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Page 2. AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1953 UNESCO COUll !

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FROM THE UNESCO NEWSROOM...

* Brazil : The rich and colourful re-sources of popular Brazilian folklore inmusic, the dance and handicrafts, whichhave greatly contributed to the nation'sculture, figure largely in the programmeof the Second Brazilian Congress ofFolklore being held from 22 to 31 Au-gust at Curitiba on the occasion of thefestivities commemorating the first cen-tenary of the foundation of the provinceof Parana. The Congress has been con-vened by the Institute for Education,Science and Culture (the Brazilian Na-tional Commission of Unesco) and isunder the patronage of the Governmentof the State.-

The programme includes the inaugur-ation of an exhibition of folklorist pho-tographs at the Folklore Museum in theSchool of Music and Fine Arts, and theplacing of a commemorative plaque onthe house in Paranagua where Itibereèa Cunha, the first Brazilian composerto use a popular theme in the writing ofa major musical work, was born. Thereare also lectures, film showings, sym-phonic concerts, gramophone recitalsand presentations of ceramics and pop-ular musical instruments.

* Unesco : Descartes'"Discourse on Me-thod"has just been published in Arabicfor the first time, thanks to the work ofthe International Commission for theTranslation of Great Works which oper-ates under the auspices of Unesco. TheArab text is accompanied by comment-aries and explanatory notes. The Inter-national Commission has already pro-duced French translations of Avicen-na's"The Book of the Directives andRemarks" ;"The Book of the Misers"byA ! Djahiz and translations into English,French and Spanish of AI-GazaIi's book,"0 Disciple."It is now working onArab translations of Aristotle's"Poli-tics", Montesquieu's"L'Esprit des Lois",and Cervantes'"Don Quixote."

* Iran : Thanks to Unesco, an estimat-ed fifty thousand dollar's worth of optic-al instruments needed by Iran's scien-tists were put into working order overthe past sixteen months. The work wasdone. by a young French optical engineer,P. M. Larraburu, who went to Iran ona Unesco Technical Assistance mission.Working with local engineers, he repair-ed and adjusted optical instrumentsused in Iranian science faculties andresearch laboratories.

* Norway : Radio sets to a value of5 : 22, 500 ($63, 000) have been given by theNorwegian Unesco Committee to schoolsin Austria, Burma, Greece, Haiti, India,Italy, Malaya, Pakistan, Poland andTurkey. The sets were bought withfunds raised during a nation-wide ap-peal on behalf of the United NationsChildren's Fund.

* Unesco : The International Workers'Education Centre, founded last year byUnesco at the Chateau de la Brevierenear Paris, has now opened for its se-cond summer season. Unesco createdthe Centre as a meeting-place whereexperts in workers'education can ex-change information and compare exper-iences with teaching methods. The firstof this summer's two seminars, willdiscuss problems of international under-standing in workers'education and willbe directed by M. André Philip ofFrance. Later there is to be a secondinternational seminar, under the direc-tion of Professor G. D. H. Cole of theUnited Kingdom.

* Liberia : The first West African Se-minar on teaching about the UnitedNations and its Specialized Agencies re-cently took place in Monrovia, Liberia.The meeting was organized by the Unit-ed Nations Association of Liberia andthe Liberian Government. Attendingwere sixty-four delegates from sevencountries of West Africa : Liberia, Nige-ria, Sierra Leone, East and West Togo-land, the Cameroons and the GoldCoast. One of the resolutions passedrequested Unesco to survey the possib-ilities of establishing a FundamentalEducation Centre for West Africa. Thiswas requested, said the resolution, inview of the success of fundamental educ-ation projects in combatting problemsof illiteracy, poverty and disease.

favour of a study in each country ofthe living standards of intellectualworkers as compared with those of otherprofessions and trades.

* Burma : A rural library servicedeveloped over the last two years nowserves almost a million and a half peo-ple in Burma, according to an announ-cement from the Burmese Mass Educa-tion Council. The Council hopes toextend the work in the near future tomore of the population which numberssome seventeen millions and is predom-inantly agricultural. The Councilhas helped establish a chain of villagereading rooms which it keeps suppliedthrough a new system of.. circulatingbook-cases". In addition, audio-visual

Dr. LUTHER EVANS

ELECTED DIRECTOR-

GENERAL OF UNESCO

DR. Luther Harris Evans has been elected Direc-tor-General of Unesco for the next six yearsby the General Conferem : e of Unesco which met inextraordinary session in the first week of July. Dr.John W. Taylor had served as Acting Director-Gener-al since the resignation of Dr. Jaime Torres Bodetduring the Unesco General Conferem : e in Paris lastNovember and December.

Dr. Evans has been a member of the Unesco Exe.cutive Board since 1949 and the Librarian of Con-; ; ; êSS of the United States since 1945. He was

born in Bastrop County, Texas, on 13 October 1902. He holds the degrees ofBachelor of Arts and Master of Arts, University of Texas ; Doctor of Philosophy, Start-ford University ; Doctor of Humane Letters, Yale University ; Doctor of Laws, Pennsyl-vania Military College and British Columbia University ; Doctor of Laws (honorary)Loyola University.

Dr. Evans was instructor at Stanford from 1924 to 1927 aryJ at New York Univers-ity in 1927 and 1928. From 1928 to 1930 he was instructor in political scienceat Dartmouth College, and from 1930 to 1935 assistant professor of politics at Prin-ceton. In 1935, Dr. Evans was appointed Directar, Historical Records Survey, WorksProjects Administration, of the United States Government, a post which he held until1939 when he joined the Library of Congress as Director of the Legislation Refer-ence Service.

In 1945, Dr. Evans became associated with Unesco when he served as adviser tothe United States Delegation to the London Conference which created the Organiz-ation ; and the next year he was appointed a member of the United States NationalCommission for Unesco, of which he served as Vice-Chairman and Chairman. He hasattended all the sessions of Unesco's General Conference. Dr. Evans is a member ofthe American Librarians Association, the American Political Science Association andother professional orgonizations.

* United States of America : Tacklingthe problem of storage space, the Na-tural History Museum of Cincinnati hasfound a practical way of utilizing sur-plus materials that cannot be put in itsown show cases. The materials havebeen divided into sets, and these arenow being sent to the public schools inthe region. The Museum has preparedenough material from its surplus stocksto supply each school with a differentmonthly exhibit for the next five years.

* International : Leading officials ofthe International Confederation of In-tel1ectual Workers met recently at Unes-co House in Paris. This organization,founded thirty years ago, works in con-junction with several national and in-ternational bodies in the defense of cul-ture and all forms of intellectual work.At its meeting, the C. I. T. I. came out in

and book vans are touring the villages,serving as forerunners of further educ-ational efforts.

* United Kingdom : June seventh thisyear marked the two hundredth anniv-ersary of the world-famous BritishMuseum. Sir Hans Sloane, called"thefather of natural history"died in 1753and placed his valuable private museumat the disposal of the nation. A specialact of Parliament later that yearaccepted the gift and created the nu-cleus of to-day's British Museum. TheMuseum was opened to the public in1759. The aniversary was celebrated inEngland and special programmes overthe BBC were devoted to the occasion.

* Japan : Japan has invited Unesco tohold a regional seminar in Tokyo nextyear on the role of arts and crafts in

Education. According to Unesco's ActingDirector-General, Unesco will acceptthe invitation. The idea for such aseminar was accepted by the Organiza-tion's General Conference last year.Sixteen countries will be invited to par-ticipate in this meeting, and a numberof other countries will be asked to sendobservers. The seminar is designed toimprove the teaching of art and thepopularization of the arts among adults.

* International : The International'Labour Organization has found thatmore people in the world live underthatch roofs than under any other type.This and many other facts came to lightat a conference in New Delhi thatdiscussed efforts being made by Asiancountries to provide low-cost housingfor their millions of workers. The ILOsurvey noted that building research inAsia is extremely important to-day, inview of the tremendous need for hous-ing. The report declared that researchand experimentation with new materialsand methods would lead to substantialincreases in building.

* International : World Health Daynext year will honour the famedEnglish hospital reformer FlorenceNightingale, alongwith the millions ofnurses now at work in the field of pub-lic health. World Health Day iscelebrated each year on April 7, by theeighty countries belonging to the WorldHealth Organization. The WHO'sdecision to honour Florence Nightingalefollows a proposal recently submitted bythe Government of Uruguay and is inrecognition of the centenary of thework which the famous nurse began.

* Iran : At ancient Shiraz, once thecapital of Iran, a model agriculturalschool is now training teachers in up-to-date farming methods with threecountries-Iran, France and theUnited States-playing some part inits development. Its head is a youngIranian, Zain UI-Abdin Lashkari whotook over after benefitting from aUnesco fellowship covering a year'sstudy of agricultural education in Fran-ce. The school serves as an experiment-al station to test adaptability ofcrops to local conditions. During an18-month mission Mr. Sydney Law, aUnesco technical assistance expert,worked with Iranian educational andeconomic planning authorities in build-ing up a national network of similaragricultural schools, of which seven arenow in operation.

* International : A cultural agreementbetween France and Japan has beensigned in Tokyo. It provides for thefurther development of cultural rela-tions between the two countries and forthe exchange of students and scholars.Japanese students already have beeninvited by the French government tovisit France, and the Franco-JapaneseHouse in Tokyo has just been re-opened.

* France : France's Information Centreon Fundamental Education recentlyorganized a special exhibition in Parison"Fundamental Education and AdultEducation in the French Union, Tunisiaand Morocco."On display were exper-iments now being carried on in thesecountries to make health informationavailable to all, to improve housing andagriculture, and to fight illiteracy.The French Information Centre onFundamental Education was organizedwith the co-operation of Unesco.

) COURIER AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1953. Page 3

A MAN WITH RACIAL PREJU. DICE

IS AS PATHETIC AS HIS VICTIM

ONE might almost say of racial prejudice whatDescartes once said of common sense-thatit is the one thing in the world that prac-

tically everyone has a smattering of. The absenceof open discrimination by no means implies theabsence of false and injurious notions with regardto other racial groups. And the fact is that thenumber of individuals in our own civilization whoare prepared to consider all men their potentialequals and capable of the same progress, isextremely limited.

For Unesco, therefore, the problem is a dualone. It is not only that of fighting racialism as adoctrine but also of combatting the root-ideaswhich render the existence of such a doctrinepossible. In other words the real problem is tobreak the naive, yet extremely powerful associ-ation which continues to exist between the notionsof"culture"and"race",

Racialism will exist so long as the belief prevailsthat the Negroes have a certain type of civilizationbecause they are black and have fuzzy hair, orthat the Chinese behave in a certain way becausethey have slanting eyes and yellowish skin. Solong as people continue to speak in mystic mumbo-jumbo terms of"racial temperament","the soulof the people","racial instinct"and similarexpressions, racial prejudice will not even be closeto disappearing.

The advocates of racialism are forever citingscience as an"objective"basis for their ideas.But whether they realize it or not their"objective"basis is nothing more than plain intellectualfraud since the scientific theories they advancehave been discarded by scientists a long time ago.It is because the racialists have put the questionon the scientific level and lean iso. heavily onscience as their authority that the challenge mustbe met by the scientist.

It has been argued that trying to overcomeracial prejudice with true scientific facts is a sheerwaste of time since race prejudice is based neitheron ignorance nor on any number of facts, butrather on certain emotional attitudes. The rootsof racial prejudice, the argument continues, reach

by Dr. Alfred Metraux

deep deep down into the. subconscious where theyare nourished by anxieties caused by inwardsuffering, anguish or worry of an economic orsocial nature. Racial prejudice is, among otherthings, one expression of the anxiety of man lostin a mechanized society which no longer respecthis individual personality.

There is only one way we can hope to destroyracial prejudice, this school of thought states, andthat is by transforming the economic conditionsof the environments it develops in, and takinglegislative action to prevent its abuses.

Does this mean, then, that Unesco is wastingits time when it publishes a series of pamphlets inwhich scientists of various nationalities sum uppresent scientific knowledge about race ? I do notthink so. For can it be denied that the raceproblem is indissolubly joined to the developmentof scientific thought ? The clichés and pseudo-anthropological theories which are used to justifyracial discrimination are a means of setting themind at ease by cloaking injustice with the dignityof a system prescribed by science and reason.

If true men of science remained silent theywould be allowing the most fantastically falseideas and the most naive myths to be transformedinto"true scientific facts". And this. sciencecannot permit to happen. For if racialist propa-ganda is. so successful-and the Nazis showed howsuccessful it could be-it would be folly to permitit carte blanche.

Some reply, some form of action had to cometherefore from men of science. The very notionof science is one of the guiding principles of ourcivilization, one of its driving forces. Even thosewho have falsified it and twisted it to suit theirpolitical aims have recognized this and indirectlypaid tribute to science's role by their use of it-distorted though it was.

The fact is that racialism has found scarcelyany support among anthropologists worthy of thename, and with rare exceptions anthropologists

the world over have consistently repudiatedracialist doctrines. This, however, has neverprevented racialists from declaring unscientificevery statement which tended to establish the factthat no evidence at present exists proving theabsolute superiority of one ethnic group or raceover another.

The role played by science in the racial questionwas clearly shown by the repercussions caused bythe Uneseo"Statement on Race"drawn up in 1949by a group of sociologists, anthropologists andpsychologists. Hailed by some as a prejudice-breaking document, it was greeted by others as aUtopian text with no bearing on present-dayrealities.

So that there could be no doubt as to Unesco'sobjectivity a second group of scientists composedexclusively of physical anthropologists and gene-ticists was called upon to re-examine the question.This group drew up a second statement (1951) inwhich, generally speaking, the main conclusionsof the first statement were upheld. The secondstatement was published only after it had beensubmitted to nearly one hundred scientists whowere asked to study it carefully and criticize itfreely. Their comments, both favourable andunfavourable were published in the Unescobooklet containing the text of the declaration,and entitled"The Race Concept-Results of anInquiry".

A problem-to my mind a false one-whichobsesses many people today is that of the differ-ences in mental aptitudes of the races of man-kind. This is a point in the Declaration on whichanthropologists and geneticists have the mostdifficulty in reaching agreement. First of all,available scientific knowledge does not enableus to determine how mental aptitudes are trans-mitted and unlike blood groups which we havenow begun to isolate, science is still unable to iso-late the genes which determine mental aptitudes.

Furthermore, it is difficult, in factpractically impossible, to measure (cont'd onthe effect of environment on the de-velopment of intelligence and mental next pare,)

Page 4. AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1953 UNESCO

SLAVERY. ENDED WHEN MEN

THOUGHT IT SHAMEFUL ; THE SAME

WILL HOLD GOOD FOR RACIALISM

capacity. Even more serious is thefrequent failure to consider his-torical factors when discussingracial differences. People speakof racial aptitudes as if they hadalways been the same and neverchanged. That is why I believethat no statement in the Declar-ation is more realistic than theone which reminds us that"vastsocial changes have occurred thathave not been connected in anyway with changes in racial type.Historical and sociological stu-dies thus support the view thatgenetic differences are of littlesignificance in determining thesocial and cultural differencesbetween different groups of men".

Racialism has taken on agreater intensity at the verymoment when historical eventsand scientific research emphatic-ally repudiate it. Future histor-ians may well regard the mostimportant and significant revol-ution of our time to have beenthat which is thrusting the col-oured peoples into the orbit ofour modern civilization.

The rapid advance of the peo-ples of all the world towards asingle material type of civilizationis a tremendous event, the far-reaching consequences of whichare still hard to grasp. How canthe doctrines of racialism possiblyhold water when the races of theworld are setting such an exam-ple of pliability and adaptability ?

1953 is not 1853

THESE factors which ought tostrike everyone who followsworld events, are just as

eloquent as, indeed even more elo-quent than, all the scientificconclusions put together, but suchis the force of habit that factsand theories long since out ofdate are still used by people injudging races.

