PRIMITIVE MEN, ANIMALS AND PICTURES
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Mr. Empson seems to think the theory that primitive tribes cannot understand pictures is exploded. But I have repeatedly found natives of the French Equatorial Province of the Gabon, who are among the most primitive of Africans, incapable of making out or in any way recognising quite clear portraits and pictures. They examine them upside down, sideways and the right way up with the same stupid smile and then give it up. On the other hand I had a small female swamp monkey which above all things admired white babies. When shown a coloured picture of one, she would try to put her arms round it and kiss it all over the face, crooning with pleasure. You published a letter from me in 1932 about another monkey which could understand pictures. I have a Dandie Dinmont terrier which was keenly interested when I first began to exhibit home " movies." He growled at the antics of a chimpanzee on a sandbank and when two dogs rushed to join the ape at his play jumped from his point of vantage and dashed at the screen barking furiously.
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