Piercing Weapons. The Gnu of South Africa, when pressed, will attack men, bending its head downwards, so as to pierce with the point of its horn.[71] The same applies to many of the antelope tribe. The rhinoceros destroys the elephant with the thrust of its horn, ripping up the belly (Plate X, fig. 47). The horn rests on a strong arch formed by the nasal bones; those of the African rhinoceros, two in number, are fixed to the nose by a strong apparatus of muscles and tendons, so that they are loose when the animal is in a quiescent state, but become firm and immovable when he is enraged, showing in an especial manner that this apparatus is destined for warlike purposes.[72] It is capable of piercing the ribs of a horse, passing through saddle, padding, and all.[73] Mr. Atkinson, in his Siberian travels, speaks of the tusk of the wild boar, which in those parts is long, and as sharp as a knife, and he describes the death of a horse which was killed by a single stroke from this animal, delivered in the chest.[74] The buffalo charges at full speed with its horn down.[75] The bittern, with its beak, aims always at the eye.[76] The walrus (Fig. 48) attacks fiercely with its pointed tusks, and will attempt to pierce the side of a boat with them.[77] The needle-fish of the Amazons is armed with a long pointed lance.[78] The same applies to the sword-fish of the Mediterranean and Atlantic (Fig. 49), which, notwithstanding its food is mostly vegetable, attacks the whale with its spear-point on all occasions of meeting. There is an instance on record, of a man, whilst bathing in the Severn near Worcester, having been killed by the sword-fish.

The weapon of the sword-fish is used as a spear-head by the wild tribes of Cambodia, and some idea may be formed of its efficiency for this purpose, and of the confidence with which it is used, by the following account of an attack on a rhinoceros with this weapon, by Mons. Mouhot.[79] He says:—

‘The manner in which the rhinoceros is hunted by the Laotians is curious, on account of its simplicity and the skill they display.... They had bamboos, with iron blades, something between a bayonet and a poignard. The weapon of the chief was the horn of a sword-fish, long, sharp, strong, supple, and not likely to break. Thus armed, we set off into the thickest part of the forest, with all the windings of which our leader was familiar, and could tell with tolerable certainty where we should find our expected prey. After penetrating nearly two miles into the forest, we suddenly heard the crackling of branches, and rustling of the dry leaves. The chief went on in advance, signing to us to keep a little way behind, but to have our arms in readiness. Soon our leader uttered a shrill cry, as a token that the animal was near; he then commenced striking against each other two bamboo canes, and the men set up wild yells to provoke the animal to quit his retreat.

‘A few minutes only elapsed before he rushed towards us, furious at having been disturbed. He was a rhinoceros of the largest size, and opened a most enormous mouth. Without any sign of fear, but on the contrary of great exultation, as though sure of his prey, the intrepid hunter advanced, lance in hand, and then stood still, waiting for the creature’s assault. I must say I trembled for him, and loaded my gun with two balls; but when the rhinoceros came within reach, and opened his immense jaws to seize his enemy[80], the hunter thrust his lance into him to a depth of some feet, and calmly retired to where we were posted.’ After the animal was dead, the chief withdrew his sword-fish blade, and presented it to Mons. Mouhot.

The narwhal has a still more formidable weapon of the same kind (Pl. X, fig. 50). It attacks the whale, and occasionally the bottoms of ships, a specimen of the effect of which attack, from the Museum of the Institution, is represented in Fig. 51. The Esquimaux, who, in the accounts which they give of their own customs, profess to derive much experience from the habits of the animals amongst which they live, use the narwhal’s tusk for the points of their spears. Fig. 52 represents a ‘nuguit’ from Greenland, of the form mentioned by Cranz[81]; it is armed with the point of the narwhal’s tusk. Fig. 53, from my collection, has the shaft also of narwhal’s tusk; it is armed with a metal blade, but it is introduced here in order to show the association which existed in the mind of the constructor between his weapon and the animal from which the shaft is derived, and for the capture of which it is chiefly used. The wooden shaft, it will be seen, is constructed in the form of the fish, and the ivory fore-shaft is inserted in the snout in the exact position of that of the fish itself. At Kotzebue Sound, Captain Beechey[82] found the natives armed with lances composed of a walrus tooth fixed to the end of a wooden staff (Fig. 54). They also employ the walrus tooth for the points of their tomahawks (Fig. 55). The horns of the antelope are used as lance-points by the Djibba negroes of Central Africa, as already mentioned (p. 52), and in Nubia also by the Shillooks and Dinkas.[83] The antelope’s horn is also used in South Africa for the same purpose.[84] The argus pheasant of India[85], the wing-wader of Australia[86], and the plover of Central Africa[87], have spurs on their wings, with which they fight; the cock and turkey have spurs on their feet, used expressly for offence. The white crane of America has been known to drive its beak deep into the bowels of a hunter.[88] The Indians of Virginia, in 1606, are described as having arrows armed with the spurs of the turkey and beaks of birds.[89] In the Christy collection there is an arrow, supposed to be from South America, which is armed with the natural point of the deer’s horn (Fig. 56). The war-club of the Iroquois, called GA-NE-U´-GA-O-DUS-HA, or ‘deer-horn war-club’, was armed with a point of the deer’s horn (Fig. 57), about 4 inches in length; since communication with Europeans, a metal point has been substituted (Fig. 58). It appears highly probable that the ‘martel-de-fer’ of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which is also used in India and Persia, may have been derived, as its form indicates, from a horn weapon of this kind. Horn points suitable for arming such weapons have been found both in England and Ireland, two specimens of which are in my collection.[90] The weapon of the sting-ray, from the method of using it by the animal itself, should more properly be classed with serrated weapons, but it is a weapon in general use amongst savages for spear or arrow points (Fig. 59), for which it has the particular merit of breaking off in the wound. It causes a frightful wound, and being sharply serrated, as well as pointed, there is no means of cutting it out. It is used in this way by the inhabitants of Gambier Island, Samoa[91], Otaheite[92], the Fiji Islands[93], Pellew Islands[94], and many of the Low Islands. Amongst the savages of tropical South America, the blade of the ray, probably the Trygon histrix, is used for arrow-points.[95]