To consider Africa and its inha-bitants in 1953 in the same wayas one did in 1853 is to displayunpardonable ignorance. Theawakening of Africa and theformation before our very eyes ofa constantly growing native elite,are things that the racialistconsciously or unconsciouslyforgets or prefers to ignore.

One of the things Unesco hasset out to do is to study themanner in which so many peoplesare effecting their transform-ation from an ancient form ofcivilization to our complex indus-trialized way of life, and tomake this information widelyknown. Of what value will be theinnumerable writings which seekto prove that Negroes have nocapacity for certain kinds ofintellectual activities once Ne-groes in constantly increasingnumbers have joined the ranks ofour writers, engineers, researchworkers and statesmen ?

Negation of a myth

THE African who succeeds inwinning the highest distinc-tions in the Humanities, as

happened recently in England,has a double merit. First forhaving triumphed in a stiff exam-ination, second for having over-come the numerous handicapswhich do not face European can-didates. We all of us know theeffort required to adjust ourselvesto another form of culture evenwhen it is close to our own.What then, must be the amountof effort and intelligence call-ed for in order to assimilatea form of civilization based on asocial structure and a way of lifeas different as that of Europe andthe traditional African. Is notthe intellectual effervescencewhich is taking place today inAfrica and Asia and which in

(Continued from previous page.)

several African regions can beseen in the rapid modernizationof institutions and of economiclife, the very negation of theracial myth ?

Race relations, of course, arenot always marked by signs ofantagonism. Even in countrieswhere racialism is rife, the go-vernment or groups of individualsand organizations have attempt-ed through varying measures toimprove contacts between racesand put a stop to abuses andinjustices. What was needed,however, was that the effective-ness of such measures be ap-praised and the results carefullystudied.

Anti-racial laws

ONE of the basic questionsraised in the struggle againstracialism is :"What prac-

tical effect does legislation pun-ishing any act of racial discrim-ination as a crime really have ?"Opponents of such legislationhave always maintained thatcustom was stronger than lawand that racial prejudice couldnot be broken by legal texts. Theexperience of various AmericanStates has shown quite clearly,however, that anti-discriminationlaws have had beneficial resultseven if they have not in them-selves modified prejudices or basicattitudes.

The policy of the assimilationof different ethnic groups ha. s alsobeen highly successful in certaincountries such as Mexico wheregreat efforts have been made inthe past century to"integrate"the large indigenous population.The progress achieved by theNegroes of the French West Indiessince they were freed from slaveryin 1849 would also deserve carefulstudy. From studies such as thefew just mentioned and others,certain facts could emerge andanalogies be made which wouldultimately enable us to say. howtwo groups separated by race andcivilization can blend and form asingle unit.

Race and religion

No civilization has ever hadcause to regret its action inwelcoming other peoples. It

has always been amply repaid forits interest and generosity by thecontributions with which thenewcomers have enriched it.Today, for example, many Negrowriters have enriched Englishand Frenc. h literature and thereis every reason to believe that inthe not too distant future Negroeswill be participating to a stillgreater degree than they do todayin scientific and cultural activi-ties. Discrimination and racialpersecution wither and impov-erish societies which seek to pre-serve the myth proclaiming thevirtue of racial"purity".

Doctrines of racialism are notonly contrary to the presentfindings of science but also scornthe principles which are the foun-dation stones of the world's greatreligions and philosophies. Aworld-wide attack on racialismtherefore cannot be won withoutthe help of religion. All univer-salist religions are, by definition,anti-racialist by the very factthat they are addressed to allmankind. Unfortunately, themessage of human brotherhoodembodied in their teaching is toooften ignored.

In the struggle against all formsof racialism it is therefore usefulto recall the doctrines and textswhich proclaim the equality ofall men in the eyes of God andwhich condemn the myth of race,often in the severest terms, whileexalting the dignity and worth ofman whatever his physical traits

may be. The churches-theword is used here in its verybroadest sense-are thereforepowerful allies in the struggleagainst racial discrimination andracial prejudice.

Unesco has therefore calledupon eminent representatives ofthe world's great religious faithsto present brief and simpleaccounts of the position of theirchurches regarding the racialproblem. These will soon appearin a new series of books under thegeneral title"The Racial Problemin Modern Thought", presentingthe Catholic, Protestant, Muslim,Jewish and Buddhist point of viewas well as that of other greatreligious faiths. The first booksto be published in this series havebeen written by Father Yves Con-gar, an eminent Roman Catholictheologian of France and by W. A.Visser't Hooft, General Secretaryof the World Council of Churches.(On pages 8 and 9 of this issuethe Courier has published twoarticles on Christianity and theRacial Question, specially prepar-ed by these religious authorities.(See also Bibliography, page 18,)

Present-day fanaticism

THE texts published in theseforthcoming books and thefacts they will bring before

the public no doubt take on newand profound significance in viewof the intolerance and fanaticismso prevalent today. They areaimed at touching the conscienceof men and at creating in theminds of even the most pre-judiced a feeling of uneasinessand of doubt which is the firststep towards a change of attitude.

The efforts displayed todayagainst racialism have manypoints in common with thoseemployed less than 150 years agoin the fight against slavery. Atthat time slavery, too, was con-sidered an institution dictated bythe laws of nature and reason.Today, we look upon the argu-ments advanced against the abo-lition of slavery as nothing morethan naive and we find it diffi-cult to believe that in support ofthis doctrine such heated discus-sions and impassioned polemicswere unleashed. True, econ-omic laws worked against slaverybut it would not. have been abol-ished so quickly had public opin-ion not come to look upon itas a thing of shame. The sameis true of the fight against racial-ism.

No longer respectable

A S the sociologist GunnarMyrdal has so well express-ed it :"It is significant that

today even the white man whodefends discrimination frequentlydescribes his motive as'prejudice'and says that it is'irrational'.The popular beliefs rationalizingcaste in America are no longerintellectually respectable. Theycan no longer, therefore, be foundin current books, newspapers orpublic speeches. They live a sur-reptitious life in thoughts andprivate remarks. There we havehad to hunt them when studyingthe matter in this inquiry. Whenthey were thus drawn out intothe open they looked shabby andashamed of themselves. Every-body who has acquired a highereducation knows that they arewrong. Most white people witha little education also have ahunch that they are wrong.There is today a queer feeling ofcredo quia absurdum hoveringover the whole complex of pop-ular beliefs sustaining racial dis-crimination. This makes theprejudiced white man nearly aspathetic as his Negro victim."

COURIER AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1953, Page 5

THE ORIGINS OF RACES,

STILL STEEPED IN MYSTERY

by W. W. HO WELLS

Professor of Anthropology,University of Wisconsin

A GREAT deal has been learned about thepast of man since Darwin made thedocirine of evolution irresistible (if notat once respectable), and Huxley so

forcefully pointed out its meaning to ourselvesby showing our intimate relationship with the :great anthropoid apes. It is the most recentdiscoveries of the South African man-apes byDart, Broom and Robinson, which have givenus the clearest light on our adual humanorigins, and in fact have made these originsseem more log'ical, so to speak, than ever.

Matters had been different before. It had notbeen easy to fit the known facts together. It wasclear how close men and apes were, these largutailless animals being quite distinct from mon-keys, and sharing even such things as patternsof the teeth. But while our torso was like their's.our pelvis, legs and feet were different, beingmeant for true upright walking, not for bough-clasping ; and our canine teeth were short andsmall.

One after another fossils were found in Eur-ope, Africa and Asia, some of them of small.early apes something like the living gibbon,and others larger and later, claarly akinto the orang, chimpanzee and gorilla. Ifthese were our own ancestors, they werecertainly ape-tike. This left us the ratheruncomfortable theory that man was a latecomer, an ape who had for some reason comeout of the trees to a permanent ground life,undergoing rapid changes in feet and canineteeth as a response to this drastic shift (andlater developing a large brain).

The explanation bristled with difficulties :Why had the shift occurred? ? How could thefool have reformed its toes and made an arch !Why were there not clearer signs of once-hugscanine teeth ? Yet the most likely parentsknown from fossils (Dryopithecus and hisrelatives) were certainly apes much like theones we know today, and so this explanationheld, faute de mieux.

Then, mostly'within the last six years, agroup of closely related fossil animals of greatimportance came to light in South Africa, inlimestone deposits which had once been caves.The oldest finds, of teeth and of skull fragments.simply showed certain human traits. Butexcitement mounted as later and betterspecimens revealed that, though large of jaw,they had the relatively small cHnines and frontteeth of true men, so different from a gorilla's ;and that their small-brained heads neverthelesshad the human type of a number of minordetails of construction, and not the type foundin apes.

Finally, several hip bones capped the climaxby making it clear that these man-apes weretrue upright ground-walkers like ourselves.That is to say, they can only be considered asvery primitive and small-brained men, be-longing to our side of the family, not thegorilla's. This in turn shows that our side--the ground-walking side-probably had a long-and honourable history of its own, separatefrom the tree-loving apes we know, and thatwe no longer have to suppose, as once we did,that these tree apes wee the only kind ofancestor possible to us.

Oldest 'human' fossil

These riches in fossils are all from SouthAfrica, but it now seems, from some otherrare finds, as though the same general

kind of animal also lived in East Africa, inChina, and in Java-in many parts of the OldWorld - during the late Tertiary and early IceAge, at the same time that later kinds of menwere appearing, and probably also earlier.More such fossils will surely be found in otherplaces. In the meanwhile, we have learned agreat deal about the details of these ancientforms, and have done away with much of themystery of our own beginnings.

So much for the origins of man. The originsof races, unfortunately, although far later, aresteeped as much in mystery as ever. We knowvery well that there were different kinds ofearly men during the time of the Ice Age. Theancient, thick-skulled Java Man is famous, andso is his slightly more advanced cousin, thePekin Man. The Heidelberg jaw, in Europe.may be the oldest"human"fossil of all (afterthe man-apes). Alas, that so little can be toldfrom a jaw.

Later, more advanced kinds of men areknown from Africa-the Rhodesian Man--and from Europe, which was part of the pro-vince of the Neanderthaters, who furnish uswith a special mystery in their peculiar bowedand thick boned Hmbs-aU the other fossilmen had skeletons tike our own. Then in thelatest part of the lee Age the board was sweptclean of all such types, and was suddenlyoccupied by modern man alone.

This was the time of the cave men (the CroMagnons and others), who painted, in duecourse, the masterpieces in the caves of Lascauxand Altamira. These are our ancestors, ourown kind, with a high skull and a delicate faceof a kind not seen in the other fossil men.These ancestors appeared not only in Europe,but apparently also as the parents of other racesin other places : in China (as a sort of parentalAmerican Indian), and perhaps even in Aus-tralia.

Well and good ; but here is a mystery.Where did these related kinds of"modern"men come from ? Why did they appear so late,and apparently suddenly ? Who are their an-cestors ? And what made them into races ?Tliis matter is one of the great problems ofanthropology, and it contains in itself a key toour understanding of race.

The late Dr. Franz Weidenreich, renownedanatomist and palaeontologist, thought theanswers were alreadv in the museums : thatthe older and different types of men knownfrom the Ice Age, each in its own part of theword, had gone forward in evolution until eachhad achieved the status of modern man,"Homo sapiens"proper, though each in adifferent racial form.

He found certain likenesses in each case, hethought, as for example between the Pekin menand the modern Mongoloid peoples. But histheory involves a biological improbability. Theearlier men were of rather distinct types, andthe races of modern man are all one type,certainly very similar in their skulls andskeletons to one another.

His theory would therefore suppose that evo-lulion had taken diverse types and made themall-not just two or a few - into a single type.Evolution has done this to no other animal form,and there are serious reasons as to whyit is not likely to happen. This idea ofWeidenreich's would see modern races as muchmore separate in their origins than the more

generally held belief, that they arose as lesservariations on a single theme.

Though we need-not accept Weidenreich'sview, we do not know what is the rightone. We know far too little about thebiological nature of racial differences : themeaning of skin colours and hair forms, andso on. It is no simple matter of becomingblack under the sun of Africa, though suchforces have probably partaken in the results.But this is not all we do not know. We lackthe skeletal evidence to show how old modernman is, or where he might have developed.

The past is almost a blank

The important Fontéchevade skull, found by. MIle Henri-Martin, at least tells us that ourkind of man (or something very like it)

existed in France in the Third Interglacialperiod, and so was as old as the Neanderthalmen. But this is little to go on. From theadvent of the Cro Magnons, we know thatEurope was continuously peopled with"White"men, wherever they may have come from. Butelsewhere our knowledge is almost all gaps.

We are relatively certain that the AmericanIndians wandered over from Asia, a good deallater, in much their present form. But the pastof the Mongoloids, and above all the Negroes, ispractically a blank. We can only look at their

distributions and make guesses.One is strongly inclined to feel that the

common parent stock of races is fairly, but notvery, old : and that its most ancient division wasinto a dark-skinned tropical branch on onehand, and on the other a medium-skinnednorthern branch not unlike American Indians.Also that in turn, one stem of this secondbranch went to America, another becamelighter in colour and straighter of face andheaded for Europe, and a third becamedrastically modified in facial form as a pro-tection against the savage Siberian cold, andproduced the slit-eyed, flesh-padded face of thelungoloid peoples of the north.

But please be sure that these are estimates.Some day we shall have enough ancientskeletons to tell us more. Probablv the bloodtypes of living people will help, though theyoften provide as much confusion as light. Andarchaeology, tracing the steps of differenttribes through their ancient dwellings, may atleast show us what is likely to have happened,and what is not.

Page 6. AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1953

THE RACIAL HERITAGE OF'H. M. S. BOUNTY

TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLES-NOW ONE FAMILY

PERHAPS the most widely knownof all cases of race mixture isthe small group of Polynesian-

English mixed bloods that live onPitcairn Island in the South Pacific.Here on a tiny volcanic island onlyabout two miles long and about halfas wide were resolved the train ofevents that the famous mutiny ofthe Bounty set in action.

This episode, famous in Britishnaval annals, occurred in the year1789 shortly after.'H. M. S. Bounty"had departed from Tahiti where shehad been dispatched under thecommand of Lt. William Bligh tocollect bread fruit plants. Reportsbrought back to Europe by Cook andBougainville described the breadfruit as a remarkable tree capable ofsupplying a staple article of foodwith a minimum of effort.

British planters in the West Indies,eager to obtain so easy a source offoodstuff for their slaves, hadpetitioned for the expedition with

by Dr. Horry L. Shapiro.

which Bligh had been entrusted.Now after six successful months inTahiti, with the ship's hold full ofpotted trees, the return trip was in-terrupted by the mutiny of twenty-five of the men out of the crew offorty-four. The mutineers were ledby Fletcher Christian, one of Bligh'sofficers, and a native of the Isle ofMan where his family had long beenprominent.

The mutineers seizing the ship, putBligh and those faithful to himadrift in a small open boat and resetthe Bounty's course for Tubuai, anisland 300 miles south of Tahiti.Here an abortive attempt was madeto establish a settlement, whichfailed because of the hostilityaroused in the natives by thebehaviour of the mutineers. Re-turning after this to Tahiti, themutineers now split into two groups :one, consisting of sixteen men,

preferred to remain in Tahiti wherea number of them had alreadyestablished liaisons with nativewomen and had been welcomed intothe island homes ; the other con-tained nine men headed by Chris-tian. These men, apparently an-ticipating a possible punitive ex-pedition once the news of the mutinyreached England, were eager toleave Tahiti where they could nothope to escape capture and to find amore remote land perhaps in-accessible island where they mightremain undetected.

Accordingly they, together withtwelve Tahitian women and sixTahitian men, set sail from Tahitiin September 1789 and until 1808were virtually lost to the world. Inthe latter year their retreat onPitcairn, some 2, 500 miles southeastof Tahiti, was discovered by CaptainMeyhew Folger.

