DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49270#0398
Editorial Notes
285
From even a few such documents, it might be possible to plot cultural areas, as has been
done for North America — the areas in question being regions of fairly uniform culture,
marked off with some sharpness from other such areas. It would then appear whether the
African areas depended on geographic conditions, on plant or animal distributions, or on
the superior inventive genius of certain tribes or races. On the other hand, it might ap-
pear that the whole culture area hypothesis was untenable, and that within any given
geographic area, or within any given tribe, there would exist elements of culture which were
adopted at widely differing times and belonged to different culture levels. Thus, a true
stratification of cultures might be exposed. Yet again, it might be found that people
living in similar environments tended to develop a like culture regardless of any contact
or close ethnic affinities.
Each of these possibilities is held as a theory, consciously or unconsciously, by various
anthropological writers. Africa is pre-eminently the continent in which to test the validity
of each. In no other continent do we find a greater uniformity of culture, among primitive
peoples. And no where else has our knowledge been so closely of contemporaneous
epochs. There, if anywhere, consequently, it should
be possible to weigh the various theories of cultural
development.
By the publication of detailed monographs deal-
ing with the distribution of some specific artefact,
practice or belief, the long road towards the prepara-
tion of an ethnographic atlas can, little by little, be
cleared. The editors of the Harvard African Studies
earnestly hope eventually to publish such a collection
of maps, and will in the meantime particularly wel-
come articles tending to further that end.
3. Sudanese Planting Tool. Among a number
of ethnographic specimens presented to the Peabody
Museum by J. C. Phillips, is the planting tool from
Sennar Province, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (P. M. no.
85514) figured in the margin. The tool, a sort of
mattock, consists of a crotched stick of mimosa
with arms of unequal length: to the shorter arm an
ebony blade is attached. The total length of the
Fig- 1-
implement is 47 cm.; the longer arm measures 35.5 cm.; the shorter 10 cm.; and beyond
the latter, the blade (24 cm. long X 1.5 cm. thick) projects 14 cm. This blade is attached
by a seamless band or collar 4 cm. deep, made of the bark-like hide from the base of a
285
From even a few such documents, it might be possible to plot cultural areas, as has been
done for North America — the areas in question being regions of fairly uniform culture,
marked off with some sharpness from other such areas. It would then appear whether the
African areas depended on geographic conditions, on plant or animal distributions, or on
the superior inventive genius of certain tribes or races. On the other hand, it might ap-
pear that the whole culture area hypothesis was untenable, and that within any given
geographic area, or within any given tribe, there would exist elements of culture which were
adopted at widely differing times and belonged to different culture levels. Thus, a true
stratification of cultures might be exposed. Yet again, it might be found that people
living in similar environments tended to develop a like culture regardless of any contact
or close ethnic affinities.
Each of these possibilities is held as a theory, consciously or unconsciously, by various
anthropological writers. Africa is pre-eminently the continent in which to test the validity
of each. In no other continent do we find a greater uniformity of culture, among primitive
peoples. And no where else has our knowledge been so closely of contemporaneous
epochs. There, if anywhere, consequently, it should
be possible to weigh the various theories of cultural
development.
By the publication of detailed monographs deal-
ing with the distribution of some specific artefact,
practice or belief, the long road towards the prepara-
tion of an ethnographic atlas can, little by little, be
cleared. The editors of the Harvard African Studies
earnestly hope eventually to publish such a collection
of maps, and will in the meantime particularly wel-
come articles tending to further that end.
3. Sudanese Planting Tool. Among a number
of ethnographic specimens presented to the Peabody
Museum by J. C. Phillips, is the planting tool from
Sennar Province, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (P. M. no.
85514) figured in the margin. The tool, a sort of
mattock, consists of a crotched stick of mimosa
with arms of unequal length: to the shorter arm an
ebony blade is attached. The total length of the
Fig- 1-
implement is 47 cm.; the longer arm measures 35.5 cm.; the shorter 10 cm.; and beyond
the latter, the blade (24 cm. long X 1.5 cm. thick) projects 14 cm. This blade is attached
by a seamless band or collar 4 cm. deep, made of the bark-like hide from the base of a