paintings and sculptures. The wide distribution of this peculiar custom appears to me of considerable significance, especially as it follows so nearly in the line I have indicated in two previous papers as suggestive of a pre-historic intercourse between the two hemispheres. "If," says Max Müller, "we find the same words with the same meanings in Sanskrit, Persian, Armenian, Greek, Latin, Celtic, Slavonic, and Teutonic, what shall we say? Either the words must have been borrowed from one language by the other, or they must have belonged to an older language from which all these so-called Aryan languages were derived." This, using customs instead of languages, is what I have endeavoured to show in this and other papers. When we find in India, Japan, Egypt, New Guinea, New Zealand, Alaska, Greenland, and America, the custom of tattooing carried out in precisely the same manner and for the same ends, and when in addition to this we find a similarity in other ornaments, in weapons, in games, in modes of burial, and many other customs, we think it may fairly be assumed that they all derived these customs from a common source, or that at some unknown period, some intercourse existed of which these things are the surviving traces.

The antiquity of the art of tattooing is undoubted. Herodotus speaks of it as used by the Thracians, and I have always held that the Picts were probably tattooed, and perhaps the ancient Britons likewise, and that geometrical patterns and other markings similar to those still in use in New Zealand and North America found on ancient stone monuments in Europe, probably denoted the tribal mark or totem of chieftains, as tattooed or painted upon their persons, but this of course, except from analogy, must remain a conjecture. Doubtless as at the present day, tattooing died out rapidly after contact with civilised races; but it is somewhat singular, that no trace of tattooing as far as I am aware is to be found among the Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, and Roman paintings and sculptures, although these civilised nations must have come in contact with tattooed peoples, unless it had not at that period spread into the regions depicted by them. The bronze head before alluded to as found in the cemetery of Marzabotto, Bologna, is the only one I know in which tattoo marks, or rather the African tribal cicatrices on the face, are distinctly to be seen. Mr. Swan, who in his article on the Haidahs, reproduces this bronze head, fancies he sees something like tattoo marks on one of the vases found by Dr. Schliemann; and I believe it can be plainly traced on some of the Peruvian I pointed out in a note to my paper on American Shell Work, the strong similarity between the tattoo marks of the Nagas as pourtrayed by Dr. Watt in the Colonial and Indian

vases.

Exhibition, and those on the curious shell masks found in grave mounds in America; and a still more remarkable coincidence in connection with the subject of this paper has since come to my notice. The shell masks of which I have spoken, have diagonal lines across the cheek, and some have a hole with a line or two lines proceeding from it and sometimes two others crossing it extending over what may be supposed to be the chin. Now it is a singular fact that exactly the same mark appears on the chin of the gigantic stone image from Easter Island now under the portico of the British Museum. Whether these marks represent tattooing as affirmed by Mr. Dall, and whether then, as now, these markings on the chin denoted a female, must be left to further investigation, but it is a subject worthy I believe of the especial notice of travellers and antiquaries, for it appears to me of great anthropological interest. The implements employed are also deserving of notice, being in many places fragments of human bone, but of these I cannot treat in the present paper.

Since writing the above, I have been favoured with a sight of a book recently published by Herr Joëst, on the subject, and if the plates given of Japanese tattooing are not supplemented by painting, it must be conceded that the Japanese are the most skilful tattooers in the world. The patterns resemble those on Japanese silks, and might readily be mistaken for a tight fitting garment of that material. Such, indeed, seems to be the design, as it is only in use, we are told, among the lower orders, and takes with them the place of garments.

Explanation of Plate VI.

Map of the world, illustrating the distribution of tattooing. In this map the dark shading by horizontal lines represents the distribution of tattooing by means of gashes; the medium shading by vertical lines, the ordinary tattooing by puncture, with colouring matter rubbed in; the light dotted areas represent countries where traces of ancient tattooing are mentioned in the paper; and the three strong lines from left to right denote those places in which travellers have noticed the tattooing of the chins of women, chiefly in token of marriage. The scale of the map is too small to mark each place distinctly, especially the one spot in Italy alluded to in the paper.

DISCUSSION.

Lieut.-Col. KINCAIRD remarked that Miss Buckland in her valuable paper had referred to the practice of tattooing among the tribes of Nagas in North-Eastern India, but it might be of interest

to remark that the speaker's observation led him to believe that this custom, though in a partial manner, on the arms and legs is wide spread among the women of the lower castes of the Tamil, &c., races in the south and south-east of the peninsula. Among the ethnically allied so-called aboriginal tribes inhabiting the Vindyan and Suthpura Hill slopes it is also prevalent, even among the women of the lower order of Mohammedans, whose forefathers were probably low caste Hindoos before being converted by force. The speaker had observed the same tattoo markings on arms and legs. There is very generally a dot on the chin and similar dots on the cheek or temple very sparingly placed, forming perhaps in their ideas beauty spots, similar to the patches of our ladies in former years.

With reference to possibly early intercommunication of tribes referred to in the paper, there is the curious fact of the Dyak tribes of North-Eastern Borneo using similar weapons to those in use by certain tribes of the head waters of the Amazon; now the blow pipe alluded to is a very skilfully constructed weapon, as proved by some in the speaker's possession. The blow pipe is made of the hardest wood of the forest, eight to ten feet long, bored most accurately with close fitting poisoned arrows. It is curious that tribes so dissimilar in manners, customs, and appearance should have hit upon identically constructed weapons so different to the usual axes, bows and arrows, and spears of most savages.

The following paper was then read :

On the EVOLUTION of a CHARACTERISTIC PATTERN on the SHAFTS of ARROWS from the SOLOMON ISLANDS.

By HENRY BALFOUR, M.A., F.Z.S., Assistant to the Curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford.

[WITH PLATE VII.
1.]

HAVING recently had the opportunity of observing a large number of arrows from the Santa Cruz and Solomon Island groups, forming a section of the fine arrow series recently arranged in the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford, I was struck by the persistence of a certain incised pattern on the shafts of the greater number. The constant recurrence of this design, which, though showing many modifications in complexity and finish, is essentially the same throughout the series, suggested that it must originally have had some definite significance. Either it might have originated in some natural peculiarity or imperfection, the outline and position of which suggested a rough ornamentation; or in some artificial modification of the shaft