Indian Antiquary Vol 42

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 304

290
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[DECEMRER, 1913.
It is usual, however, nowadays to divide the subject into two main divisions-physical and cultural anthropology.
Physical Anthropology aims at obtaining 'as exact a record as possible of the structure and functions of the human body, with a view to determining how far these are dependent on inherited and racial factors, and how far they vary with environment.' This record is based on two separate classes of physical observation : firstly on descriptive characters, such as types of hair, colour of the eyes and skin, and so on, and actual mesaurement; and secondly on attitudes, movements, and customary actions. By the combined study of observations on these points physical heredity is ascertained, and a fair attribution of the race or races to which individuals or groups belong can be arrived at.
But anthropology, as now studied, goes very much further than inquiry into the physical structure of the human races. Man, unlike other animals, habitually reinforces and enhances his natural qualities and force by artificial means.' He does, or gets done for him, all sorts of things to his body to improve its capacities or appearance, or to protect it. He thus supplies himself with sanitary appliances and surroundings, with bodily ornamentation and ornaments, with protective clothing, with habitations and furniture, with protection against climate and enemies, with works for the supply of water and fire, with food and drink, drugs and medicine And for these purposes he hunts, fishes, domesticates animals, and tills the soil, and provides himself with implements for all these, and also for defence and offence, and for the transport of goods, involving working in wood, earth, stones, bones, shells, metals and other hard materials, and in leather, strings, nets, basketry, matting and weaving, leading him to what are known as textile industries. Some of this work has brought him to mine and quarry, and to employ mechanical aids in the shape of machinery, however rude and simple. The transport of himself and his belongings by land and water has led him to a separate set of industries and habits: to the use of paths, roads, bridges, and halting places, of trailers, sledges, and wheeled vehicles; to the use of rafts, floats, canoes, coracles, boats, and ships and the means of propelling them, poles, paddles, oars, sails, and rigging. The whole of these subjects is grouped by anthropologists under the term Technology, which thus becomes a very wide subject, covering all the means by which a people supplies itself with the necessaries of its mode of livelihood.
In order to successfully carry on what may be termed the necessary industries or even to be in a position to cope with them, bodies of men have to act in concert, and this forces man. kind to be gregarious, a condition of life that involves the creation of social relations. To understand, therefore, any group of mankind, it is essential to study Sociology side by side with Technology. The subjects for inquiry here are the observances at crucial points in the life history of the individual--birth, puberty, marriage, death, daily life, nomenclature, and so on; the social organisation and the relationship of individuals. On these follow the economics of the social group, pastoral, agricultural, industrial, and commercial, together with conceptions as to property and inheritance (including slavery), as to government, law and order, politics and morals; and finally the ideas as to war and the external relations between communities.
We are still, however, very far from being able to understand in all their fullness of development even the crudest of human communities, without a further inquiry into the products of their purely mental activities, which in the Notes and Queries' are grouped under the term Arts and Sciences. Under this head are to be examined, in the first place the expression of the emotions to the eye by physical movements and conditions, and then by gestures, signs and signals, before we come to language, which is primarily expressed by the