Elements of Folk Psychology / Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind

n appears, among other things, in the fact that the simplest forms of the one are connected with the simplest forms of the other. This connection is twofold. Ideas of magic are, in a certain sense, p

heless, from the very beginning it obviously also gave rise to pleasure, and this caused it to be re-enacted in playful form. Thus, even the earliest art ministered not only to external needs but also to the subjective life of pleasure. The direct source of the latter is one's own movements and their accompanying sensations. The dance of the group enhances both the emotion and the ability of the individual. This appears clearly in the dances executed by the inland tribes of Malacca. These peoples do not seem to have any round dances. The individual dancer remains at a fixed spot, though he is able, without leaving his place, to execute marvellous contortions and movements of the limbs. These movements, moreover, combine with those of his companions to form an harmonious whole. They are controlled, however, by still another factor, the attempt to imitate ani

ngs as the latter no traces occur until later. The contents of the early songs are derived from the most commonplace experiences of life. The songs really consist of detached fragments of purely descriptive or narrative prose, and have no inner connection with the motives of the dance. That which characterizes them as songs is the refrain. One might say without qualification that this poetic form of speech begins with the refrain. The song has grown up out of selected natural sounds. Anything that has been done or observed may serve as content of the song. After such material has once been employed, it is

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is the refrain, which in this case consists simply of the word kra. This music of speech exalts and supplements the dance; when all parts of the body are in motion the articulatory organs also tend to participate. It is only the modern art-danc

becomes the string of a musical instrument. Its tones, however, cannot be heard distinctly by any one except the player himself. He takes one end of the bow between his teeth and sets the string into vibration with his finger. The resonance of the bones of his head then causes a tone, whose pitch he may vary by holding the string at the middle or at some other point, and thus setting only a part of the string into vibration. Of this tone, however, practically no sound reaches the external world. On the other hand, the tone produces a very strong effect on the player himself, being powerfully transmitted through the teeth to the firm parts of the skull and reaching the auditory nerves through a direct bone-conduction. Thus, then, it is a remarkable fact that music, the most subjective of the arts, begins with the very stringed instruments which are the most effective in arousing subjective moods, and with a form in which the pleasure secured by the player from his playing remains purely subjective. But, from this point on, the further development to tone-effects that are objective and are richer in gradations is reached by simple transitions effected by association. The one string, taken over from the bow used in the chase, is no longer sufficient. Hence the bridge appear

on of the zither was the tone which he heard in his everyday experience in war or in the hunt when he applied an arrow to his bow. No doubt, also, it was the whirring noise of the arrow, or that, perhaps, of the flying bird which the arrow imitates, that led him to reproduce this noise in a similar manner. Indeed, in South Africa, the bull-roarer, though, of course, used only as a plaything, occurs in a form that at once reminds one of a flying bird or arrow. The feather of a bird is fastened at right angles to a stick of wood. When the stick is vigorously swung about in a circle, a whistling noise is produced, accompanied, particularly when swung with great rapidity, by a high tone.

y. Finally, the arc, in the form of the segment of a circle, is utilized independently, either in simple repetition or in alternation. These simple designs then become increasingly complex by the combination either of the forms as a whole or of some of their parts. This multiplication of motives reaches its most artistic development in the women's combs found among the tribes of the Malay Peninsula. The comb, in some form or other, is a very common article of adornment among peoples of nature. But it is just in the form in which it occurs among the Senoi and Semangs that the comb gives evidence of having originally been, at most, only incidentally an article of adornment and of having only gradually come to be exclusively a decoration. In shape, it is like the women's combs of to-day. The teeth are pointed downwards, and serve the purpose of fastening the hair. The upper part forms a broad crest. But among these peoples the crest is the main part of the comb, the function of the teeth being merely to hold it to the head. For the crest is decorated in rich profusion with the above-mentioned ornamentations, and, if we ask the Semangs and the Senoi what these mean, we are told that they guard against diseases. In the Malay Peninsula, the men do not wear combs, evidently for the practical reason that, because of their life in the forest and their journeys through the underbrush, they cut their hair short. In other regions which have also evolved the comb, as in Polynesia, such conditions do not prevail; the comb, therefore, is worn by both men and women. In this, its earliest, use, however, the comb as such is clearly less an object of adornment than a means of magic. It serves particularly as a sort of amulet, to protect against sickness-demons. For this reason the ornamental lines in their various combinations are regarded as referring to particular diseases. The marks which a Semang woman carries about with her on her comb are really magical signs indicating the diseases from which she wishes to be spared. The head would appear to be a particularly appropriate place for wearing