In the Balistes capriscus (Fig. 60 a), a rare British fish, the anterior dorsal is preceded by a strong erectile spine, which is used for piercing other fishes from beneath. Its base is expanded and perforated, and a bolt from the supporting plate passes freely through it. When this spine is raised, a hollow at the back receives a prominence from the next bony ray, which fixes the spine in an erect position, as the hammer of a gun-lock acts at full-cock, and the spine cannot be forced down till this prominence is withdrawn, as by pulling the trigger. This mechanism may be compared to the fixing and unfixing of a bayonet; when the spine is unfixed and bent down, it is received into a groove on the supporting plate, and offers no impediment to the progress of the fish through the water. These fishes are also found in a fossil state, and, to use the words of Professor Owen, from whose work this description of the Balistes is borrowed, exemplify in a remarkable manner the efficacy, beauty, and variety of the ancient armoury of that order.[96] The stickleback is armed in a similar manner, and is exceedingly pugnacious. The Cottus diceraus, Pall. (Fig. 60 b), has a multi-barbed horn on its back, exactly resembling the spears of the Esquimaux, South American, and Australian savages. The Naseus fronticornis, Lac. (Fig. 60 c), has also a spear-formed weapon. The Yellow-bellied Acanthurus is armed with a spine of considerable length upon its tail.

The Australians of King George’s Sound use the pointed fin of the roach to arm their spears[97]; the inhabitants of New Guinea also arm their arrows with the offensive horn of the saw-fish, and with the claw of the cassowary. The sword of the Limulus, or king-crab, is an offensive weapon; its habits do not appear to be well understood, but its weapon is used in some of the Malay islands for arrow-points (Fig. 61). The natives of San Salvador, when discovered by Columbus, used lances pointed with the teeth of fish.[98] The spine of the Diodon is also used for arrow-points (Fig. 62). Amongst other piercing weapons suggested by the horns of animals may be noticed the Indian ‘kandjar’ composed of one side of the horn of the buffalo, having the natural form and point (Fig. 63). In later times a metal dagger, with ivory handle, was constructed in the same country (Fig. 64), after the exact model of the one of horn, the handle having one side flat, in imitation of the half-split horn, though of course that peculiar form was no longer necessitated by the material then used. The same form of weapon was afterwards used with a metal handle (Fig. 65). The sharp horns of the ‘sasin’, or common antelope, often steel pointed, are still used as offensive weapons in India (Figs. 66, 67, 68). Several examples of these are in the Museum of the Institution. Three stages of this weapon are exhibited, the first having the natural point, the second a metal point, and the third a weapon of nearly the same form composed entirely of metal. The Fakirs and Dervishes, not being permitted by their profession to carry arms, use the pointed horn of the antelope for this purpose. Fig. 69 is a specimen from my collection; from its resemblance to the Dervishes’ crutch of Western Asia, I presume it can be none other than the one referred to in the Journal of the Archaeological Association, from which I obtained this information respecting the Dervishes’ weapon.[99] Mankind would also early derive instruction from the sharp thorns of trees, with which he must come in contact in his rambles through the forests; the African mimosa, the Gledischia, the American aloe, and the spines of certain palms, would afford him practical experience of their efficacy as piercing weapons, and accordingly we find them often used by savages in barbing their arrows.[100]