During this interval much hadhappened on the island. All theTahitian men and all but one of theEnglishmen had died-most of themviolently and after only a shortsojourn in their new home. Inaddition, Folger found eight or ninesurviving Tahitian women andtwenty-five children, offspring of sixof the Englishmen and their nativewives. None of the Tahitian menhad left issue, perhaps because theywere murdered too soon after thesettlement on the island.. From this handful of children, half

Polynesian half English, the littlecolony increased by leaps and boundsuntil fifty years later there werealmost 200 inhabitants on the island.By this time fear of over-populationand the recurrence of watershortages induced them to request ofthe British Government the use ofNorfolk Island, some 4, 000 miles tothe west, as a new home. Thisconsiderably larger island had re-cently been abandoned as a penal

UNESCO

Parkins Christian, great-great-grandson of Fletcher Christian, the officer who led the mutiny on the Bounty,and members of his family This photograph was taken outside their present-day home on Pitcairn Island.

COURIER AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1953. Page 7

colony and was temporarily un-occupied.

In 1856 the entire colony movedthere and set up a new estab-lishment, but subsequently severalfamilies returned to their belovedPitcairn. In 1864 there were 45descendants of the mutineers livingon Pitcairn, the remainder havingcontinued on Norfolk. At presentthere are on both islands about 1, 000descendants of the original colony,not counting those who havemarried out of the community orsettled in New Zealand, Australia,and elsewhere.

An unusual mixture

As an example of race mixturethe Pitcairn Islanders are farfrom typical. But it is the

very singularity of the colony that isfull of meaning in interpreting racemixture as we commonly see it. Sim-ply as a cross between Polynesiansand English they can be matched inmany parts of Polynesia where thesame kind of mingling has occurred,often with notable results as in NewZealand. But unlike all othermixtures of this kind in Oceania, andindeed unlike virtually all racemixture wherever it occurs (1), thePitcairn Islanders have lived anddeveloped their common lifecompletely separated from thesocieties from which they wereoriginally derived.

Now it is an almost universalconsequence of race mixture that themixed bloods live in contact with theparental groups and in one or theother of the parental societies.Since social status works both ways,the association of a mixed groupwith one of its parental societies canbe a decisive influence on itsdevelopment. Where mixed bloodssuffer legal disability, economic in-justice or social prejudice, they arevictims of the attitudes well or ill-founded, of the dominant element intheir society. The effects such asresentment or antagonism upon themixed group in turn reinforce theattitudes that provoke them.

It is because of all this that thePitcairn Islanders'complete separa-tion from and independence of allother societies assume added im-portance, for here the entire com-munity was of the same mixedorigin, was free of any socialstructuring imposed upon them by alarger society and escaped the in-fluences that prejudice subtly worksupon its object. This, then, is acommunity where social prejudice, atleast, is not a factor to be consideredand where we can study the con-sequences of race mixture divorcedfrom the concomitant effects thatbeing a part of a larger group mightimpose.

The last mutineer

ON the other hand, in any con-sideration of the colony, itsvery isolation must be kept in

mind as it must be in appraising anysmall community remote from theworld and cut off from the intellec-tual and material stimuli of a largersociety. For the first eighteen yearsof its existence, the Pitcairn colonyremained unvisited by any ship. Thechildren growing up in the firstgeneration of the community hadm ver seen anyone not a member oftheir little family, for the earlycolony lived as one extended familywith John Adams, the survivingmutineer, as their pater familias.

Even after 1808 when theirexistence became known, callers wererare and their visits very brief. Notuntil the 1820's did ships begin tocall at Pitcairn to obtain water andfresh food. As American whalingbecame increasingly active in thePacific these visits increased innumber, reaching their highestfrequency in the 1840's.

With the decline of whaling, Pit-cairn once more reverted to itsformer loneliness. These contacts,

although important in bringing tothe islanders the goods of the outsideworld for which they had acquireda taste, were brief and had little orno influence on the social structureof the colony.

It would, of course, be futile toattempt to rate Pitcairn againstother communities mixed or other-wise. There are too many variablesimpossible to standardize that wouldhave to be taken into account. Butit is evident to anyone visiting theisland that here is a well-organizedsettlement, conducting its ownaffairs successfully under a systemdevised by the islanders themselves.Like people anywhere of course theyvary, but the visitor is invariablyimpressed by the pleasant, friendlymanners of the islanders, theircharm, their hospitality and selfconfidence. There is no trace hereof a people conscious of inferiority.

Remarkable in so small a commun-ity, especially one cut off from thedevelopments of the outside world,

striking way illustrates the decisiveroles that sex and environment mayplay in creating a new society. Thecultural resources available to thenew colony were, of course, Englishand Tahitian. But it is obvious on re-flection that not all the content ofeither of these cultures could orwould be drawn upon since one cul-ture, the English, was accessible onlythrough men who were sailors byoccupation, and the other, the Tahi-tian, was represented by women whowere familiar with the crafts andskills traditionally exercised in Ta-hiti by their sex.

In addition to this, the colony on*Pitcairn faced an environment unlikethe seats of either people, and intransplanting their traditional waysboth the Tahitian women and theEnglish sailors found themselveswithout the usual technical equip-ment needed to practice whateverskills and arts they knew. Evensuch a basic and necessary object asa nail was not available, not to

terials and hampered by the lack oftools.

We find them as a consequencebuilding houses ingeniously puttogether, the frame mortised, thewalls constructed of roughly hewnplanks fitted into slotted uprights,the interiors provided with bunksas in a ship's cabin. The roof,however, was thatched in the Tahi-tian manner since roof thatching isprepared in Tahiti by the womenand this was a contribution theTahitian women on Pitcairn couldmake to this novel house.

One of the common allegationsmade about race mixture is that itproduces inferior human beings.This belief is stated in various waysthat all come to the same thing :mixed bloods combine the worstfeatures of both parental groups,they are inferior to both stocks, or,at best, they are intermediate andtherefore a debasement of the su-perior group. This kind of state-ment is put forth with respect to the

Led by Fletcher Christian, nine of the mutineers of the"Bounty"together with some Tahitian men and women sailed 2, 500miles across the South Pacific to seek a hiding place. They found it on Pitcairn, a tiny volcanic island, about two miles longand a mile wide, This photo shows the rocky cliffs of Bounty Bay. (Photo A. Metraux ; Copyright, Museedet'Homme, Paris)

1. The only parallel to Pitcairn known tome is Tristan da Cunha where a communityof mixed Negro-Europeans have lived inisolation for well over 100 years.

are some of the social institutionswhich were established on Pitcairnand maintained there ever since.A democratic rule developed earlywith all men and women enjoyingequal political rights, long beforepolitical rights were granted womenin the Western World and indeedbefore they were even very seriouslydiscussed there. Education was fromthe first recognized as a necessityand as the local institutions tookform, all children were required toattend school until their sixteenthyear. The various families on theisland were taxed for the mainten-ance of the school. Teachers wereselected from the students andsupported by the revenue levied onthe people. Here, too, the PitcairnIslanders were in advance of educ-ational developments in greater cen-tres of civilization.

The culture that emerged onPitcairn also reflected the mixedorigin of the colony and in a rather

mention a variety of common toolsthat could not be fashioned onPitcairn.

Thus we find tata cloth univers-ally used by the colony in its earlydays. The making of this barkcloth is traditionally a woman's jobin Tahiti and could be carried toPitcairn intact. Similarly, cookingbeing a woman's concern, the Tahi-tian technique of an undergroundoven was standard on Pitcairn.

House building, on the contrary,was the result of a complex of in-fluences. The Tahitian style ofhouse would have been unsuitable inthe colder climate of Pitcairn, but inany event it probably could not havebeen built by the women who inTahiti leave the framing of a houseto the men. The Englishmen, prob-ably only as adept in carpentry assailors of those days might beexpected to be, were handicappedby the lack of essential building ma-

psychological (intellectual), moraland biological characteristics of thehybrids.

For the most part, the evidencefor this belief is strained through asubjective sieve and rarely takesaccount of the effect upon thehybrid of his social, psychologicaland economic position in the societywhose more favoured strains arecompared with him. But morefundamental is the lack of reliablemeasures for many of the qualitiesin which the mixed blood is supposedto be deficient.

As far as the Pitcairn Islandersare concerned, I can offer no objec-tive data on their psychological ormoral qualities. None to my know-ledge is available. Certainly therehave been many published appraisalsof these traits of the islanders andmost of them are enthusiastic.

(Continued on page 20.)

Page 8, AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1953 UNESCO

THE CHRISTIAN ATTITUDE TOWARDS RACE

THE Church's attitude towards the racial question isclearly indicated in the story of Whitsun. This festival.as Christians well know, celebrates the birth of the

Church and the revelation of its mystery to the world. Let

us reread the story, as we find it in Acts II, 5, 7-11 :

"And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men,

out of every nation under heaven... And they were all amazed

and marvelled, saying...... how hear we every man in our own

tongue, wherein we were born ? Parthians, and Medes, and

Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea,and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia. Phrygia, and Pam-

phylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and

strangers of Rome... Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them

speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God..."

This passage contains both a certain affirmation and a

negation of the racial concept-two contrasting ideas which,

however, are reconciled in the Church. For the Church

recognizes race for what it is, and at the same time goes

beyond it.

To begin with, race is accepted as a fact, and as a fact

which the Church regards as providential. That is why the

first chapters of Genesis, where the Bible serves as the mouth-

piece of God in setting forth those great realities of theuniverse which we cannot help seeing and experiencing, men-

tion the multiplicity of races and languages, giving the

genealogies of the sons of Noah and describing the dispersionwhich followed the episode of the Tower of Babel.

Few pure races exist

THE Church regards the variety of races (but not theirA antagonism) as something willed by God, and thereforeas something providential. For mankind, made in God's

image, has potentialities which can find an outlet only in thevarious different ways in which the creation is conceived and

expressed. This is true, in the first place, as regards man's

temporal work on earth and, it may be said, as regards

history. And it is even true of the Church, whose unity isnot narrowness, but comprehensiveness. That is why the

Apocatypse, the last book'of Revelations, says of the NewJerusalem that"they sholl bring the glory and honour of the

nations in it."

The"notions", both the sacred books say. When we

speak of"races", we are using 0 word which belong neitherto Biblical or liturgical terminology, nor to canon law or

theology ; all these prefer the term peoples. The word

o'Racialism implies a

denial of God, for there

can be no God if He is

not the Father of a) !

By Father Yves CONGAR

"race"indicates a homogeneous group of people having

certain genetically determined physical, psychological and

moral features in common. Christianity does not deny the

possibility of such groups ; whether they exist or not is amatter for science to determine, and if science confirms their

existence Christianity cannot but admit it. But science also

tells us, and the Church is well aware, that in the course of

generations the human melting-pot has been so active thatfew pure races are now to be found.

The genetic factor has been by no means alone in forming

the peoples of today ; other factors have been, for example,

similarity of climate, culture, food, way of life, education,

customs, and history. We are confronted not so much byraces as by peoples ; not so much by unadulterated biological

and genetic facts as by"human"facts, impregnated with

human history. It is not only birth, but upbringing, that

makes a man ; he is"brought into the world", in the real

sense, not when he leaves his mother's womb but when educa-tion has drawn him into the culture of a particular country

and into the life of 0 particular group of human beings with

their own historical background.

People are thus divided among groups which are not all atthe same level of culture, or at any rate of civilization, if we

admit the distinction, traditionally accepted in Germany,

between Culture (Kultur) and Civilization. The first of these

terms denotes the style of life of a given community (that of

the men sometimes known as'''savages''is not necessarily

inferior to our own ; it is suited to the conditions in which

they live, and often reflects a remarkable degree of adaptationto those conditions). The second means the whole body of

external resources tending to ensure a high standard of com-

fort, knowledge and technical skill.

The Church recognizes these historical inequalities,'t is

not resigned to every'aspect of them. From the outset it has

striven to raise the various peoples to a higher level of human-

ity by emancipating women and children ; by teaching menhow to work, read, write, practise justice and respect the

lives of others ; by founding hospitals and orphanages and so

on. Yet it makes realistic allowance for differences of culture

and civilization. For this reason, the Church's very firm stand

on behalf of unity and equality does not necessarily imply that

everything should be mixed up and reduced to one dead level,or that all men should be subject to exactly the same rules.

We are not expected to have all things in common with those

whose standard of education, hygiene and manners is lower

than that of the group to which we ourselves belong.

But it will be seen that, in whatever measure it may be

justified, discrimination must not be based on colour or onracial prejudice. It can stem only from historical and cultural

facts ; it relates not to the"'race"but to the"people"

concerned. Furthermore, respect for the rules that guide each

man's life, and for the customs of his country, is a very

practical form of respect for his human status in itself.And in saying this-in the very act of affirming the exist-

ence of differences-we find ourselves confronted by that

affirmation of unity which is perhaps the most definite and

energetic pronouncement ever made by Christianity with regardto the racial question.

Basic equality of all

FOR in the first place, it affirms the unity of the humanspecies, beyond and above all differences. That is the

meaning of the well-know story of the creation of Adam,and of Eve from Adam-a theological affirmation not to be

invalidated by any attempt on the part of palaeontologists or

anthropologists to impose the theory of polygenism, in the

unlikely event of such a theory being one day favoured byscience. Mankind is a single family, and that fact carries

decisive implications.

It implies the basic equality of all men, in dignity as in

nature. It implies an underlying community of destiny or

vocation, regardless of individual historical destinies. it

implies the genuine capacity of all men to attain to civilizationand its benefits. Not all are at the same level, but all are

capable of rising to the greatest heights. Since all men andall peoples are associated in an enterprise of humanity that

is of essential interest to each of them, the most advanced

have a certain duty to help the others forward.

Another decisive implication is the rejection of discrimination

based on racial arguments-discrimination whose various

forms, combined and placed at the service of some virulentnationalist theory, go to make up racialism. Racialism strikes

at the very heart of Christianity, for it destroys that respect and

consideration for'''others''without which charity-the core

of Christianity-cannot exist. Moreover, it denies that God

is the Father of all men, since it refuses to recognize certain

of His children as brothers. In effect, it proscribes the saying

of"Our Father", the Lord's own prayer. It really implies a

denial of God, for there can be no God if He is not the Father

of all. Racialism implies atheism, and its various more or less

pantheistic statements about"Destiny"or even"Providence"are powerless to conceal that fact..

The Catholic Church has therefore opposed racialism

wherever is has met with it. Such opposition has some-

times lacked the full measure of vigour required, because

Christians and churchmen do not always posses a discernment

and strength of character measuring up to their principles.

But it has been very effective, and often decisive. It is

noteworthy that the Papacy's first anti-racist pronouncementwas made at the very time when the first colonists were

claiming the right to enslave human beings, and confiscatetheir property, on the pretext that they were inferior beings :

see Paul H's Bulls referring to Spanish colonization, of May

and June 1537 (quoted in my booklet The Catholic Church and

the Race Question). And it is known-or rather, not well

enough known-how outspokenly the contemporary Papacyresisted the Nazi race policy and its frenzied anti-Semitism

("Spiritually, we are Semites"said Pius XI).

Colour of no significance

\V/HEN the race question presents itself in the naked andbrutal form of a race theory such as Hitlerism, the

Christian attitude is comparatively easy to decide, and

comparatively simple. But this ceases to be so when racialismis engendered by a complex situation to which historical, cul-

tural, economic, political and even psychological factors havecontributed. A simple reaction may fail to allow for certain

important considerations, not all of them unworthy, and maythus fall short of what is required. We have the example of

certain very concrete problems that have arisen in South

Africa, and of the very subtle, though sufficiently clearstatements made by the Catholic Bishops in that country in

May and September 1952 (cf. the booklet already mentioned).

Within the Church itself, matters are, once more, simpler.

