328

p Dear Sir,

p In the concluding part of my first letter I said that I would show in the next letter how easily the art of primitive peoples—what the Germans call Naturvölker—can be explained from the standpoint of the materialist conception of history. I must now carry out my promise.

p But I want first of all to come to agreement with you again respecting terminology. What do we mean by primitive tribes? What do we mean by Naturvolker?

p The term Naturvolker is usually applied to those very numerous and diversified tribes whose cultural development has not yet 329 reached the stage of civilisation.  But what is the border-line dividing civilised from uncivilised peoples?

p Lewis H. Morgan, in his well-known book Ancient Society, assumes that the era of civilisation begins with the invention of a phonetic alphabet and the production of literary records. I think that it is difficult to agree with Morgan without very substantial reservations. But that is not the point. No matter how far back we put the border-line between civilised and uncivilised peoples, we shall have to admit that the latter include an extremely large number of tribes standing at very different levels of culture. Consequently, the data that must here be taken into consideration are very extensive and diversified. True, the influence of racial peculiarities, if it exists at all in this case, is so small as to be almost impossible to detect: there is hardly any difference between the art of one race and that of another. "Primitive art, that universal language of mankind,” Liibke says, "covered the earth with monuments of a uniform kind, relics of which are to be found over an area stretching from the Pacific Islands to the banks of the Mississippi, and from the shores of the Baltic to the Greek Archipelago.” In the overwhelming majority of cases, therefore, we may consider this influence as practically nil. This, of course, greatly facilitates our task. But it still remains a very difficult one, for the uncivilised peoples include tribes which belong to very different stages of savagery and barbarism. How are we to orient ourselves in these data?

Why do we examine the art of primitive peoples separately from the art of civilised peoples? Because with the latter technological and economic influences are greatly obscured by the division of society into classes and the resultant class antagonisms. Consequently, the more remote a tribe is from such division, the more does it provide suitable data for my investigation. Which tribes are most remote from the social system characteristic of civilised peoples, that is, from division of society into classes? Those whose productive forces are least developed. And the tribes whose productive forces are least developed are the so-called hunting tribes, which subsist by fishing, hunting, and the gathering of the fruits and roots of wild plants. I shall therefore turn primarily to them, and to those which are nearest to them in cultural development. Higher tribes, the African Negroes for instance, will be called into service only to the extent that they modify or corroborate the results obtained from the study of the hunting tribes.

DANCES

p I shall begin with dances, which play a very important part in the life of all primitive tribes. "The distinguishing feature of the dance,” Ernst Grosse says, 330 “is the rhythmical order of its movements. There is no dance without rhythm."  [330•*  We already know from the iirst letter that the faculty to perceive and to enjoy musical rhythm is rooted in the properties of human (and not only human) nature. But how does this ability manifest itself in the dance? What do the rhythmical movements of the dancers signify? In what relation do they stand to their manner of life, their mode of production?

p Dances are sometimes simple imitations of the movements of animals. Such, for example, are the Australian frog, butterfly, emu, dingo and kangaroo dances. Such, too, are the bear and buffalo dances of the North American Indians. And, probably, such Brazilian Indian dances as the “fish” dance and the bat dance of the Bakairi tribe should also be assigned to this category.  [330•** 

p These dances reveal a faculty for imitation. The Australian, ki his kangaroo dance, imitates the movements of that animal so effectively that, as Eyre says, his mimicry would have drawn down thunders of applause at any theatre in Europe.  [330•*** ^^92^^

p ... [how] she climbs a tree to catch an opossum; how she dives for shells; or how she digs nourishing roots out of the ground. The men have similar dances—as, for example, the Australian scullers’ dance, or the dance the New Zealanders had which depicted the making of a canoe. All these dances are a simple representation of production processes. They are deserving of great attention because they are a remarkable example of the close connection between primitive artistic activity and production activity. But, naturally, social organisations arise which correspond to them. With primitive hunters, such organisations cannot be extensive owing to the very conditions of their hunting mode of life, that is, because the subsistence provided by hunting is very meagre and insecure. Eyre says of the Australians that "the number travelling together depends in a great measure upon the period of the year and tho description of food that may be in season."  [330•****  But, generally, an Australian horde does not consist of more than 50 persons. The Aeti of the Philippines live in hordes of 20-30 persons; Bushmen hordes consist of 20-40 families; there may be as many as one hundred persons in a Botocudo horde, etc.  [330•*****  Even a horde embracing 40 families, or 200 persons, is insignificant in size. These conditions of life, the lack of means of subsistence, also lead to frequent collisions between independent hordes of’primitive hunters. According to T. Waitz, most of the wars of^lhe Red Indian 331 tribes of North America were over the right to hunt in a certain territory.  [331•* 

p How such wars arise is very well shown by a conversation Stanley had with members of one of the Negro tribes of Central Africa. "Do you always fight your neighbours?" he asked them. "No, some of our young men go into the woods to hunt game; and they are surprised by our neighbours; then we go to them, and they come to fight us until one party is tired, or one is beaten."  [331•**  The frequently recurring clashes of primitive tribes arouse feelings of mutual hatred and unsatisfied vengeance, which in turn lead to further clashes.  [331•***  As a result, the primitive hunting tribes have to be continually on the alert against hostile attack.  [331•****  And since their numbers are too small and their resources too poor to enable them to assign from their midst a special category of warriors, each hunter has also to be a warrior, and the ideal warrior is therefore considered the ideal man. Schoolcraft says of the North American Indians that the whole power of public opinion is directed to converting the young men into fearless warriors and breeding in them a thirst for martial glory.  [331•*****  This, too, is the object of many of their religious rites; it is not surprising that their dancing art is directed to the same end. This is how....^^93^^

p If complete correspondence of form and content is the first and principal earmark of a genuine work of art, it has to be admitted that the war dances of the primitive peoples are artistic in the full meaning of the term. How far this is true, is shown by the following description of a war dance seen by Stanley in Equatorial Africa.

