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TREASURES

WORLD ART

100

International

Women's Year

Photo E Louvre Museum, Paris

irán The queen with folded handsExcavation of a vast temple complex at Choga-Zambil, near Susa, brought to light the statue of aqueen of Elam, an ancient country roughly corresponding to the modern region of Khuzistan, in Iran.Wrought in bronze in the 13th century B.C., it is life-size (1 m. 29), weighs 1,800 kg. and depicts thequeen in a pleated and embroidered robe. At its base, a cuneiform inscription reads: "I am Napirasu,wife of Untash-napirisha. May the curse of the great god fall on him who breaks my statue, on himwho mutilates the inscription..." But this warning failed to prevent vandals from decapitating thestatue. Detail shows the folded hands of this regal figure.

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Page

4 BARTOLOMÉ DE LAS CASAS

Champion of Indian rights in 16th-century Spanish America

By Angel Losada

11 TWO INALIENABLE PRINCIPLES: FREEDOMAND THE RIGHT TO HUMAN DIGNITY

By José Antonio Maravall

14 ART AND EVERYDAY LIFE IN OCEANIA

A Unesco travelling exhibition

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24 DO WE HAVE THE TEACHERSWE NEED FOR HIGHER EDUCATION?

A critical look at conservatism in the world's universities

By Dragoljub Najman

28 A STONE-AGE ORCHESTRA

The earliest musical instruments were madefrom the bones of mammoths

By Sergei N. Bibikov

33 UNESCO NEWSROOM

34 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

TREASURES OF WORLD ART

International Women's Year

irán: The queen with folded hands

Cover

Five hundred years ago, in the city ofSeville, in southern Spain, was born a manwho was to become known as the " Apostleof the Indians ". His name was Bartolomé

de Las Casas, champion of human rights,racial equality and respect for all cultures.Two articles in this issue are devoted to

the life and work of this Spanish priest."Cover photo shows the head of a MayanIndian unearthed at Palenque (Mexico) inthe Chiapas region where Bartolomé deLas Casas was bishop. This pre-Columbiancarving is now in Mexico City's NationalMuseum of Anthropology.

Photo © Dominique Darr. Paris

Photo Bibliothèque Nationale. Paris © Snark International

By Angel Losada

ANGEL LOSADA, Spanish historian, is aspecialist in the history of Spanish humanism,particularly two of its major figures, Bartoloméde Las Casas and Juan Glnés de Sepúlveda.He has been a professor at Madrid Universityand a researcher with Spain's Higher Councilof Scientific Research. Among his manypublications are "Bartolomé de Las Casas ala luz de la moderna critica histórica ' (Bartoloméde Las Casas in the light of modern historicalcriticism), Madrid, 1970. and two previouslyunpublished manuscripts of Las Casas. 'Lostesoros del Perú" (the treasures of Peru),Madrid, 1958 and the 'Apologia" in reply toSepúlveda, translated Into Spanish from Latin(Madrid. 1975).

THERE are few figures in historyas controversial as Father Bar¬

tolomé de Las Casas. For some peo¬

ple he was the "Apostle of the In¬dians", for others, the author of the

anti-Spanish "black legend", and evenbefore his death he was the subject

of hostile and embittered opinion.There is no doubt that these conflict¬

ing views are the result of an imper¬fect understanding of both the manand his times.

Father Bartolomé lived for 92 years,

and his long and fruitful lifespan canbe divided into four main periods.

Birth and education (1474-1502).Although we do not know the exactdate of his birth, it is generallyassumed that Las Casas was born in

Seville in 1474. We do know that his

father was a merchant and that he

was a close friend of ChristopherColumbus whom he accompanied on

his second journey to the New World.It is very probably this which ex

plains his son's keen interest in theIndies. Bartolomé received his ele¬

mentary and secondary education inSeville where he studied the humani¬

ties and obtained his bachelor of arts.

This kind of education, frequent

enough in his day and which did notrequire him to go to university, qua¬lified him to receive the tonsure and

take minor orders. As a priest hecould, and did, apply for a post as"doctrinero" (1) or "auxiliary" to thepreachers in the recently discoveredIndies and he obtained one.

In this first period of his life, then,Las Casas can be described as an

average Spaniard, outstanding neitherby birth nor education and so emi¬nently suitable, like so many of hiscontemporaries, for the adventure of

(1) A sort of parishSouth American Indians.

priest among the

(2) A person receiving angrant of land and slaves.

"encomienda" or

4

Bartolomé de Las Casas

championof Indian rights in 16th-century

Spanish AmericaOn October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus and his three tiny ships made landfalloff Guanahani, today one of the Bahama Islands. For Spain this marked the startof an era of discovery, conquest and colonization of what was then known as the"Indies" but which was soon to be called "America". Left, Columbus and twoof his Spanish fellow-explorers receiving gifts from American Indians, as depicteda century later by the Flemish engraver Theodore de Bry. In 1 502, Bartolomé deLas Casas, a young Spanish priest from Seville, arrived In the Indies. He wasto become famous as a champion of the Indians against the abuses ofcolonialism. The engraving of Las Casas shown above is based on his onlysurviving portrait (see page 7).

a voyage out to the distant NewWorld. Such beginnings add to themerit of Las Casas' subsequentachievement.

Priest and colonist in Central America

first conversion (1502-1522). InJanuary 1502 Las Casas sailed for theIndies in an expedition under Nicolasde Ovando sent by the Court to putsome order into the governing of thecolony. He was also to ensure thatthe Indian enjoyed his freedom like anormal human being and he was tofree him from the exactions, injusticesand even slavery to which the lack ofexperience of the Columbuses had

subjected him. The disciplinary aspectof the expedition was responsible forthe orientation of Las Casas' future

Indian vocation and explains why hewas to devote his life and soul to the

human problem of the Indian.

Las Casas landed in Santo Domingo(Hispaniola) on April 15, 1502 and for

the first few years his way of life wasin no way different from that of anyother emigrant colonist. Making fulluse of native labour he ran the estate

which his father had left him, took

part in the wars which Ovando wagedagainst rebellious Indians and like anyother "encomendero" (2) had no scru¬ples in taking full advantage of Indianlabour, something which he was bitterlyto repent later.

In 1510 there landed in Hispaniolaan expedition of four Dominican mis¬

sionaries from Salamanca, centre of

the School of Theologians and Juristswho were the founders of modern

international law. The expedition wasled by Friar Pedro de Cordoba andamong its members was the famousFather Antonio Montesinos. The first

sermons of Father Montesinos made a

deep impression on Las Casas.

The colonists' tendency to blur thedistinction between the freedom and

the slavery of the Indians in their ser¬vice caused the Dominicans to react

immediately and take up the defenceof the Indians.

The Dominican spokesman was thefiery Antonio Montesinos who, in asermon delivered before Admiral DiegoColumbus, son of the Discoverer, and

a group of Royal officials on November30, 1511 made the first deliberate ma¬

jor public protest against the treatmentbeing meted out to the Indians by thecolonists. His call for freedom in the

New World for every non-Christianman and nation marked a decisive

turning point in the history of America.

The main theme of Montesinos' ser¬

mon was that all the colonists were

living and dying in mortal sin becausethey were making slaves of the Indiansand compelling them to work for themas well as waging unjust wars uponthem, and that furthermore they werefailing to carry out their duty asevangelists.

Bishop

of the

Indians

w Montesinos' words greatly annoyed* the colonists and authorities on the

island and were not well received at

the Court either. The result was that

the Dominican friar was obliged toreturn to Spain. His sermon, however,unleashed a pro-Indian campaign whichwas to affect both men's thinking andthe more practical domain of govern¬ment institutions. From that West

Indian environment there arose "a Las

Casas, tireless advocate in the Span¬ish Court of the cause of the In¬

dians" (1).

The Cuban campaigns in which Las

(1) Silvio Zavala: "La Defensa de los de¬rechos del hombre en América Latina, SiglosXVI-XVIII" (The Defence of Human Rights InLatin America, 16th-18th centuries), Unesco,Paris, 1964.

Casas served as military chaplain tothe Governor, Diego Velazquez, werethe decisive element leading to hisconversion. Velazquez had rewarded

him with a rich "grant" of Indians butthe scruples which Montesinos' ser¬mon had caused in Bartolomé's soul

were increasing.

He resolved to give up the estateswhich he farmed with the help of theIndians and dedicate the rest of his

life to the defence of the Indians. He

then decided to return to Spain andtry and convince the Court of the

urgent need to suppress the abuses ofthe "encomiendas" and the wars of

conquest in the Indies.

Las Casas returned to Spain in 1515

and devoted his energies to winningto his cause the new king, Charles I,

who was also to become the HolyRoman Emperor Charles V. To thisend he had an interview with the

Regent of the Kingdom, Adrian ofUtrecht, to whom he sent a memoran¬

dum on the distressing situation in theIndies. Adrian passed the memoran¬dum on to his Co-Regent, FranciscoXiménez de Cisneros, Cardinal of

Spain and Archbishop of Toledo, whoimmediately took Las Casas seriouslyand made him his counsellor for Indian

affairs.

Las Casas was appointed UniversalProtector and Procurator of the Indians

with an annual salary of 100 goldpesos. (This position of "Protector ofthe Indians" was a typical and exclu¬sive institution of the Spanish Crown asa colonizing power and its duties en-

In 1544, when his persistent effortsin America had borne fruit. Las Casas,

on the recommendation of EmperorCharles V, was named by the Pope asBishop of Chiapa in what is now theMexican state of Chiapas. As bishophe continued his "great mission", thepeaceful settlement of the region ofVerapaz, a "territory forbidden to theconquistadores" under the terms of aconcession granted by Charles V.During his few years as bishop he musthave witnessed scenes similar to those

shown here. Opposite page andbottom right, descendants of the Indiansevangelized by Las Casas and hisfellow-missionaries celebrate HolyWeek in the township of Chamula,Chiapas state. Below, street scene inthe little town of San Cristobal de

Las Casas, which probably owes itsname to its 16th century bishop. Right,the only known surviving portrait ofLas Casas, by Antonio Lara, todayin Seville's Biblioteca Colombina.

tailed defending the rights of thenatives and bringing before the Courtfor punishment all abuses of theIndians by the colonists.)