St. Paul tells us that"there is neither Jew nor Greek, there

is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female ;

for ye are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians III, 28). That

is true. How many examples might be mentioned here ! It is

perhaps rash ( ?) to disobey the regulations concerning railway

compartments at Cape Town or Pretoria, but there is no

difficulty in a Negro kneeling beside a white man at theLord's Table, or in a coloured Bishop ordaining European

priests.

The Church, as we have seen, accepts the fact of race and

regards it as providential ; but the Church itself is above race.Its essential existence takes place at a deeper revel, where

questions of colour, or even of culture, lose their significance.The event which marked the day of Pentecost is constantly

being repeated, in different ways, in the life of the Church.For instance, on 29 October 1939, at the beginning of the last

world war, His Holiness Pius XII, to demonstrate the unity of

the Church transcending frontiers and nationalities, conse-

crated twelve Bishops in St. Peter's in Rome-a Chinese, a

French foreign missionary, an Indian Jesuit, a Mexican Satesian,

an Italian Dominican, a Dutch Father of the S. Y. D. (Steyl),

an American, an Irishman, a German Franciscan, a White

Father from Belgium, a Madagascan and a Congolese.

This simple fact gives a clear indication of the Catholic

Church's attitude towards the racial question.

T COURTIER AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1953. Page 9

a IT 0 worship, live and work together regardless

of race-these truly human relationships are the

only norma ones'

by W. A. WSSER'T HOOFT,

General Secretary, World Council of Churches.

ONE of the remarkable facts of the twentieth century hasbeen the coming together of the Protestant, Anglican

and Orthodox Churches in what we know as the"Ecu-

menical Movement". This movement took more definite

form in 1948 when at Amsterdam delegates from some 150

churches in more than 40 countries agreed to establish the

World Council of Churches.

The Ecumenical Movement has been concerned not only

with the life of the churches as such, but also with the

message that the church has for the world. Since the question

of race is one which is crucial for the church itself and which

is of utmost importance for the life of the world, it is natural

that this co-operative venture of the churches should be

concerned with it.

One of the forerunners of the World Council was the'''Life

and Work"movement. Its Conference, held in Oxford in

1937, issued a strong statement on the racial question which

had a profound effect on the thinking of various churches.

It first recognized that"`the Christian sees distinctions of race

as part of God's purpose to enrich mankind with a diversity of

gifts".

Knowing that many people in the world, however, were using

these distinctions of race as an excuse for the oppression of

one group by another, the Conference declared :"Against

racial pride or race antagonism the church must set its face

implacably as rebellion against God."Frankly admitting

that the churches themselves were often guilty of erecting

walls of separation in their own life the Conference further

stated :"specially in its (the church's) own life and worship

there can be no place for barriers because of race or colours.....

no place for exclusion or segregation because of race or

colour."The World Council of Churches which after 1948

incorporated the"Life and Work"Movement continued to

adhere to the convictions expressed by the Oxford Confe-

rence.

The Assembly at Amsterdam considered the question of race

in two particular respects. First, it pointed out that the

Church can hardly hope that society at large will listen to its

pronouncements while it is guilty of fostering racial separation

in its own life.

That the Church must become aware of its own failure in

this respect was made abundantly clear in the report of the

Assembly's section on The Church and the Disorder of Society

which was unanimously received by the Assembly itself and

commended to the Churches.

This Assembly report declared :"It is here (in the matter

of racial distinction) that the Church has failed most

lamentably, where it has reflected and then by its

example sanctified the racial prejudice that is rampant in

the world. And yet it is here that today its guidance con-

cerning what God wills for it is especially clear. It knows that

it must call society away from prejudice based upon race or

colour and from practices of discrimination and segregation

as denials of justice and human dignity, but it cannot say a

convincing word to society unless it takes steps to eliminate

these practices from the Christian community, because they

contradict all that it believes about God's love for all His

children."

The Amsterdam Assembly further acknowledged the Church's

responsibility to work for the universal recognition of human

rights. Its section on The Church and the International

Disorder said :"We are profoundly concerned by evidence

from many parts of the world of flagrant violations of human

rights. Both individuals and groups are subjected to persecu-

tion and discrimination on grounds of race, colour, religion,

culture or political conviction. Against such actions whether

of governments, officials, or the general public, the churches

must take a firm and vigorous stand, through international

institutions of legal order. They must work for an ever wider

and deeper understanding of what are the essential human

rights if men are to be free to do the will of God."

In the period following the Amsterdam Assembly the World

Council of Churches'teadership has been continually concerned

with the racial situation in the world and especially with the

developments in South Africa. The Central Committee of

the World Council, meeting in Toronto, Canada in 1950,

particularly concerned itself with this point. It recommended

that an inter-racial ecumenical delegation be sent to visit the

South African Churches. It became apparent, however, that

such a delegation would not be generally welcomed and the

Central Committee could not agree to send a delegation of

any other nature. The General Secretary, however, made a

visit to the Union of South Africa in 1952, visiting both

English-and Africaans-speaking churches as well as variousAfrican Negro bodies.

All racial divisions overcome

HE report which the General Secretary made on his visitto the meeting of the Central Committee in Lucknow,

India, in January 1953, prompted a series of resolutions

from that body which said in part :

"The Central Committee gives encouragement to all those

in South Africa and elsewhere who are labouring for a solution

of the racial problem in keeping with the Christian Gospel,

and calls upon all Christians to uphold them in thought,

prayer and acts of reconciliation.

"The Central Committee would use this opportunity to

express its strong conviction that the first and foremost

contribution which the Churches everywhere can and must

make to the solution of the race problem is to manifest in

their own life that in Christ all racial division is overcome and

that any policy of enforced segregation in any aspects of

church life is incompatible with the very nature of the Church

in Christ.

"The Central Committee holding strongly the convictions

expressed by the First Assembly (Amsterdam), affirms that

all political, social and economic discrimination based on the

grounds of race, wherever they may exist, are contrary to the

Will of God as expressed in the Christian Gospel. Recognizing

that existing racial discriminations are increasing tension and

bitterness in various parts of the world, the Committee calls

upon the member churches to engage in the Christian

ministry of reconciliation and to do all in their power to end

such discrimination wherever it exists."

In August 1954 the second Assembly of the World Council

of Churches will be held at Evanston, Illinois, U. S. A. After

considering its main theme :"Christ-The Hope of the

World,"the Assembly will turn to six specific areas in which

this hope is relevant. One of these will be the realm of

inter-group relations :"the Church Amid Racial and Ethnic

Tensions."It is hoped that the work of this Assembly section

will serve to give more specific content to the convictions

already expressed by the various World Council bodies on the

race problem.

On the national level, the Ecumenical Movement has taken

the form of National Councils of Churches, and these have

often spoken on the race problem as it particularly affects

their own countries. Two cases are specially noteworthy.

"The General Board of the National Council of the

Churches of Christ in the U. S. A. in June 1952, adopted an

Official Statement and Resolution entitled :"The Church and

Segregation."Since the U. S. A. is, one of those areas in the

world where racial barriers are most in evidence, it is signi-

ficant that this body, representing the vast majority of Pro-

testant and Orthodox Christians in that country should

"renounce and earnestly recommend to its member churches

that they renounce the pattern of segregation based on race,

colour or national origin. as unnecessary, undesirable and A

violation of the Gospel of love and human brotherhood."

Common loyalty brings community

Ion a further elaboration of that theme, in words that havealso been adopted as their own by several of the official

church bodies, the National Council promised to work for

"a non-segregated church and a non-segregated community."

In Great Britain the British Council of Churches has realized

its particular responsibility toward all races represented in

the British Commonwealth. Consequently this ecumenical

body included as its fifth point in a seven-point policy which

it adopted in April 1951 :"To oppose racial discrimination

wherever it is found, at home and overseas ; in particular to

support and apply the principle of partnership in all relation-

ships, official and personal, with other members of the multi-

racial Commonwealth to which we belong."

Further implementing this policy, the British Council of

Churches in April 1953, adopted a resolution with specific

reference to the proposed Central Africa Federation, which

without committing the Council for or against the scheme

urged that safeguards be included to secure equal educational

opportunity for all racial groups, the removal of racial restric-

tions for skilled employment and the professions and the reduc-

tion of all discriminatory practices.

The common voice of the Churches as expressed through

the ecumenical bodies is clear. Friends of the Church as

well as its critics may well ask, however, whether the practices

of the churches correspond to its pronouncements. The

answer, of course, is that in many areas they do not. Yet

these official statements have value in creating the"bad

conscience"in the Church which can lead and have actually

led to a change of attitude.

Lastly, the Ecumenical Movement is in itself an inter-racial

fellowship. In all large ecumenical meetings and in numerous

smaller groups, Christians have learned to worship, live and

work together regardless of race. Thus they have come to

learn that such truly human relationships are the only normal

ones. In a common loyalty to their common Lord, they have

discovered a true community transcending all human barriers.

Page 10. AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1953 UNESCO (

'YOU HAVE

TO LEARN TO

MAKE

FRIENDS'

by Syeda Saiyidain (Age 9)New Delhi

(This article won the JawaharlalNehru Prize four the age group 9-10 inShankar's weekly international writingcompetition for children).

*

LAST year we came to stay in Delhi.At First I was very lonely. I hadno friends to play with. So one

day father said,"What a lazy girlyou are. Why don't you go out andplay ?"You see, I did not want myfather to know the real reason. ButI'll tell you the reason. You know,once I went to play, but the girls didnot take any notice of me. I did nottell father because I thought he wouldfeel sorry. So now I said,"All right,father, but..."Father did not carefor the"but"and said,"Go, darling".

So I dressed and went out. A girlmet me and said,"Come and playwith me."I was very happy andplayed with her. After some timeher other friends came. And one ofthem asked me"What is your caste ?"I did not know, so I said,"I don'tknow."When I came home I askedfather,"What is our caste ?" He said,"We do not believe in caste."

The next day when I went to play,the girls again asked me"What isyour caste ?"I said,"We do notbelieve in caste."Then one girl saidto me,"But what are you ?"I said"I am a little girl". That girl be-came annoyed and said,"Don't befunny, are you a Muslim or a Hindu ora Christian or a Parsi ?"I said,"I am a Muslim."Then she said,"We won't play with you."I wasvery angry and sorry because I fool-ishly thought that no girl would playwith me. So I went home with agrumpy face.

The next day when he told me to goout and play I said,"I won't go be-cause they say I am a Muslim andthey won't play with me."Fathersmiled and said,"Never mind, go andplay with your little niece. You haveto learn to make friends."

The next evening we were all sittingin the drawing room. The bell rang"Tring... Tring."I went and openedthe door, and saw a tall Sikh gentle-man with a long white beard. Hiswife and a girl of my age were withhim. I went and told father thatsome people had come to see him andhe said,"Tell them to come in."

I did and then ran into my ownroom. After some time father called meand said,"Here is a new friend foryou. Go and show her your dollsand books."I took her with me andwe two played nicely together. After-wards they went away.

I asked mother,"What did that oldgentleman say ?"Mother said,"Oh, they are very good people. Youknow, they had heard that some girlsrefused to play with you. So theycame to say,'If nobody plays withyour sweet little daughter, my daugh-ter will play with her'."

So I started to play with her. Andthen do you know what happened ?After some time other girls also joinedus. Now we all have become friends.

One day my eldest sister, who haspassed her B. A. and thinks she is aphilosopher, said to me :"Syeda,how many friends have you now ?"I said,"Oh, lots and lots.""Whoare they ?"I answered."They areall little girls, Hindus, Muslims, Chris-tians. Sikhs and all, and we have nowmade a little club. Its name is"Happy-go-Incky Club."Then mysister said,"There are so many peoplein the world and if they also becomefriends like you little girls have becomethey can make the world a Happy-go-lucky Club. Can't they ?"

SOC) OLOG) CAL ASPECTS

OF RACE RELATIONS

WHILE so much attention isbeing given these days tothe psychological and in-

terpersonal aspects of race rela-tions, it is well not to lose sight oft, he importance of what may be des-cribed, broadly speaking, as thesociological factors in the situa-tion. For reasons which cannot bediscussed here, there is a tendencyon the part of professional studentsas well as on the part of laymen toregard psychological factors andinterpersonal relations in race re-lations as more fundamental thansociological factors.

After all, it is contended, the rela-tions which exist between membersof different races are dependentupon how individuals of different..-...races reel towardseach other, and whatideas they have ofeach other. More-over, it is argued,laws and practicesinvolving discrimi-nation against cer-tain racial and na-tional groups are theexpression of theideas and feelings ofindividuals. Butsuch reasoning failsto take into accountthe source and na-ture of racial attitu-des and the mannerin which they arepropagated in mo-dern societies.

Let us considerthen the source andnature of racial at-titudes or attitudeswhich people havetowards ethnic ornational groupsother than theirown. The attitudesof members of oneracial or ethnicgroup towards mem-bers of anothergroup are not indi-vidual but social at-.titudes. They aresocial attitudes inthe sense that theyrepresent the defini-tions and concep-tions which theirown group providesof the members of adifferent racialgroup.

It is needless toemnhasize what isgenerally known, namely that chil-dren do not have racial prejudicesor that racial attitudes are notinstinctive. But it is necessary topoint out another factor of greatimportance. Although childrenperceive differences in colour, forexample, these differences have noracial significance until the groupof which the child is a member de-fines them as racially significant.

This is vividly illustrated by thecase in which a white child simplythought that her coloured playma-te's colour was due to too much io-dine until her own parents told. herthat she could not invite. her col-oured playmate to her birthdayparty because she was a Negrochild. It was then that colour ac-quired significance as a racial markfor this white child.

In regard to such racial marks asskin colour, hair texture, and otherphysical features, it should be poin-ted out these only become signifi-cant for race relations when theybecome symbols of racial identifi-cation. These racial marks do notin themselves create racial pro-.blems. In fact, in some countrieswhere there are people with diffe-rent racial characteristics, raceproblems and race relations do notexist. People are categorized ra-ther according to their class or oc-cupations in the particular society.

This is not strange because themanner in whic. h people are cate-gorized is determined by a numberof historical and social factors.

When we consider the attitudesof the members of one racial grouptowards the individuals of anotherracial group, we are really dealing

by Dr. E. Franklin FRAZ/fR

with the way in which members ofa race are categorized. When one isprejudiced towards the members ofanother racial group, one treatsmembers of that group accordingto the manner in which they arecategorized rather than accordingto their individual traits or quali-ties. It is for this reason that thestudy of racial stereotypes is soimportant in race relations.

The prejudiced person, as it hasbeen said, is not prejudiced againstthe individual of a different raceso much as against the categoricpicture or stereotype of the race.

This is why it is very unlikelythat prejudice against a racialgroup is the result of an unpleasantexperience with a member of that

group. If cne becomes consciousof prejudice against a group follow-ing an unpleasant experience withone of its members, it is most likelythat the experience has only arous-ed a latent attitude or evoked alatent emotional response to thecategoric picture of the racialgroup.

An unpleasant experience with amember of a different racial groupdoes not necessarily lead to prej u-dice against the group. An un-pleasant experience results in pre-judice against another racial groupwhen certain social attitudes to-wards the particular racial groupalready exist in one's own group.If these social attitudes do not existthe unpleasant experience is reac-ted to as an unpleasant experiencewith an individual rather thanwith the representative of a racialgroup. Therefore, it is importantto study the nature and source ofthese social attitudes.

The source of these social attitu-des is to be found in the social heri-tage of a group. They are as muchof the social heritage or culture ofa group as other conceptions andvalues which are transmittedthrough education and other meansof communication. Just as a mem-ber of society or a particular groupassimilates unconsciously the idealsand values of his group, he assimi-lates the conceptions and attitudesof his group in regard to certainraces.

A study of art and literature,theatres, films and radio, cartoonsand comic and strips will revealthe current racial concepts whichare part of the social heritage of a

between races so asto give one a lowerstatus as, for exam-ple, exclusion fromcertain occupations,no amount of indi-vidual racial good-will can overcomethe decisive influen-ce of these institu-tions in the forma-tion of social attitu-des in respect torace.

