Throughout the entire continent of Australia the weapons and implements are alike, and of the simplest form, and the people are of the lowest grade. The spear, the waddy, and the boomerang, with some stone hatchets, are their only weapons; but amongst these it has been noticed that, like the implements of the drift, there are minute differences, scarcely apparent to Europeans, but which enable a native to determine at a glance to what tribe a weapon belongs.[15] This, whilst it proves a tendency to vary their forms, shows at the same time either an incapacity, or, what answers the same purpose, a retarding power or prejudice, which prevents their effecting more than the smallest appreciable degree of change. In the island of Tahiti, Captain Cook was unable to make the natives (a superior race to the Australians) appreciate the uses of metal, until he had caused his armourer to construct an iron adze (Plate VI, fig. 1 a)[16] of precisely the same form as their own adzes of basalt (Fig. 1 b). After that, metal tools came into general use amongst them, though their old forms are in a great measure preserved to this day. When, during the American War, the English endeavoured to utilize the Indians by arming them, they were compelled to construct for them tomahawks after their own pattern, having a pipe in the handle (Fig. 2). When the Purus Indians of South America receive a knife from Europeans they break off the handle, and fashion the knife according to their own ideas, placing the blade between two pieces of wood, and binding it round tight with a sinew.[17] The natives of Samoa now use iron adzes, constructed after the exact pattern of their ancient stone ones.[18] The Fiji Islanders, though they have now the means of obtaining good blades and chisels from Sheffield, and axes from America, prefer plane irons to any other form of implement, because they are able to fix them by lashing them on to their handles in the same fashion as the ancient stone adzes of their own manufacture, which they resemble.[19] The Andaman Islanders use the European metal that falls into their hands, only to grind it down into spear- and arrow-heads of the same form as their stone ones. The same applies to the whole of the Aborigines of North and South America, which have stood by, for nearly three centuries, passive spectators of the arts of Europeans, without attempting to copy them. Crawfurd, in his History of the Indian Archipelago,[20] comments on the obstinate adherence of the Javanese to ancient customs, in accounting for the kris having been retained by them long after the causes which produced that peculiar weapon had ceased to operate. Tylor, in his account of the Anahuac, observes upon the preservation of old types amongst the present inhabitants of Mexico, which have remained almost unchanged from generation to generation, enabling the historian to distinguish clearly those which are of Aztec from those which are of Spanish origin.[21] Herodotus describes the spears carried by the Ethiopians in the army of Xerxes as being armed with the sharpened horn of the antelope.[22] Consul Petherick found still in use by the Djibba negroes, more than two thousand years after, these identical spears, armed with the straightened and sharpened horn of the antelope, and their other weapons also resembled in character those described by Herodotus, although they had passed from the stone weapons then used, into an age of metal.[23] The Scythian bow (Plate VI, fig. 3) is the bow still used by the whole of the Tartar races (Fig. 4). The celt of the Tartar, and the celt and sword of the Negro (Fig. 5) are still the celt and sword of the European bronze period (Fig. 6), and this resemblance is not confined to the general outline of the weapons, but extends to the style and patterns of ornamentation. The same identity of form exists between the ‘manillas’ (Fig. 7) used as a medium of exchange in the Eboe country of West Africa and the so-called penannular rings or ring money (Fig. 8) of gold and bronze which are found in Ireland, and which, with some modifications, belong also to Germany and the Swiss Lakes. The corrugated iron blade of the Kaffir assegai, a section of which is shown in Fig. 9, and which is used also in Central and West Africa, is identical with those found in the Saxon graves (Fig. 10), and is intended to give a spiral motion to these missiles. Chevalier Folard observes that the Gauls were remarkable for the tenacity with which they clung to their ancient customs, while the Romans, their conquerors, are mentioned by all historians as peculiar in their time for the facility with which they adopted the customs of others, and developed their own.[24] In modern Europe, the Gipsies have also been noticed as being distinguished from the Europeans in all the various localities in which they are found, for their remarkable adherence to especial arts, savouring of an extinct civilization. Amongst the Chinese and Hindoos, the conservatism which has caused them to remain for ages in nearly the same condition is too well known to require comment. It will, however, be remembered (in illustration of the fact that customs of minor importance often survive great political changes, and serve to keep up the continuity that would otherwise be broken), that after the Manchu Tartars had conquered and established themselves in the Chinese territory, they were nearly driven again from the country, on account of their forcing upon the subject people the custom of wearing pigtails, after the fashion of their conquerors; showing how difficult it is to ingraft, upon an alien race, customs that are not indigenous.