_p “Thirty-three lines of thirty-three men were leaping up together and falling to the ground together.... The thousand heads seemed as one, when they first rose with glorious energy, and then dropped

p with a piteous wail__Their soul passed into the onlookers, who,

p with glowing eyes full of enthusiasm, stood shaking the clenched fists of their right arms raised on high.... And when the dancing warriors bowed their heads and fell to the ground, while their 332 song rang with sad complaint, our heart was seized by an inexpressible emotion; we felt that we were present at terrible defeats, looting and murder, that we heard the groaning of the wounded, that we saw widows and orphans weeping amid ruined hovels and desolated fields....” Stanley adds that it was certainly one of the best and most exciting exhibitions he had seen in Africa.  [332•* 

p Thus the war dances of the primitive hunting peoples are artistic productions which express emotions and ideals that must have developed necessarily and naturally in the conditions of their specific mode of life. And as their mode of life was entirely determined by the state of their productive forces, we have to admit that, in the final analysis, the state of the productive forces determined the character of their war dances. This is the more evident since with them, as I have already said, every warrior is at the same time a hunter, and they employ the same weapons in war as in the chase.

p The invocatory and funeral dances of the hunting tribes likewise stand in the closest causal connection with their mode of life. Primitive man believes in the existence of more or less numerous spirits, but his attitude to these supernatural forces is entirely confined to diferse attempts to exploit them in his own interests.  [332•**  In order to propitiate a spirit, the savage tries to please it in one way or another. He seeks to bribe it with tempting food (“sacrifice”), or perform in its honour those dances from which he himself derives the greatest pleasure. African Negroes, when they succeed in killing an elephant, not infrequently execute a dance around it in honour of the spirits.  [332•***  That such dances are connected with the hunting mode of life is self-evident. Its influence on the funeral dances will be no less evident if we remember that when a man dies he becomes a spirit, whom the survivors try to propitiate in the same way as they propitiate other spirits.  [332•**** 

p The love dances of primitive peoples are to our eyes the height of indecency. It goes without saying that dances of this type have no direct connection with any economic activity. Their mimicry is an unconcealed expression of an elementary physiological need and, probably, has no little in common with the love mimicry of the anthropoid apes. Of course the hunting mode of life is not 333 without its influence on these dances too, but it could influence them only to the extent that it determined the mutual relations of the sexes in primitive society.

p I see you, sir, rubbing your hands in satisfaction. "Aha,” you exclaim, "so even with primitive man not all his needs by far are connected with his particular modes of production and forms of economy! His love emotion shows this very clearly. But once we grant even a single exception to the general rule, then however great the importance of the economic factor may be, it cannot be regarded as exclusive, and therefore your whole materialist explanation of history falls to the ground."

p I hasten to explain. It has never entered the head of any supporter of the materialist explanation to assert that men’s economic relations create and determine their basic physiological needs. The sexual emotion existed, of course, with our ape-like progenitors already in those remote times when they were still unfamiliar even with the slightest rudiments of productive activity. The relations between the sexes are indeed determined by this emotion. But at the various stages of man’s cultural development these relations assume different forms, depending on the [development of the family, which, in its turn, is determined by the development of the productive forces and the character of the social and economic relations.

p The same must be said of religious ideas. Nothing occurs in nature without cause. In man’s psychology, this is reflected in a need to discover the cause of the phenomena which interest him. His stock of knowledge being extremely small, primitive man "judges from himself" and ascribes natural phenomena to the deliberate action of conscious forces. This is the origin of animism.  The relation in which animism stands to the productive forces of primitive man is that its sphere grows narrower in direct proportion to the growth of man’s power over nature. But this, of course, does not mean that animism owes its origin to the economic form of primitive society. No, animistic ideas owe their origin to man’s nature, but their development, and the influence they exert on man’s social conduct, are determined in the final analysis by economic relations. Originally, in fact, animistic ideas, and belief in an after-life in particular, have no influence whatever on men’s inter-relations, since this belief is entirely unassociated with any expectation of punishment for bad conduct and award for good conduct. Only very gradually does it become associated with the practical morality of primitive men. The latter, say, begin to believe—as the inhabitants of the Torres Strait Islands, for example, believe—that beyond the grave the souls of brave warriors lead a happier life than the souls of ordinary people. This belief exerts a most undoubted, and sometimes very strong, influence on the conduct of the believers. And in this sense primitive religion 334 is unquestionably a “factor” of social development; but the practical importance of this factor entirely depends on precisely what actions are prescribed by those rules of practical reason with which the animistic ideas are associated, and this is exclusively determined by the social relations which arise on the given economic basis.  [334•*  Therefore, if primitive religion acquires importance as a factor of social development, that importance is entirely rooted in economics.  [334•** 

p That is why facts which show that art not infrequently developed under the strong influence of religion in no way detract from the truth of the materialist conception of history. I thought it necessary, sir, to draw your attention to this point because those who forget it are apt to fall victim to the most comical misunderstandings and often resemble Don Quixote fighting the windmills.