Las Casas presented Cisneros witha series of petitions on wrongs, rem¬edies and accusations in all of which

can be discerned the outlines of a planto reform the Indies which implied a

far-reaching revision of the entireIndian colonization policy. Cisnerossent a group of three Hieronymitemonks to the Indies to look into the

matter and Las Casas accompaniedthem as counsellor.

Right from the start, however, therewas serious dissension between Las

Casas" liberal Indian policy and thetraditional colonizing principles of the.Hieronymite friars. This soon led to anr

7

k open break and In 1517 Las Casas* returned to Spain with the intention of

laying his complaints before CardinalCisneros. But the Cardinal had died

on November 8, and Las Casas had

no other course open to him except

: to deal directly with the Spanish king,: who had just landed in the Peninsula.

A new project to reform the Indieswas prepared and presented to theCourt by Las Casas. Its aim was theagricultural colonizing of the NewWorld using skilled farmers recruitedin Castile to teach the Indians the

tried techniques of European farming(a genuine foretaste of the technicalco-operation projects of our days).This project completely rejected anyidea of exploiting the Indian andlooked to the consequent Increase inproductivity to supply new sources ofincome for the Crown.

The new Las Casas plan advocated,among other things, the recognition ofequal freedom for the Indian and the

subject from Spain, mixed marriagesbetween the Spanish colonists and theIndians (far removed was the merethought of racism) and permission foreach family of farmers to take withthem a black slave or a black slave

couple.

This last idea was to become the

first source of scandal for his enemies.

They accuse him of contradiction and

consider him the person responsiblefor the implantation of the black slavemarket in South America. But the

French historian Marcel Bataillon has

very clearly shown that Las Casas wasnot the first person to suggest such apractice and that, in any case, hisadvice had no practical effect. Later,Las Casas himself, in his "History ofthe Indies", bitterly repented of hisidea.

Admission to the' Dominican Order

second conversion (1522-1550). OnMay 19, 1520 Las Casas had obtainedfrom King Charles a settlement of astrip of coastal land in Venezuela to putinto practice his ideas on peacefulcolonizing with land-workers recruitedin Spain. Unfortunately the experi¬ment ended in disaster mainly because

of the desertion of many of the farm¬workers who were ill-prepared for theventure. Bartolomé was very disap¬pointed and saddened and decided to

change his way of life and enter theDominican Order.

From 1524 to 1530 in the peace andquiet of his monastery he pursued hisstudies in law and theology with greatthoroughness and thought out andstarted drafting the originals of hisliterary magnum opus. Here we havethe beginnings of the great committedwriter that Las Casas was to become

later in his life.

With this new and enriched stock of

cultural knowledge and the support ofhis brothers in religion, Bartolométook up the fight once again. Herightly felt that his way was not thatof the missionary moving among thepagan Indians, but that made possibleby his access to the Court and evento the Pope where his ideas on colo¬nizing and peaceful evangelizing couldbe effectively explained. These ideascan be summarized as follows:

Abolition of the "encomienda"

which would free the Indian from that

state of subjugation to the colonistwhich, in Las Casas' opinion, is theworst form of slavery.

Condemnation of all wars of con¬

quest. The world must be brought torealize that before the arrival of the

Spaniards the Indians belonged to anation as free and sovereign as Spain,were as intelligent and free as anyother men and, in many ways, weresuperior, naturally and morally, to thecolonists. (Rightly may Las Casas beconsidered the precursor of the doc¬trine of the "noble savage".)

The decisive influence of Las Casas

was soon to be felt in the question ofthe "encomienda". In 1542 the Crown

promulgated the "New Laws" whichimplied purely and simply the abolitionof the "encomienda". Another of the

great ideas advocated by Las Casashad triumphed.

Consecrated Bishop in Seville in1544, he was appointed to the, for him,much desired diocese of Chiapa InCentral America where he was receiv¬

ed in triumph.

Then he immediately began to putinto practice a whole series of mea¬

sures to discipline abuses of theexisting colonial system. He evenbrandished the terrible weapon of "re¬fusal of confession" to any colonistwho had Indians in his service and

went so far as to raise it to the level

of a regulation in a manual of pre¬cepts entitled Confessionary which heattempted to circulate as widely aspossible in manuscript form.

This attitude of his naturally broughthim into serious conflict with the

clergy and colonists deeply rooted inthe "Establishment". This, and the

premature repealing of the "NewLaws" in 1545, an indisputable victoryfor the colonists, meant a new failurefor his cause. But Las Casas did not

consider his cause to be lost and de¬

cided to leave the New World once

and for all to wage the decisive battlefor the Indian cause in Spain itself.

His campaign in Spain to winrecognition of the Indians' humanrights (1550-1559). The circulating ofthe Confessionary was the last strawfor the colonists and aroused their

anger against the Bishop of Chiapa.They sought a person to defend theircause at Court and through HernánCortes, among others, they found himin the person of the new Chroniclerand Confessor of Charles V, theCordobán humanist Juan Ginés de

Sepúlveda.

Before the King he denounced theConfessionary as an attack on Span¬ish rights in the Indies and in hisLatin treatise, Démocrates the Second

or on the just causes of the waragainst the Indians, he defends the

system of "encomiendas" when ap¬plied without abuse, and the justice ofwar against the Indians when they wishto resist the preaching of the Gospel.

There is no doubt that seen from

our present day viewpoint Las Casas'refusal to recognize any superiority ofcultures is not only more attractive andexemplary but is the only just attitudeto take. But even today how far arewe from seeing it effectively acceptedin practice!

What is really surprising is that theSpain of those days, which allowed afreedom of speech which even todayarouses our admiration, should remain

divided into two opposing bands; thesupporters of the colonizing policyadvocated by Sepúlveda and the sup¬porters of the policy favoured by LasCasas. Between them the Crown

maintained its neutrality.

In view of this state of affairs, Em¬

peror Charles V very prudently decided

to summon a "Council of Theologiansand Jurists" In Valladolid (1550-1551)to allow the opposing parties to defendtheir viewpoints, which was tanta¬mount to opening a debate on the jus¬tice of a war which the Emperor

himself was waging in America.Furthermore, while waiting for theCouncil to come to a conclusion the

Crown decided to suspend all wars of

conquest in the New World, and pro¬ceeded to do so.

To combat the arguments of Sepúl¬veda (summarized in an Apologia ofhis Démocrates the Second) Las Casas

presented and read to the Council avoluminous treatise also entitled Apo¬

logia. The text of this work lay unpub¬lished in the National Library In Parisuntil we recently sent it to the printertogether with a Spanish translation ofSepúlveda's Apologia (Editoria Nacio¬nal, Madrid, 1975).

As for the respect which should beshown to the pagan religion of theIndians we can do no better than quote

the following which is a paragraphfrom the Apologia:

"Neither cannibalism nor the sacri¬

fice of human victims to the Gods bythe Indians are offences which shall .

justify war being waged against them.In the first place because such casesbe but rare and in the second placebecause the said cannibalism and im¬

molation are an essential part of their

religious rites... A change of religion,though it be conversion to the truereligion is a matter which shall not betreated lightly nor in any way be im¬posed by force, for there is no matterwhatsoever more arduous and impor¬tant for a man than to abandon his

first religion, even though its ritesinclude the sacrifice of human vic¬

tims..." (We could almost be readinga page of Rousseau or Voltaire!)

Las Casas, then, Is proposing a for¬mula for peaceful co-existence in poli¬tical and religious matters between allpeoples. He calls for mutual respectof race, religion and culture as a fore¬runner of the modern concept ofracial, cultural, political and religious

pluralism.

It is certain that as far as Las Casas

was concerned there was only one true

religion and that was Catholicism, andyet he maintains his principle thatrather than make war on a nation in

order to convert it to the true religion,

the pagan religion of that nation shouldbe respected. He goes on to say thatit would be better for the nation to

keep its original religion than beobliged to adopt another by force.

Here we have the essential differ¬

ence between the doctrine of Las

Casas and that of Sepúlveda and Fran- ,cisco de Vitoria. The latter claimed I

Revolt against oppressionLas Casas fought unceasingly to bring about the abolitionof the oppressive "encomienda" system, under which the

Spanish Crown "granted" a number of Indians as workersto Spanish settlers known as "encomenderos". Las Casas'efforts were crowned with success in 1542 with the

promulgation by the Spanish Crown of the so-called

New Laws, described by American historian Lewis Hanke as

representing "as revolutionary a change in the administration

of Spain's great empire overseas as Las Casas' contemporary,Nicholas Copernicus, had achieved in astronomical circles."

Above, detail from a Mexican manuscript of the period depictingan Indian uprising against an "encomendero" and the latter's trial.

^that the sacrifice of innocent victimsby the Indians was sufficient justifi¬cation for the armed intervention of

Spain in the Indies. For Las Casas

such armed intervention was a greaterviolation of natural law than the sacri¬fice of innocent victims.

Although the Valladolid Council rea¬ched no definitive decision, it is true,nevertheless, that the subject and theopposing positions adopted on it havehad an influence which has lasted to

the present day.

Las Casas' intervention in the affairs

of Peru (writing of "De Thesauris") andhis death (1559-1566). From 1559onwards Las Casas took a specialinterest in the affairs of Peru and

in its colonial system which post¬dated that of Central America and

which was the prey of civil wars fora long time. Thus, in 1561 he cameout very strongly in support of theposition adopted by the Bishop ofCharcas, Provincial of the Dominicans

in Peru, Father Domingo de SantoTomas, against the perpetuating of the"encomienda".