These, and many other notices of a similar character that are to be found in the pages of travel, establish it as a maxim, that the existing races, in their respective stages of progression, may be taken as the bona fide representatives of the races of antiquity; and, marvellous as it may appear to us in these days of rapid progress, their habits and arts, even to the form of their rudest weapons, have continued in many cases, with but slight modifications, unchanged throughout countless ages, and from periods long prior to the commencement of history. They thus afford us living illustrations of the social customs, the forms of government, laws, and warlike practices, which belonged to the ancient races from which they remotely sprang, whose implements, resembling, with but little difference, their own, are now found low down in the soil, in situations, and under circumstances in which, alone, they would convey but little evidence to the antiquary, but which, when the investigations of the antiquary are interpreted by those of the ethnologist, are teeming with interesting revelations respecting the past history of our race; and which, in the hands of the anthropologist, in whose science that of antiquity and ethnology are combined with physiology and geology, are no doubt destined to throw a flood of light, if not eventually, in a great measure, to clear up the mystery, which now hangs over everything connected with the origin of mankind.
That such a combination of the sciences should have been brought about so opportunely in our days, appears to me to be one of those many indications of an overruling power directing in the aggregate the minds of men, which must, at all times, strike even the most superficial observer of nature; for there can be little doubt that in a few years all the most barbarous races will have disappeared from the earth, or will have ceased to preserve their native arts.
The law which consigns to destruction all savage races when brought in contact with a civilization much higher than their own, is now operating with unrelenting fury in every part of the world. Of the aborigines of Tasmania, not a single individual remains; those of New Zealand are fast disappearing. The Australian savage dies out before the advancing European. North and South America, and the Polynesian Islands, all tell the same tale. Wherever the generous influences of Christianity have set foot, there they have been accompanied by the scourge. Innumerable and often unseen causes combine in effecting the same purpose; diseases which are but little felt by Europeans, act as plagues when introduced into uncivilized communities, and cause them to fall before their ravages, like wheat before the sickle; and the vices of civilization, taking a firmer hold of the savages than its virtues, aid and abet in the same work. The labours of the missionary, if they have produced no other benefit, have been useful in teaching us the great truth, that notwithstanding the philanthropic efforts of the intruding race, the law of nature must be vindicated. The savage is morally and mentally an unfit instrument for the spread of civilization, except when, like the higher mammalia, he is reduced to a state of slavery; his occupation is gone, and his place is required for an improved race. Allowing for the rapidly increasing ratio in which progress advances, it is not too much to assume, that in half a century from the present time, savage life will have ceased to have a single true representative on the face of the globe, and the evidence which it has been the means of handing down to our generation will have perished with it.
When we find that the condition of the aboriginal man must have been one of such complete inanity as to render him incapable of spontaneously initiating even the most rudimentary arts, it follows as a matter of course that in the earliest stages of his career, he must, like children of our own day, have been subject to compulsory instruction. And in looking to nature for the sources from which such early instruction must have been derived, we need not, I think, be long in coming to the conclusion, that the school of our first parent must be sought for in his struggles for mastery with the brute creation, and that, consequently, his first lessons must have been directed to attaining proficiency in the art of war.
Hence it follows that it is to the lower animals that we must look for the origin of all those branches of primitive warfare which it is the object of this lecture to trace out. Nor indeed shall we fail to find abundant evidence that there is hardly a single branch of human industry which may not reasonably be attributed to the same source.
The province of war extends downward through the animal kingdom, showing unmistakable evidence of its existence in forms, offensive and defensive, differing but little from those of the human era, through the unnumbered ages of the geological periods, long prior to man’s advent; proving, beyond the possibility of doubt, that from the remotest age in which we find evidence of organized beings, war has been ordained to an important function in the creative process.
Judging by results, which I apprehend is the only true method of investigating the phenomena of life, three primary instincts appear to have been implanted in nearly all the higher animals[25]: alimentiveness, for the sustenance of life; amativeness, for the propagation of species; and combativeness, for the protection of species, and the propagation by natural selection of the most energetic breeds; on which latter subject much important information has been given to the world by Mr. Darwin, in his celebrated work on the origin of species.
