Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/632

 ANTHROPOLOGIC LITERATURE 567

elaborated or simplified as the case may be by combination, with the retention of desirable and the elimination of undesirable features ; the comparative studies clearly indicate, too, that the more primitive games are indigenous or autochthonous with respect to their players, being (so far as can be determined) the product of spontaneous esthet- ic or sophic impulse directed by environmental suggestion and finally shaped by intelligence normal to the stage of cultural development in which the players rest. This is the view suggested by the arrange- ment of facts in Chess and Playing-Cards and evidently held by the author — though this is one of the cases in which the general view appears between lines rather than in explicit statement.

Readers of the book may be repelled and discouraged not only by the condensation and incomplete statement of relation proper to a catalogue, but by the curiously chaotic book-making — evidently due to the expansion of the original catalogue into a book. There are many manifestations of this chaos, which becomes especially conspicuous when the nominal and actual contents are compared. Half a dozen lines of the table of contents (including six out of a hundred and twenty- three apparently coordinate titles) are as follows :

Page Introduction 679

1. Nyout. Korea 681

2. Gaming arrows. Kiowa Indians, Indian Territory 685

3. Zohn ahl (awl game). Kiowa Indians, Indian Territory 687

4. Tab. Egypt 805

5. Game sticks. Singapore, Straits Settlements 807

In the body of the book the " Introduction " passes, without break, into what appears to be a subordinate side-title, which is, however, the principal title, " 1. Nyout " ; then follow two still less conspicuous side- titles relating to the Kiowa Indians ; but under the second of these falls a center-title, followed by a long series of main and minor titles relating to the various gaming devices of the Amerinds, occupying a hundred and sixteen pages or two-fifths of the entire book (and by far the most important part to American readers), which is abso- lutely without reference in the list of contents ! Next come two more inconspicuous side-titles, and under the second three lines pertaining to the subject indicated ; then, without literary break or reference in the contents, over a dozen pages (with half a dozen most interesting plates) relating to the gaming devices recorded in the classics and to African and other games, again without reference in the list ! This literary imperfection is a burden on the reader, a blemish on the publi- cation, and a needless blight on the authorship, in that it goes far

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