He was a nonagenarian when, inreply to a consultation requested bythe missionaries in Peru, he wrote twofundamental works. One was writtenin Spanish, Las Doce Dudas or Doce

Cuestiones Peruanas (The TwelveDoubts or Twelve Peruvian Questions,published in Paris in 1882 by JoséAntonio Llórente). The other, in Latin,De Thesauris, had remained unpub¬lished until we found the originalmanuscript in the Biblioteca de

Palacio, In Madrid, and published itwith a Spanish translation underthe title, Los Tesores del Peru (TheTreasures of Peru; Consejo Superiorde Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid,1958). Here, Las Casas replies indetail to the consultation on "the

colonists' right to possess those goodsproceeding from the ransom of Ata-hualpa (1) and the treasures from thesepulchres of the Incas".

Las Casas appears here as one ofthe first and most ardent defenders ofthe notion that each nation has its

own cultural identity. The archaeolo¬gical and artistic treasures of a nation

are the inalienable property of thepeople and if even the prince cannot

(1) Last ruler of the Inca Empire, taken pri¬soner by the Spanish conquistador Pizarro.Although a ransom of a roomful of gold andsilver was paid by the Incas, Atahualpa wasexecuted in 1533.

(2) Unesco's 1975-76 programme of aid toMember States "for the preservation andpresentation of the cultural and natural heri¬

tage" includes a special programme for Peru:"Restoration of historical monuments in theCuzco-Machu Picchu area...". Las Casas withhis work "The Treasures of Peru" may wellbe considered the first advocate of this welljustified campaign.

dispose of them how much less can

they be seized by strangers.

From speaking of artistic treasuresLas Casas passes naturally and imme¬diately to the subject of human trea¬sure and for him the greatest treasurein South America is the Indian who has

to be defended. De Thesauris, themost perfect work of literature written

by Las Casas in our opinion, can beconsidered up-to-date even at thepresent time (2). This book, which heconsidered to be his last will and

testament and which he presented assuch to King Philip II, marks the endof Las Casas' literary activity.

Las Casas died on July 17 (or per¬haps July 18) 1566 in the Convent ofOur Lady of Atocha in Madrid. He

was 92 years of age. According to theChronicler Father Gabriel de Cepeda,being on the point of departing thisworld, with the candle in his hand,Las Casas begged everyone not tocease to protect the Indians and,repenting that he himself had not done

for them everything that was necess¬ary, he implored them to help rectifythis omission.

Shortly afterwards (May 6, 1567) theCouncil of the Indies solemnly grantedtheir freedom to the Indians at Coban,the first posthumous victory of the"Apostle of the Indians" and one which

was to be followed by so many othersright up to the present day.

Angel Losada

Las Casas vigorously denounced thecruelty and injustice which the greed ofthe conquistadores had brought toAmerica, (as depicted in engraving byTheodore de Bry, opposite page)and used every possible argumentto support his fight for justice.But alongside these injustices and thiscruelty, inherent in all forms of colonialism,positive developments were taking place,due in many cases to the efforts ofSpanish missionaries. Collegesand universities were founded

(the university of Mexico City was setup on Las Casas' initiative in 1533, fouryears after the end of the Spanishconquest) ; printing was introduced,along with European farming andindustrial techniques; towns were built,etc. In the words of the Mexican

historian Ramon Xirau, "in the conquestof America were intermingled utopiaand "encomienda", deeds and laws, wars

and missionary work, aggression and thedesire to build a new City of God."Las Casas, and other Spaniards whodefended the rights of the Indians,symbolize this positive aspect of theSpanish colonization of America. Above,forced labour depicted in engravings froma manuscript of Huaman Poma de Ayala,one of the first Indo-Hispanic writersof Spanish America. Top, an Indianwoman works at her loom. Bottom, a"choleric and arrogant" Dominican forces"spinsters and widows" to work for him.

10

BARTOLOMÉ DE LAS CASAS

Two inalienable principles:freedom and

the right to human dignityJOSE ANTONIO MARAVALL, Spanish his¬torian, is professor at the Complutense Univer¬sity, Madrid and has been associate professorat the Sorbonne, Paris. A member of Spain'sRoyal Academy, of History, he is president ofthe Spanish Association of Historical Sciences.Among his many published works, most ofwhich are devoted to Spanish culture andpolitical thought from the Middle Ages to the18th century are "La cultura del Barroco:Análisis de una estrucutura histórica" (Theculture of the Baroque: analysis of a historicalstructure), Madrid, 1975 and his two-volume"Estudios de historia del pensamiento español"(Studies in the history of Spanish thought),Madrid. 1967 and 1975.

byJosé Antonio Maravall

LAS Casas" thought and the doc¬trinal content of his work have a

value which surpasses the simpleevents of the situation in America in his

day. Their interest lies in the fact thatthey are applicable to the differ¬ent historical circumstances of other

peoples.

Some historians have pointed out

certain ideological elements in his.work. In the first place there is the r

11

, prophetic element, which is apparentwhen he warns the King of the evil

-which might befall Spain, through thewill of God, for having neglected itsdivine task to protect and Christianizethe Indians. Secondly we have themessianic element: Las Casas consi¬

dered that he had been designated tofulfill a divine mission in the Indies. In

third place we have the millenial ele¬ment which inspired Las Casas to await

the coming of the spiritual Jerusalem,that perfect and definitive societywhich stands apart from history andwhich in the fullness of time brings itto an end by divine ordinance.

There is no doubt that there are

elements of all this in Las Casas'

thought but they are a very small partof his work and are in no way typicalof the whole.

I think that the best word to describe

Las Casas is Utopian. He wanted tosee his reforms put into practice im¬mediately and without delay, that is,within the framework of our presentworld with human means and for

human ends. To a large extent thesereforms dealt with social and economic

questions and implied a reorganizationof society to achieve the proposedends.

Las Casas insisted on presenting theobjectives of his political governmentwith terms such as "spiritual andtemporal utility", "prosperity", whichhe believed he had found among In¬dians ruled by their original govern¬ments, "temporal happiness" valueswhich seem to anticipate the ideas of18th century Enlightenment.

His aim was to attain a temporal andreasonable "order" or system of gov¬ernment. When he states that the

aim to be pursued by any govern¬ment of the Indians is the "good andusefulness and prosperity and growth"of the Indians, he manages to definethe general aim of political society.

There is no doubt that Las Casas

considered evangelization very impor¬tant, because he knew that when he

used the gospel as the basis for hisarguments it made it very embarrass¬ing for his opponents to disagree withhim. But Las Casas always soughtthe well-being and the preservation andthe enrichment of the Indian. He want¬

ed to see the poor and the modestgain wealth and the craftsmen and

labourers who came from Spain im¬prove their lot. Perhaps the primeobjective of his struggles was to at¬tain a temporal society with earthlyvalues.

He proposed new models to correct

and improve this society and some ofthem, it has been suggested, reflectthe influence of Thomas More. He

was particularly interested in societiesbased on farm-workers, societies with

an agricultural economy but which hada place for craftsmen, merchants,magistrates and even soldiers. He

paid particular attention to the rela¬tions between the Indians and the

Spaniards and advocated racial inter¬

mingling which would give rise to anew type of society.

I think that It would be true to saythat all of the Utopias which came outof 16th century Europe were influenc¬ed by the major economic transforma¬tions which were part of the Renais¬sance. Las Casas' starting point washis direct experience of the economicupheavals that had caused the ruin

and destruction of many nations.

Las Casas was fully aware of thesituation of the small farm-labourers

and day-workers of Castile, deprivedof their land and crushed by heavyburdens. In his plans for the Indiesthese wretched souls would find an

opportunity to own a "more free and

fortunate" piece of land.

Las Casas had an acute social con¬

science, he was distressed by thedestruction of the Indians' ownershipsystem and was upset by the unjustpayment that they received for theirwork: "let the day's wage be accordingto the day's work", he reminds us inhis treatise Among the Remedies. He.was shocked by the harsh treatmentthe Indians were subjected to and bythe acts depriving them of their land

which left them on the verge of star¬vation and extermination. He realized

that there were two major causes forthis state of affairs: the introduction

of money and everything it broughtwith it.

Las Casas attributed the actions ofthe Spaniards in the Americas to a

large extent to the lust for moneyand riches. "Money", he said, "hasbecome an end in itself". The desirefor wealth and riches had become so

intense that it had led to a degreeof covetousness never known before,to the point where it was considered"blessedness and happiness".

For Las Casas it was the root of all

the evil attributed to the Spanishcolonists. In his book Among theRemedies, he placed the theme ofcovetousness far and above all other

reasons for the Spanish colonizationof the Americas. "All those who dorise and go to the Indies", he wrote,"are poor and covetous men and are

moved to go there by nought butcovetousness and the yearning not justto escape poverty but to become rich,and not just rich but more opulentiyso with such riches as were in times

past neither thought possible nordreamed of..."

It is easy to understand the over¬all condemnation which, as a moraliseand Utopian, our inflexible friar pro¬nounces: "for this cause is the whole

of Spain corrupted and infected bycovetousness and avarice."

The Utopians start out by recognizingthe existence of a state of society un¬favourable for the weak who groanunder the burden of the wealth of thepowerful and the covetousness ofthose who wish to rise in the socialscale and ennoble themselves. Las

Casas started from the same pointand made an analysis of the subjectof ownership, at a time when it wasalready noted that the possession ofgoods was the basis for the develop¬ment of the person and that the greatdivisions of society would be accord¬ing to the extent of one's possessions.

These Utopian systems combinedcertain pre-Socialist notions with a res¬

pect for the property of the small manand the middle-class man and were

used to defend the idea of bourgeoisproperty (which, to establish itself,used arguments very similar to thosewhich would later be used by theproletariat in the 19th century) and,furthermore, the Socialist schools of

thought could point to these Utopiansas antecedents for their own doctrines.This is what happened with ThomasMore and Rousseau.