Much might, I believe, be said on the connexion which subsists between these functions, all of which are, in some form or other, necessary to a healthy condition. Suffice, however, to observe, that as regards the dawn of an Utopia, in which some men who think themselves practical appear to indulge; whether we study the subject by observing the uses to which animals apply the various and ingeniously constructed weapons with which Providence has armed them, or whether we view it in relation to the prodigious armaments of all the most civilized nations of Europe, we find no more evidence in nature, of a state of society in which wars shall cease, than we do of a state of existence in which we shall support life without food, or propagate our species by other means than those which nature has appointed.
The universality of the warlike element is shown in the fact, that the classifications of the weapons of men and animals are identical, and may be treated under the same heads.
Many constructive arts are brought to greater perfection in animals by the development of faculties, especially adapting them to the peculiar implements with which nature has furnished them, than can be attained by man, and especially by the aboriginal man, whose particular attribute appears, by all analogy of savage life, to have been an increase of that imitative faculty which, in the lower creation, is found only in a modified degree in apes.
The lower creation would thus furnish man not only with the first element of instruction, but with examples for the improvement of the work commenced, or, to use the words of Pope:—
From the creatures thy instructions take,
Thy arts of building from the bee receive;
Learn from the mole to plough, the worm to weave;
Learn from the little nautilus to sail,
Spread the thin oars, and catch the driving gale;
Here, too, all forms of social reason find,
And hence let reason late instruct mankind.[26]
In the art of war, as we shall see, he would not only derive his first instruction from the beasts, but he would improve his means of offence and defence from time to time by lessons derived from the same source.
It therefore appears desirable that, before entering upon that branch of the subject which relates to the progress and development of the art of war, I should point out briefly the analogies which exist between the weapons, tactics, and stratagems of savages and those of the lower creation, and show to what extent man appears to have availed himself of the weapons of animals for his own defence.
In so doing the subject may be classified as follows:—
| Defensive. | Offensive. | Stratagems. |
|---|---|---|
| Hides. | Piercing. | Flight. |
| Solid plates. | Striking. | Concealment. |
| Jointed plates. | Serrated. | Tactics. |
| Scales. | Poisoned. | Columns. |
| Missiles. | Leaders. | |
| Outposts. | ||
| Artificial defences. | ||
| War cries. |
Firstly, with respect to the combative principle itself. The identity of this instinct in men and animals may be seen in the widely-spread custom of baiting animals against each other, a practice which is not derived from any one source, but is indigenous in the countries in which it prevails, and arises from the inherent sympathy which exists between men and animals in the exercise of this particular function.
In the island of Tahiti, long before the first European vessel was seen off their shores, the inhabitants were accustomed to train and fight cocks, which were fed with great care, and kept upon finely-carved perches.[27] Cock-fighting also prevails amongst the Malays, Celebes, and Balinese. The Javanese fight their cocks like the Mahommedans of Hindustan, without spurs; the Malays, Bugis, and Macassars with artificial spurs shaped like a scythe.[28] It also prevails in Central Africa, Central America, and Peru. The Sumatrans fight their cocks for vast sums; a man has been known to stake his wife and children, son, mother, or sister on the issue of a battle, and when a dispute occurs, the owners decide the question by an appeal to the sword. In like manner Adrastus, the son of Midas, King of Phrygia, is said to have killed his brother in consequence of a quarrel which took place between them in regard to a battle of quails.
When Themistocles led the Greeks out against the Persians, happening to see two cocks fight, he showed them as an example to his soldiers. Cock-fighting was afterwards exhibited annually in presence of the whole people, and the crowing of a cock was ever after regarded as a presage of victory.[29]
The Javanese also fight hogs and rams together. The buffalo and tiger are matched against each other. In Butan the combat is between two bulls. Combats of elephants took place for the amusement of the early Indian kings. The Chinese and Javanese fight quails, crickets, and fish. The Romans fought cocks, quails, and partridges, also the rhinoceros. In Stamboul two rams are employed for fighting. The Russians fight geese, and the betting runs very high upon them.[30] We find horses, elephants, and oxen standing side by side with man in hostile array, and dogs were used by the Gauls for the same purpose. Amongst the ancients, the horse, the wolf, and the cock were offered on the altar of Mars for their warlike qualities.
Who can doubt with these examples before us, that an instinct so widely disseminated and so identical in men and animals, must have been ordained for special objects?