p I also want to make the following point: the first permanent division of labour is its division between man and woman in primitive society. While the men engage in hunting and war, to the lot of the women falls the gathering of wild roots and fruits (also shell-fish), care of the children and the household_r duties generally. This division of labour is reflected in the dances: each sex has its own separate dances; the two sexes dance together only on rare occasions. Von den Steinen, describing the festivals of the Brazilian Indians, observes that if the women do not take part in the hunting dances which accompany these festivals, it is because hunting is not a female occupation.  [334•***  This is perfectly true, and it should be added, as Steinen likewise points out, that on such festivals the women are more busy with household duties, preparing food for the entertainment of guests, than at other times.

p I have said that animistic ideas become associated with primitive morality only very gradually. This is now a generally known fact.  [334•****  But this generally known fact is in sharp contradiction to the opinion of Count Lev Tolstoy to which I drew your attention in the first’letter, the opinion, namely, that always’and every 335 where “(in every society”) the consciousness of good and bad inherent in all members of society is a religious consciousness. The diverse andj picturesque dances which hold such an important place in the art of primitive peoples express and depict emotions and actions that are of essential significance in their life. They therefore have a very direct relation to what is "good and bad”, but in the vast majority of cases they have no connection whatever with primitive “religion”. Count Tolstoy’s idea is mistaken even in relation to the Catholic] peoples of the Middle Ages, with whom the’association’of religious ideas with practical morals was already incomparably firmer and extended to a far wider sphere. Even with these peoples the consciousness of "good and bad" was far from always a religious consciousness, and therefore the emotions conveyed by art often did not bear the slightest relation to religion.

p But while the consciousness of good and bad is far from always a religious consciousness, it is nevertheless unquestionable that art acquires social significance only to the extent that it depicts, evokes or conveys actions, emotions or events which are of great importance to society.

p We have seen this in the case of dances; the Brazilian fish dances are just as closely connected with phenomena on which the life of the tribe’depends as is the North American scalp dance, or the shell-fishing dance of the Australian women. True, none of these dances is of direct benefit either to the dancers or to the spectators. Here, as always, the beautiful is enjoyed quite apart from any utilitarian consideration. But the individual may enjoy quite disinterestedly that which is very beneficial to the race (society). Here we have a repetition of what we see in the case of morality: if those actions are moral which the individual performs despite any considerations of personal benefit, this does not mean that morality bears no relation to social benefit. Quite the contrary, the self-sacrifice of the individual has meaning only to the extent that it is beneficial to the race.  The Kantian definition—Schon ist das, was ohne alles Interesse wohlgefallt  [335•* —is therefore wrong. But what shall we substitute for it? Can we say: the beautiful is that which pleases us irrespective of our own personal benefit? No, that would be inaccurate. Just as the work of an artist—even a collective artist—is to him an end in itself, so people who enjoy an artistic production (be it Sophocles’ Antigone, or Michelangelo’s Night, or the "scullers’ dance”) forget all practical ends generally, and the benefit of the race in particular.

p Consequently, enjoyment of artistic productions is the enjoyment of that (be it objects, phenomena or states of mind) which 336 is beneficial to the race, irrespective of any conscious considerations of benefit.

p An artistic production, whether its medium be images or sounds, acts upon our contemplative faculty, not our logical faculty, and there is, therefore, no aesthetic enjoyment when the sight of an artistic production evokes in us nothing but considerations of its benefit to society. Here there is only a surrogate of aesthetic enjoyment, namely, the satisfaction provided by these considerations. But since the considerations are prompted by the given artistic image, we, by a psychological aberration, believe that our enjoyment is caused by the image, whereas, actually, it is caused by the thoughts it evokes, and, consequently, is rooted in the functioning of our logical faculty, and not of our contemplative faculty. It is to the latter faculty that the real artist always appeals, whereas tendentious art always seeks to arouse in us considerations of the general good—that is, in the final analysis, acts upon our logical faculty.

p It should however be remembered that, historically speaking, the consciously utilitarian attitude to objects often preceded the aesthetic attitude to them. Ratzel, who does not approve the tendency of many investigators of primitive customs to impute consciousness where it could not have existed,  [336•*  is nevertheless himself obliged to appeal to it in several important instances. It is known, for example, that savages nearly everywhere anoint their bodies with oil, with the sap of certain plants, or simply with clay. This custom plays a great role in primitive cosmetics.  But what was its origin? Ratzel thinks that the Hottentots, who anoint their bodies with the sap of an aromatic plant called Buchu, do so as a protection against insects. And he adds that if these same Hottentots anoint their hair with particular thoroughness, it is with a view to protection against the rays of the sun.  [336•**  A similar supposition was already made by the Jesuit Lafitau in respect to the custom of the North American Indians of greasing their bodies with oil.  [336•***  It is very strongly and convincingly supported today by von den Steinen. Speaking of the custom the Brazilian Indians have of daubing their bodies with coloured clay, he remarks that they must have originally observed that clay freshens the skin and guards it against gnats, and only later did it occur to them that a body becomes more beautiful when daubed with clay. 337 “I myself am of the opinion,” he adds, "that pleasure is at the bottom of ornamentation, just as an accumulation of excess energy is at the bottom of play; but the objects whieh serve as ornaments originally become known to men because of their usefulness. With our (Brazilian) Indians, the useful goes hand in hand with the ornamental, and we have every reason to believe that the former was anterior to the latter."  [337•* 