Las Casas, who had an obvious sym¬pathy for common ownership and inwhose organization plans there are

u

Aztec calendarAztec calendar for the years 1520,

1530 and 1531, during the period of

Las Casas' work in "New Spain" (present-day Mexico). Drawings depict thedownfall of Aztec civilization and its godsat the time of the Spanish conquest.

always elements of a community type,fought the amassing of riches by thepowerful but defended the holding ofprivate property by the Indians andsmall farm-labourers settled in the new

continent.

For Las Casas, God had created all

things free and without an owner sothat all men could make use of them.

Originally, then, everything belongedto the community. But if anyone canmake use of a thing, then that impliesthat he can appropriate it for his ownuse, therefore possession is the legi¬timate title to ownership.

The Indians who were the first to

settle on American soil were the

rightful owners of the land and notthe lords and masters later Imposedon them. This right of original owner¬ship was applicable, Las Casas said,to all men, be they Christian or not,for this was one of the aspects of civillife which religion could in no wayalter. Therefore all grants, gifts, sales,etc. of Indian property by the Spanishkings were illegal and ought to beannulled.

Las Casas did not go so far as toapply this thesis to the land gifts madeby the kings to the nobles in Spainbut he sought to attract the poor farm-labourers away from the Peninsula byoffering them prospects of free landin America and by telling them thatthe Indians had occupied vast expansesof land which they could not workalone. He indicated that the Indians

would let them have part of theselands or else would take them as com¬

panions or associates to work the land

jointly.

Las Casas not only laid down rigo¬rous principles of private property butalso proposed certain forms of col¬

lective exploitation in mining and agri¬culture. His fondness for the mythof the "noble savage", which he devel¬oped long before the philosophers ofthe 18th century, led him to view fa¬vourably a stage of primitive Commu¬nism, dear to 16th century Utopianism.

But the most important principle forLas Casas was that of freedom. It

underpinned all his thinking and ideas.Las Casas saw freedom as the funda¬

mental answer for problems of humaninterrelationships and coexistence.

Freedom, Las Casas said, touches oneverything in human life. To be a manand to be free are complementary con¬cepts. From his beginnings, by hisvery nature man is free. And this,

Las Casas believed, was also applica¬ble to the Indians.

In his Petition of Remedies (1516),Las Casas wrote that "those Indians

are men and free and must be treated

as men and free".

Freedom is an essential element of

human nature and cannot be set aside

or abolished, nor can it be lost. No

one can remove it. In truth (save veryexceptionally in cases where an excep¬tional offence has been committed and

in virtue of the lawful application ofpenal justice) there is no power onearth that can take away the freedomof free men. By no one, not evenby themselves "can they be deprivedof that freedom which Is theirs bynatural law" (Petition of 1543).

Moreover, no one can renounce free¬

dom even voluntarily since freedomis an Integral part .of the human condi¬tion. Though people may resolve oftheir own free will to lower their estate

and abandon their condition as free

men "yet would their will be null andvoid and impossible to do". In sup¬port of this thesis, Las Casas clinches

the case with the following argument:if a group is to form a political com¬munity, if it is to be a nation, its mem¬bers must be free people for "if theyare not free they cannot be part of anation".

It is interesting to note that thisjudgement on the value of freedom isfound in another 16th century "Uto¬pian" book, Don Quixote, by Miguelde Cervantes. Las Casas declares

that "since freedom is the most pre¬cious and supreme of all the goods ofthis temporal world and is so loved and

held in esteem by all creatures bothsensitive and insensitive and much

more so by rational ones" (Among theRemedies) then any attempt to settlethe cruel situation of the Indians must

start by "setting them free for with¬out freedom no solution is good".

Las Casas was speaking of freedomas a universal postulate applying toall mankind. So that when he spoke

CONTINUED PAGE 32

13

art and everyday life in

by Roger S. Duff

OceaniaA Unesco travelling exhibitionreveals the creative talent

of the Pacific islanders

The "Unesco Courier" presentson the following pages differentaspects of "The Art of Oceania",the eleventh travelling exhibitionorganized by Unesco in its pro¬gramme for the international cir¬culation of cultural works. The

exhibition, a vivid artistic "por¬trait" of the enormous scatter ofislands in the Oceanic zone of

the south Pacific, will be display¬ed in different parts of the worldafter being first shown in Sydney,Australia, in May 1975. It wascompiled by the author of thearticle published here. New Zea¬land anthropologist Dr. Roger S.Duff, Director of the CanterburyMuseum, Christchurch, New Zea¬land, in association with StuartPark, Director of the Otago Mu¬seum, Otago, New Zealand. TheUnesco exhibition was designedby the Austrian graphic artistFreimut Steiger, who has also ex¬ecuted the layout of these pagesdevoted to the art of Oceania.

Oceania's

10.000 islands

The power and beauty and variety ofthe applied arts of Oceania are anexpression of the creative genius thatcan be shown by even the smallestand most isolated of human commu¬

nities.

No one who has studied the regioncan fail to be impressed by thesettlement of the successive zones of

Oceania, which was essentially a seriesof one-way voyages Into the outerspace of the world's greatest ocean.

The region is divided here into threegreat cultural areas: New Guinea-Mela¬nesia, from West Irian to New Cale¬donia; Micronesia, from Palau to the

Gilberts; and Polynesia, so vast thatIts west-east axis runs from Fiji toEaster Island, its north-south axis fromHawaii to New Zealand.

Throughout the region there was"no sort of iron" (to quote Cook, theBritish explorer, referring to the Poly¬nesian Tahitians of 1769), and we

constantly marvel at the technicalachievement of Oceanic material cul¬

ture in a world without metal.

Pottery was absent over the greaterpart of Polynesia and Micronesia, re¬maining viable only in or within reachof the chain of the continental rock

clays of Melanesia. In those manyatolls without stone the basic carpen¬

ter's adze blade had to be ground

down from the shell of the giant reef-clam.

Agriculture was at the pre-cerealstage, without plough or oxen, andhusbandry was without grazing animalsof any sort. The coconut had originallyto be brought in by canoe and plantedout along the barren strand. So toowas the breadfruit, the paper mulberry,the banana, the sugar cane, the tarolily, the sweet potato, the Lagenariagourd and others.

It might be said that the Oceanicpeoples were "castaways", miraculous¬ly able to survive on desert islands.In the world context the cultures of the

islands of Oceania are seen to be an

extension of the Austronesian Neolithic

of south-east Asia in the second or

third millennia B.C.

The Malayan language complexremains as the most enduring evidenceof this expansion today, representingthe world's largest cultural area of acommon language, linking Madagascar(Malagasy), Malayo-Indonesia, the Phi¬lippines, Formosa, Melanesia, Micro¬nesia and Polynesia.

While excitingly vtried and of oftenmacabre artistic power, the appliedarts of New Guinea-Melanesia reflect

the assumed Austronesian prototype

somewhat fitfully. For this we need toturn to the two remaining areas, Micro-

CONTINUED PAGE 17

14

Map shows three great culturalareas of Oceania Micronesia,

Melanesia and Polynesiacomprising over 10,000 PacificOcean islands between Asia

and the Americas.

Ancestor poles

These "Mbis" poles from theAsmat area of New Guinea

represent one or two ancestors.

Inhabitants of a swampy plainin West Irian, the 20,000 peopleknown as Asmat carve the polesfrom a mango tree and displaythem near a ceremonial house.

Photo Museum of Primitive ArtNew York

Club-house carvingsand paintings

Villagers in the Sepik regionof New Guinea once used carved

wooden hooks like the one shown

below to keep everyday' items (especially food) out ofthe way of children, dogs and rats.

Right, a Sepik "tambaran" houseof a men's society in New Guinea,its triangular facade brilliantlydecorated with painted barkdepicting ancestor heads and othermotifs. Today similar facadesdecorate the local council buildings.

Sculptured figure of a woman(left) is placed over doorwayof men's club-houses in Palau.

Such figures commemorate anincident in folklore and are named

Dilukai after the woman concerned.

Photo Linden Museum. StuttgartFed. Rep of Germany

Far left, porch of a men'sclub-house at Goreor,a village in the Palauislands of Western

Micronesia. Displayingthe skill of expert traditionaljoinery without nails,the porch is faced withplanks, each of whichserves as a frieze of paintedthemes from life and oral

history. Left, details of paintedPalau porch panels depictingdance of the tattooed

women welcoming theirmen (top) and divingfor sea turtles (bottom).

16

k nesia and Polynesia, where the originalAustronesians found their way to empty

islands, on which they could establishviable cultural offshoots.

The word which most adequatelycharacterizes New Guinea-Melanesia

is "diversity" in language and in wayof life. In New Guinea alone there are

some 500 entirely different languages,one-sixth of all the languages spokenin the world. In some parts a groupwould be unable to understand the

speech of their neighbours in anothervalley only thirty kilometres away.

From island to island, from coast

to highlands and from valley to valley,the dress, housing, art and ideas ofthe people can differ markedly. Yet inall this diversity, one finds certainthemes and Ideas which are wide¬

spread: the importance of pigs as afood item, a source of wealth and of

prestige; the attitudes to the dead, whoare believed to play an important roleIn the lives of the living; and the conti¬nual struggle for power, whether thisbe through warfare, through oratoryor through the acquisition of wealth.

The earliest human occupation inNew Guinea has been dated to around

25,000 B.C. The earliest dated expan¬

sion of peoples into the other Mela-nesian islands comes at about 3,000

B.C.

Most of the archaeological workin Melanesia to date has concentrated

on the study of pottery, and especiallyon a particular type of pottery knownas "Lapita" ware, after the site in NewCaledonia where it was first excavated.