The causes which give rise to the exercise of the function, vary with the advance of civilization. We have now ceased to take delight in the mere exhibition of brute combats, but the profession of war is still held in as much esteem as at any previous period in the history of mankind, and we bestow the highest honours of the State upon successful combatants.
This, however, leads to another subject, viz. the causes of war amongst primitive races, which is deserving of separate treatment.
We may pass briefly over the defensive weapons of animals and savages, not by any means from the analogy being less perfect in this class of weapons, but rather because the similarity is too obvious to make it necessary that much stress should be laid on their resemblance.
Hides. The thick hides of pachydermatous animals correspond to the quilted armour of ancient and semi-civilized races. Some animals, like the rhinoceros and hippopotamus, are entirely armed in this way; others have their defences on the most vulnerable part, as the mane of the lion, and the shoulder pad of the boar.[31] The skin of the tiger is of so tough and yielding a nature, as to resist the horn of the buffalo when driven with full force against its sides.[32] The condor of Peru has such a thick coating of feathers, that eight or ten bullets may strike without piercing it.[33]
According to Thucydides, the Locrians and Acarnanians, being professed thieves and robbers, were the first to clothe themselves in armour.[34] But as a general rule it may be said, that the opinions of ancient writers upon the origin of the customs with which they were familiar, are of little value in our days. There is, however, evidence to show that the use of defensive armour is not usual amongst savages in the lowest stages of culture. It is not employed, properly speaking, by the Australians, the Bushmen, the Fuegians, or in the Fiji or Sandwich Islands. But in other parts of the world, soon after men began to clothe themselves in the skins of beasts, they appear to have used the thicker hides of animals for purposes of defence. When the Esquimaux apprehends hostility, he takes off his ordinary shirt, and puts on a deer’s skin, tanned in such a manner as to render it thick for defence, and over this he again draws his ordinary shirt, which is also of deer-skin, but thinner in substance. The Esquimaux also use armour of eider drake’s skin.[35] The Abipones and Indians of the Grand Chako arm themselves with a cuirass, greaves, and helmet, composed of the thick hide of the tapir, but they no longer use it against the musketry of the Europeans.[36] The Yucanas also use shields of the same material. The war-dress of a Patagonian chief from the Museum of the Institution is exhibited (Plate VII, figs. 11, 12); it is composed of seven thicknesses of hide, probably of the horse, upon the body, and three on the sleeves. The chiefs of the Musgu negroes of Central Africa use for defence a strong doublet of the same kind, made of buffalo’s hide with the hair inside.[37] The Kayans of Borneo use hide for their war-dress, as shown by a specimen belonging to the Institution (Fig. 13). The skin of the bear and panther is most esteemed for this purpose.[38] The inhabitants of Pulo Nias, an island off the western coast of Sumatra, use for armour a ‘baju’ made of leather. In some parts of Egypt a breastplate was made of the back of the crocodile (Fig. 14). In the island of Cayenne, in 1519, the inhabitants used a breastplate of buffalo’s hide.[39] The Lesghi of Tartary wore armour of hog’s skin.[40] The Indians of Chili, in the seventeenth century, wore corselets, back and breast plates, gauntlets, and helmets of leather, so hardened, that it is described by Ovalle as being equal to metal.[41] According to Strabo (p. 306), the German Rhoxolani wore helmets, and breastplates of bull’s hide, though the Germans generally placed little reliance in defensive armour. The Ethiopians used the skins of cranes and ostriches for their armour.[42]
We learn from Herodotus that it was from the Libyans the Greeks derived the apparel and aegis of Minerva, as represented upon her images, but instead of a pectoral of scale armour, that of the Libyans was merely of skin.[43] According to Smith’s Dict. of Gr. and Roman Antiquities (s.v. lorica), the Greek ‘thorax’, called στάδιος, from its standing erect by its own stiffness, was originally of leather, before it was constructed of metal. In Meyrick’s Ancient Armour, there is the figure of a suit, supposed formerly to have belonged to the Rajah of Guzerat (Plate VIII, fig. 15). The body part of this suit is composed of four pieces of rhinoceros hide, showing that, in all probability, this was the material originally employed for that particular class of armour, which is now produced of the same form in metal, a specimen of which, from the Museum of the Institution, taken from the Sikhs, is now exhibited (Fig. 16).