Even if the indivi-dual has managedto emancipate him-self from the currentracial attitudes, theinstitutions of so-ciety place definitelimitations upon theextent to which hecan express his par-t i c u 1 a r attitudes.The restrictionsupon the expressionof his personalfeeling and attitu-des are increasedwhen he is chargedwith carrying outinstitutional policiesin regard to racewhich are opposedto his own concep-tions.

Something shouldbe added concerningthe legal institutionsand culture of a so-ciety. T h e re ism u c h confusionconcerning the roleof law in changingrace relations, Inthe past some socialscientists have gone

so far as to state that laws haveno influence on race relations. Thenmany laymen echoing this opinionhave said that laws cannot makepeople friends or love each other.All of this is not only beside thepoint, but introduces confusioninto thinking on this question.

Participation in the collectivelife of a political community is sel-dom carried on on the basis offriendship or love. The very basisof civilized life is law. More spe-cifically we know from experiencethat laws have been responsible forthe extension of the rights and op-portunities of racial groups.

The main purpose of this articlehas been to call attention to theobvious fact that the thinking andfeelings of individuals in regard tomembers of a different racial groupare shaped and coloured, so tospeak, by the conceptions and atti-tudes of their own group.

These conceptions and attitudesare communicated to individualsby the various channels of com-munication in a society. Despitethe growing mobility of the peoplesof the world, the vast majority ofthe people of the world will conti-nue to depend upon these meansof communication for their ideasand feelings towards other races.

On the other hand, their attitudesand reactions to members of a dif-ferent racial group dwelling withintheir midst will depend largelyupon the institutions and lawswhich regulate their relations anddetermine the extent to which theycan co-operate on a basis of equal-ity and develop mutual under-standing and respect.

group as well as the means bywhich these concepts and attitudesare perpetuated. Studies of the at-titudes of people have constantlyrevealed these channels of commu-nications as the source of their ra-cial prejudices. In fact, a numberof studies have revealed that pre-judice may be strongest against aracial group with whom one hasnever had direct contact.

The institutions of society alsoplay a decisive role in perpetuatingcertain racial attitudes. Whereinstitutions prevent easy commu-nication and association betweenindividuals with different racialand cultural backgrounds as, forexample, separate schools andchurches, or define the relations

iSCO C COURIER AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1953. Page II

Cut off from the rest of the world and untouched by cutside influence for untold centuries, the aborigines of. Australia are one of the few peoples in the wor) d whose tife is still fairly close to the stone age. Theirway of life has evolved considerably during the past century and a half of contact with Western civilization,

but vestiges of their primitive customs still exist. In their natural tribal state they possess no knowledge of metalsor agriculture. They have 0 highly developed social organization however. As in all newsy-settled countries, the

indigenous inhabitants. suffered at first from their contact with the white race. It has been estimated that atthe time of the first white settlement in 1788 there were about 300, 000 aborigines in Australia. Contact with the thewhite settlers was more than they could survive and the numbers dwindled as hunting grounds were reducedwith the spread of settlements. It is estimated that there are still 60, 000 full-bloods aborigines and 25, 000 half-castes on the mainland. They are mostly nomads found in tribes scattered over the Northern Territory, thenorth of Western Australia and northern Queenstand. Many roam vast reservations. They are there encouraged tolive their traditional communal tife. Others, no longer tribal, live in supervised camps. Others again live innormal contact with the white man and are usually in employment, particularly 9S stockmen on cattle stations. Themost complete record yet made of the life of the aborigines is now being presented in the United States underthe auspices of Unesco and the U. S. and Australian Nowional Commissions for Unesco. The exhibition openedin Buffato in June and wit ! tour the country for nearly two years. One of the most remarkable aspects of the abori-

gine of Australia is his art-a truly primitive art that is still a living art. Like the cave men of Europe, the abori-gines who lived thousands of years ago were artists. Through the centuries which have passed since they worked withfeathers and bark brushes and tapped away patiently with stone toots, or cut outline figures in the rock, there havealways been artists among the tribes. Unesco is now eompteting p ! ans for the publication later this year or next yearof a portfolio on Australian aboriginal art. It will include 32 large reproductions in colour of the cave paintings inArnhem Land-in the for north.) In word and picture the COURIER presents on these pages same aspects of thetife-fascinating both from human and scientific points of view-of the aborigines of Australia.

by Professor A. P. fLKIN

Professor of Anthropology hi the University of Sydney, Australia

B USInIE='I are those peoples of primitive culture, who

neither garden nor pasture flocks and herds. Theydepend for their living solely on hunting, fishing(where possible) and food gathering. Such was the

life of the Palaeolithic peoples of pre-history ; such, too,has been recently, and still is, the life of some groups as,for example, the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert, SouthAfrica, some American Indian tribes, a fe\v groups inMalaysia and New Guinea, and especially the AustralianAborigines.

These last are the most interesting and indeed startling,for here was a food-gathering people of the simplestmaterial culture who until 1788 had been occupying awhole continent, undisturbed for many centuries. Indeed,fifty years ago numbers of tribes were still living inignorance of the existence of other races, and it isonly during the past twenty years that all havecome into contact with white peoples. Thousandsof Aborigines, however, cannot speak English, andstill depend to a large extent on food gatheringfor a livelihood. I shall take the Australian Aboriginesas my example of the part played by Bushmen in moderncivilization, for I have worked amongst and for them fora quartet of a century.

The Aborigines had developed a very effective social and'economic adaptation to their environment. They weredivided into tribal or smaller groups, each with its re-cognized food-gathering territory. This varied in size, asdid the density of the population, according to the foodproviding character of the region. The poorer the countryand the more arid the conditions, the larger the area re-quired for food gathering and hunting, and the smaller andmore scattered were the groups. In good food country,smaller areas sufficed, and groups were not isolated butoften hunted and camped together, though in group order.

wherever it was, the members of a tribal group knewall about their own country and everything in it, where andwhen food and other desired articles could and should befound, and the signs pointing to these facts. Thus, theappearance of flowers on certain trees was correlated withthe ripeness of yams in sandy ground, and with otherphenomena.

All in all, a large body of'natural'knowledge was

passed from generation to generation.This was not only a feat of memory, but (C 0 n t ; n u e dwitnessed 10 « piwcrs of obsen'ation and 01 on next page.)

COMPLETELY ISOLATED

FOR MANY CENTURIES...

Very early in human history-perhaps more than 60, 000 years ago-a small band ofventuresome people from south-eastern Asia arrived in Australia. Evidence indi-cates that they were the first to people the land of the kangaroo probably settlingin Arnhem Land in the north. Even today the life of most of their descendants haschanged very little and as a race they show archaic features which have remainedunmodified down to the presents, In their natural tribal state. they possess no

applying the results of observation. When we add to thisthe skill required to get some of the desired objects, or tomake such articles as spears, spearthrowers, boomerangs,canoes and nets, we realize that the Aborigineshad and have the intellectual ability and thepotential technical skill to adapt themselves tonew situations.

There is one provision, however. No peoplecan readapt itself to a new way of life overnight,nor indeed in one generation. Consequently, asEuropean settlement at harbours and in goodfarming and grazing land was always fast andtotal, the food gathering Aborigines were de-prived of their way of life, became hangers-on or were involved in uneven clashes. As aresult they declined rapidly, and almost the onlyAborigines to remain in the regions of success-ful European exploitation of the land are thoseof mixed blood.

In the less favourable areas, however, whitesettlement was slow and sparse. The nativeswere not dispossessed, though there were clashesbetween them and the"invader". But the sett-lers needed the labour of the Aborigines, andthe latter had time to realize that by working for the lormcrthey could obtain some of the white man's goods. So aworking adaptation was reached.

As a result, the Aborigines have made a positive contri-bution to the pastoral development of Australia in thegreat inland cattle and sheep areas. As stockmen, drovers,

fencers, shearers, windmill attendants, andgeneral handymen, they have, for a hundredyears, done most of the pastoral work in the"outback"and"inland". Their women, too,have done the domestic work, either substitutingfor white women or making life under hardconditions more endurable and pleasant for thesettlers'* wives. The fact is that the pastoralindustry in both the arid and the tropical regionscould not have been developed without theAborigines. Further, with the spread of educa-tion and literacy amongst them, and theestablishment of better conditions of employ-ment and reward, their contribution towardsAustralia's economic life will increase.

With very few exceptions, they have not shownan aptitude for, or interest in, farming, but thenorth-coastal Aborigines have proved themselvesgood and reliable boat crews. On small govern-ment and private trading vessels their work hasbeen mostly menial, but on mission boats

they have filled, and-fill, all positions, except that ofmaster, a post filled by a \vhite man, or, often, a man ofpart-Aboriginal descent. Frequently, however, the Abori-

gine is really in charge, for heweather, and will get into the t

In the past, they were empindustry. Today, only the Teengaged in this work, and thcontrolled by the Queensland A

Finally, a few full-bloods acaste Aborigines have made g (own businesses, such as sa'w-rand fishing. Hundreds of ITfactories in the big cities. A feyand nurses. As opportunitieshigher education are opening 1will play a bigger part in thesE

In two World Wars, menserved in the ranks and alsosport, especially in boxing andand cricket, they have proved

The foregoing shows that theed, and will continue to contrtowards Australian life and th :of the average intelligent persoachievement : conditioned bythey are achieving a place ireconomy.

Some are doing more ; theydoing so outside of the econe

... THEY ARE ADOPTING

A NEW WAY OF LIFE

Regarded in old Colonial days as being of the lowest intelligence the aborigineremained a despised people until a better understanding of their ways spread amongwhite people. In recent years sincere efforts have been made to save the mostinteresting of all primitive races of man from the fate of the Tasmanians who becameextinct in 1876 with the death of a romantic figure, the"Princess Truganini". TheAustralian Federal Government has launched an ambitious programme to assimilate

0 tJ

knowledge of metals or agriculture, but they have a highly developed social orga-nization. Organized in tribal groups, they possess a vast amount of"natural"know-ledge about the country where they live, and this is passed from generation togeneration. Professor A. P. Elkin, author of the article below, has brought backfrom Arnhem Land the first wire recordings, films and photographs ever made ofsecret aborigine ceremonials there. Photo, left, shows public ceremonial dance,

or corroboree, staged in honour of Prof. Elkin's arrival. Photo, right-also broughtback by Prof. Elkin-shows another dance, the Warrangan corroboree, asso-ciated with the flying fox (bat) mythology. The dance is performed to the rhythmof clapping boomerangs. (University of Sydney photos.) Centre photo showsW. J. Harney, one of the great specialists on the Bushmen of Arnhem land, enjoyinga meal offlying fox with his aboriginal friends at Oenpelli. (Australian official Photo.)

he knows the \vaters and thes boat safely to its port.nployed in the pearl-shellingTorres Straits Islanders arethat on a co-operative basis,I AdministratIOn.; and many half and lightergood in trades, some in their

v-milling, small boat-buildingmixed-bloods, too, work in

few are successful as teachersis for technical training andg up for the Aborigines, theysse and like spheres.n of half and lighter castesso in labour gangs, while innd to a less extent in football; d their prowess.lhe Aborigines have contribut-itribute, m no small measurethat they are playing the part'son. That, however, is a realy a food-gathering economy,in a pastoral and industrial

ley are making a name, andmomic and sporting spheres.

In particular, Albert Namatjira and a dozen other membersof the Aranda tribe of Central Australia stand forth aswater-colour artists, whose works are sought far beyondthe borders of Australia. ; There was noindigenous art'worthy of the name in that partof the continent, until Namatjira fortnnateiysaw a white artist at work. The artist, realizingNamatjira's interest, encouraged and helpedhim. His work gave the idea to other Aborigines.These new artists vary in their styles, some ex-pressing more Aboriginal background andfeeling than others. Their exihibitions in thecapital cities are always successful.

Some good singers have appeared, too, thebest known being Harold Blair, who has beenin America. A few have stood out as Christianreligious leaders amongst their own people.especially the Rev. James Noble and PastorDoug. Nicholls.

But much more will be achieved along cultur-al lines. For some years now, there has been avogue to use Aboriginal themes in Australianpoetry, Ahoriginal art motifs (especially fromArnhem Land, North Australia) in designsfor fabrics, murals and panellings, Aboriginal musicalthemes in our musical compositions, and Aboriginal mythsand legends in interpretative dancing. It remains, now,

for the Aborigines themselves to express their art, musicand dancing in ways and places which will bring theirown interpretation of life into Australia's cultural heritage.

i ney are excellent dancers anu acLora, anuhave shown that they can perform well inmovie-film jwork. But it will be much moresignificant if they develop and perform theirown traditional ballets for public showing. So,too, they could contribute to our common stockof music, through recordings, such as those 1have obtained in Arnhem Land, which fascinate'all those who hear them.

In addition, their Songmen will interpret theexperience of their people in. ballads and"spirituals"which will make a definite impacton our culture. The Arnhemlanders, too, arepoets of no mean order ; they carve and mouldfigures, and they paint on bark and on cave-walls designs both naturalistic and symbolic.expressing their mythology and their desires.These paintings in ochres reveal skill, aestheticsense, and feeling, and should provide thebasis for a fresh and positive achievement inthe Australian world of art.

To sum up : the"Bushmen"of Australia have achievedmuch for and in modern civilization. They will achievemuch more-if they are guided aright.

the aboriginal nomad population into the general stream of Australian life, Reserveshave been established where thousands of aborigines make their homes and primaryschools have been opened. It is estimated that there are still 60, 000 full-bloodaborigines and 25, 000 half-castes on the Australian mainland. Without their help itwould not have been possible to develop the country's pastoral industries. Aborigi-nes have contributed and will continue to contribute in no small measure towards

Australian Hfe. Photos show, from left to right : 1) Children of the Arunta tribeleaving camp for school. 2) The Bungalow, a reserve for aborigines workingnear the town of Alice Springs, Central Australia. 3) A mobile unit dentist of theNorthern Territories Medical Service attending to an aborigine's troublesometooth on Melville Island. 4) Aborigine cattlemen highly prized for their excellenthorsemanship and skill as drovers on the great cattle stations of Australia's far north.

I) 9

Page 14. AUGUST-SEPTEMBER) 953

THE REMARKABLE'X-RAY ART

OF THE MEN OF ARNHEM LAND

MAN SPEARING A KANGAROO. This bark painting is a remarkable example of the curious X-ray art-in-which the Australian aboriginal painters depict not only the exterior outlines but also the internal organs oftheir subjects. This painting by an artist ot the Kakatu tribe was collected by Sir Baldwin Spencer in 1913 atOenpelli, Arnhem Land. It is now in the National Museum of Victoria, Melbourne. (Australian Official Photo.)

t FTER eight months in the field, a jointAustralian-American expedition return-ed from Arnhem Land, northern Aus-tralia, in November 1948 with 25 tons

of specimens which included 400 sheets ofaboriginal bark drawings and photographs andtracings of cave paintings.

The expedition found that some of these barkpaintings closely resembled the work of pre-historic man in the caves of eastern Spain andof the Bushman of South Africa. The scientistsbrought back some particularly interestingtracing of a hitherto little kno\vn form called

The only musical instrument devised by the Austral

"Mimi"paintings. These, the bark drawingsand their associated legends have intriguedanthropologists. Why is the same form of pri-mitive art found in such widely separated placesin t. he world ? Why does the Australian aboriginehave a legend of the journey tlf the dead thatis so like the story of Charon ferrying spiritsacross the Styx ? These are questions whichthe Arnhem Land expedition may help to solve.

The expedition was financed by the NationalGeographic Society of America, the Smith-sonian Institution and the Australian Depart-ment of Information. It \vas the largest

by Charles P. MOUNTFORD

scientific survey yet made in Australia, and had1C members-11 Australians, 5 Americans.Apart from the examples of primitive art, theybrought back specimens of 15. 000 fish, 13, 500plants, 800 birds, 600 animal skins, and mucharchaeological material.