Lapita pottery has usually been recog¬nized by the distinctive style ofimpressed decoration it bears, but thefabric of the ware itself can be distin¬

guished from other types of pottery,so that it is possible to recognize"plain" Lapita.

Archaeologists have been particu¬larly interested In the makers of Lapitapottery because it is believed that theyare responsible, at least in part, forthe origin of the Polynesians. Theyseem to have moved through the Mela-nesian island chain between about

1200 and 200 B.C., living in coastalareas or on offshore islands.

There is still considerable schol¬

arly debate over the exact route takenby the settlers of Polynesia. Whilethe Lapita potters are certainly ances¬tral to the later Polynesian peoples,there is also very strong evidence thatpeople bearing elements of Polynesianculture entered the Pacific by meansof the northerly route through Micro¬nesia.

Because the great majority of theislands are small coral atolls, Microne¬

sia is properly called the cultural areaof "small islands". Life in the low

atolls was a constant struggle for exis

tence, made tolerable only by the main¬tenance of trade contacts through the

development of the fastest and mostadvanced sailing canoes in Oceania.

The key lay, of necessity, in theabsence of timber large enough tosacrifice for a dug-out hull, in lashingsmall planklike pieces edge to edgein carvel style to produce a knife-edgedhull. This, with an outrigger float towindward and a balance platform toleeward, needed only the reversiblesail rig to become the fastest sailingplatform in the world.

The same skills of precision joinery

were applied to the houses of Micro¬nesia. Dwelling-houses were roomyand functional, while the ceremonialhouses of Palau and the western

islands could seat several hundred

people. The handsome Palau club¬houses (rubak-bai) set on foundationsand framework of adzed beams, had

front and back porches protected byshaped and painted boards. Boat-houses were an important third classnoted for spaciousness and elegance.

One of the most distinctive cultural

links between eastern Micronesia and

Polynesia is the legend of the culture-hero Maui, the ancestor of "a thousand

tricks", who fished up Islands. What

was thought to be his original fish¬hook was the subject of dispute bythe ¡slanders. Polynesian fish-hooksand harpoons undoubtedly came fromMicronesia.

The name Polynesia ("many Is¬lands") is hardly adequate to describe ^the enormous scatter of islands within r

Right, reels of feathermoney once used on theSanta Cruz islands. Thebands were made from small

plates of feathers gummedtogether and bound into aroll 10 metres long, and usingfeathers from 300 birds.

Left, Polynesian stone adzes(cutting tools). The one atfar left is a simple workingtool ; the others areceremonial adzes with

decorative carving.

Photos Canterbury Museum. Christ-church, Otago Museum, Dunedin, andNational Museum, Wellington, NewZealand, and British Museum, London

17

Pacific island canoes

Polynesia. Suspended in the void ofthe Pacific Ocean, its western and

eastern borders equidistant from Asia

and America respectively, its southernboundary midway between equator andpole, the Polynesian "triangle" with itsscattered Islands occupies the mostinaccessible part of the habitable worldand the last to be settled by man.

As in Micronesia, this settlement

was made possible only with the dev¬elopment in south-east Asia of stable

sailing canoes, with a sail rig enablingthem to' beat Into the prevailing tradewinds, which, for that majority of Poly¬nesian groups lying south of the equa¬tor, blow from the south-east.

This northern ocean highway couldwell have been the route of entry ofthose cultural complexes exclusivelyshared by Micronesia and Polynesia,shown in canoes and navigation, fish¬ing devices, houses and house furnish¬ings, canoe sheds, tattooing, basiccostume styles of breech-clout and kilt,and in austerity in applied art.

For pottery, which became perma¬nently established in Fiji and whichwas present in Samoa as early as the

first millennium B.C. and in use for a

thousand years in Tonga, we must lookto the earlier island-hopping route, thesouthern route skirting the northernborders of New Guinea and Melanesia

to the Santa Cruz group now seen tobe emerging as a key staging-point,and with Fiji as the point of entry intoPolynesia.

All skilled craftsmanship, fromhouse-building to tattooing, was car¬ried out by a class of experts knownas tohunga (or the dialect variants ofthis New Zealand Maori term).

In the more favoured groups of highislands in tropical Polynesia, eleganthouses were built on a pole-and-thatch

Photo Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington,New Zealand, from a 19th-century lithograph

18

Interior of boatshed in Tonga, WestPolynesia, showing the kind ofdouble-hulled canoes in which

Tongans regularly voyaged greatdistances to Fiji, Samoa and most ofWest Polynesia until the middleof the 19th century.

1.,Model of outrigger lagoon canoefrom Gilbert Islands, Micronesia.

Photo Canterbury Museum, Chrlstchurch,New Zealand

2. Fast single-outrigger sailing canoefrom Fiji, Polynesia. Fijian canoes tookup to five years to build and were keptin boatsheds as big as the hangar of ajet passenger plane.Photo Musée de l'Homme, Paris

3. Outrigger canoe from the isolated¡ Polynesian island of Tikopia.

Photo Auckland Institute and Museum,I New Zealand

fabrication. Everywhere boat-shedsmatched the dwelling-houses. Houseswere set aside as schools of learning

(whare wananga) in the Cook islandsand New Zealand.

While dwelling-houses were smalland low in New Zealand to keep outthe winter cold, community houseswere built on a grand scale, of adzedplanks, the wall plates carved in reliefeffigies of ancestors, the rafters paintedin decorative volutes. House furnishings,

were confined to head-rests, bowls forr

Polynesian and Micronesian fish-hookscommemorating a legendary hero, Maui,who fished up islands out of the sea.

Photos Otago Museum, Dunedin, New Zealand;University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology,Cambridge, U.K; Otago and Canterbury Museum,New Zealand; Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Hono¬lulu, Hawaii, U.S.A.; National Museum, Wellington,New Zealand (Oldman Collection); British Museum,London, U.K. c

Elaborate fish mask (below) madeof small plates of turtle-shell tiedtogether comes from the TorresStrait Islands, New Guinea. Suchmasks were often worn at dances

for initiations and funerals

and dances to bring rain and toensure plentiful fish and crops.

Photo Otago Museum, New Zealand »

Fish-hook from Tonga, with afish-shaped whalebone lure andbarbed point of turtle-shell.Photo National Museum of Ethnography,Stockholm, Sweden

Prestige of the pig Wooden model pig from the Massimarea of New Guinea. ThroughoutMelanesia pigs are important asa source of food and the possessionof many pigs ensures wealth andprestige for their owner.

Photo Otago Museum, Dunedtn, New Zealand

food and kava (drink made from thepepper-plant), tables for poundingstarch foods and, but rarely, low seats.

Wooden receptacles of great ele¬gance were developed for kava. Canoe-shaped food-bowls (kumete) were ofgiant size in the Cook Islands, and sup¬ported by sculptured human bearers InHawaii. In the Marquesas and New

Melanesian

bamboo pipes"Malanggan" carvings likethis (above) were used inNew Ireland as the centreof a series of ceremonies

lasting several months.This figure is shown playingbamboo pan-pipes, a commonMelanesian musical

instrument.

Human figures made from bark clothstretched over a cane frame exist

in some parts of the Pacific, but theirfunction is still not fully understood.This one (right) from the AdmiraltyIslands may have figured in a ceremonyin honour of ancestors.

20

Photo

Australian

SydneyMuseum,

Zealand, lidded boxes were used forsmall treasures and In the SocietyIslands a house-shaped receptacleprotected figurines of gods from thevulgar gaze.

The mast-head and steering paddlesof Fijian canoes of the early nineteenthcentury recall the double-canoes: upto thirty-five metres long, with mast ofeighteen metres, steering oars elevenmetres long and deep enough for mento walk upright between hold and deck.They took up to five years to build andneeded a boat-shed as large as thehangar for a jet passenger plane.

Through centuries of life on thesea, Polynesian pilots (Tohunga Tau-tai) had developed surprising skill innavigation, based largely on star know¬ledge, notably of zenith stars, whichenabled them to fix latitude. Cook's

Tupaea could at command, on a clearnight, indicate the position of Tahiti,then thousands of kilometres distant.

The loom was absent in Polynesia:it found a counterpart in the remarkabledevelopment of bark cloth from theinner bark of the paper mulberry(Broussonetia papyrifera) and bread¬fruit (Artocarpus), original importsfrom south-east Asia which were

carefully cultivated in all Islands wherethey would grow. For the cloth,a favourite West Polynesian decorativedevice was to produce a colour rub¬bing by placing the plain material overa design tablet with detail in relief, andone illustration from Tonga shows anearly-twentieth-century version of aphonograph.

In body decoration, the practice oftattooing (known to the world from itsname of Tatau) was virtually universalin Polynesia, body coverage beinggreatest in the Marquesas and NewZealand.

With a people as preoccupied bygenealogical descent as the Polyne¬sians, various efforts were made to

Tattooing and body decoration

Photo Alexander Turnbull Library,Wellington, New-Zealand

Photo Musée de l'Homme, Paris

The word tattoo is of

Polynesian origin and thepractice of tattooing the bodywas once virtually universalin Polynesia, the pigmentbeing pricked into the skinin a variety of patterns withbone-chisels tapped with alight mallet. In Samoayouths are still tattooedtoday on attaining manhood.

1. 19th-century engraving of ChiefNgatai, New Zealand. The chief's faceis covered with curvilinear patterns.

2. Diagram of woman's tattoo fromthe Marquesas Islands, Polynesia

3. Bark cloth model of a god-symbolfrom the Marquesas islandspainted with human tattoo motifs.

Photo National Museum. Wellington,New-Zealand (Oldman Collec.ion)

preserve the mortal likeness of thedeceased. Maoris succeeded in pre¬

serving the hair and features by steam,heating the head in an earth oven.Marquesans covered the skull withbark cloth, painted to represent thetattooed face. Easter Islanders repre¬

sented ancestors by sculptured wood¬en figurines representing emaciatedmen and women past child-bearingand the sole wooden sculpture knownfrom the Chatham Islands emphasizesthe ancestor's protruding ribs and col¬lapsed stomach.