p Originally, therefore, primitive man daubed himself with clay, oil o» sap because it was useful.  [337•** , Then there came a time when a body so anointed appeared to him beautiful, and he began to practise anointment for aesthetic pleasure. Once this moment had come, many and diverse “factors” appeared whose influence determined the subsequent evolution of the primitive cosmetic art. Thus, according to Burton, the Negroes of the Wajiji tribe (Eastern Africa) love to cover their heads with lime, whose white colour sets off their dark skin in handsome contrast. For the same reason, the Wajiji are fond of wearing dazzlingly white ornaments made of the teeth of the hippopotamus.  [337•***  Similarly, the Brazilian Indians, according to von den Steinen, prefer to buy beads of blue colour, which stand out more effectively against their skin.  [337•****  Generally, the action of contrast (the principle of antithesis) plays a very big part in such cases.  [337•***** 

p Equally strong, of course, if not stronger, is the influence of the mode of life of the primitive peoples. The desire to appear as terrible as possible to an enemy may have been another reason—in addition to the above-mentioned—for the origin of the custom of anointing or painting the body. "When a savage, in the course of the chase or in a victorious battle with an enemy, happened to become smeared with blood and mud,” says Joest, "he could not but have noticed the impression of mingled horror and revulsion he produced on the people around him, and they in their turn must have tried to produce the same impression for their own ends."  [337•****** 

p We know, in fact, that after a successful hunt, some savage 338 tribes smear themselves with the blood of the animals they have slain.  [338•*  We likewise know that primitive warriors put on red paint when setting out for war or when preparing for the war dance. Probably, too, the habit of painting the body red—the colour of blood—gradually grew and became prevalent among warriors from a desire to please the women who, owing to their way of life then, must have been contemptuous of men who were wanting in belligerency.  [338•**  Other causes led to the use of other colours; some Australian tribes smear themselves with white clay in token of mourning for the dead. Grosse makes the interesting observation that the colour of mourning is black among the white Europeans. and white among the black Australians.  [338•***  What is the explanation? I think it is this. Primitive tribes are usually very proud of the physical peculiarities of their race.  [338•****  A white skin seems very ugly to dark-skinned peoples.  [338•*****  They therefore try, as we have seen, in the ordinary course of life to set off and accentuate the darkness of their skins. And if mourning induces them to paint themselves in white colour, this is probably due to the operation of the already familiar principle of antithesis. But another assumption is possible. Joest thinks that primitive man paints himself on the death of a relative only in order that the dead man’s spirit might not be able to recognise him if it should conceive the premature desire to carry him off to the realm of the spirits.  [338•******  If this 339 assumption is correct—and (here is nothing improbable in it—then dark-skinned tribes prefer white paint merely as the best means of rendering themselves unrecognisable.

p However that may be, it is undoubtable that anointing the skin very soon develops into the more complicated habit of painting it.  [339•*  And the anointing process itself ceases to be as simple a matter as it was originally. In Africa, some of the Negro pastoral tribes consider it good form to smear their bodies with a goodly layer of butter  [339•** ; others prefer to use the ashes of cow dung or cow urine for the same purpose. Here butter, dung or urine are the hallmark of wealth, since they are a form of anointment available only to owners of cattle.  [339•***  It may be that butter and cow dung are a better protection for the skin than wood ash. If this is really so, then butter or clung was substituted for ashes with the development of cattle-breeding from purely utilitarian considerations. But once the substitution had occurred, a body smeared with butler or the ash of cow dung began to evoke more pleasant aesthetic feelings than a body smeared with bark ash. Nor is this all. A man who anointed his body with butter or dung thereby graphically demonstrated to his fellows that he was not without substance. Here too, obviously, the prosaic pleasure of giving this demonstration was anterior to the aesthetic pleasure of seeing one’s body covered with a layer of dung or butter.

p But primitive man not only anoints and paints his skin. He also cicatrises it in deiinite, and often extremely intricate, patterns; he also practises tattooing, and does so with the obvious purpose of ornamenting his person. Can it be said that in the case of tattooing also, the approach from the standpoint of use was anterior to the approach from the standpoint of aesthetic pleasure?