There were four naturalists ; a unit of threescientists investigating the health and nutritionof the aborigines ; an archaeologist determiningtheir historical background and an ethnologistexamining their customs. I led the party,directed a series of documentary films onnatural history and aboriginal life, and collect-ed examples of primitive art, recording, lheÌI'associated legends.

We established camps in three widelydifferent environments-at Groote Eylandt, asomewhat arid island in the Gulf of Carpen-taria about 40 miles from the Arnhem Landcoast ; at Yirkalla, a coastal region bounded byeucalyptus forests in north-Eastern ArnhemLand, and at Oenpelli, about 150 miles east ofDarwin.

The cave paintings and bark drawings on thenorth coast of Australia, and particularly illArnhem Land, represent the highest develop-ment of Australian primitive art. They aremuch more advanced both in technique anddesign than the crude rock engravings aroundSydney and in South Australia, or the primitivesymbolism of the desert aborigines.

Collecting specimens was much easier inArnhem Land than in other parts of Australiabecause the aborigines had for centuriespainted pictures on the inside of their barkhuts during the rainy seasons. All we had todo was to give the men sheets of bark aboutthe size of those with which their huts werebuilt and ask them to paint the same pictures.

All the art of Arnhem Land is closely linkedwith the beliefs and philosophies of the people.Whether the subject is a living creature, aninanimate object, or a heavenly body, there isalmost always a legend that explains the originof the subject and the country to which itbelongs. I was, however, surprised to find thatthe aborigines at Groote Eylandt, YirkalIa andOenpelli had each developed a distinctive artform.

At Groote Eylandt, drawings consisted ofsingle pictures, predominantly of sea creatures.At Yirkalla, many design elements wereskilfully woven together in decorative panels.The drawings at Oenpelli showed not only theexternal, but also the internal details of thecreatures they depicted.

Groote Eylandt drawings, although simple indesign, were skilfully and carefully executed.For colours, the artists used red, fellow, blackand white pigments ground to a paste on a Oatstone, and for brushes a narrow piece ofchewed bark or a small feather. It takes agood deal of skill to draw Hne lines on therough bark with these primitive feather brushes.Most bark drawings were done in a day butsome took longer.

It must be more than 40 years since Malayfishermen last visited the northern coast ofAustralia in their sailing proas, yet the aborigi-nes have retained an accurate knowledge of theappearance of these boats. Bark paintingsshowed their general shape and accurate detailsof the tripod mast, steering paddles, and eventhe number and disposition of the ropes in therigging.

The only musical instrument devised by the Australian aborigine is the didjeridoo, a hollowed pole seldom less than 6 ft, long which produces a deep, organlikenote. Right, children practise their music.) In bark painting, left, one man plays the didjeridoo while his companion is clapping bamboo sticks to provide a rhythm.

UR

The bark drawings and cave paintings on the north coast of Australia, particularly Arnhem Land, represent the highest development of Australian aboriginal art.The painting here depicts a turtle hunt. Three aboriginals in a-bark canoe have speared a sea-going hurtle. The man in the bow is holding the line to the hurtle.

Decorative group of"mimi"women, A group of aborigine women dancing.

Frieze of women with hands linked : from a cave in western Arnhem Land.

I painting of Aunenau, whichis a bony, fleshless spiritcovered with bristly hair. Itis a spirit which wandersby night in search of deadmen whose flesh it eats.

Oenpelli, our last camp, was the centre of acurious but attractive form of art known forwant of a better name, as X-ray art. In this,the artists have not only painted the external features of the creatures, but also the bones and! internal organs such as the heart, stomach, liverand intestines.

Although we collected many X-ray drawingson sheets of bark at Oenpelli, the best exampleswere painted in the caves in the rugged plateau.The walls and ceilings in some of the largercaves were covered with a profusion of paint-ings of birds, fish and animals but, strangely.none of human beings.

Deep in the labyrinth of gorges, I found theMimi art, an entirely different form that de-picted almost without exception thin-bodiedhuman beings in strong action, running, jump-ing or fighting. The figures were crude indesign and painted entirely in deep red.

These paintings, the aborigines say, are notthe work of their ancestors. They have beendone by a fairy-like people called the Mimi,who live under the tumbled boulders. No onehas ever seen the Mimi, because, having parti-clIlarly keen sight and hearing, they can detect

the approach of human beings from greatdistances. When they do, they run quickly tothe rocky plateau, and blow on the face of theboulders. The rock opens like a door to admitthe Mimis to their underground home, thencloses behind them, keeping out all intruders.

The Mimis lead somewhat the same life a ?the present day aborigines. They have wivesand children. The men hunt animals and thewomen collect yams and lily roots. In theevening the Mimis eat the food they havegathered. My informants had to admit,Jiowever, that they had never seen the smokefrom the Mimi's camp fires, although they oftenheard them shuffling among the rocks at night.

The aborigines pointed to the attenuatedfigures of the paintings to pr. ove that the Mimisare tall and thin-so thin, indeed, that theycan only hunt in still weather. Otherwise thewind would break their slender bodies.

Obviously the story of the Mimi ws in ventedto explain a form of art that the aboriginescould not account for in any other way. Theydistinguish sharply between a painting done bythe Mimis and that done by their own relative,

Bunbalama, the mythicalwoman, responsible forcreating rain. Rectangle ofdots on body representsclouds she has made ; thevertical bands indicate rain.

If the painting is red, and of a human being,it is the work of a Mimi. If it is painted illany other colour, it is the work of an aborigine.There is, however, such a wide differencebetween the simple though lively art of theMimis and the colour and skilful technique orthe modern X-ray art that no one could faiito distinguish between them.

The resemblance between the Mimi paintingsat Oenpelli and the paintings done by prehistoricman in eastern Spain and the Bushman ofSouth Africa is remarkable. The figures are soalike that, when placed side by side, one canscarcely'detect any difference in style eventhough thousands of miles separate them andmany centuries in time.

We do not know who painted the tall, thin-bodied running people. Probably they belong-ed to an earlier civilization though not nec-essarily to another race. There is abundantevidence in the ancient rock engravings ofSouth and Central Australia, and the smalldelicately-flaked stone implements and curiouscylindro-conical stones found along the RiverDarling that a different civilization once flour-ished in Australia.

Page 16. AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1953 UNESCO*

-

TRANSPORTATION

The canoe is the only form of transpor-tation devised by the Australian abori-gine. Even then he seldom used itfor travelling from one place to anotherbut confined its use to crossing streamsand fishing close inshore. The canoesare made from bark stripped in onepiece from trees and in the coastalregions of Australie many trees maystill be seen bearing the scars on theplaces from where the bark was taken.

WATER

Like most primitive races, theAustralian aborigine, living incountry where water holes arefew and scattered, carries hiswater supply in the skins ofanimals. His water bag isusually the skin of the kangarooor wallaby, which after carefulsleeve skinning, is tied withfibre or raw hide and filled withgrass to keep shape until it iseventually dried out in the sun.

WALKABOUT

The Australian aborigine, in his native state, is essentiallynomadic and travels on his walkabout very lightly. Hisproperly is limited to fighting and hunting equipment.The gin or lubra acts as his beast of burden, and carries,according to the season and district, a skin waterbag, asmall dilly bag and a bark basket for the storage of food and ;on occasion, a piccaninny. These baskets, bound withnative hemp, are light, strong and colourfully decorated.

CEREMONY

Mourning is essentially a feminineritual in the life of the Australianaborigines. The bereaved widow isrequired to mourn her husband fromthree to six months. During this timeshe wears the mourning armlet andcarries the mourning wreath as signsof her sorrow. Both these are very de-corative symbols of aboriginal art.After the mourning period, the widowis segregated from the males in thesame way as are the unmarried gills,where she remains until she marries.

GIN

It is generally believed that aboriginal women lead a lifeof semi-slavedom. But though life is harder for womenthan for men the division of labour between the two isclearly defined. The male is the hunter and warrior ; thegin wields the digging stick and forages for most food.Her"marriage"often takes place at an early age and shemay"re-marry"several times. One strange custom whichis rigidly observed : no man may look at his mother-in-lawnor may she in her turn look at him under any circumstances.

SUPERNATURAL

Djanba, Divine Thunder of theNor'-west. The Australianaborigine thinks a great dealabout things beyond the earthlysphere. The wld around himis alive with supernaturalbeings, friendly and hostile.Found in the wilds of Kimberley(W. A.) by Rev. Father Worms,this figure was covered withhuman blood applied during asecret rain-ceremony. Inten-tionally small, it representsDjanba, the Invisible. Evenmore awesome rites have beenrehearsed before it, witnessedonly by the initiated. Whowould dare peer into these

mysterious performances ?

. COURtERAUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1953. Page 17

CONFLICT

The shield is the on ! y form ofarmour used by the Australianaborigine through the centuriesof almost continuous inter-tribal warfare. Gaudily deco-rated to the individual taste ofthe warrior, these shields aremade from the underbark oftrees. In the deft hands of thequick-eyed aborigine fighter,these shields are most effec-tive in glancing off the spears,throwing sticks and boome-rangs used in native battles.

RELAXATION

Itis not generally known thatthe Australian aborigineenjoyed pipe smoking evenbeþjre his contact with thewhite man's civilization. His"fragrant weed"was avariety of the dock. thefleshy leaves of which, whendried, resemble tobacco.The stems of the pipes wereoften decorated or carvedto satisfy the aesthetic tasteof its owner. Smoking,however, was restrictedby custom to the malesand to the older gins.

FOOD

Fish trapping is an art at which the Australian aborigineswho live in river country become very adept. The trapsare made from reeds, twigs and native string and are setat strategic parts of streams where fish are known to be.The shallow waters are dammed back and the traps mooredin a narrow outlet. Usually the tribe drive the river to theaccompaniment of help from lubras, children and dogs.

SURGERY

Surgery is practised by the Australianaboriginal tribes for ceremonial andoperating purposes. The instrumentsare flaked from flint, principally fromthe almost legendary Ngillipidgi Quarry,and are of razor-like sharpness. Thenative method of treating wounds is acrude form of cauterisation, performedby cutting into the wound and fillingthe cavity with hot cinders or clay.Fortunately the aborigine is more sto-ical towards pain than the white man.

PICCANINNY

Traditionally fond of children,aborigines treat their young-sters with tolerance, amuse-ment and affection. Hardlybefore he is over the toddlerstage the aborigine boy beginsto play with miniature spearsand other weapons. At aboutthe age of five this play istaken seriously and from thena spear is seldom out of hishand, though he will be wellinto his teens before beingconsidered proficient in its use.Up to this time, his life will forthe most part be spent withthe women and children of thetribe except when he is segre-gated to undergo preparationfor the various initiations-animportant part of his education.

FIRE

cnarcoal which can be blown into life and so obviate thetedious task of using the firestick. Those illustrated aboveare used by the Arunta tribe from Central Australia, theonly aborigines who decorate their fire lighting sticks.

The only method of fire-making used byAustralian aborigines is with firesticks.By revolving between their hands ahard mulga wood stick on a piece ofsofter wood, heat is generated to ignitethe tinder. On short trips the abori-gines usually carry a glowing piece of

MESSAGES

One of the Australian aborigine's claims toliteracy is the use of message sticks whichhave long baffled leading anthropologists.The carvings are not writing in our sense,nor are they hieroglyphics in the Egyptiansense, but they have been used as aids tomemory, safety passports through hostilecountry, requests for medicine and tobacco,and at means of locating water holes.

THE RAIN MAKER

WITCHCRAFT

There's rarely any escape for the unfor-tunate aborigine who is the subject ofthe awesome bone-pointing ceremony,even though he be hundreds of milesaway from the"bone"which is pointedat him. So great is the belief in thefearful magic of bone pointing thatimmediately an aborigine hears"thatthe"bone"has been pointed at him,he lies down and within a few days isdead, a victim of suggestion. His onlyhope is the ceremonial extraction ofthe bone by a medicine man. The"bone"is usually a small round pieceof wood or bone, pointed at both ends,and it IS ornamented with markings.

Page 8. AUGUST-SEPTEMBER t953 UNESCO

THE UNESCO BOOKSHELF ON RACE

WHAT IS RACE ? EVIDEN-

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Price : $1 ; 5/- ; 250 fr,

A popular presentation for thegeneral public, high schoolsand adult education classes.Attractively presented, clearlywritten, this publication givesby means of coloured picto-graphs and simple t e x t s,essential information about thebiological aspects of race. Thethree chapter headings :"Isthere a Pure Race ?","Ls therea Superior Race ?","Are thereUnchangeable Race DiSer-ences ?". The 1950 UnescoStatement on Race and thelater statement are appended.Pictographs on these pages arereproduced from this booklet.

THE RACE QUESTION IN

MODERN SCIENCE (Series)

Each volume : $. 25 ; 1/6 ; 75 frs.

* Racial Myths, by Juan Comas.

The author traces the originsof racialism and its evolution

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* Race and Biology, by L. C. Dunn.

In this booklet, the authorshows by scientific analysisthat the old views of fixed andabsolute biological differencesare without scientific justi-fication. The operation ofheredity clearly proves that in

the human species there is nosuch thing as a pure race in thesense of one in which allmembers are alike.

* Race and Culture, by MichelLeiris.

Within the framework ofthree principal sections :"Scopeand concept of race","Man andhis cultures"and"There is noinborn racial aversion", theauthor undertakes an objectiveanalysis of the ways in whichracial prejudice was able tobecome established and tospread for reasons that areessentially economic and social.

* Race and Psychology, by ottoKlineberg,

By submitting examples ofthe kinds of psychological testsgiven to different racial groups,and giving the reasons for theirvalidity or non-validity, theauthor shows that the netresult of all the research con-ducted in this field is to theeffect that innate racial differ-ences in intelligence have notbeen demonstrated. The re-lation of physique to mentality,the effects of race mixtures,differences in personality andtemperament are among theother subjects here discussed.

* The Roots of Prejudice, by ArnoldM. Rose.

An objective analysis of thecauses and effects of prejudice,with suggestions for action toreduce its presence in in-dividuals or groups. The au-thor analyses as some of thecauses of prejudice : apparentpersonal advantages to begained thereby ; ignorance ofother groups ; and the"su-

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* Race and History, by Claude Level-Strauss.

The contributions made byvarious races of men to worldcivilizations constitute the cen-tral theme of this publication.The question of the allegedsuperiority of the white man'scivilization is studied in detail ;emphasis is placed on thedanger of evaluating culturalinstitutions on a purely evo-lutionarv basis.

* The Significance of Racial Dif-ferences, by G. M. Morant.

Human populations differ inmentality and behaviour ; theproblem is to discover why thisis so. In this study, the authortakes up the controversialquestion of deciding how farthe observed differences aredue to essential differences inquality, and how far they canbe attributed to modifying con-ditions of life. His conclusionis that although differences inmental characters are moredifficult to define and assessthan physical differences-andconclusions for these are henceuncertain-it is unrealistic to

deny the existence of suchdifferences. However, their sig-nificance appears to be pro-gressively reduced as knowledgeincreases.

* Race and Society, by Kenneth L.Little.

A review of the contrastingattitudes towards race as ma-nifested by different nationalgroups, with particular em-phasis on the racial question inEngland. The author's con-tention is that race prejudiceand its effects will diminishonly after profound economicand political changes havetaken place.

* The Race Concept (Results of anInquiry).

Since the appearance in 195Uof the first Unesco"Statementon Race"and the second"Statement on the Nature ofRace and Racial Differences",drawn up in 1951, much interesthas been shown, and manyquestions raised, with regard toUnesco's race programme. TheRace Concept c 1 ear 1 y andfrankly discusses the genesis,development and controversiessurrounding Unesco's parti-cipation in the campaignagainst race prejudice andgives the reader an intimateglimpse into the problems thatconfronted Unesco in issuing a

RACE RELATIONS

AND PUBLIC HOUSING

IN THE UNITED STATES

by Patricia Salter WESTand Maria jAHODA

THE development of publicly subsidizedhousing proj ects in the United States,in which apartments are availableon equal terms to White and Negro

people, has provided numerous opportunitiesfor the study of attitudes-and changes inattitudes-among these groups.