Rivalry among clan and familygroups in erecting commemorativesculptures of ancestors seems onereason for the giant images of EasterIsland, which have attracted worldattention and given rise to theories ofan introduction from South America. A

more cautious theory is to regard thepractice as an elaboration of the EastPolynesian complex of the courtyardtemple (marae) found in all tropicalgroups from the Cook Islands toHawaii.

Under population pressure theneeds of competing tribes inevitablyled to warfare, which became endemic

in Fiji, New Zealand, Easter Island andthe Marquesas in particular. Chronicwarfare was associated with canniba¬

lism, head-hunting and the use of theenemy bones for fish-hooks and utili¬tarian utensils.

To meet the preference for hand-to-hand combat, weapons comprisedwooden spears, a class of spear-clubsused like a quarter-staff, two-handedclubs, wooden daggers and the one-handed stabbing club (patu) of NewZealand and Easter Island.

By tacit agreement the bow wasoutlawed in warfare; it was used in

Tahiti only in archery sport and inSamoa for shooting birds and .rats.The unwieldy size of the standard clubfrom the Marquesas reminds us of the

frequently ceremonial nature of Poly¬nesian warfare, where nominated cham¬

pions decided the issue in single com¬bat before an audience of dancing

supporters.Roger S. Duff

"Tapa" mask of the Bainingpeople of New Britain. Suchmasks are used in ceremonies

connected with the

propitiation of the dead andthe initiation of adolescents.

Photo Auckland Institute and Museum,New Zealand

Modern graphic artists of New Guinea

On this double page we present sixetchings executed by contemporaryartists of New Guinea taught andguided by Rolf Italiaander, a Dutchwriter and ethnologist whose travelsthroughout the world have inspiredhim to study the relationship betweentraditional folk culture and modern art.

In 1972 In New Guinea he repeatedan experiment he had carried out in1953 in Poto Poto, near Brazzaville

(Congo), where he taught the tech¬niques of dry point etching toCongolese artists who produced 82remarkable etchings, today In theMuseum of Modern Art, in Paris.

Rolf Italiaander's experiments inNew Guinea took place in Lae, a bigport on the island's east coast, In

Two men and a bear, by Nani Kimai

Goroka in the highlands, and invillages of the Sepik region, where heencouraged local artists to acquirethe skills of copperplate engraving.The artists quickly mastered this tech¬nique, which was absolutely new tothem. "When I told them they couldfirst make a design in pencil If theywished," says Italiaander, "most ofthem refused, saying that they knew inadvance exactly what they were goingto do." The 41 etchings made bythese artists reveal their profoundawareness of their cultural identity;they depict the world around them

animals, flowers, dwellings, their wayof life, customs using a distinctivesymbolism and a style which, whileretaining its links with tradition,

Fabulous creature, by Nani Kimai

22

displays vitality and originality. Thesubjects of the etchings show how theartists have remained rooted in their

traditional world: "Wabag house ofthe Enga people", "My forefather thecannibal", "What a young man mustgive to his bride", "Fabulous animals",etc. Many of the artists gave writtenexplanations of their works, but theetchings provide such a rich and vividpicture of life that they speak forthemselves.

Spitting snake, unknown artist

Mask, by Ula Melo Pokana

The spirit of the forefathers, by Nani Kimai

23

Do we havethe teachers we need

for higher education ?by Dragoljub Najman

DRAGOLJUB NAJMAN of Yugoslavia isDirector of Unesco's Department of HigherEducation and Training of Educational Personnel.He has written many articles and has publishedtwo books on educational problems. He exam¬ines the subject of the present article morefully in his book " L'enseignement supérieur,pour quoi faire ? ' (What's the purpose of highereducation?), published by Fayard, Paris. 1974.His study "Education in Africa What Next?"was published in English by Editions Maison-neuve, Paris, in 1972.

ONE may sometimes wonderwhat connexion, if any, some

of the people who teach in higher edu¬cation have with real life and society.How many of those in faculties of artsand sciences responsible for trainingsecondary school teachers have them¬selves actually taught In secondaryschools? How many of those whoteach economics have played an activepart in the preparation of five-year,four-year or annual economic develop¬ment plans?

How many of those who teach inschools of engineering have ever beenIn charge of factory workshops orbuilding sites? How many of thosewho teach law also practise it, albeitonly on a part-time basis?

Text © CopyrightReproduction prohibited

And yet these are the sameteachers who claim an unchallengedright to have the final' say on all formsof higher education. "Universityprofessors constitute a priestly castedispensing education like a sacrament.Few Innovations or changes emanatingfrom outside the monopoly exercisedby this professional clergy stand muchof a chance of being approved oradopted..." (1).

It would be a mistake, however, toput all the blame for this state of

affairs on the shoulders of college and

(1) La Contribution des Universités à l'Edu¬cation Permanente (The Contribution ofUniversities to Lifelong Education), FrenchNational Commission for Unesco, Paris, 1972.

24

A critical look

at conservatism

in the world's

universities

university teachers. We must notforget that in many institutions ofhigher learning their position is farfrom clear-cut since they are regularlycalled upon to do totally different tasksat one and the same time: to carryout research work, deliver their

lectures and teach in class, as well as

act as supervisors and trainers offuture generations of scholars andscientists.

I believe there can be no real reform

of higher education unless a radicalchange is made in the selection andcomposition of the teaching staff.

The doors should be Immediatelyopened wide to those who, althoughthey may not possess degrees or

doctorates, nevertheless have vast

experience In their own specialities.Vigorous action is needed to ensurethat teaching staff are recruited solelyon the basis of competence, even if itmeans recruiting part-time staff.

At present it is possible to passfrom nursery to primary school, thenfrom secondary school to universityand to be awarded a doctorate, and

finally to become a teacher withoutever having had any real contact withlife. If we really wish education,higher education in particular, tobecome something other than a self-perpetuating process of this kind, it isessential and urgent that people withcompletely different backgrounds and

qualifications should be drawn into theteaching profession.

Students and student behaviour are

widely criticized. It is claimed thatthey are cut off from society and donothing but criticize it. Studies andnewspaper articles point out at lengthhow difficult it is for them to adaptto the needs of society when theyleave university. At the same time,the training of men and women whowill have to do important jobs andshoulder heavy responsibilities isentrusted to those who are in manycases out of touch with the economic,social and political realities of life intheir own countries.

It would be impossible to change the V

On achieving independencein 1960, Mali faced the urgentproblem of training specializedpersonnel needed for its deve¬lopment. "Not wishing to fol¬low the example of countrieswhich set up universities co¬pied from foreign models",writes the author of our arti¬

cle, Dragoljub Najman, in hisbook "L'Enseignement supé¬rieur pour quoi faire ?" (What'sthe purpose of higher educa¬tion ?). " Mali decided to setup a higher education systemfully adapted to existing condi¬tions and able to meet its im¬mediate needs for trained

personnel."The first institutioncreated along these lines wasthe Bamako training collegefor secondary school teachers(photos left). In addition totraining secondary teachersn the arts and sciences, the

college provides courses inthese fields for students en¬

tering other professions.

25

k whole of the teaching staff in all theworld's institutions of higher educationovernight. No one would want to dothis, and I am certainly not suggestingit. But now it is becoming bothessential and urgent to Include on theteaching staff people drawn directlyfrom working life.

I would stress the point that suchpersons should only have part-timeteaching jobs, since I consider itessential for them, for their teachingand for their students, adolescent or

adult, that they should keep their feeton the ground and should go on withtheir previous jobs in the economic,social or political life of their respect¬ive countries.

At the same time, college and univer¬sity teachers, professors, lecturers,etc., should participate in the country'seconomic and social activities. The

aim should be to reach a situation

where a mathematician or sociologist,a doctor, a journalist, an artist, ane'ectronics expert, a local or nationalgovernment official, an industrialistor a civil servant spends a certainnumber of hours each week teachingin higher education while carrying onhis or her regular job.

The sort of arrangement that certainfuturologists foresee for tomorrow,such as "higher education programmesthat make use of 'mentors' drawn from

the adult population... Accountants,doctors, engineers, businessmen, car¬penters, builders and planners mightall become part of an 'outside

faculty' " (1), should become a realitytoday.

"People with a creative talent inliterature and the arts will be added

to the list of teachers in spite of thefact that they have no degrees.Educated people will also be recruited,according to needs, from the corn

il) Future Shock, Alvin Toffler, BantamBooks, New York, 1971.

(2) Relationships between student activism,student participation and institutional reform:

Five case studies, Joseph Dt Bona, Unesco,1970.

(3) See note 1 page 24.

(4) A Chacun Selon sa Demande (To eachaccording to his needs), B. Girod del'Ain, in "Le Monde", Paris, 3 July 1973.

(5) The Academic Revolution, ChristopherJenks and David Riesman, Anchor Books,Doubleday and Co. Inc., N.Y. 1969.

(6) New Uniyersities in the United King¬dom:' Case studies on innovation in highereducation, H.J. Perkin, OECD, 1969.

(7) The concept of life-long integratedlearning "education permanente", and some

implications for university adult education,International Congress of University AdultEducation, 1967.

(8) Learning to Be, Unesco and Harrap,Paris and London, 1972.

munity, from the worlds of commerceand industry" (2). But why use thefuture tense?

"Non-academics, under certain con¬

ditions at least, have perhaps the samevocation and the same rights to teachas academics. They should thereforebe given an opportunity, and no dis¬crimination, statutory or otherwise,should be made against them" (3) and"Every society should include amongits educators its best artists, scientists,

writers, musicians, doctors, lawyers,priests, engineers, etc." (4).

"The faculty would Include sub¬stantial numbers of tenured members

who were not scholars but doctors,

lawyers, administrators, and so on.

with practical experience in workinglife into teaching.

