Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/190

 BOOK REVIEWS

METHODS AND PRINCIPLES

Africa and the Discovery of America. Volume i. LEO WIENER. Phila- delphia: Innes & Sons, 1920. 290 pp. 19 pis.

This unquestionably interesting but in many ways unfortunate volume presents the reviewer with something of a puzzle, for a careful reading leaves one in doubt as to whether the author really intended his work to be taken as a serious contribution, or has attempted to per- petrate a rather elaborate jest. For while he has brought together material of much interest and arrives at startling conclusions, there is, especially in his later chapters, so much in the way of unsubstantiated assumption, hasty correlation, false reasoning, misunderstanding and misrepresentation of sources and evident lack of familiarity with the results of American archaeology that it is difficult to take the volume seriously.

Professor Wiener is concerned to prove two main theses: (i) the unre- liability not to say "forgery" of much of Columbus' and other early writers' accounts of the New W 7 orld, together with the fact (?) that the Indian words given in these accounts are not Indian at all, and (2) the introduction from Africa during the early sixteenth century or before, either by Europeans or Negroes, of yams, sweet potatoes, manioc and peanuts, together with tobacco and the practice of smoking all of these having hitherto been generally regarded as of native American origin, or at least of long use in America prior to the Discovery.

The argument for the first of these theses is ingenious and in many respects plausible. Columbus in sailing westward "never for a moment doubted" that "he would reach China, Japan and the islands of the Indian Ocean, and he carried with him mappamondos in which that part of the world was given in the extreme East." Therefore, when he arrived at the Antilles he attempted to identify the islands which he saw with those shown on his maps, and the " Indian" names which he gave for these lands were merely misreadings and misspellings of the names on the Catalan, Fra Mauro and de Virga maps. Some of these suggested origins are, if satisfactory native etymologies are really lacking, very plausible; others are much less so, and some in spite of their ingenious character do not carry conviction and indeed in some cases rest upon

178

�� �