p You know, sir, that there are two kinds of tattooing: 1) tattooing proper, and 2) the tracing of patterns on the skin with the help of cicatrices.  Tattooing proper is the introduction into the skin by mechanical means of certain dyeing substances which, arranged in a deiinite order, form a more or less permanent pattern.  [339•****  The decoration of the skin with the help of weals caused by cicatrisation or cauterisation is sometimes called, in distinction to tat- 340 tooing, by the Australian word Alanka.  [340•*  Tribes which practise cicatrisation as a general rule do not practise tattooing, and vice versa. But why do some tribes prefer cicatrisation, and others tattooing? This is easy to understand when it is borne in mind that cicatrisation is practised by dark-skinned, and tattooing by light-skinned peoples. Indeed, if the skin of a Negro is cut and the healing process is artificially retarded so as to induce suppuration, the pigmentation destroyed by the suppuration will not be restored, and the result will be the formation of a pallid weal.  [340•**  Such weals stand out distinctly against the dark skin, which can thus be ornamented in any desired pattern. Dark-skinned tribes may therefore content themselves with cicatrisation, the more so that a pattern made by tattooing is not so conspicuous on a dark skin. The case of light-skinned tribes is different. Cicatrices are much less effective on their skins, which howeverare quite suitable for tattooing. So here it is the colour of the skin that is decisive.

p But this fact does not explain the origin of Manka and tattooing. What induces dark-skinned tribes to cicatrise their skins, and why do light-skinned tribes find it necessary to tattoo themselves?  [340•*** 

p Some of the North American tribes tattoo their skins with the figures of the animals whom they believe to be the founders of their particular tribe.  [340•****  The Brazilian Indians of the Bakairi tribe, on the other hand, draw on the skins of their children black dots and circles so as to make them resemble the skin of the jaguar, which they believe was the founder of their tribe.  [340•*****  The course of development is perfectly clear: originally the savage drew certain signs on his skin, and later began to cut them into it. But why did he have to do this? As to the depiction of the supposed progenitor of the tribe, the answer which seems the most natural is the following: the desire to have this image drawn on, or incised into, his skin appeared in the savage under the influence of his •devotion to his progenitor, or of the conviction that a mysterious connection existed between the latter and all his descendants. In other words, it is very natural to assume that the practice of tattooing arose as the product of a primitive religious feeling. If this hypothesis were correct, we should have to say that the hunt- 341 ing mode of life generated a hunting mythology, which, in turn, became the basis of one form of primitive ornamentation. This, of course, would not contradict the materialist view of history; on the contrary, it would be a vivid illustration of the thesis that there is a causal—though not always direct—connection between the development of art and the development of the productive forces. But this hypothesis, which appears so natural at first glance, is not fully borne out by observation. The Red Indians of North America carve or draw the image of their imaginary progenitor on their weapons, their canoes, their huts and even their domestic utensils.  [341•*  Can it be assumed that they do all this from religious motives? I do not think so. It is more probable that they are simply guided by the desire to mark the objects belonging to the members of their particular gens.  But if this is so, then it is permissible to think that the Brazilian Indian mother, too, when she paints the skin of her child to make it look like that of the jaguar, does so merely from the desire to give a graphic indication of its gentile affiliation. This graphic indication of the gentile affiliation of the individual is already useful in his childhood—in the event of his being kidnapped, for example—but it becomes a positive necessity when he reaches adolescence. We know that primitive peoples have a complex system of regulations governing the reciprocal relations of the sexes. Violation of these regulations is severely punished, and to avoid possible error appropriate marks are made on the skins of persons on reaching sexual maturity. Children born of women who have no such marks are considered illegitimate and in some places are put to death.  [341•**  Naturally, therefore, young people on reaching adolescence are anxious to be tattooed notwithstanding the painfulness of the operation.  [341•*** 

p But this, of course, is not all. Through tattooing a savage not only indicates his gentile affiliation, but, it may be said, the whole story of his life. This is how Heckewelder describes the tattoos he saw on an old Red Indian warrior. "On his whole face, neck, shoulders, arms, thighs and legs, as well as on his breast and back, were represented scenes of the various actions and engagements he had been in; in short, the whole of his history was there deposited... ."  [341•****  342 And not only his own life. The tattoos also reflect the life of tiie whole society, at least, all its internal relations. I say nothing of the fact that the tattoos of the women always differ from those of the men. Even the tattoos of the men are by no means alike: the rich seek to distinguish themselves from the poor, the slaveowners from the slaves. Little by little things come to a point when, by virtue of the principle of antithesis, the more highly placed persons abandon the practice of tattooing in order to stand out more conspicuously from the general crowd.  [342•*  In a word, Jesuit Laiitan was perfectly right when he said that the various marks the North American Indians “engraved” on their bodies served them as "records and memoirs".  [342•**  And if such “engraving” became a universal custom, it was because it was practically useful and even essential in primitive society. Originally, the savage perceived the value of tattooing, and then—much later—began to experience aesthetic pleasure at the sight of a tattooed skin. Thus, with Haberlandt,  [342•***  I emphatically reject the idea that the original purpose of tattooing was ornamentation. But I do not thereby answer the question as to what were the practical uses which induced the primitive hunter to practise it. I am firmly convinced that his need for "records and memoirs" was extremely influential in promoting the spread and consolidation of the custom of “engraving” signs on the skin. But the origin of this custom may have been due to other causes. Von den Steinen thinks that it sprang from the practice, still to be found among the medical men of primitive savage tribes, of cicatrising the skin to reduce inflammation. In the remarkable book I have already quoted so often, Unter den Naturvolkern Brasiliens, he gives a picture showing a woman of the Kataiju tribe whose skin had been cicatrised for purely medical purposes. Nothing would be easier than to confuse these cicatrices with those the Brazilian Indians make for purposes of ornamentation. It is therefore quite possible that tattooing developed out of a primitive surgical practice, and only later began to play the role of a birth certificate, passport, “memoirs”, etc. If this were so, it would be quite understandable why “engraving” of the skin is accompanied by religious rites: primitive doctors and surgeons are often at the same time sorcerers and exorcists. But however that may be, it is clear that everything we know about tattooing only confirms the correctness of the general rule I have formulated, namely, that approach to objects from the utilitarian standpoint was anterior to the approach to them from the aesthetic standpoint.

