Prof. Otis T. Mason commenced to read a paper entitled THE SAVAGE MIND IN THE PRESENCE OF CIVILIZATION, but the hour of adjournment arrived before he had completed it.

THIRTY-SEVENTH REGULAR MEETING, April 5, 1881.

Professor Otis T. Mason concluded the reading of his paper commenced at the preceding meeting, entitled THE SAVAGE MIND IN THE PRESENCE OF CIVILIZATION. The following abstract has been furnished:

1. The progress of civilization has been guided and stimulated in every age by the presence of peoples more advanced in any regard. It is impossible for beings constituted as we are to look upon the processes or results of industry different from or more advanced than their own without emotion, accompanied with emulation or despair, according as the object may or may not be beyond their reach.

2. Theoretically this fact is related to chronology, reversion, flexibility of races, technology, language, social system, and religion. 3. There are certain lines or categories of culture, such as food, dress, shelter, war, industry, ornament, gratification, traffic, family organization, government, and religion, along which there has been evolution and elaboration.

4. Among these categories themselves there is gradation, nearly in the order named above. It is more difficult for a people to change in the higher and more intellectual than in the lower categories. It is, therefore, easier to induce a people to change food, dress, implements, weapons, &c., than to alter their language, kinship, government, and religion.

5. In each class or line there may be, and probably are, well marked stages of progress, corresponding to Mr. Morgan's periods. If the categories, therefore, are represented by parallel perpendicular lines, the total simultaneity would be marked by lines like parallels of latitude or isotherms crossing the categories.

6. Attempts to leap over these consécutive steps of culture, or to substitute progress in one category for that in another, ignoring the intermediate ones, have been fatal in several ways: 1. They have 'presented a discouraging chasm between the starting point and that to be reached. 2. The transition has made unnatural and frequently fatal strains upon the organism, both in its physical and psychical constitution. 3. If by reason of mixed blood or extraordinary natural gifts the subject be forced to the status of the higher race, he is still ostracised. He cannot compete with the dominant race against capital, inherited proclivities, and racial prejudice. On returning to his own people he is spurned for his ignorance of the old paths, and is unable to induce his people to don the new fashions. The experience of nearly all authors whom I have consulted is that these highly stimulated savages either perish miserably or become lazaroni among their own people or the dominant race.

7. In conclusion, it is strongly insisted on that the only valuable education to a lower race is that which enables the subjects to develop their highest energies and intelligence among those where their lives are to be passed. In its true and widest sense education is not confined to school instruction. It embraces all that changes in the presence of higher culture. It cannot be too strongly insisted upon that functions vary easier than structure. Just as it is difficult to change the structure of a tree, which nevertheless we may use for fruit, for shade, for ornament, or for timber, almost indifferently; or the structure of a horse which the farmer may employ almost equally in the thousand and one operations of his craft; so is it with this wonderful organism called society. Functions may change many times in the life of an individual, but the edifice of the body politic, the family, and the church, can be reconstructed only with the greatest wisdom and patience.

President Powell remarked relative to the efforts described by Prof. Mason, which had been and were being made to educate the Indians in special schools and institutions for the purpose, situated

in civilized communities, that they had generally proved failures, and would in his opinion continue to prove such. Those persons thus educated usually become worthless citizens either of their own or of civilized communities. He claimed that the facts, and his conclusions drawn from them, were based on broad ethnological principles, and the movement was conducted in ignorance or disregard of those principles. He had at one time contemplated giving publicity to his views on the subject, but was dissuaded from so doing by a consideration of the worthy and philanthropic motives from which these efforts proceed. He urged that if they are to be continued it is important that the subjects for such education be selected from the most advanced tribes, and those which had been longest in immediate communication with the whites. He thought, however, that the Indians were really becoming rapidly civilized, especially in reservations where they come into constant contact with the whites. They are learning how to dress, to do business, to use money, and to travel, and the schools established among themselves are doing great good. He further stated that on visiting the Numas he had been surprised at finding two distinct kinds or sets of governments coexisting among them at the same time, and two chiefs, each apparently supreme. On investigation he learned that the regular chief or medicine-man had little or nothing to do with the practical affairs of the tribe, and that the virtual chief had slowly been developed from the condition of interpreter or "talker," who at first was selected for his ability in conducting the business of the people with the surrounding whites; and as this business became more and more important, his powers became greater and greater until he has at length come to be regarded as the real chief of the tribe.