Striking Weapons. Many animals defend themselves by blows delivered with their wings or legs; the giraffe kicks like a horse as well as strikes sideways with its blunt horns; the camel strikes with its fore legs and kicks with its hind legs; the elephant strikes with its proboscis and tramples with its feet; eagles, swans, and other birds strike with their wings; the swan is said to do so with sufficient force to break a man’s leg; the cassowary strikes forward with its feet; the tiger strikes a fatal blow with its paw; the whale strikes with its tail, and rams with such force, that the American whaler Essex is said to have been sunk by that animal.[101] There is no known example of mankind in so low a state as to be unacquainted with the use of artificial weapons. The practice of boxing with the fist, however, is by no means confined to the British Isles as some people seem to suppose, for besides the Romans, Lusitanians[102], and others mentioned in classical history, it prevailed certainly in the Polynesian islands[103] and in Central Africa.[104]

Serrated Weapons. This class of weapons in animals corresponds to the cutting weapons of men. Amongst the most barbarous races, however, as amongst animals, no example of a cutting weapon is found[105]: although the Polynesian islanders make very good knives of the split and sharpened edges of bamboo, and the Esquimaux, also, use the split tusk of the walrus as a knife, these cannot be regarded, nor, indeed, are they used, as edged weapons. These, strictly speaking, are confined to the metal age, and their place, in the earliest stages of civilization, is supplied by weapons with serrated, or saw-like edges.

Perhaps the nearest approach in the animal kingdom to an edged weapon is the fore-arm of the mantis, a kind of cricket, used by the Chinese and others in the East for their amusement. Their combats have been compared to that of two soldiers fighting with sabres. They cut and parry with their fore-arms, and, sometimes, a single stroke with these is sufficient to decapitate, or cut in two the body of an antagonist. But on closer inspection, these fore-arms are found to be set with a row of strong and sharp spines, similar to those of all other animals that are provided with this class of weapon. The snout of the saw-fish is another example of the serrated weapon. Its mode of attacking the whale is by jumping up high in the air, and falling on the animal, not with the point, but with the sides of its formidable weapon, both edges of which are armed with a row of sharp horns, set like teeth, by means of which it rasps a severe cut in the flesh of the whale. The design in this case is precisely analogous to that of the Australian savage, who throws his similarly constructed spear so as to strike, not with the bone point, but with its more formidable edges, which are thick set with a row of sharp-pointed pieces of obsidian, or rock-crystal. The saw-fish is amongst the most widely distributed of fishes, belonging to the arctic, antarctic, and tropical seas. It may, therefore, very possibly have served as a model in many of the numerous localities in which this character of weapon is found in the hands of savages. The snout itself is used as a weapon by the inhabitants of New Guinea, the base being cut and bound round so as to form a handle. Plate XI, fig. 70, is a specimen from the Museum of the Institution. The weapon of the sting-ray, though used by savages for spear-points, more properly belongs to this class, as the mode of its employment by the animal itself consists in twisting its long, slender tail round the object of attack, and cutting the surface with its serrated edge.[106] The teeth of all animals, including those of man himself, also furnish examples of serrated weapons.

When we find models of this class of weapon so widely distributed in the lower creation, it is not surprising that the first efforts of mankind in the construction of trenchant implements, should so universally consist of teeth or flint flakes, arranged along the edges of staves or clubs, in exact imitation of the examples which he finds ready to his hand, in the mouths of the animals which he captures, and on which he is dependent for his food. Several specimens of implements, edged in this manner with sharks’ teeth, from the Museum of the Institution, are represented in Plate XI, figs. 71, 72, 73, 74. They are found chiefly in the Marquesas, in Tahiti, Depeyster’s Island, Byron’s Isles, the Kingsmill Group, Radak Island[107], and the Sandwich Islands[108], also in New Zealand (Fig. 75). They are of various shapes, and are used for various cutting purposes, as knives, swords, and glaives. Two distinct methods of fastening the teeth to the wood prevail in the Polynesian Islands; firstly, by inserting them in a groove cut in the sides of the stick or weapon; and secondly, by arranging the teeth in a row, along the sides of the stick, between two small strips of wood on either side of the teeth, lashed on to the staff, in all cases, with small strings, composed of plant fibre. The points of the teeth are usually arranged in two opposite directions on the same staff, so that a severe cut may be given either in thrusting or withdrawing the weapon.[109]

