Vestiges of Lost Atlantis r
Bosse Island : An Ethnological Study. By W. E. Armstrong.
. (Cambridge University Press. 18e.)
ADHERENTS of Professor Elliot-Smith's " Diffusionist " school .Of culture will find much of great interest here. Rossel Island is the most easterly of the Louisiade group, Papua ; and its inhabitants are almost completely isolated from the rest of the archipelago. Mr. Armstrong contrasts the gloomy temperament of this peculiar people with the gaiety of the Massim, though- it is difficult to understand why he should attribute this to culture rather than to nature. He gives no reasons for his belief. Culture is not forced upon a people : it is a product of their temperament—itself the product of the reaction of their nature with their physical environment. But the culture of these islanders challenges attention by being highly suggestive of outside influences.
It may be mere coincidence, but if so it is a very extra- ordinary one, that the Rossel Islanders should believe that a Man has a ka, " the shadow and reflection " of himself. This ha must not be confused with his gh6, his life or soul which becomes his ghost after death. There is here a very strong resemblance, not only in name, to the ancient Egyptian ka, or double, which was distinct from the ba, or soul proper.
• This striking similarity leads one to question the currency 'system of the Rossel Islanders. One of their most peculiar features, it is an extremely complicated affair. Mr. Arm- strong found that this " money " was undoubtedly used as a means of exchange, but that it had also acquired a variety of religious significances. It bears the marks of a thoroughly pound and practical decimal system distorted by minds which could not comprehend it. There is the further significant point that the Islanders have only one weapon, a spear, and yet tell tales of other weapons. They even know of the bow and arrow—for it is a children's plaything—but they never use it. Their wandering mythology reminds one—as do those of so many primitive peoples—of a more coherent faith which their simple minds have garbled as a child garbles a fairy-tale.
Mr. Armstrong's writing makes rather - heavy reading, especially at first ; but these facts he has discovered are fascinatingly suggestive. Are they indeed traces of Mighty culture that once Was carried to all peoples, yet assimilated by few ?
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