I think it is up to higher educationto show the way and to set an exampleif, instead of tagging along behind theother forms of education, it wishes to

influence them, not only by the contentof the education which it provides butalso by Its methods and, in theparticular case we are discussing here,by the composition of its teaching staff.

Only a few years ago, this questionmight have seemed incongruous...During a round table held at Unescoheadquarters on the problems of therôle and function of the university inmodern society, the sti.dent participantsagreed to discuss the questions raised

Drawings by Trez Í"'1 Unesco Courier

A.. .MAZING WORLD, ISN'T IT ?

The programme would include not onlyregular academic courses in literature,psychology, and chemistry but clinicalexperience and field work of variouskinds" (5). But why use the con¬ditional in all these cases?

The answer is, alas, only too simple:the trouble lies in the physical resist¬ance by institutions of higher educationto such innovations "Scholars and

scientists have not in the pastshown . . . broad-mindedness. When¬

ever they have had power they haveused it to eliminate most non-

academicians from undergraduateteaching" (5).

This is the key to this problem,which is political and not technical.Its solution cannot depend solely onthe goodwill or lack of goodwill of theteaching profession, and it is up tosociety, to the government and theauthorities in general to bring people

by the admission of students to univer¬sity on condition that the agendashould also include a discussion on the

admission of teachers to university.

This is not surprising, consideringthat in Britain, for instance, "the core

of the problem of improving universityteaching... is that a vast majority ofacademic staff receive no training inhow to teach, so that... most teachershave to learn for themselves the art

of instruction" (6), or that "even morecurious has been the attitude of some

professors to what they call 'pedagogy'and for which they do not trouble tohide their scorn" (7).

The question, however, is far frombeing one of "pedagogy" alone: "Whatonce was an art the art of teachingis now a science, built on firm foun¬

dations, and linked to psychology,anthropology, cybernetics, linguisticsand many other disciplines. However,

26

the application of pedagogy by teachersis in many cases more of an art thana science" (8).

As regards the training of teachersfor higher education, it should berealized that education at this level is

comparable in certain respects meth¬odologically and technologically bothwith adult education and with the type

of education at present given at

primary and secondary levels.

It thus becomes essential to develop

these methods at the higher level andthese methods are something whichcan be learned. Few people are bornwith a gift for teaching. Most of thosewho are capable of putting over notonly their knowledge but also theiraptitudes and even their attitudes, are

. people who have learnt the technique.

After apprenticeships of varyinglengths, they have acquired the know¬ledge necessary to teach at a particularlevel. There is no reason to think

that teachers in higher education donot need this special training toenable them to put across their know¬ledge much more effectively andsuccessfully than they do at present.

In the coming years all countries,large or small, developed or devel¬oping, will obviously require an in¬creasing number of teachers for highereducation, and In world terms this

number will be very large indeed.I think that, in order to meet this

demand, we should see to It that prop¬erly organized training is given to allthose who will be full-time teachers in

higher education.

In this connexion, an interesting leadhas been given by the Government ofMali, which has set up a higher edu¬cation teacher training centre. At theCentre, prospective teachers for highereducation are trained in their specialsubjects and at the same time receiveteacher training so that they will beable not merely to instruct thecountry's future specialized personnel,but to educate them In the fullest

sense of the word.

Anyone may be required, at sometime in his or her life, to teach others.All students should therefore be

regarded as potential teachers. Thisentails a far-reaching adjustment Ineducation from the first stages ofhigher education onwards, but it doesnot involve students alone: "...manyengineers, most librarians, most agri¬cultural and other fieldmen, most

social workers, and many businessexecutives also need some preparationas agents who will assist edu¬cation" (7).

Seen from the viewpoint of lifelongeducation, a viewpoint adopted bymost education systems, "should we *not deduce from all this that an aptitude r

A TEACHER IS A TEACHER IS A TEACHER IS A TEACHER.

EDUCATION OR ISOLATION?

27

to educate should henceforward form

part of the training of every Individ¬ual...? More specifically, it wouldseem clear that educational theory andpractice have now become an integralpart of the training of any Individualbelonging to a modern society whoseoccupation endows him with influence,authority or responsibility towardsothers" (1).

Two conclusions seem to me to

follow from what has been said.

Firstly, if higher education is to givesome training to all students to enablethem to become the teachers of

tomorrow, will they ,be properlyequipped to teach if their own teacherstoday have not themselves beentrained? The answer to this question

Is certainly a negative one.

It follows that it is essential to givepedagogical training to all who aregoing to teach in higher educationtoday and tomorrow, so that they canthemselves produce educators in theirturn. This applies equally to full-timeteachers and to those who, as Isuggested earlier, might be called in toteach part-time. Here again the re¬sponsibility lies with higher education:it has not only to teach the teachersbut also to teach the teachers' teachers.

I believe a first practical step in thisdirection should be to change teachertraining institutions into institutionsgiving pre-service and in-service

training to all who teach or may berequired to teach full-time or part-timeat any level, including that of highereducation.

These institutions could be used as

a testing ground for an interdisciplinaryform of instruction with education itself

as the main subject on the curriculum.

It would in fact be extremely interestingto bring together in one place peoplewith experience in business, industry,etc., students preparing for variousoccupations and professions and uni¬versity faculty members who have notstudied to be educators, and give themall a training fully adapted to the tasksthat lie ahead.

Dragoljub Najman

(1) An Introduction to Lifelonq Education,Paul Lengrand, Unesco, Paris 1970.

A STONE AGE

ORCHESTRAThe earliest musical instruments

were made from the bones of mammoths

by Sergei N. Bibikov

SERGEI N. BIBIKOV, historian and correspondingmember of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences, is aresearcher at the Archaeological Institute of the Aca¬demy of Sciences of the Ukraine.

28

In this collection of bones are

instruments from one of the world's

oldest orchestras, dating back some

20,000 years. Made from the bones

of mammoths, these percussion

instruments were unearthed at a

Palaeolithic site near the village of

Mezin, Ukraine. The largest include

a shoulder-blade (left), a leg-bone

(below), and a hip-bone (right).

ARCHAEOLOGICAL excavations

carried out at the site of a

Palaeolithic settlement (some 20,000years old) in the village of Mezin,near Chernigov in the Ukraine, bet¬ween 1954 and 1962, brought to lightthe remains of a house built of the

bones of a mammoth.

Inside the house, Ukrainian archae-logists I.G. Pidoplichko and I.G. Shov-koplyas found some large mammothbones decorated with a cut-out geo¬metrical design and coloured red.They were in a place apart and ap¬peared to form a set, although theirpurpose was not immediately clear.

The finds included a shoulder blade,

a thigh bone, two jaw bones, a frag¬ment of pelvis and a portion of a mam¬moth's skull. Two ivory rattles, amallet fashioned from a reindeer's

antler and a large number of sea shellswere also discovered on the floor of

the house, together with a "rattling"bracelet with a simple but highly artis¬tic design and consisting of five piecesof mammoth-tusk ivory with carvedopen-work decoration.

Near to the bones were found four

heaps of pure yellow and red mineralochre and also eight bone perforators.The floor of the dwelling bore thetraces of three fireplaces and fourpairs of bone struts for supporting thewigwam-type poles which had formerlyheld up the roof.

Detailed analysis of the finds hasrevealed that the history of this Pal¬aeolithic construction falls neatly intotwo periods. At first it was used as awinter dwelling, but in the course of

time it became unsafe the whole

three-ton edifice was in danger ofcollapse and was abandoned by itsinhabitants.

As the settlement grew, the villagersneeded a public building, so they tookover the old house, re-furbishing it,shoring it up from the inside, cleaningout the rubbish and using it as abuilding for festive occasions and rites.

It was then that the decorated mam¬

moth bones and other objects of anon-utilitarian nature were brought intothe building. It should be pointed outthat some of the minority peoples in thenorth of Russia were still using aban¬doned houses for similar ceremonial

purposes until fairly recent times.

Examination of the mammoth bones

eventually made it possible, in 1974, ^

29

Cro-MagnoncastanetsFormed of flattened rings ofmammoth-tusk ivory withcarved decoration, this"castanet bracelet" discovered

at Mezin, in the Ukraine, isthe first Palaeolithic

instrument of its kind ever

found. The rings make aharmonious sound when

rattled together, and it isthought that the braceletmay have been used toaccompany dances, thussuggesting that dancing wasalready practised inCro-Magnon times some20,000 years ago.

to establish that they all formed part* of a set of percussion instruments.The reindeer-horn mallet and the rattle

fulfilled similar functions, while the

bracelet undoubtedly has some con¬nexion with dancing, correspondingroughly in function to a pair of casta¬nets. The red dye and the bone per¬forators were part of the "props".

The purpose of the objects found atMezin was established by a team ofarchaeologists, palaeontologists, foren¬sic scientists and medical experts.The way in which the surface of thebones is worn in places, the way theouter part of the bone tissue is com¬pacted and has flaked away from theinner, spongy part, the way in whichthe deformation of parts of the boneis strictly localized, and in which cer¬tain points on the surface have beenpolished, as well as a number of otherclues, left the investigators in no doubtthat these were in fact percussion ins¬truments.

The discovery of such instrumentsdating from nearly 20,000 years ago isof the greatest significance, and is thefirst such discovery to have beenmade. Previously, only bone flutes,which incidentally have still not beenscientifically investigated, had beendiscovered from Palaeolithic times in

the U.S.S.R., and in Central andWestern Europe.

The "castanet" bracelet is the firstsuch instrument ever to have been

found, and the only Palaeolithic objectto have been discovered in the

U.S.S.R. which confirms that the art

of dancing was known in Central and

Eastern Europe in Cro-Magnon times.