A similarly constructed implement, also edged with sharks’ teeth, was found by Captain Graah on the east coast of Greenland, and is mentioned in Dr. King’s paper on the industrial arts of the Esquimaux, in the Journal of the Ethnological Society.[110] The teeth in this implement were secured by small nails, or pegs of bone; it was also used formerly on the West Coast. A precisely similar implement (Fig. 76), but showing an advance in art by being set with a row of chips of meteoric iron, was found amongst the Esquimaux of Davis Strait, and is now in the department of meteorolites in the British Museum. Others, of the same nature, from Greenland, are in the Christy collection (Fig. 77). The ‘pacho’ of the South Sea Islands appears to have been a sort of club, armed on the inner side with sharks’ teeth, set in the same manner.[111] The Tapoyers, of Brazil, used a kind of club, which was broad at the end, and set with teeth and bones, sharpened at the point.[112]

Hernandez gives an account of the construction of the Mexican ‘maquahuilt’ or Aztec war-club, which was armed on both sides with a row of obsidian flakes, stuck into holes, and fastened with a kind of gum (Fig. 78).[113] Herrera, the Spanish historian, also mentions these as swords of wood, having a groove in the fore part, in which the flints were strongly fixed with bitumen and thread.[114] In 1530, according to the Spanish historians, Copan was defended by 30,000 men, armed with these weapons, amongst others[115]; and similar weapons have been represented in the sculptures of Yucatan.[116] They are also represented in Lord Kingsborough’s important work on Mexican antiquities, from which the accompanying representations are taken (Figs. 78, 79, 80). One of these swords, having six pieces of obsidian on each side of the blade, is to be seen in a Museum in Mexico.

In the burial mounds of Western North America, Mr. Lewis Morgan, the historian of the Iroquois,[117] mentions that rows of flint flakes have been found lying, side by side, in order, and suggesting the idea that they must have been fastened into sticks in the same manner as those of Mexico and Yucatan.

Throughout the entire continent of Australia the natives arm their spears with small sharp pieces of obsidian, or crystal, and recently of glass, arranged in rows along the sides near the point, and fastened with a cement of their own preparation, thereby producing a weapon which, though thinner in the shaft, is precisely similar in character to those already described (Figs. 81 and 82). Turning again to the northern hemisphere, we find in the Museum of Professor Nilsson, at Lund, in Sweden, a smooth, sharp-pointed piece of bone, found in that country, about six inches long, grooved on each side to the depth of about a quarter of an inch, into each of which grooves a row of fine, sharp-edged, and slightly-curved flints were inserted, and fixed with cement. The instrument thus armed was fastened to the end of a shaft of wood, and might either have been thrown by the hand or projected from a bow (Fig. 83). Another precisely similar implement (Fig. 84) is represented in the illustrated Catalogue of the Museum at Copenhagen, showing that in both these countries this system of constructing trenchant implements was employed. In Ireland, although there is no actual evidence of flints having been set in this manner, yet from the numerous examples of this class of weapon that are found elsewhere, and the frequent occurrence of flint implements of a form that would well adapt them to such a purpose, the author of the Catalogue of the Royal Irish Academy expresses his opinion that the same arrangement may very possibly have existed in that country, and that the wood in which they were inserted may, like that which, as I have already said, is supposed to have held the flints found in the graves of the Iroquois, have perished by decay.

Poisoned Weapons. It is unnecessary to enter here into a detailed account of the use of poison by man and animals. Its use by man as a weapon of offence is chiefly confined to those tropical regions in which poisonous herbs and reptiles are most abundant. It is used by the Negroes, Bushmen, and Hottentots of Africa; in the Indian Archipelago, New Hebrides, and New Caledonia. It appears formerly to have been used in the South Seas. It is employed in Bootan; in Assam; by the Stiens of Cambodia; and formerly by the Moors of Mogadore. The Parthians and Scythians used it in ancient times; and it appears always to have been regarded by ancient writers as the especial attribute of barbarism. The Italian bravoes of modern Europe also used it. In America it is employed by the Darian Indians, in Guiana, Brazil, Peru, Paraguay, and on the Orinoco. The composition of the poison varies in the different races, the Bushmen and Hottentots using the venomous secretions of serpents and caterpillars,[118] whilst most other nations of the world employ the poisonous herbs of the different countries they inhabit, showing that in all probability this must have been one of those arts which, though of very early origin, arose spontaneously and separately in the various quarters of the globe, after the human family had separated. This subject, however, is deserving of a separate treatment, and will be alluded to elsewhere.

In drawing a parallel between the weapons of men and animals used in the application of poison for offensive purposes, two points of similitude deserve attention.