In more advanced communities, as skins began to be replaced by woven materials, quilted armour supplied the place of hides. In those parts of the Polynesian Islands in which armour is used, owing probably to the absence of suitable skins, woven armour appears to have been employed in a comparatively low state of society. Specimens of this class of armour from the Museum of the Institution are exhibited; they are from the Kingsmill Islands, Pleasant Island, and the Sandwich Islands. A helmet from the latter place (Pl. VIII, fig. 17) much resembles the Grecian in form, while the under tippet, from Pleasant Island (Pl. VII, fig. 18), may be compared to the pectoral of the Egyptians (Fig. 19, a and b), which, as well as the head-dress (Pl. VIII, fig. 20), was of a thickly quilted material. The Egyptians wore this pectoral up to the time of Xerxes, who employed their sailors, armed in this way, during his expedition into Greece. Herodotus says that the Indians of Asia wore a thorax of rush matting.[44] In 1514, Magellan[45] found tunics of quilted cotton, called ‘laudes’, in use by the Muslims of Guzerat and the Deccan. An Indian helmet of this description from my collection (Fig. 21) is exhibited; in form it resembles the Egyptian, and an Ethiopian one (Fig. 22), composed of beads of the same form, brought from Central Africa by Consul Petherick, is exhibited. Fig. 23 shows that the same form, in India, was subsequently produced in metal. A suit of quilted armour formerly belonging to Koer Singh, and lately presented to the Institution by Sir Vincent Eyre, is also exhibited (Plate VII, fig. 24). The body armour and helmet found upon Tippoo Sahib at his death, which are now in the Museum of the Institution (Plate IX, fig. 25, a, b, and c), were thickly quilted. Upon the breast, this armour consists of two sheets of parchment, and nine thicknesses of padding composed of cocoons of the Saturnia mylitta, stuffed with the wool of the Eriodendron anfractuosum, D.C., neatly sewn together, as represented in fig. 25 b.[46] The Aztecs and Peruvians also guarded themselves with a wadded cotton doublet.[47] Quilted armour or thick linen corselets were used by the Persians, Phoenicians, Chalybes, Assyrians, Lusitanians, and Scythians, by the Greeks, and occasionally by the Romans.[48] By the Persians it was used much later; and in Africa to this day, quilted armour, of precisely the same description, is used both for men and horses by the Bornouese of Central Africa, and is described by Denham and Clapperton[49] (Plate VIII, fig. 26). Plate VII, fig. 27, is a suit of armour in the Institution, from the Navigator Islands, composed of coco-nut fibre coarsely netted. Fig. 28 is part of a Chinese jacket of sky-blue cotton, quilted with enclosed plates of iron; it is precisely similar to the ‘brigandine jacket’ used in Europe in the sixteenth century, which was composed of ‘small plates of iron quilted within some stuff’, and ‘covered generally with sky-blue cloth’.[50] This class of armour may be regarded as a link connecting the quilted with the scale armour, to be described hereafter.
As a material for shields, the hides of animals were employed even more universally, and up to a later stage of civilization. In North America the majority of the wild tribes use shields of the thickest parts of the hides of the buffalo.[51] In the New Hebrides the skin of the alligator is used for this purpose, as appears by a specimen belonging to the Institution. In Africa the Fans of the Gaboon employ the hide of the elephant for their large, rectangular shields.[52] The Wadi, the Wagogo, and the Abyssinians in East Africa, have shields of buffalo’s hide, or some kind of leather, like the Ethiopians of the time of Herodotus. The ox-hide shields of the Greeks are mentioned in Homer’s Iliad; that of Ajax was composed of seven hides with a coating of brass on the outside. The spear of Hector is described as piercing six of the hides and the brass coating, remaining fixed in the seventh hide.[53] The Kaffirs, Bechuanas, Basutos, and others in South Africa, use the hide of the ox.[54] The Kelgeres, Kelowi, and Tawarek, of Central Africa, employ the hide of the Leucoryx antelope.[55] Shields of the rhinoceros hide, from Nubia, and of the ox, from Fernando Po, are exhibited. In Asia the Biluchi carry shields of the rhinoceros horn, and the same material is also used in East Africa. A specimen from Zanzibar is in the Institution. In the greater part of India the shields are made of rhinoceros and buffalo’s hide, boiled in oil, until they sometimes become transparent, and are proof against the edge of a sabre.[56]
In a higher state of civilization, as the facilities for constructing shields of improved materials increased, the skins of animals were still used to cover the outside. Thus the negroes of the Gold Coast made their shields of osier covered with leather.[57] That of the Kanembu of Central Africa is of wood covered with leather,[58] and very much resembles in form that of the Egyptians, which, as we learn from Meyrick and others, was also covered with leather, having the hair on the outside like the shields of the Greeks.[59] The Roman ‘scutum’ was of wood covered with linen and sheepskin. According to the author of Horae Ferales, the Saxon shield was of wood covered with leather; the same applies to the Scotch target, and leather was used as a covering for shields as late as the time of Henry VIII.