Even before the studies began, it wasnoted that there had been a great demandfor this unsegregated housing by bothgroups, showing at the outset that the variousmotives which led people into publichousing were stronger than the prejudiceswhich would tend to repel them.

Observations of this unsegregated housingwere made by groups of sociologists andpsychologists who conducted communitysurveys of people's actions and feelings astenants of these projects. One study,supported by the Lavanburg Housing Foun-

dation of New York City and carried on bysociologists of Columbia University's Bureauof Applied Social Research, was of a projectin an eastern industrial city, pseudo-namedHilltown, containing 400 Negro and400 White families.

The other, conducted by the ResearchCenter for Human Relations of New YorkUniversity, studied two New York City andtwo Newark, New Jersey, projects withdifferent proportions of Negroes and Whitesand different degrees of partial segrega-tion.

First of all, these studies make us lookmore closely at prejudices and ask wherethey come from. If a white man tells ushe does not trust Negroes-assuming he isgenerally a man of goodwill and good sense- we will begin to wonder whom he hasbeen associating with ; but we would prob-ably be wrong in assuming he had hadsome unfortunate Negro acquaintances.The chances would be greater that he hadnever known any Negroes at all. Thetenants of United States public housingprove this and support the feeling of apsychologist who said that"Attitudestoward Negroes are now chiefly determined,not by contact with Negroes, but by contactwith prevalent attitudes toward Negroes".

True to the predictions of opponents ofnon-segregated housing, many prospectiveWhite tenants felt they were lettingthemselves in for trouble, that there was aptto be conflict between the members of thetwo races. But some had these premonitory

fears more than others : and these were thepeople who had never had any experiencewith living in the same neighbourhood withmembers of the other race before.

In Hilltown well over half (56 %) of these"inexperienced Whites"expected real con-flict between the two races in the projects,while this open trouble was anticipated byonly 10% of the Whites who had hadNegroes as neighbours before.

It turned out that the latter, more expe-rienced, Whites were also the more realistic,for the five-year history of the projectboasted no serious racial incidents orconflicts at all. In fact, by their owntestimony many of the trepidations werewrong, for fully 80 % of all the Whites,looking bask on their lives in the project,summed up the Negroes and Whitesgetting along together as"pretty well".

In these housing projects, situations existfor Negroes and Whites to get first-handinformation about each other. But, thesceptic will say, do people really take

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1953. page 19

Statement that would reflectaccurately the views of scien-tific circles. By printing, withthe text of the Statement, allthe comments by anthro-pologists and geneticists towhich it has given rise, Unescohopes to enable the generalpublic to appreciate the fluc-tuations of scientific thoughton on the problem of race.

* Race Mixture, by Harry L. Shapiro(in preparation).

The well-known author of"The Heritage of the Bounty"examines race mixtures invarious parts of the world andshows that they have no illeffects and also that hybridgroups are often characterizedby beauty and vigour. (See

article on pages6-7).

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resentative of a different re-gion of rural Brazil.

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MODERN THOUGHT

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The Catholic Church and the RaceQuestion, by Father Yves Congar.

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relation to Catholic dogma isreviewed by an eminent Ca-tholic theologian. Father Con-gar sets forth the position ofthe Catholic Church in theproblem from the spiritual, thesocial and the historical pointsof view. He shows that theprinciples of Catholicism areprofoundly opposed to racialdiscrimination, and that theChurch has courageously op-posed"racialism"during therecent persecutions. (See arti-cle by Father Congar on page8.)

* Jewish Thought as a Factor inCivilization, by Professor LeonRoth (in preparation).

The author, a philosopherand historian, examines thecontribution of Judaism to thevalues which form the basis ofour civilization. He refutes theaccusation of"racialism"sooften levelled against the Jews,by producing evidence of every-thing in Judaism that is thevery negation of racial ex-clusivity, and he also em-phasizes the extent of the debt

we owe to Jewish thought andits part in the formation ofWestern civilization.

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me autnor or tillS DOOKlet(title subject to change) is theGeneral-Secretary of the WorldCouncil of Churches. He ex-amines from a theological pointof view the position of thechurches and in particular theCalvinist church in relation tothe race problems of our time.(See article by the author onpage 9,)

* The Teacher Was Black (AUnesco sponsored publication) byH. E. O. James and Cora Tenen.

The subject of this book is anexperiment in international un-derstanding sponsored byUnesco. It describes the re-actions of children in an Englishschool to people from otherlands who came to their townduring and after the war, andbefore and after these childrenhad been taught by two Negroteachers from Nigeria. Beforethey had had this experiencethe children thought of otherraces in the generally distortedfashion they had learned fromcomics, films and propaganda.When they actually met theNegro teachers their ideas weremodified as well as their wholeattitude to other peoples.Published by Heinemann, Lon-don, Price : 10/6d.

þOURIER

gation : ï and9%.How does this change of mind come about ?

It is in all likelihood pl'Oduced by a chainof minor events, such as women gossipillgover laundry tubs, children meeting inhalhYL1Ys and play-yards, men borrowingtools. These experiences, common amongneighbours enrywhere, lead to closeacquaintance and sometimes friendship,even when they occur between Negroes andWhites.

For example, the N. Y. U. studies showedthat in the segregated projects only about; % of the White housewiHs knew any ofthe Negro women on a"first-name basis".In the fully unsegregatrd pl'Ojects half andthree quarters, respectinly, of the Whitehousf'\YlHS were thus familiar with Negrohousewives. In HiHtown, many more Ne-gro-White friendships were c) aimed by thepeople living in unsegregated areas of theproject : in fact, the c) oser were other-racebuildings, the more likely were tenants tohave other-race friends.

Close acquaintance and friendship leadspeople (some, of course : not all) to get ridof their stereotypes about the other race andto judge each other more on the basis of factthan hearsay. A caSe in point : HilltownWhites were asked to guess the averageeducational leHI of the Negro tenants

(which happened to be about the same aslhe Whites'.) True to the stereotype whichdepicts Negroes as uneducated, most Whitesguessed that their Negro neighbours wereless educated than themselves. But, 48 %of the Whites with Negro friends andacquaintances in lIilltown guessed correctly,while only : 10 % of those without Negrofriends or acquaintances in llilllown guessedcorrectly.

Thus, we see a circular process at work :in one direction a beneficent, in the other, avicious circle. Keep races apart in separatedprojects or in separate areas within a projectand they will not learn facts about eachother through personal experience ; hencethey will have to judge each other by hear-- say, which leads to unrealistic fears andstrengthens their desired to keep part. But.bring races closer together and you stand agood chance of fostering friendships, whichtend to destroy stereotypes and stereotypedfears, and which in turn leads them to ap-prove of mixed residence.

Of course, this is a simplified picture, andrisks exaggeration. These are just [t'/ldt, t/-des and do not necessarily hold for allpeople : for example, American Southernersand perhaps people of different economicclasses might react differently. This, fu-ture studies will have 10 find out.

adnwlnge of this opportunity, or do theysimply draw the ('[oak of prejudice tighterabout themselves so as to avoid the conta-mination threatened by the new contacts ?The answer is"it depends".

If a local authority decides to interpretunsegregated housing as requiring thecompletely random assignment of apart-ments so that some negro and Whitefamilies live on the same hallway, share thesame stairs, courtyards, playgrounds, andother facilities convenient to nextduurneighbours, the desirable rapprochementreally occurs, not among all but among aconsiderable number of tenants. If non-segregated housing means separate Negroand White buildings or, worse, separatelittle racial ghettos within the project, it neednot have this effect at all.

Here is some of the material from thecommunitv studies which demonstratesthis point.

Two of the projects in the N. Y. t. studydid provide real next-door-neighbour livingfor Negroes and Whites. The other twohad separate buildings and racia ! neigh-bourhoods within the projects. In the formertwo 38 % and 40 % were still in favour ofracial segregation : but in the latter-withthe separate racial buildings and neigh-bourhoods-many more were for segre-

Page 20. AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1953

THE PITCAIRN ISLAND

DESCENDANTS OF THE

BOUNTY MUT) NEERS

(Continued from page 7.)

How far the romantic aura thatsurrounds these people has seduc-ed their visitors is beyond cal-culation.

In the mid-nineteenth centurythe typical reaction was delightin finding so moral, upright andvirtuous a colony sprung frommutineers, from violence andfrom murder. Nowadays, beingless concerned with religiou. smatters, with on the whole ratherdifferent values, the present visi-tor is less impressed by these qua-lities and is likely to prize otheraspects of their character.

For my part I can only reportthat, allowing for their isolationand for a consequentlack of sophistica-tion, I found thePitcairn Islanders anintelligent and at-tractive people. AndI was struck by thenumber of men andwomen of impressivecharacter, possessesof the qualities thatmake for leadership.

Although biologi-cally rather more ofwhat might be calledobjective informa-tion is accessible,still it can only beused for comparativepurposes with cau-tion. Even suchstandard criteria asphysical vigour, lon-getivy or health can-not be properly usedfor such purposeswithout reference todiet, climate and va-rious other environ-mental conditions.Both on Norfolk andPitcairn Islands thephysical condition ofthe islanders wasexcellent. In spiteof the inbreeding,which has especiallycharacterized Pit-cairn, I found nophysical deformitiesor obvious signs ofdegeneration.

On Pitcairn with apopulation of 200(1936) there were noindividuals incapa-ble of taking care ofthemselves, nor anycases of seriousmental deficiency.This is an excellentrecord comparedwith the frequencyof such cases in Eu-rope and the UnitedStates, especially inremote, inbred vil-lages.

In view of the factthat neither on Pit-cairn nor Norfolk isthere any residentmedical services oreven trained nurs-ing aid, the longe-vity of the popula--..tion is impressive. In 1924, outof a population of about 600 onNorfolk, there were 24 who wereover 65 years of age, with theoldest reaching 95 years. OnPitcairn there were 12 betweenthe ages of 65 and 86 in a popu-lation of 200.

There have been some claimsthat hybrids are smaller andweaker than their parents. Dav-enport and Steggerda on thebasis of their study of race mix-ture in Jamaica believed their

PRESENT DAY

ISLANDERS

data demonstrated this conclu-sion. The Pitcairn and Norfolkevidence is quite the contrary.Indeed, there is evidence here ofhybrid vigour comparable to thevigour that can be demonstratedexperimentally in a large numberof animal and plant crosses andwhich is real enough to be com-mercially valuable to seed compa-nies.

For example, if we take size asa measure of heightened physio-logical vigour as is done for maizeor crossbred domestic animals,we find that the average statureof the parental groups is 171. 4centimeters for Tahitian males

and 170. 6 centime-ters for the muti-neers (based on Bri-tish Admiralty re-cords but possibly alittle low since someof the sailors werenot fully maturemen). The modernEnglishman averagesaround 172 centime-ters. The first gene-ration descendants,averaged 177. 8 cen-timeters (minimum5 feet 9 1/2 inches,maximum 6 feet 1/4inch). This repre-sents an averageincrease of over twoinches, with theshortest male ex-ceeding the averageof his parentalgroups by a consid-erable margin. Alt-though this strikingincrease has notbeen fully main-tained in the presentgeneration, it is stillalmost an inchabove the parentalaverage.

As another indexof this vigour, thereproductive rate ofthe islanders isequally notable. Ihave already refer-red to the prodi-giously rapid growthof the colony whichhas produced in 160odd years well over1, 000 descendants.This may be appre-ciated from the birthrate by generations.The first generationaveraged 7. 44 chil-dren per mating, thesecond 9. 10, the third5. 39. Since thenthere has been afurther decline. Therate in the secondgeneration is one ofthe highest on re-cord for any com-munity and reflectsan unusual repro-ductive vigour.

As far as theevidence goes, then,the Pitcairn exper-

iment lends no support for thethesis that race mixture merelyleads to degeneration or at bestproduces a breed inferior to thesuperior parental race. In fact,we see in this colony some supportfor heightened vigour, for an ex-tended variation and for a suc-cessful issue of the mingling oftwo diverse strains.

TIIi.'urticfp is lulil'lI ftorn u dlUlil ('/' ofI'TOfl'x.",,' ! illlll'iTU'x.""tiy I'ltlilled"Rllce'J/Ull/fI''',.'horlly 10 III'Il/Ilili., ll/'d/)//['/I"sc/ ! ( ! il'l' lJili/ ; ofll'l/llhy/)/1/"' !/I' 18.)

COVER PAGE OF THE UNESCO PUBLICATION"TRANSMITTING WORLD NEWS"WHICH PRESENTS

WORLD NEWS IS E

WHEN Charles Havas foundedthe world's first news agencyin Paris in 1835, Samuel F.

Morse, in New York, was developingan instrument which two years laterwas to be hailed as the first"elec-tromagnetic recording telegraph".Morse's invention involved use of the"dot-dash"code which bears hisname.

The Havas agency collected andtranslated extracts from the Euro-pean newspapers it received by postand distributed them to the Parispress. By 1840, Havas had his owncorrespondents in most Europeancapitals and had established a pi-geon post to distribute news to pa-pers in Brussels and London as wellas Paris. In the same year, Morseopened a 40-mile telegraph line forpublic business between Washingtonand Baltimore.

The telegraph was soon to put thepigeon post out of existence. Atthe same time, it was enormously toincrease the scope of Havas itselfand make possible the rise of othernews agencies. But in America, as inEurope, telegraph charges remain-ed high. In 1848, six New Yorknewspapers founded the New YorkAssociated Press to share the ex-pense of bringing news to their city.They thus created a precedent in co-operative news-gathering which wasgreatly to influence development ofthe world press.

The third of the world's newsagencies, Wolff's Bureau of Berlin,was founded in 1849 following ex-pansion of the Prussian State tele-graph. The fourth, Reuters of Lon-don, came into being two years lateras a result of the laying betweenDover and Calais of the first success-ful submarine cable. Julius Reuterhad then, as throughout his career,an instinct for"following the cable."

by Philip

It was by trusting his instinct thathe achieved world-wide success inthe news agency field.

Thus began a new era that waseventually to put a girdle round theearth in far less than the 40 minutesrequired by Puck in Shakespeare'sMidsummer Night's Dream. With itcame a development of internationalreporting by cable, telegraph, tele-phone, radio and television which is

completely transforming man's un-derstanding of the world aroundhim.

"The free flow of news is notmerely the concern of those profes-sionally involved in its collection anddistribution, but of all men and allnations", says Francis Williams in agraphic study, Transmitting WorldNews, just published by Unesco.Formerly editor of the London DailyHerald and Governor of the BritishBroadcasting Corporation during1951-1952, Mr. Williams is a notedauthority on the world press.

In this study he surveys the deve-lopment of world communicationsand the press, illustrates whichareas of the world are well or insuf-ficiently served by these media and

jshows how high costs and delays intransmitting press reports hamperthe flow of news between nations.Finally, he suggests means of over-coming such obstacles to effectiveenjoyment of freedom of informa-tion.

Mr. William's book is the latest ina series of studies produced byUnesco in an effort to focus publicattention on obstacles to the"freeflow of ideas by word and image."

Transmitting World News is con-cerned with the physical means of

UNESCO

communication."It is thus a noteon a theme as old as civilization",the author declares."The struggleto destroy the distances that keepmen apart goes back, in one form oranother, to the beginning of his-tory."Modern communicationsare"the direct successors of the sig-nal fire on the hill, the drum inthe forest, the courier on the horse,the messenger in the boat, the pi-geon in the air, the dispatch sent bycoach or train ; of all those means,indeed, by which communities havesought, since society began, to satis-fy the need to communicate rapidlywith each other."