Firstly, the poison gland of many serpents is situated on the upper jaw, behind and below the eyes. A long excretory duct extends from this gland to the outer surface of the upper jaw, and opens above and before the poison teeth, by which means the poison flows along the sheath into the upper opening of the tooth in such a manner as to secure its insertion into the wound. The hollow interior of the bones with which the South American and other Indians arm the poisoned arrows secures the same object (Fig. 85); it contains the poisonous liquid, and provides a channel for its insertion into the wound. In the bravo’s dagger of Italy, a specimen of which from my collection is shown in Fig. 86, a similar provision for the insertion of the poison is effected by means of a groove on either side of the blade, communicating with two rows of small holes, into which the poison flows, and is retained in that part of the blade which enters the wound. Nearly similar blades, with holes, have been found in Ireland, of which a specimen is in the Academy’s Museum, and they have been compared with others of the same kind from India, but I am not aware that there is any evidence to show that they were used for poison. Some of the Indian daggers, however, are constructed in close analogy with the poison apparatus of the serpent’s tooth, having an enclosed tube running down the middle of the blade, communicating with a reservoir for poison in the handle, and having lateral openings in the blade for the diffusion of the poison in the wound. Similar holes, but without any enclosed tube, and having only a groove on the surface of the blade to communicate with the holes, are found in some of the Scotch dirks, and in several forms of couteau de chasse, in which they appear to have been used merely with a view of letting air into the wound, and accelerating death (Figs. 87 a and b). The Scotch dirk, here represented, has a groove running from the handle along the back of the blade to within three and a half inches of the point. In the bottom of this groove ten holes are pierced, which communicate with other lateral holes at right angles, opening on to the sides of the blade. Daggers are still made at Sheffield for the South American market, with a small hole drilled through the blade, near the point, to contain the poison; and in my collection there is an iron arrow-point (Fig. 88), evidently formed of the point of one of these daggers, having the hole near the point.

It often happens that forms which, in the early history of an art, have served some specific object, are in later times applied to other uses, and are ultimately retained only in the forms of ornamentation. This seems to have been the case with the pierced work upon the blades of weapons which, intended originally for poison, was afterwards used as air-holes, and ultimately for ornament only, as appears by a plug bayonet of the commencement of the eighteenth century in the Tower Armoury, No. 390 of the official Catalogue, for a drawing of which, as well as that of the Scotch dirk, I am indebted to Captain A. Tupper, a member of the Council of this Institution.

The second point of analogy to which I would draw attention is that of the multi-barbed arrows of most savages to the multi-barbed stings of insects, especially that of the bee (Fig. 89), which is so constructed that it cannot usually be withdrawn, but breaks off with its poisonous appendage into the wound. An exact parallel to this is found in the poisoned arrows of savages of various races, which, as already mentioned, are frequently armed with the point of the sting-ray, for the express purpose of breaking in the wound. In the arrows of the Bushmen, the shaft is often partly cut through, so as to break when it comes in contact with a bone, and the barb is constructed to remain in the wound when the arrow is withdrawn (Fig. 90). The same applies to the barbed arrows used with the Malay blowpipe (Fig. 91), and those of the wild tribes of Assam (Fig. 92), which are also poisoned. The arrow-points of the Shoshones of North America (Fig. 93), said to be poisoned, are tied on, purposely, with gut in such a manner as to remain when the arrow is withdrawn. The arrows of the Macoushie tribe of Guiana (Fig. 94) are made with a small barbed and poisoned head, which is inserted in a socket in the shaft, in which it fits loosely, so as to detach in the wound. This weapon appears to form the link between the poisoned arrow and the fishing arrow or harpoon, which is widely distributed, and which I propose to describe on a subsequent occasion. Mr. Latham, of Wilkinson’s, Pall Mall, has been kind enough to describe to me a Venetian dagger of glass, formerly in his possession; it had a tube in the centre for the poison, and the blade was constructed with three edges. By a sharp wrench from the assassin, the blade was broken off, and remained in the wound.

It has also been supposed that from their peculiar construction most of the triangular and concave-based arrow-heads of flint that are found in this country, and in Ireland, were constructed for a similar purpose (Fig. 95).

The serrated edges of weapons, like those of the bee and the sting-ray, when used as arrow-points, were likewise instrumental in retaining the poison and introducing it into the wound, and this form was copied with a similar object in some of the Florentine daggers above mentioned, a portion of the blade of one of which, taken from Meyrick’s Ancient Arms and Armour, is shown in Fig. 96.[119]

Although the use of poison would in these days be scouted by all civilized nations as an instrument of war, we find it still applied to useful purposes in the destruction of the larger animals. The operation of whaling, which is attended with so much danger and difficulty, has of late been greatly facilitated by the use of a mixture of strychnine and ‘woorali’, the well-known poison of the Indians of South America. An ounce of this mixture, attached to a small explosive shell fired from a carbine, has been found to destroy a whale in less than eighteen minutes, without risk to the whaler.[120]