dance. Just as one's own movements in the dance are an ?sthetic expression of symmetry and rhythm, so also are these same characteristics embodied in the earliest productions of pictorial art-in the beginning indeed, they alone are to be found. The primitive song comes to be a song only as a result of the regular repetition of a refrain that in itself is unimportant. As soon as primitive man produces lines on wood, his pleasure in rhythmic repetition at once leads him to make these symmetrical. It is for this reason that we never find decorations that consist merely of a single figure-a single triangle, for instance-but always find a considerable number of figures together, either above one another, or side by side, or both combined, though the last arrangement occurs only at a somewhat more advanced stage. If, now, these decorations are more and more multiplied by reason of the increasing pleasure in their production, we naturally have figures that actually resemble certain objects. This resemblance is strengthened particularly by the repetition of the figures. A single square with its angles placed vertically and horizontally would scarcely be interpreted as a bee, even by a Bakairi; but in a series of such squares we ourselves could doubtless imagine a swarm of bees. Thus there arise representations resembling animals, plants, and flowers. Because of their symmetrical form, the latter particularly are apt to become associated with geometrical designs. Yet on the whole the animal possesses a greater attraction. The animal that forms the object of the hunt is carved upon the bow or the blow-pipe. This is a means of magic that brings the animal within range of the weapon. It is magic, likewise, that affords the explanation of the statement of the Senoi and the Semangs that the drawings on the combs of their women are a means of protection against diseases. These two sorts of purposes illustr

etrical repetition is due to that regularity of movement which also finds expression in the dance and, even prior to this, in ordinary walking and running. But the artist himself then attributes a hidden meaning to that which he has created. Astonishment at his creation fuses with his pleasure in it, and his wonde

pigments, so that almost all colours occur. Now it might, of course, be supposed that such a picture of an animal has the same significance as attaches to the drawing occasionally executed on the bow of a primitive man for the purpose of magically insuring the weapon of its mark. But the very places where these paintings occur, far removed as they are from chase and battle, militate against such a supposition. An even greater objection is the fact that the more perfect pictures represent scenes from life. One of them, for example, portrays the meeting of Bushmen with white men, as is evident partly from the colour and partly from the difference in the size of the figures. Another well-known picture represents the way in which the Bushmen steal cattle from a Bantu tribe. The Bantus are represented by large figures, the Bushmen by small ones; in a lively scene, the latter drive the animals away, while the far-striding Bantus remain far in the rear. The picture reveals the joy of the primitive artist over the successful escapade. This is not magical art, but plainly exemplifies the first products of a memorial art. The one who painted these pictures desired first of all to bring before his memory that which he had experienced, and he doubtless also wished to preserve these scenes to the memory of his kinsmen. This is memorial art in a twofold sense. Memory renews the experiences of the past, and it is for memory that the past is to be retained. But this art also must still be classed as primitive, for it has not as yet attained to the level of imitative art. It is not an art that reproduces an object by a direct comparison of picture with copy. This is the sense in which the present-day portrait or landscape painter practises imitation. Even where the primitive era transcended a merely magical or decorative art, it did not advance beyond memorial art. The Bushman did not have the objects themselves before him, but created his pictures in accordance with his memory of them. Moreover, suited as the cave is to the development of a memorial art, it of

all of this we must conclude that this art is not primitive at all, but was imported, resembling in this many other things that gain entrance into the life of a primitive tribe. If the essential elements of the Biblical account of the Creation reached the Andamanese, who in other respects are primitive, why may we not also suppose that a wandering Eu