Every day some 7, 500 newspapersand 5, 000 radio transmitters bringinformation to the world's peoples.Ninety per cent of these journalsand 80 per cent of the transmittersreceive domestic news from over 70national news agencies, most ofwhich also distribute internationalnews from one or more of the."world"news agencies.

The world agencies, which deallargely with the transmission of newsacross frontiers, are concentratedin four national groups. Theyare Reuters (British Common-wealth)) ; Agence-France-Presse(France) ; Tass (Soviet Union) ;Associated Press, United Press andInternational News Service (UnitedStates).

These six agencies, Mr. Williamspoints out, serve as many as 144States and territories, which toge-ther contain 98. 7 per cent of theworld's population. But they, likethe national news agencies and in-dividual newspapers, are hindered intheir task of reporting news andopinion by the lack of communica-

tion facilities, or because these faci-lities are technically retarded, slowand expensive.

Severely hampering the flow ofnews are the high cost of transmitt-ing press dispatches to and fromvarious parts of the world-notablyLatin America, the Middle East andAsia-and the wide discrepancies inrates charged for similar communic-ations services. These chargesvary from country to country byover 300 per cent.

Mr. Williams cites examples in allcontinents to illustrate what he des-cribes as the"chaotic nature of theinternational press rate structure."The ordinary press rate from Lon-don to Moscow, for instance, is 4. 6cents a word ; from Paris to Moscow(approximately the same distance)8. 8 cents. The charge from Londonto Cairo is 4. 0 cents ; Paris-Cairo,10. 0 cents. Turning from Europe toNorth America, we find that therate from New York to Rio de Jan-eiro is 8. 0 cents ; from Montreal toRio de Janeiro (approximately thesame distance), 12. 0 cents. Conver-sely, while the charge from NewYork to Sydney, Australia is 6. 5cents, the Montreal-Sydney rate isonly 2. 0 cents.

Striking disparities are also reveal-ed in two-way press traffic. It maycost considerably more to send newsin one direction than in reverse.The rate from London to New York,for example, is 2. 0 cents ; from NewYork to London, 5. 5 cents. Thecharge from Rome to Bangkok is21. 3 cents ; the return rate is 14. 3cents.

Another related obstacle is thefrequent delays in the reception,transmission and delivery of pressmessages. These may greatly dimi-nish or even destroy the value of

news reports. To ensure priorityof tt-patment, news agencies andindividual correspondents oftenhave no choice but to pay the ur-gent press rate, which may be threeor four times the ordinary charge.

High press rates, Mr. Williamsdeclares, prevent newspapers andnews agencies from extending theircoverage to many parts of the world,especially to less advanced areaswhere fuller reporting is essential tointernational understanding. Atthe same time, smaller or less weal-thy newspapers cannot afford tosubscribe to basic news services, letalone maintain their own corres-pondents abroad. The overall effectis to limit the volume and variety ofworld news, particularly informationwhich gives an interpretative back-ground to current events.

As a long term solution, the authorurges establishment of a universallow press rate. Citing the expe-rience of certain communicationservices, he suggests that a uniformreduced rate might result in such anincreased volume of press traffic asto be economically feasible.

Mr. Williams further proposes thatthe International Telecommunica-tion Union (I. T. U.) should establisha consultative committee"to exa-mine the whole question of telecom-munication facilities in the light ofthe international public interest."This committee, jointly representingthe I. T. U. and the press, would seekto :

1. reduce the present wide gapbetween highest and lowestrates and fix uniform chargesfor two-way press traffic ;

2. obtain more uniform rentalfor teleprinter networks ;

3. establish lower charges forcable lines jointly rented bytwo or more newspapers ornews agencies ;

4. assure a cheaper and moreextensive international tele-photo service. The commit-tee would report to the inter-governmental conferences pe-riodically convened by theI. T. U. to revise the world'stelegraph, telephone and ra-dio regulations.

- The author also draws attentionto shortages in information facilities,pointing out that the continentswhere illiteracy is high-Africa,Asia and South America-are poor-est in communication and pressservices. As a corollary, he notesthat, of the 45 States which lack

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1953. Page 21

national news agencies. 31 have anilliteracy rate of over 40 per cent.

"In view of the urgent need tomake available to the peoples of. underdeveloped areas a basic andindependent service of essentialworld news", Mr. Williams state,"the major news agencies shouldexamine the possibility of supplyingnewspapers in such areas with asummarized non-profit news servicetransmitted by radio". He askstelecommunication administrationsto co-operate in this public serviceby providing transmitters and bypermitting direct receipt of thesenewscasts by the newspapers con-cerned.

In a foreword to the book, Unescodeclares that"the present paucity ofinformation to and from large areasof the world is difficult to acceptwith complacency in an era in whichscience has opened up boundlesspossibilities for full and rapid com-munications". The Organizationexpresses the hope that the bookwill help to secure adoption of re-medial measures at the next Inter-national Telegraph and TelephoneConference, to be convened by theI. T. U. in 1955.

At the last International Telegraphand Telephone Conference in 1949,Unesco submitted a number of pro-posals to assure greater facilities forthe press. The Conference madethe following favourable decisions :(1) a new and more comprehensivedefinition of press dispatches was.adopted ; (2) administrations wereurged to increase construction oftelephone circuits as a means offacilitating transmission of dispat-ches ; (3) a system was adopted forthe uniform reduction of press rates.Unesco will continue its action onbehalf of the press at the 1955 Con-ference.

Mr. Williams'book has mean-while been brought to the attentionof the Economic and Social Council,at its summer session in Geneva, byMr. Salvador P. Lopez, United Na-tions Rapporteur on freedom of in-formation. In a report on pressproblems, he has urged the Councilto act on the issue of rates andpriorities as part of its effort topromote freedom of information.

Transmitting World News containsa series of pictographs illustratingdisparities in press rates, charthlgthe national news agencies andgiving locations of ocean cable andradio services.

Transmitting World News (99 pa-ges plus 5 pictographs) published byUnesco, Paris. Price $ 1. 00 ; 6s. 300 fr.

During the early half of the 19th century the first news agencies such as Havasand Reuters used pigeons to distribute news. By 1840 Havas had pigeon ser-vices working between Brussels, London and Paris. Reuter's first news venture,in 1850, included among other things, a pigeon post between Aachen and Brussels.

COURIER

I A STUDY OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND THE PRESS WRITTEN BY FRANCIS WILLIAM.

, tRVONE'S CONCERN

L. Soljok

Page 22. AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1953 UNESCQ'

TWO KINGS SHARE THE WORLD S

SMALLEST REALM : 64 SQUARES

by François LE LlONNAIS'

"Pantagruel"which along withother similar celebrated works eithermake lengthy references to chess ordevote entire chapters to it.

Such an abundant productionclearly illustrates the richness andvariety of the game. As chess en-thusiasts know full well the 20, 000books already published are like adrop of water in the ocean of chessscience and literally millions ofbooks could be written-and perhapswill be-before human beings willhave exhausted all the questionsrelative to the theory and practiceof the art and science of chess.

Today several hundred monthlyrevues not only publish news of thechess world but in particular giveaccounts of recent games betweenfamous players and make knownnew developments in theoreticalchess research, all of which providesfascinating material for students ofthe game.

As a matter of fact these gamesreflect very accurately the charac-ters, tempera-ments andpersonalitiesof the famousplayers andthey alsoexpress theartistic andsocial trendsof the timesin which theyare played.Chess has hadits classical,romantic andmodernschools andour own times

Europe's oldest chess illustration (1283)now in the EI Escorial Library, in Spain.

Second World War, that of GeorgeAllen (now incorporated in the Lib-rary of Philadelphia), of the oneowned by Bledow (now combinedwith the Berlin Library) and thelibrary of G. B. Fraser.

Van der Linde's own collection wasbought in 1876 by the Royal Libraryat the Hague for the sum of 3, 000florins, the equivalent of £1, 200 atpresent values.

The collection of Rimington Wil-son (2, 310 volumes) included, inaddition to printed works and incu-nabula, many extremely valuablemanuscripts. One of these was acopy of the Cessoles manuscript,referred to above, dating from 1466.This library was put up for auctionin London in 1928 and BernardQuaritch, a firm dealing in ancientbooks, acquired most of the works.Vida's poem, translated into Englishverse by Oliver Goldsmith-a manu-script written entirely in the Eng-lish author's hand-was sold fornot.

The largestof all chesslibraries wasthat of JohnG ri swold-White, alawyer of Cle-veland, in theUnited States,who died in1928 at theage of 83. Hespent morethan 60 yearsassembling acollection 0 f12, 000 volumeswhich includ-

have produced theorists of impres-sionist, cubist and surrealist chess.

It is thus easy to see how enthu-siasm has led so many chess loversto make collections of ancient andcontemporary books. The firstsystematic study on this questionwas the work of Dr. A. van derLinde. This first-rate player pro-duced the first, and already verycomplete, bibliography on workspublished up to his time (Gesc/ncTeund Literatur des Schachspiels, Ber-lin, 1874).

In addition to the RimingtonWilson collection and his own, vander Linde refers to several otherlarge chess libraries of the middle19th century. In particular hespeaks of the collection of R. Franz,which was broken up ; that of vanHeydebrand von der Las. a, whichwas in Poland at the outbreak of the

ed some items of inestimable worthon the game of chess. He bequeath-ed his collection to the city ofCleveland which now, therefore, pos-sesses the largest public chess libra-ry in the world.

Other public chess libraries whichcame into existence in a similarway include that of PrincetonUniversity in the United Stateswhich was founded on the collectionof 2, 000 volumes-some of themextremely rare-which formed thecollection of'E. B. Cook, and that ofthe Municipal Library of Grenoble,France, which, since 1856 haspossessed a fine collection inheritedfrom Frédéric Alliey.

The most remarkable of existingprivate chess libraries is undoubtedlythat of a Dutchman, Dr. Niemeyer,of Wassenaar, near The Hague.Among its 4, 000 volumes is a first

edition of Damiano's treatise ofwhich only three copies now exist (1)as well as a first edition (1749) ofPhilidore's famous work,"L'Analyse",the first really rational work onchess. Although, in addition to hismother tongue, M. Niemeyer speaksEnglish, German, French, Italian,Spanish, Greek, Latin and severalother languages, he still needs thehelp of a translator in order to readsome of his books for they includetexts in many Slav languages, inArabic, Yiddish, Chinese, Japanese,Icelandic, as well as in such dialectsas Telegu, Urdu and many others.

To be able to replay all the movesin a game it is not necessaryto know the language in whichthe book describing the game ispublished. Chess notation is in-ternational. and so it is easy for aplayer in any country to follow theperformances of champions of othernationalities.

Dr. Niemeyer's library,. however, isonly one part of his chess collections.He has many varied and preciousitems which evoke the history ofchess, prints, engravings, autographsand chess sets.

Before the outbreak of the SecondWorld War two other chess librarieswere often referred to-those ofHarald Folk and Albrecht Buschke.The first of these collectors disap-peared during the conflict, and thesecond is now living in New York.The author of this article has alibrary comprising more than 1, 600works.

To deal adequately with the sub-ject of collections of chessmen andchess sets would require a separatearticle. Some of these items havegreat historic importance. The Bib-liotheque Nationale in Paris, forinstance, possesses a few chessmenfrom the ivory set given to Charle-magne by the Em-peror of Byzan-tium. Visitors toone Paris museum.the Musée de Clu-ny, can admire amagnificent chess-board of cedarwith chessmen car-ved in quartz andmounted on silver-gilt which wereoffered to St. Louisby the Prince ofthe Bedouin.These ancientchess sets com-mand high prices.One single Moza-r a b i c chessman

Javanese (14th century). Rose and white bamboo. Persian (18th century). Ivory and box-wood. Turkish (20th century). Gilt and painted ivory.

Swedish (20th century). Steel, silver and gilt. Italian (19the century). Coral ; yellow & black marble. Cambodian (19th century). Ivory, wood and shells.

dia before the fifth century A. D. inwhich four players used a patternof 64 squares, that chess, as weknow it today, was evolved.

From India chess was introducedinto Persia in the 6th century duringthe reign of Chosroes the First andimmediately became extremely pop-ular. In"Shahname" (The Bookof Kings) a history of Persia writtenin verse by the celebrated poet Fir-dousi, there are two chapters des-cribing and praising the game.

While new cultural currents weretaking chess from India to Chinaand later to Korea and Japan in theEast, and from Iran to Russia andScandinavia in the West, the Arabsconquered Persia and were quick toadopt the game. So it was underthe banners of Islam that the noblegame was introduced first intoSpain from where it spread to all theMediterranean countries of Europe.

Towards the XIIIth century whenit had conquered practically thewhole of Europe, the game of chessacquired its present form, and it isfrom this period that the beginningsof a vast flood of writing exclusivelyabout chess can be dated. Theoldest known European manuscripton the subject, that of Jacobus deCessole which was written around1200 A. D., contains just a few refer-ences to the game. The writing ofbooks on the subject of chess whichhas progressively increased down thecenturies was really inaugurated bytwo other manuscripts-that of KingAlfonso of Castille (1252-1284), nowkept in Madrid, and the celebratedwork known as the"Bonus Socius"(circa 1286) the principal copy ofwhich is now preserved in Florence.

Today there are more than 20, 000works on chess. There are alsomany others like the already men-tioned Book of Kings and Rabelais'

ALTHOUGHwe know"'*'that games

played on a seriesof squares dateback to very an-cient times, for wefind them illus-trated in Thebanpaintings madeduring the reign ofRameses the Third,and also in Greekand Roman fres-coes, the game ofchess itself is notas old as manypeople imagine. Itwas from a gamefirst played in In-

French (18th century), Ivory and ebony.Russian (19th century). Red and white ivory.Siamese (19th century). Painted ivory.

COURIER,AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1953. Page 23

International by its system of notation and its universal popularity, chess is a cultural activity combining unaerstanding and friendly rivalry. (COI Photo).

dating from the 10th century waspurchased by the American ArtGalleries, New York, for $7,000 in1927. Today the most famous col-lections are those of Mr. Liddell, inNew York and of M. J. Maunoury, inParis.

Chess is an international gamewhich because of its system ofnotation enables enthusiasts in allcountries to follow its developmentthroughout the world. It is alsointernational because it has spreadto every continent creating linksbetween Europe and the remoteislands of the Pacific and betweenequatorial forests and polar regions,

and today it provides an example ofone of the few cultural activities inwhich broad understanding andfriendly rivalry prevails.

The International Chess Fede-ration (FIDE) includes practicallyevery country in the world. At itscongress, held in Copenhagen in 1950,its president Folke Regard, couldrightly say :"We may hold differentpolitical conceptions, but in our in-ternational chess activities we arenot subject to any political pre-judices. Between the chess playersof the world there also exists a deepfriendship that is completely freefrom all political conceptions and

ideologies. We are convinced thatin reality the same friendship existsbetween all men.

"We hope that the leaders of allcountries will realise that thegreatest desire of their people is forpeace in their own time and securityfor future generations, and that theleaders can meet in the same spiritas that which presides at themeetings of players and organizersof chess games."

The chess sets and the chesspieces which are reproduced onthese two pages and on the last pageof the Courier are taken from themagnificent collection obtained byM. Jean Maunoury, of France, fromalmost every country in the world.The photographs of these objectsare printed here with the kind per-mission of M. Maunoury. His col-lection is one of the most famousof its kind in existence in the world.

Yugoslav (20th century). Carved and ! aquered wood.

Flemish (18th century), Box-wood and ivorv spheres.

Greek (18th century), Ivory.

) ndian (18th century). Enameted ivory.

English (18th century). Hardwood and ivory.

Belgian Congo. Pieces carved in wood.

Dutch (19th century). Box-wood.

French (19th century), Kê ê. : ld white ivory.

German (19th century). Bronze.

(1) The two other copies are in the Bri-tish Museum, London, and in the RoyalLibrary at the Hague.

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