When we consider how impotent a creature the aboriginal and uninstructed man must have been, when contending with the large and powerful animals with which he was surrounded, we cannot too much admire that provision of nature which appears to have directed his attention, during the very earliest stages of his existence, to the acquirement of the subtile art of poisoning. In the forests of Guiana there are tribes, such as the Otomacs, apparently weaponless, but which, by simply poisoning the thumb-nail with ‘curare’ or ‘woorali’, at once become formidable antagonists.[121] Poison is available for hunting as well as for warlike purposes: the South American Indians eat the monkeys killed by this means, merely cutting out the part struck,[122] and the wild tribes of the Malay peninsula do not even trouble themselves to cut out the part before eating.[123] The Bushmen, and the Stiens of Cambodia, use their poisoned weapons chiefly against wild beasts and elephants.

Thus we see that the most noxious of herbs and the most repulsive of reptiles have been the means ordained to instruct mankind in what, during the first ages of his existence, must have been the most useful of arts. We cannot now determine how far this agent may have been influential in exterminating those huge animals, the Elephas primigenius and Rhinoceros tichorhinus, with the remains of which the earliest races of man have been so frequently associated, and which, in those primaeval days, before he began to turn his hand to the destruction of his own species, must have constituted his most formidable enemies.

Missiles. Amongst the offensive weapons of animals, the use of missiles cannot be altogether excluded, although the examples of their use by the lower creation are extremely rare. Some species of cuttle-fish have the power of ejecting water with a good aim.[124] The Toxotes, or archer-fish, obtains its name from its faculty of projecting drops of water at insects some three or four feet from the surface of the water; which it seldom fails to bring down. The llama has a habit of ejecting its saliva, but I am not aware of the object of this singular practice. I only know from experience that its manners are offensive, and that it has the power of spitting with a good aim and for some distance. The porcupine has the power of throwing its quills, and is said to do so with effect, although it is not now believed to dart them with any hostile intention. The Polar bear is described in Captain Hall’s recent publication as an animal capable of capturing the walrus by missile force.[125] It is said that the bear will take advantage of an overhanging cliff, under which its prey is seen asleep upon the ice, to throw down, with its paws, large stones, and with such good aim as to hit the walrus on the head, after which, running down to the place where the animal lays stunned, it will take the stone to beat out its brains. That animals are instinctively acquainted with the force of gravitation is evident by their avoiding precipices that would endanger them, and it certainly requires a slight (but at the same time most important) advance upon this knowledge, to avail themselves of large stones for such purposes as are here attributed to the bear; but as the story only rests on the authority of the Esquimaux, it must, I think—although they certainly are careful observers of the habits of animals—be rejected, until confirmed by the direct testimony of white men. It has even been doubted whether the alleged habit of monkeys, in throwing coco-nuts at their pursuers, has not arisen from the mistake of the hunter in supposing that fruit accidentally detached from their stalks by the gambols of these animals in the trees, may have been intended as missiles; but it appears now to be clearly established that monkeys have the intelligence, not only to throw stones, but even to use them in breaking the shells of nuts. Major Denham, in his account of his travels in Central Africa, near Lake Tshad, says: ‘The monkeys, or as the Arabs say, men enchanted, “Beny Adam meshood,” were so numerous, that I saw upwards of 150 assembled in one place in the evening. They did not at all appear inclined to give up their ground, but perched on the top of a bank, some 20 feet high, made a terrible noise, and rather gently than otherwise, pelted us as we approached within a certain distance.’ This, I think, is clear evidence of a combined pelting on the part of these untutored animals.

The monkey thus furnishes us with the only example of the use of any external substance for offensive purposes, by any member of the animal kingdom. All others, except, perhaps, the missile fishes above described, use, for offence and defence, the weapons with which nature has furnished them, and which are integral parts of their persons. It is this which so essentially distinguishes man from the lower creation. Man is the tool-using animal. We have no knowledge of man, in any state of existence, who is not so; nor have we (with the exception of the ape, the link indirectly connecting him with the lower creation, in the same manner that the savage connects the civilized with the aboriginal man, both being branches from the same stem) any knowledge of animals that employ tools or weapons. Herein lies the point of separation, which, in so far as the material universe is concerned, marks the dawn of a new dispensation. Hitherto Providence operates directly on the work to be performed, by means of the living, animated tool. Henceforth, it operates indirectly on the progress and development of creation, first, through the agency of the instinctively tool-using savage, and by degrees, of the intelligent and reasoning man.

DESCRIPTION OF PLATES VI-XI

[Revised and abridged from the ‘Description’ appended to the original text. The roman numeral refers to the Plate on which the figure is printed.]

PRIMITIVE WARFARE
II
ON THE RESEMBLANCE OF THE WEAPONS OF EARLY MAN, THEIR VARIATION, CONTINUITY, AND DEVELOPMENT OF FORM.[126]

General Remarks.

