8; vomer 8; palate bones, 26; malar, 52; superior maxilla, 141; and inferior maxilla, 71. Pages 379-408 comprise Dr Le Double's conclusions, and pages 411-442 contain additions to his previous work on cranial variations.

The volume is well worth perusal, or rather consultation, although the ever-present ego interferes somewhat with the reading. Facial variations are classed, on the basis of their etiology, into (1) reversive, (2) those due to ossification in an aponeurosis or a ligament, (3) those due to vascular, nervous, tendinous, or glandular pressure, (4) those due to a retardation or insufficiency of ossification, (5) those that are the effect of physiological or pathological dystrophy, and (6) monstrosities. The discussion of the variations of each bone proceeds according to a definite sequence, which facilitates reference to any particular feature; and the numerous bibliographical references will prove of service to the student.

Among the defects of the work are the incomplete treatment of certain features, and at least in some cases a lack of thoroughness in the digestion of the material. The arguments of the author also are not always fortunate; thus, for instance, the teeth of the Australians (p. 215, 403) are not enormous," compared with those of whites. Finally, the fulness of the bibliographical references, and many of the illustrations, leave much to be desired.

[ocr errors]

The next work promised by Professor Le Double will be devoted to a study of the variations, through excess, of the hair of the human body.

A. HRDLICKA.

Tribes of the Columbia Valley and the Coast of Washington and Oregon. BY ALBERT BUELL LEWIS.. Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association, Vol. 1, part 2. Lancaster, Pa.: The New Era Printing Co., 1906. 8°, 56 p.

The ethnology of no region of the Pacific coast north of Mexico has been more neglected than that embraced in the states of Washington and Oregon. Thanks to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Museum of Natural History, the Bureau of American Ethnology, and the individual work of Krause, we are in possession of a number of extended treatises on the tribes of British Columbia and Alaska; while California has been the subject of Powers' pioneer work, and of notable reports within the last few years by Kroeber, Dixon, and Goddard. In spite of excellent detail work by Gibbs, Eels, Gatschet, Boas, and Farrand, no such exhaustive treatises exist however for the intermediate region. All the more interest and importance therefore attach to the paper before us, which at once puts the student in touch with all the scattered references to the people of this area and through its copious bibliography and footnotes enables him to refer to the original sources at pleasure.

The general results of Dr Lewis' investigation are about such as might have been anticipated from what we know of the tribes north and south. He finds, as in the region immediately to the north, that the main distinction of culture is between the coast and the interior separated by the Cascade mountains, and that each resembles the corresponding area in British Columbia and Alaska, minor variations being noted between Puget sound and the Columbia valley. In southern and southwestern Oregon however Dr Lewis finds two smaller cultural areas, intermediate between the cultural area of California and those of the interior plateau and the coast respectively. Finally, and perhaps most interesting of all, he finds a small independent cultural area in the Willamette valley, in the region. occupied by the Kalapuya tribes. This, while within easy reach of the true coastal culture, resembles rather that of the interior, thus showing a striking conservatism on the part of the Kalapuya people.

Not only has Dr Lewis in this treatise saved other ethnologists an immense amount of work, but he has laid an indispensable basis for further field explorations. The comparative meagerness of our knowledge of these tribes after so thorough an investigation also points, as Dr Lewis notes in concluding, to the imperative necessity for immediate field investigations of the few fast-decreasing tribal remnants in this corner of the United States. It is to be hoped that some of our institutions will awake to the need while there is yet time. J. R. SWANTON.

The Universal Kinship. By J. HOWARD MOORE, Instructor in Zoology, Crane Manual Training High School, Chicago. Chicago: Charles Kerr & Co., 1906. 8°. 329 p.

As its name implies, the main thesis of this book is the absolute community in origin and continuous interdependence of all life. The author makes the usual comparison between man and other animals on the physical, intellectual, and moral sides, and proves as has been done many times before—that there is no impassable gulf between them. He spares no opportunity to denounce the overweening self-conceit of the animal man in arrogating to himself a higher place in creation than his "humbler brothers," as well as his thoughtlessness and cruelty in dealing with them.

If Mr Moore's work helps in any way toward a kinder treatment of our animal friends and servants, it is in so far commendable. Its failing, as in the case of so many works of similar nature, is that in sweeping away impassable gulfs it ignores real differences. Thus, after we have proved that no impassable gulf exists between man and the other animals, we still have to admit that there is a difference between them, nor can this difference be swept away by anatomical comparisons and psychological investigations. It simply is. In the same way, after we have shown that species in general are not immutable, we have not proved thereby that they are not different, and the nature of the difference between the snail and the snake, the wolf and the worm, is just what we want to know. We must also raise a protest against the extremes to which the biological brotherhood idea tends to be carried. We wish our "humbler brothers” well, but it will be some time before we see the duty or the expediency of sitting down to lunch in company with centipedes and tigers, or of keeping house from choice with cockroaches and rats.

J. R. SWANTON.

The Northern Maidu. By ROLAND B. DIXON. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. xvII, part III, pp. 119-346. New York, 1905.

Much concerning the aboriginal life and customs of a Californian people, the remnant of whom are rapidly being merged into civilization, has been rescued in the nick of time by the efforts of Dr Dixon, made possible by the generosity of Mr Archer Huntington. The Maidu, like the inhabitants of the northwestern portion of California, were but slightly touched by Spanish influence, and the explorers and trappers who passed through their territory did little to alter the primitive state in which they

lived. It was not until the discovery of gold in 1849 that the destruction of the primitive habits and culture of the Maidu began. Not only may the world congratulate itself that sufficient interest has been aroused to accomplish this work while there are those of the Maidu still living who remember the period before white occupancy, but it may count itself fortunate that this task has fallen into the hands of a student of sufficient sympathy, patience, and breadth of view to cover the whole field of interest and to unearth the details which are so essential to the proper understanding of native peoples.

stone, cor

After a brief geographical and historical survey, Dr Dixon devotes about a hundred pages of text and pen drawings to a description of the material culture of the Maidu. He has classified the objects which they possessed according to the material of which they consisted dage, basket materials, feathers, etc. Under clothing and personal adornment we are shown in drawings the snow-shoes and toilet articles used in the region. It is to be hoped that such straightforward and thorough statements of the facts concerning the wearing of objects which were a source of discomfort rather than comfort, the tattooing of the face, etc., may some time make possible an explanation of the purpose in social and sexual affairs which the rendering of one's self hideous really has.

The dwellings and dance houses are of the type prevailing generally in the central portion of California. The food supply, and weapons and means of defense, the two most important material factors which determine not only the density of the population but the very existence of a people, are given due attention.

At this precise moment, the account Dr Dixon gives us of the social organization of the Maidu and their practices at the birth, puberty, and death of individuals is especially welcome. The implements of war and chase were the private property of the men, the household utensils that of the women; but the land and streams, with the fish, deer, and vegetable products in and upon them were the property of small communities, the boundaries of whose holdings were carefully marked. The Maidu, in common with other peoples of the Pacific coast, have many strict taboos and ceremonies connected with child-birth, puberty, menstruation, and death. While some of these still await an adequate explanation, others are perfectly consistent with the belief the Maidu avow, in common with most primitive peoples, in a soul existing before the birth of the individual, capable of temporary separation from the body during life, and surviving after death, when, unless proper precautions. are taken, it may linger about its former abode, bringing misfortune upon

AM, ANTH., N. S., 8-46.

« PředchozíPokračovat »