343

p We see the same thing in other branches of primitive ornamentation. The hunter originally killed birds, as all other game, in order to feed on their flesh. Those parts of the slain animals—the feathers of birds, the skin, spines, teeth and claws of beasts, etc.,—which could not be consumed or used for the satisfaction of other requirements, might nevertheless serve as a proof and token of his strength, courage or skill. He therefore began to cover his body with skins, to affix horns to his head, to hang claws and teeth around his neck, and even to insert feathers in his lips, his ears or his septum. Besides the desire to boast of his prowess, the insertion of the feathers must have been motivated also by another “factor”, namely, the urge to demonstrate his ability to stand physical pain, which is of course a very valuable quality in a hunter who is a warrior to boot. "Wearing his kleinod (treasure) in the hole punctured in his nose, lip or ear,” von den Steinen rightly remarks, "the young man must have felt a much greater stalwart than if it had simply hung from his body by a string."  [343•*  Thus the custom of piercing the nose and ears gradually developed and took firm root, and failure to observe this custom must have unpleasantly affected the aesthetic sense of the primitive hunters. How far this assumption is correct, is shown by the following. As I have already said, civilised people in their dances often wear masks intended to represent animals. Von den Steinen found among the Brazilian Indians many masks depicting birds and even fish. But note that the Brazilian Indian, when reproducing the features of a dove, say, does not omit to insert a feather into its beak: the meek bird, presumably, seems to him more beautiful when wearing this hunting trophy.  [343•** 

p When the sight of a hunting trophy begins to excite pleasurable feelings apart from any conscious thought of the strength or skill of the hunter it adorns, it becomes an object of aesthetic enjoyment, and then its colour and form acquire great and independent significance. The North American Indians sometimes made very beautiful headdresses of gaily coloured birds’ feathers.  [343•***  The red feathers of a certain Polynesian bird used to be one of the major items of trade in the Friendly Islands.  [343•****  Many similar examples might be given, but they must all be regarded as deriving from the fundamental conditions of the hunting mode of life.

p For the very natural reason that hunting is not a female occupation, trophies of the chase are never worn by women. But the 344 custom of wearing trophies of the chase in the ears, lips er the septum of the nose led at a very early stage to the practice of inserting in these parts of the body bones, pieces of wood, straw or even stones. It was from this type of ornament, presumably, that the Brazilian botoque arose. As this new type of ornament was not necessarily associated with an exclusively male occupation—hunting—there was nothing to prevent it from being worn by women. More, it is very probable that they were first introduced by women. In Africa, every woman of the Bongo tribe, on marrying, pierces her lower lip and inserts a piece of wood into it. Some, in addition, wear straws in holes punctured in their nostrils.  [344•*  This custom most likely arose at a time when the working of metals was still unknown, and when women, desirous of imitating the men but not being entitled to adorn themselves with trophies of war or the chase, were still unfamiliar with metallic ornaments. The working of metals ushered in a new period in the history of ornamentation. Metallic ornaments gradually began to oust ornaments obtained from the chase.  [344•**  Men and women began to cover their limbs and neck with metal bangles. The feathers, sticks and straws which used to be inserted into lips, nose or ears were replaced by rings and pendants made of metal. Belles of the Bongo tribe not infrequently wear iron noserings resembling those which Europeans put on ferocious bulls.  [344•***  Similar rings are worn by many women in Senegambia.  [344•****  As to iron ear-rings, women of the Bongo tribe wear them almost by the dozen, for this purpose piercing in several places not only the lobe of the ear but also the helix. "One meets lady fops,” Schweinfurth says, "whose bodies are decked in this way in a hundred places—There is not a protuberance of the body or a fold of the skin in which holes have not been punctured for this purpose."  [344•*****  But from the nose-ring it is not such a far cry to the ring through the upper lip, that is, the pelele, to which I referred in my first letter. When the old Makololo chief told David and Charles Livingstone that the women of his tribe wear the pelele for beauty’s sake, he was quite right, but he could not, of course, explain 345 how a ring inserted through the upper lip came to be regarded by his fellow tribesmen as an ornament. Actually, this was due to tastes inherited from the hunting period proper and modified in correspondence to the new state of the productive forces.

p The state of the productive forces, in my opinion, also explains the fact that in this new period the men no longer prevent the women from wearing the same ornaments as they have begun to wear themselves.  [345•*  The feather inserted in the nose or the helix of the ear was evidence of skill in the chase, and it would have been unpleasant to the men to see it worn by women, who never engaged in hunting. Metal ornaments, on the other hand, testify not to skill, but to wealth, and the rich owner would from sheer vanity strive to have as many of these ornaments as possible worn by the women, who by that time—in some places, at least—were becoming, more and more his property. "I believe,” Stanley says, "that Chumbiri (an African chief), as soon as he obtained any brass wire, melted it and forged it into brass collars for his wives. I made a rough calculation, and I estimated that his wives bore about their necks until death at least 800 Ibs. of brass; his daughters—he had six—120 Ibs.; his favourite female slaves about 200 Ibs. Add 6 Ibs. of brass wire to each wife and daughter for arm and leg ornaments, and one is astonished to discover that. Chumbiri possesses a portable store of 1,396 Ibs. of brass."  [345•** 

