Volume 1

Primitive culture : researches into the development of mythology, philosophy, religion, language, art and custom / by Edward B. Tylor.

  • Tylor, Edward B. (Edward Burnett), 1832-1917.
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Primitive culture : researches into the development of mythology, philosophy, religion, language, art and custom / by Edward B. Tylor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    59/522 (page 45)
    district remarkable for a barbaric simplicity of life is the Hebrides. Till of late years, there were to be found there in actual use earthen vessels, unglazed and made by hand without the potter’s wheel, which might pass in a museum as indifferent specimens of savage manufacture. These ‘ craggans ’ are still made by an old woman at Barvas for sale as curiosities. Such a modern state of the potter’s art in the Hebrides fits well with George Buchanan’s state¬ ment in the 16th century that the islanders used to boil meat in the beast’s own paunch or hide.1 Early in the 18th century Martin mentions as prevalent there the ancient way of dressing corn by burning it dexterously from the ear, which he notices to be a very quick process, thence called ‘ graddan ’ (Gaelic, grad = quick).2 Thus we see that the habit of burning out the grain, for which the ‘ meere Irish ’ were reproached, was really the keeping up of an old Keltic art, not without its practical use. So the appearance in modern Keltic districts of other widespread arts of the lower culture—hide-boiling, like that of the Scythians in Herodo¬ tus, and stone-boiling, like that of the Assinaboins of North America—seems to fit not so well with degradation from a high as with survival from a low civilization. The Irish and the Hebrideans had been for ages under the influence of comparatively high civilization, which nevertheless may have left unaltered much of the older and ruder habit of the people. Instances of civilized men taking to a wild life in out¬ lying districts of the world, and ceasing to obtain or want the appliances of civilization, give more distinct evidence of degradation. In connexion with this state of things takes place the nearest known approach to an independent dege¬ neration from a civilized to a savage state. This happens in mixed races, whose standard of civilization may be more or less below that of the higher race. The mutineers of the 1 Buchanan, ‘ Reram Scoticarum Historia ; ’ Edinburgh, 1528, p. 7. See ‘ Early History of Mankind,’ 2nd ed. p. 272. a Martin, ‘Description of Western Islands,’ in Pinkerton, vol. iii. p. 639.