Head Crests. The origin of the hairy crests of our helmets is clearly traceable to the custom of wearing for head-dresses the heads and hair of animals. The Asiatic Ethiopians used as a head-covering, the skin of a horse’s head, stripped from the carcase together with the ears and mane, and so contrived, that the mane served for a crest, while the ears appeared erect upon the head (Hdt. vii. 70). In the coins representing Hercules, he appears wearing a lion’s skin upon the head. These skins were worn in such a manner that the teeth appeared grinning at the enemy over the head of the wearer (as represented in Plate VIII, fig. 29, which is taken from a bronze in the Blacas collection), a custom which seems also to have prevailed in Mexico.[60] Similar head-dresses are worn by the soldiers on Trajan’s Column. The horns worn on the heads of some of the North American Indians (Fig. 30), and in some parts of Africa[61], are no doubt derived from this practice of wearing on the head the skins of animals with their appendages. The helmet of Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, was surmounted by two goat’s horns. Horns were afterwards represented in brass, on the helmets of the Thracians (Fig. 31), the Belgic Gauls, and others. Fig. 32 is an ancient British helmet of bronze lately found in the Thames, surmounted by straight horns of the same material.[62] Horned helmets are figured on the ancient vases. Fig. 33 is a Greek helmet having horns of brass, and traces of the same custom may still be observed in heraldry.[63]
The practice of wearing head-dresses of feathers, to distinguish the chiefs from the rank and file, is universal in all parts of the world, and in nearly every stage of civilization. Amongst the North American Indians the feathers are cut in a particular manner to denote the rank of the wearer, precisely in the same manner that the long feathers of our general officers distinguish them from those wearing shorter feathers in subordinate ranks. This custom, Mr. Schoolcraft observes, when describing the head-dresses of the American Indians, may very probably be derived from the feathered creation, in which the males, in most of the cock, turkey, and pheasant tribes, are crowned with bright crests and ornaments of feathers.[64]
Solid Plates. It has often struck me as remarkable that the shells of the tortoise and turtle, which are so widely distributed and so easily captured, and which would appear to furnish shields ready made to the hand of man, should seldom, if ever, in so far as I have been able to learn, be used by savages for that purpose. This may, however, be accounted for by the fact that broad shields of that particular form, though common in more advanced civilizations, are never found in the hands of savages, at least in those localities in which the turtle, or large tortoise, is available.
It will be seen subsequently, in tracing the history of the shield, that in the rudest condition of savage life, this weapon of defence has a history of its own; that both in Africa and Australia it is derived by successive stages from the stick or club, and that the broad shield does not appear to have been developed until after mankind had acquired sufficient constructive skill to have been able to form shields of lighter and more suitable materials than is afforded by the shell of the turtle. It is, however, evident that in later times the analogy was not lost sight of, as the word ‘testudo’ is a name given by the Romans to several engines of war having shields attached to them, and especially to that particular formation of the legionary troops, in which they approached a fortified building with their shields joined together, and overlapping, like the scaly shell of the imbricated turtle, which is a native of the Mediterranean and Asiatic seas.
Jointed Plates. In speaking of the jointed plates, so common to all the crustacea, it is sufficient to notice that this class of defence in the animal kingdom, may be regarded as the prototype of that peculiar form of armour which was used by the Romans, and to which the French, at the commencement of the seventeenth century, gave the name of ‘écrevisse’, from its resemblance to the shell of a lobster. The fluted armour, common in Persia, and in the middle ages of Europe, is also constructed in exact imitation of the corrugated shell defences of a large class of the Mollusca.