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p Thus female ornaments developed and changed under the influence of several “factors”, but, mark, all the latter either arose as a result of the particular state of the productive forces of primitive society (the enslavement of woman by man being one such “factor”); or, being a permanent feature of human nature, they operated in the particular way they did, and in no other, owing to the direct influence of the “economy”—such, for example, was the vanity which induced men to take pride in the rich attire of their womenfolk; such, too, were other and similar properties of the human character.

p That love of metal ornaments could have arisen only after man had learned the art of metal-working, needs no demonstration. That his habit of adorning himself and his wives and female slaves with metal ornaments sprang from a desire to boast of his wealth, is also very clear and, if need be, could be demonstrated by many examples. But do not think that it is impossible to point to other motives that might have induced the wearing of such ornaments. On the contrary, it is very probable that they (metal rings around the arms and legs, for instance) were originally worn because they had certain practical uses; then later they were worn not only for their practical uses, but from the desire of the owner to boast of his wealth, while, parallel with this, men’s tastes gradually evolved until a limb adorned with metal rings began to seem beautiful.

p Here too the approach to objects from the standpoint of use was anterior to the approach to them from the standpoint of aesthetic pleasure.

p You may perhaps ask, what practical uses could there have been in the wearing of metal rings? I shall not undertake to enumerate them all, but shall point to only a few.

p Firstly, we already know what a big role rhythm plays in primitive dances. Measured stamping of the feet and clapping of the hands serve to mark the time of the dance. But this is not enough for the primitive dancers. Often, for the same purpose, they suspend from their bodies regular garlands of rattling objects. Sometimes—with the Kaffirs of the Basuto tribe, for instance—these rattles consist merely of bags made of dried hide and filled with pebbles.  [346•* 

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p Their replacement by metal rattles would obviously be a great advantage. Iron rings on the legs and arms might well serve as metal rattles. And we do indeed find that the Basuto Kaffirs readily put on such rings for the dance.  [347•*  But metal rings, when striking one against the other, emit a jingling sound not only when the wearer dances, but also when he is walking.  Women of the Niam-Niam tribe wear so many rings on their legs that the sound they make in walking can be heard from afar.  [347•**  By keeping time with the step, this sound facilitates walking, and it may have been one of the motives for the use of the rings: it is known that Negro carriers in Africa sometimes hang bells to their loads, which stimulate them by the measured jingling sound they constantly emit.  [347•***  The measured sound of the metal rings must also have facilitated many types of female labour, the grinding of corn on handmills, for example.  [347•****  This also, probably, was one of the original reasons for wearing them.

p Secondly, the custom of wearing rings on the legs and arms was anterior to the use of metal ornaments. The Hottentots used to make such rings of ivory.  [347•*****  Other primitive peoples made them of hippopotamus hide. This custom is still preserved by the Dinkas, although, as we know from the first letter, this tribe, to borrow the words of Schweinfurth, is already passing through a veritable iron age. Originally, these rings may have been used with the practical purpose of protecting the naked limbs from thorny plants.  [347•****** 

p When the working of metals began and took firm hold, rings of hide and bone were gradually replaced by metal rings. Since these latter came to be a sign of affluence, it is not surprising that rings of bone and hide began to be regarded as less refined ornaments.  [347•*******  And these less refined ornaments also began to seem less beautiful; their appearance excited less pleasure than that of metal rings, irrespective of utilitarian considerations. Hence, here too the practically useful was anterior to the aesthetically pleasant.

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p Lastly, by covering the limbs—and especially the arms—of the warrior, the iron rings protected them in battle from the blows of the enemy, and were therefore useful to the warrior. In Africa, the warriors of the Bongo tribe wear iron circlets covering both arms from the wrist to the elbow. This ornamentation, known as danga-bor, may be regarded as the first beginnings of steel armour.  [348•* 

p We therefore see that if certain metallic objects were gradually transformed from useful articles into such whose appearance excited aesthetic pleasure, this was due to the operation of the most diverse “factors”, but that here, as in all the instances I have examined, some of the factors were themselves a result of the development of the productive forces, while others could operate in this way, and in no other, precisely because the productive forces were at the given, and not any other, stage of development.

p In 1885, Inama-Sternegg delivered a lecture before the Vienna Anthropological Society on "the politico-economic ideas of primitive peoples”, in which he posed, among others, the following question: "Are they (the primitive peoples) fond of the objects they use as ornaments because they have a definite value, or do these objects acquire a definite value solely because they serve as ornaments?"  [348•**  The lecturer did not venture to give a categorical answer to this question. And it would indeed have been hard to do so, since the question was wrongly formulated. It must first be stated what value is meant: use-value or exchange-value. If use-value is meant, then it may be said quite confidently that the objects which serve primitive peoples as ornaments were first considered useful, or were a sign that their owner possessed qualities useful to the tribe, and only later began to appear beautiful. Use-value is anterior to aesthetic value. But once the given objects have acquired a definite aesthetic value in the eyes of primitive man, he strives to obtain them on account of this value alone, forgetting, or never even thinking of its genesis. When exchange among different tribes begins, objects of adornment become one of the chief articles of exchange, and then the ability of a thing to serve as an ornament is sometimes (but not always) the only psychological motive that induces the buyer to acquire it. As to exchangevalue, we know that it is an historical category, which develops very slowly, and of which the primitive hunting tribes—for very understandable reasons—have only the vaguest notion, and therefore the quantitative ratio in which one article was exchanged for another was originally for the most part fortuitous.