Dr. Welling corroborated the remarks of Major Powell, and instanced the case of an African missionary who, after a lengthy sojourn among the lower tribes, returned convinced that missionary work among them must remain next to useless until the practical civilizing agencies, such as the mechanic arts and the schoolmaster,

can be made to accompany and reinforce it. He thought that the efforts in question were useful only in furnishing high ideals, and keeping them before the minds of men.

Mr. Ward inquired whether there was any evidence of nominal subordination of the virtual to the regular chief, analogous to that which exists in many countries where the Prime Minister is the virtual ruler, and the hereditary king or queen a mere figure-head.

Major Powell replied that such evidence existed, and gave an illustration in support of that view.

Dr. Fletcher commenced to read a paper entitled CRANIAL AMULETS AND PREHISTORIC TREPHINING,' which was continued to the next meeting.

THIRTY-EIGHTH REGULAR MEETING, April 19, 1881.

Dr. Robert Fletcher concluded the reading of his paper enentitled CRANIAL AMULETS AND PREHISTORIC TREPHINING, of which the following is an abstract:

The first communication upon the subject of cranial amulets was made by Prunières to the French Association for the Advancement of Science, at their meeting held at Lyons, in 1873. He presented what he termed a 66 rondelle," discovered in the interior of a skull in one of the dolmens of La Lozère. A large portion of the skull had been removed, apparently by some rude instrument. Other discoveries of a similar character continued to be made, and it was for some time supposed by Prunières that the condition of the fragments resulted from attempts to make drinking cups of the skulls. When they were submitted to Broca for examination, he at once asserted that certain parts of the edges of the rondelles and of the apertures in the crania gave evidence of reparative process, and that an operation, resembling that known to us as trephining, must

I Will appear in full in "Contributions to North American Ethnology," vol. V, pp. 1-32, with plates.

have been performed, and which the patient must have survived

many years.

That no weapon could have produced the openings found in these crania was demonstrated by drawings showing the effect of sabre cuts and of contused blows. A remarkable peculiarity observed was that a small portion, at least, of the cicatrized edge was left on the rondelles and on the apertures in the skulls. The difference between this cicatrized edge, with its rounded ivory-like surface and the sharp edges produced by sections made after death, were easily discerned.

The evidence (which was very fully given) led Broca to the conclusion that the operation was performed on very young children; that it probably had no religious significance, but that it was intended for the relief of fits or other nervous disorders. A like operation is performed to this day by natives of the Polynesian Islands, and for a similar purpose.

Broca believed that the operation was performed by scraping, and he produced very similar results on the dry skull, and on a living puppy, with pieces of flint. The cicatrized apertures, when undisfigured by post-mortem incisions, are of an ovoid shape with edges widely beveled at the expense of the outer table. LucasChampionnière produced a similar result by drilling a series of holes in a skull with a pointed instrument, running them into each. other so as to enable the fragment of bone to be removed, and afterwards scraping the serrated edges smooth.

Certain tribes of Kabyles practise the operation in this manner at the present time, the operator, the instruments, and the dressings all having a semi-sacred character. It is performed by them as a means of relief for pains in the head, but chiefly after injuries. by stones, which are the ready and common weapons of offense in their sterile land.

Although by far the largest number of cranial amulets and trephined skulls now stored in the anthropological museums of Europe have been discovered in France, yet similar relics have been found