In June, 1867, I had the honour of reading a paper at this Institution, which has since been published in the Journal, the object of which was to point out the resemblance which exists between the weapons of savages and early races and the weapons with which nature has furnished animals for their defence.

In continuation of the same subject, my present communication will relate to the resemblance to each other of the weapons of races sometimes widely separated, and of which the connexion, if it ever existed, has long since been consigned to obscurity. I shall endeavour to show, how in these several localities, which are so remote from one another, the progress of form has been developed upon a similar plan, and, though to all appearance independently, yet that under like conditions like results have been produced; and that the weapons and implements of these races will sometimes be found to bear so close a resemblance to each other, as often to suggest a community of origin, where no such common origin can have existed, unless at the very remotest period.

We shall thus be brought to the consideration of the great problem of our day, viz. the origin of mankind, or rather the origin of the human arts; for the question of man’s origin, whether he was himself created or developed from some prior form, whether since the period of his first appearance he has by variation separated into distinct races, or whether the several races of mankind were separately created, are questions which, however closely allied, do not of necessity form part of our present subject. It has to deal solely with the origin of the arts, and more particularly with the art of war, which in the infancy of society belonged to a condition of life so constant and universal as to embrace within its sphere all other arts, or at least to be so intimately connected with them as to require the same treatment; the tool and the weapon being, as I shall presently show, often identical in the hands of the primaeval savage.

These prefatory remarks are necessary because it will be seen that the general observations I am about to offer on the subject are fully as applicable to the whole range of the industrial arts of mankind as to the art of war. My illustrations, however, will be taken exclusively from weapons of war.

Is not the world at the present time, and has it not always been, the scene of a continuous progress? Have not the arts grown up from an obscure origin, and is not this growth continuing to the present day?

This is the question which lies at the very threshold of our subject, and we must endeavour to treat it by the light of evidence alone, apart from all considerations of a traditional or poetic character.

I do not propose here to enter into a disquisition upon the functions of the human mind. But it must I think be admitted, that if man possessed from the first the same nature that belongs to him at the present time, he must at the commencement of his career in this world have been destitute of all creative power. The mind has never been endowed with any creative faculty. The only powers we possess are those of digesting, adapting, and applying, by the intellectual faculties, the experience acquired through the medium of the senses. We come into the world helpless and speechless, possessing only in common with the brutes such instincts as are necessary for the bare sustenance of life under the most facile conditions; all that follows afterwards is dependent purely on experience.

Whether we afterwards become barbarous or civilized, whether we follow a hunting, nomadic, or agricultural life, whether we embrace this religion or that, or attain proficiency in any of the arts, all this is dependent purely on the accident of our birth, which places us in a position to build upon the experience of our ancestors, adding to it the experience acquired by ourselves. For although it is doubtless true that the breeds of mankind, like the breeds of our domestic animals, by continual cultivation during many generations, have improved, and that by this means races have been produced capable of being educated to a higher degree than those which have remained uncivilized, this does not alter the fact that it is by experience alone, conscious or unconscious, self-imposed or compulsory, and by a process of slow and laborious induction, that we arrive at the degree of perfection to which, according to our opportunities and our relative endowments, we ultimately attain.

The amount, therefore, which any one individual or any one generation is capable of adding to the civilization of their age must be immeasurably small, in comparison with what they derive from it.

I could not perhaps appeal to an audience more capable of appreciating the truth of these remarks than to the members of an Institution, the object of which is to examine into the improvements and so-called inventions which are from time to time effected in the machinery and implements of war.

How often does any proposal or improvement come before this Institution which after investigating its antecedents is found to possess originality of design? Is it not a fact that even the most ingenious and successful inventions turn out on inquiry to be mere adaptations of contrivances already existing, or that they are produced by applying to one branch of industry the principles or the contrivances which have been evolved in another. I think that no one can have constantly attended the lectures of this or any similar Institution, without becoming impressed, above all things, with the want of originality observable amongst men, and with the great calls which, even in this age of cultivated intellects and abundant materials to work upon, all inventors are obliged to make upon those who have preceded them.

Since, then, we ourselves are so entirely creatures of education, and derive so little from our own unaided resources, it follows that the first created man, if similarly constituted, having no antecedents from which to derive instruction, could not, without external aid, have made any material or rapid advance towards the initiation of the arts.