Scale Armour. That scale armour derived its origin from the scales of animals, there can be little doubt. It has been stated on the authority of Arrian (Tact. 13. 14), that the Greeks distinguished scale armour by the term λεπιδωτός, expressive of its resemblance to the scales of fish; whilst the jointed armour, composed of long flexible bands, like the armour of the Roman soldier, and the ‘écrevisse’ of the middle ages, was called φολιδωτός from its resemblance to the scales of serpents. The brute origin of scale armour is well illustrated by the breastplate of the Bugo Dyaks, a specimen of which, from the Museum of the Institution, is represented in Plate IX, fig. 34. The process of its construction was described in a notice attached to a specimen of this armour in the Exhibition of 1862. The scales of the Pangolin are collected by the Bugis as they are thrown off by the animal, and are stitched on to bark with small threads of cane, so as to overlap each other in the same manner that they are arranged on the skin of the animal. When the front piece is completely covered with scales, a hole is cut in the bark for the head of the wearer. The specimen now exhibited appears, however, to be composed of the entire skin of the animal. Captain Grant, in his Walk across Africa, mentions that the scales of the armadillo are in like manner collected by the negroes of East Africa, and worn in a belt ‘three inches across’, as a charm.[65]
It is reasonable to suppose that the use of scale armour, in most countries, originated in this manner by sewing on to the quilted armour before described, fragments of any hard material calculated to give it additional strength. Plate VIII, fig. 35, is a piece of bark from Tahiti, studded with pieces of coco-nut stitched on. The Sarmatians and Quadi are described by Ammianus Marcellinus as being protected by a ‘lorica’, composed of pieces of horn, planed and polished, and fastened like feathers upon a linen shirt.[66] Pausanias also, who is confirmed by Tacitus, says that the Sarmatians had large herds of horses, that they collected the hoofs, and after preparing them for the purpose, sewed them together, with the nerves and sinews of the same animal, so as to overlap each other like the surface of a fir cone, and he adds, that the ‘lorica’ thus formed was not inferior to that of the Greeks either in strength or elegance. The Emperor Domitian had, after this model, a cuirass of boar’s hoofs stitched together.[67] Fig. 36 represents a fragment of scale armour made of horn, found at Pompeii. A very similar piece of armour (Fig. 37), from some part of Asia, said to be from Japan, but the actual locality of which is not known, is figured in Meyrick’s Ancient Armour, pl. iii. 1. It is made of the hoofs of some animal, stitched and fastened so as to hold together without the aid of a linen corselet. An ancient stone figure[68] (Plate IX, fig. 38), having an inscription in a character cognate to the Greek, but in an unknown language, and covered with armour of this description, is represented in the third volume of the Journal of the Archaeological Association. The Kayans, inhabiting the eastern coast of Borneo, form a kind of armour composed of little shells placed one overlapping the other, like scales, and having a large mother-of-pearl shell at the end. This last portion of the armour is shown in the figure of the Kayan war-dress already referred to (Plate VII, fig. 13). Plate VIII, fig. 39, is a back- and breast-piece of armour from the Sandwich Islands, composed of seals’ teeth, set like scales, and united with string.
Similar scales would afterwards be constructed in bronze and iron. It was thus employed by the Egyptians (Plate IX, fig. 40), two scales of which are shown in Fig. 41; also by the Persians, Assyrians, Philistines, Dacians, and most ancient nations.
The armour of Goliath is believed to have been of scales, from the fact of the word ‘kaskassim’, used in the text of 1 Sam. xvii, being the same employed in Leviticus and Ezekiel, to express the scales of fish.[69] Amongst the Romans, scale armour was regarded as characteristic of barbarians, but they appear to have adopted it in the time of the Emperors. A suit of Japanese armour in my collection shows four distinct systems of defence, the back and breast being of solid plates, the sleeves and leggings composed of small pieces of iron, stitched on to cloth, and united with chain, whilst other portions are quilted with enclosed pieces of iron (Fig. 42, a and b). Fig. 43, a and b, is a suit of Chinese armour, in the Museum, having large iron scales on the inside (Fig. 44). This system was also employed in Europe. Fig. 45 is the inner side of a suit of ‘jazerine’ armour of the fifteenth or sixteenth century, in my collection. Fig. 46 represents a similar suit in the Museum of the Institution, probably of the same date, having large scales of iron on the outside. A last vestige of scale armour may be seen in the dress of the Albanians, which, like the Scotch and ancient Irish kilt, and that formerly worn by the Maltese peasantry, is a relic of costume of the Greek and Roman age. In the Albanian jacket the scales are still represented in gold embroidery.[70]