_p If the state of the productive forces at the command of a primitive people determines the ornaments peculiar to that people, 349 then the character of the ornaments used by any tribe should be an indication of the state of its productive forces.

p This is in fact the case. Here is an example.

p The Niam-Niam Negroes have the greatest preference for ornaments made of the teeth of men and animals. They prize lion’s teeth exceedingly, but the demand for these teeth apparently exceeds the supply, and the Niam-Niams therefore use imitation lion’s teeth made of ivory. Schweinfurth says that a necklet fashioned of such artificial teeth is very effective against a dark skin. But you, sir, will realise that the chief consideration here is not the colour contrast, but the fact that the pieces of ivory Avhich stand out so handsomely against the dark skin represent lion’s teeth. And if anyone were to ask what mode of life the Niam-Niam Negroes lead, you would answer quite confidently. Without any difficulty or a moment’s hesitation, you would say that they live by hunting. And you would be right. The men of this tribe are essentially hunters, who do not even deny themselves the pleasure of tasting human flesh. They are not unfamiliar with tillage, but they leave it to the care of the women.  [349•* 

p But, as we know, these same Niam-Niams also wear metal ornaments. This is a big step forward compared with those hunting tribes, like the Australians or Brazilian Bakairi, to whom metal ornaments are unknown. But what does this forward step in ornamentation imply? It implies that a step forward was previously made by the productive forces.

p Another example. The dandy of the Fan tribe decks his hair witli the brightest-coloured feathers, dyes his teeth black (the principle of antithesis: contrast to animals, whose teeth are always white), throws the skin of a leopard or some other wild beast across his shoulders, and suspends a big knife to his belt. The female dandy of the same tribe goes about naked, but her arms are adorned with copper bracelets, and her hair with a multitude of white beads.  [349•** 

p Is there a causal connection between these ornaments and the productive forces at the disposal of the Fan tribe? Not only is there such a connection; it veritably strikes the eye. The male attire of this tribe is a typical hunter’s attire. The female ornaments—beads and bracelets—have no direct connection with hunting, but they are secured in exchange for one of the most valuable products of the chase—ivory. The men do not allow the women to adorn themselves with trophies of the chase, but in exchange for products they derive from the chase they procure for their women ornaments made by tribes (or peoples) whose productive forces are at a higher level of development. It is 350 this higher level of development of the productive forces that determines the aesthetic tastes of their hetter halves.  [350•* 

p A third example. The inhabitants of the north of Ubwari Island on Lake Tanganyika, Africa, wear a cloak made of bark and dyed to resemble as nearly as possible the skin of a leopard. Metal bracelets, which are used by all the neighbouringtribes, are here worn only by the wives of rich men; the poorer women have to content themselves with bracelets of bark. Lastly, instead of the metal wire which the neighbouring tribes use to stiffen their coiffures, the inhabitants of this island make do with grass. How does all this accord with the productive forces of the inhabitants of Ubwari? Why do they dye their cloaks to resemble the leopard’s skin? Because there are no leopards on their island, yet they consider the hide of this beast the finest adornment of a warrior. Consequently, peculiarities of geographical environment led to a change in the material from which the cloaks are made, but they could not change the aesthetic tastes which determine the manner in which the material is fashioned.  [350•**  Other peculiarities of the geographical environment—lack of metal deposits on the island—retarded the spread of metal ornaments among the inhabitants of Ubwari, but could not prevent them from conceiving a fondness for such ornaments: they are already worn there by the wives of the rich. Owing to the aforesaid peculiarities of the geographical environment, the process is slower here than in other places, hut both here and there the development of aesthetic tastes goes hand in hand with the development of the productive forces, and therefore both here and there the former is a sure indication of the state of the latter and vice versa.

p I have said time and again that even in primitive hunting societies aesthetic tastes are not always determined by technology and economics directly.  Not infrequently, rather numerous and diversified intermediate “factors” exert their influence. But even an indirect causal connection is still a causal connection. If A in one instance engenders C directly, and, in another, does so through B which it has itself engendered previously, can it be said that C does not owe its origin to A? If a given custom, say, sprang from a superstition, or from vanity, or from the desire to terrify enemies, this does not provide the ultimate explanation of the origin of the custom. We still have to ask whether the super- 351 stition from which it sprang was not characteristic of the given mode of life—the hunting mode, for example—and whether the way in which man satisfied his vanity or terrified his enemies was not determined by the productive forces of society and its economy.

p We have only to ask this question, and the irrefutable logic of facts compels us to answer it in the affirmative.

The designs with which primitive man adorns his weapons, implements of labour and....^^96^^