So fully has the truth of this been recognized by those who are not themselves advocates for the theory of development, that in order to account for the very first stages of human progress they have found it necessary to assume the hypothesis of supernatural agency: such we know was the belief of the classical pagan nations, who attributed the origin of many of the arts to their gods; such we know to be the tradition of many savage and semi-civilized nations of modern times that have attained to the first stages of culture. But we have already disposed of this hypothesis at the commencement of these remarks, by deciding that our arguments should be based solely upon evidence. We are, therefore, under the necessity of assuming, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, that none but the agencies which help us now were at the disposal of our first ancestors, and the alternative to which we must have recourse is that of supposing that the progress of those days was immeasurably slower than it is at present, and that vast ages must have elapsed after the first appearance of man before he began to show even the first indications of a settled advance.

Yet the complex civilization of our own time has been built on the foundations that were laid by these aborigines of our species, while the brute creation may be said to have produced little more than was necessary to their own wants or those of their immediate offspring. Man has been the agent employed in a work of continuous progression. Generation has succeeded generation, and race has succeeded race, each contributing its quota to the fabrication of the edifice, and then giving place to other workmen. But the progress of the edifice itself has never ceased; it has gone on, I maintain (contrary to the opinion of some writers of our day), always in fulfilment of one vast design. It is a work of all time.

To study it comprehensively, we must devote ourselves to the contemplation of the edifice itself, and set aside the study of mankind for separate treatment, for it is evident that man has been fashioned, not as the designer, but simply as the unconscious instrument of its erection. Each individual has been impelled by what—viewed in this light—may be regarded as instincts sufficient to stimulate him to labour, but falling immeasurably short of a comprehensive knowledge of the great scheme, towards which he is an unconscious contributor. Of this he knows no more than the earthworm knows it to be its function to cover the crust of the earth with mould, or the small coral polypus knows that it is engaged in the erection of a barrier reef. No comprehensive scheme of progress need be searched for in the pigmy intellect of man, and if we are ever destined to acquire any knowledge of the laws which influence the growth of civilization, we must look for them in an investigation of the phenomenon itself, by studying its phases and the sequence of its mutations. In short we must apply to the whole range of human culture, to the arts, whether of peace or war, the same method which has already been applied with some success to the history of language.

It has been shown that the speech of our own day has been the work of many generations and of innumerable distinct races; its roots are traceable in the utterances of the untutored savage. No nation ever consciously invented a grammar, and yet language has been shown to be capable of being treated as a science of natural growth, having its laws of mutation and development, never dreamt of by any of the many myriads of individuals that have unconsciously contributed to the formation of it. May not all the products of human intellects in the aggregate be made amenable to the same treatment, and, like language, be found to be influenced by laws of evolution and progress?

That these remarks are not merely speculative, that the progress of civilization has been continuous and connected, while the races which have been engaged in the formation of it, like individuals, have had their periods of birth, maturity, and decay, is sufficiently proved by history.

In Egypt and in Assyria, we see the remains of ancient and formerly populous cities, where now the nomadic Arab pitches his tent or wanders with his flocks, thus showing that relapses of civilization must have occurred in those particular localities where such phenomena are observed. But we know also from history that the civilization which once flourished in those countries did not expire there, but was transferred thence to other places; that the culture of Assyria and of Egypt passed into Greece and developed there; that from Greece it extended to Rome, and in the hands of a new people passed through fresh phases; that after the destruction of the Roman Empire it lay dormant for many ages, only to rise again on its original basis, extended and fertilized by the introduction of fresh blood; that we ourselves are the inheritors of the same arts, customs, and institutions, modified and improved; and finally, that civilization, expanding in all directions, as it continues to move westward, is now in process of being received back by those ancient countries in which it originated, in a condition far more varied and diversified than it could ever have become, had it been confined to a single people or country.

Passing now from the known to the unknown, we come to the study of prehistoric times, prepared to find that every fresh discovery helps us to trace backwards the arts of mankind in unbroken continuity towards their source.

Commencing with the Saxon and the Celt, and passing from these to the lake dwellers, and on to the inhabitants of caves, races whose successive periods of existence are determined chiefly by the animals with which their remains are associated, we find that, according to their antiquity, they appear to have lived in a lower and lower condition of culture, until in the drift period, coeval with the extinct mammoth and the woolly haired rhinoceros, we find the earliest traces of man, scanty and unsatisfactory though they be, yet sufficient to show that he must have existed in a state so rude, as to have devised no better implements than flints pointed at one end, and held in the hand.

These successive prehistoric stages of civilization have been divided into the stone, the bronze, and the iron ages of mankind. The evidence upon which this classification is based, has been so ably set forth in the works of Sir John Lubbock and others, that I need not refer to it further than to state that, in my treatment of the origin and development of the weapons of war, I shall in a great measure follow the same arrangement. But I shall endeavour to trace the development of form rather than the material of weapons, and to show by examples taken from various distinct periods, and especially by illustrations taken from existing savages, the various agencies which appear to have operated in causing progression during the earliest ages of mankind.