Although music is generally recog¬nized to be one of the supreme mani¬festations of culture, its early historyhas not yet been very thoroughlyexplored, as Professors MauriceFreedman and Bruno Nettl made clear

in a "Unesco Courier" article ("Musicof the Centuries", June 1973). Musichas generally been regarded as datingback to the civilizations of the ancient

Orient and to Antiquity.

As a result of the discovery of thesePalaeolithic instruments, this datinghas now been pushed back by at least15,000 years, and rhythmic music isseen to have been already in existencein Cro-Magnon times. It thus appearsthat Cro-Magnon man had alreadymastered the elements of musical

rhythm, tone and phrasing and wasaware of the emotional impact of mu¬sic. Music is thus probably as old asworking skills and crafts and as oldas society itself.

Dancing, which can also express thewhole complexity of human experience

from imitations of the gestures ofworkers and craftsmen to the expres¬sion of the most subtle emotions has

also existed for as long as music.One of the earliest forms of the com¬

bined musical and choreographic per¬formance whether of ritual signifi¬cance or simply dancing for pleasure

was done to the accompaniment ofpercussion instruments and also possi¬bly to a sung accompaniment.

The structure of. music and dancingis frequently compared with that oflanguage. This emphasizes the corre

lation between words and sounds,

between speech and music as a vehi¬cle for the expression of thought andideas.

With the help of ethnography andother specialized fields of study, usingthe methods of cultural history andcomparative analysis and even experi¬mental methods, it should be possibleto find out the basic facts about the

musical culture of Palaeolithic times.

This will give us a deeper insight intothe mentality of homo sapiens, how heperceived the world, his emotionalmake-up, his behaviour and otheraspects of his mental activity.

In order to get a rough Idea of thesounds produced by the bone instru¬ments, rather than relying only on theethnographic evidence, an experimentwas carried out at the Institute of

Forensic Science, in Kiev (Ukraine).A musician carefully tapped out arhythm on different parts of theshoulder-blade instrument. Sounds of

various timbres hard, resonant andmusically expressive were obtained.This experiment was a first step inthe direction of investigating the rangeof sounds of Palaeolithic untuned per¬cussion instruments.

Sergei N. Bibikov

30

Prehistoric pan-pipesWhile most of the musical instruments unearthed at the Palaeolithic site at Mezin

(Ukraine) were percussion instruments, flutes like this one (top) have been

discovered in Moldavia (U.S.S.R.), France, U.K., Czechoslovakia, and elsewhere.Fashioned from a stag's antler, this flute found in Moldavia may be between 12 and1 5,000 years old. The antler was hollowed out and six holes (four on one side, two

on the other) pierced to modulate the sound. Later, in Neolithic times (some5,000 years ago) greater numbers of more sophisticated musical instruments were

made, like these bone Pan-pipes (above) reconstructed from fragments. In formand conception they are remarkably similar to Pan-pipes still used in various partsof the world today (Latin America, Rumania, Greece, etc.).

31

Bartolomé de Las Casas

FREEDOM AND THE RIGHT TO HUMAN DIGNITY

(Continued from page 13 )

of tyranny he did so in terms applica¬ble to any place and time and whichare valid even today.

No government, he maintained, couldbe imposed on a group of humanbeings against their free will. Norcould a people be forced to accept areligion against their will. Here LasCasas stands out as a champion of"tolerance" and "freedom of con¬

science" with respect to minority peo¬

ples. He supported the right of Jewishand Moslem minorities to full co-exis¬

tence alongside other religious com¬munities. He felt that no community

should be obliged to accept Christianpreaching against its will.

"If the entire republic, by the com¬mon accord of all of its members", he

wrote, does not wish to hear us, if,as is the case with the Indians, it

wishes to remain with its own rites on

its own lands where there have never

been any Christians, then we cannotmake war on them."

Las Casas repeatedly maintainedthat neither the crime of idolatry (whichhe did not consider applicable) norabominable or unnatural sins, nor the

practice of human sacrifice were law¬ful grounds for punishing the Indians,making war on them or for deprivingthem of their lands and freedom.

By the same token, he rejected theidea that the term "blasphemy" was

applicable to the normal practice ofnon-Christian religious rites (here LasCasas again included not only theIndians but the Jews and other peo¬

ples).

For Las Casas this principle of free¬dom finds its application particularlyon the government level. Although wedo not find the term "democracy" in

any of his writings, we do find otherswhich are equivalent such as "govern¬ment by common consent", "govern¬ment by free will", etc. And he assert¬ed the principle that "power emanatesdirectly from the people".

Departing from the current of thoughtwhich later evolved toward absolu¬

tism, Las Casas maintained that gov¬ernment by monarchy was not derivedfrom the authority of the Pater Fami¬lias. "Monarchies", he wrote, "are amore modern phenomenon", meaningby that that they were not created byNature and did not originate at thebeginning of human society. This wastantamount to maintaining that mon¬archies were not an obligatory formof government but depended on theagreement of men who, indeed, had

invented them. The government ofkings, he wrote, "is based on thevoluntary consent of the subjects andtherefore does not imply either naturalforce or absolute necessity".

Therefore, for Las Casas, the full con¬

sent of the members of a communitydid not alienate their freedom which

was entrusted into the hands of the

sovereign, but rather implied that thesovereign's task was to defend andperfect that freedom. Las Casas

specifically told the King of Castilethat when his rule was accepted bythe Indians, it had to be confirmed In

order to preserve that precious right:"the Indians do not lose their freedom",

he wrote, "by accepting and havingYour Majesty as universal lord. Rather,having made good any defects thatthey may have had in their republics,the lordship of Your Majesty shallclean and purify them and thus shallthey enjoy better freedom." (Amongthe Remedies).

But Las Casas went even further.

Even after they had been converted toChristianity, he said, the Indians re¬mained free and any government overthem would only be lawful when theyhad freely recognized it as their own."Should it be that after becomingChristians they do not wish to receiveand obey such a supreme lord", heaffirmed, "this is no reason for makingwar on them so long as they remainin the faith and show respect forjustice."

This thesis, which may rightly be cal¬led democratic, is complemented by hisassertion of a right which, under theabsolute monarchies in Europe, is

rarely acknowledged by other authorsin the 16th and 17th centuries: the

"right of resistance". For there arecases, says Las Casas, where royalprerogatives and decrees, howevercoercive, cannot be received, obeyed

nor carried out, if they are against thefaith, and also "if they run counterto the service and well-being of thekingdom and against the commongood."

The defence of the democratic prin¬ciple required, at that time, a demon¬

stration of the political capacity of theIndians so Las Casas completed andreinforced his spirited defence of thefreedom of the Indians with evidence

of their political abilities.

The greater part of his ApologeticHistory, many passages of his Historyof the Indies, and other writings arebased on the merits and legality of the

systems of government which theIndians had established when theywere free.

This leads on to the crowning prin¬ciple of the Las Casas system: theprinciple of humanity.

For Las Casas, "all nations of the

world are composed of men and eachand all men have but one definition

and that is that they are rationalbeings". All possess the same phys¬ical and mental faculties; "all have thenatural principles or seeds to under¬stand and learn and know the sciences

and those things which they do notknow and this is so not only amongthose of virtuous disposition, but evenin those marred by moral depravity...";"all cherish goodness and take plea¬sure in what is agreeable and joyousand all reject and hate evil and aredisturbed by what is offensive anddoes them harm."

Differences indeed exist, said LasCasas, since men live in different

places and so are subject to variationsin the conditions influenced by the"heavens" (understood in its cosmo¬graphie not its theological sense). Andso it is evident that the result of such

diversification of causes produces dif¬ferent effects on the human body andthese effects determine the differences

between one man and another.

Yet for Las Casas the homegeneityof human nature far outweighs individ¬ual difference and exerts a powerfulInfluence on the oneness of mankind.

Thus the Ideas of particularism anduniversalism are expressed by LasCasas in a new way that comes closerto the thinking of modern man.

The cosmopolitanism he professedgoes far beyond a mere ethical atti¬tude; it relates directly to everydayhuman life and determines the relations

between all men and women on a

planet which, in the words of the greatSpanish humanist Luis Vives, had beenmade explicit for the first time.

Las Casas thus depicts for us anauthentic "cosmopolitanism of co¬existence", in which "all men are united

and linked together by a naturalbrotherhood and kinship...", as hewrites in his prologue to History ofthe Indies.

And so the human universalism ofLas Casas establishes the most exalted

of all political rights: the right tohuman dignity.

José Antonio Maravail

32

BOOKSHELF

UNESCO'S LITERATURETRANSLATIONS SERIES

JAPAN

Ugetsu Monogatari ("Tales ofMoonlight and Rain") by Ueda Aki-nari, translated by Leon ZolbrodAllen and Unwin Ltd., London, and

University of British Columbia Press,Vancouver (for Canada and U.S.A.),1974. 280 pp.

Spring Snow, by Yukio Mishima,translated by Michael Gallagher.Seeker and Warburg, London;Charles E. Tuttle Company, Tokyo;Random House of Canada, Ltd.,

Toronto; and Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.,New York, 1972. 394 pp.

The Broken Commandment, byShimazaki Toson. translated byKenneth Strong. University of TokyoPress, 1974. 249 pp.

Japanese Folk-Plays: The Ink-Smeared Lady and Other Kyogen,translated by Shio Sakanishi. CharlesE. Tuttle Company, Rutland, Ver¬mont and Tokyo, Japan, 150 pp.

IRAN

B Love and War; Adventures fromthe "Firuz Shah Nama" of Sheikh

Bighami, translated by William L.Hanaway, Jr. Scholars' Facsimilesand Reprints, Inc., Delmar, NewYork, 1974. 208 pp.

E Folk Tales of Ancient Persia,

retold by Forough Hekmat with thecollaboration of Yann Lovelock.

Caravan Books, Delmar, New York,

1974. 119 pp.

G3 GS

OTHER BOOKS

Amazonia: Man and Culture in a

Counterfeit Paradise, by Betty J.Meggers. Aldine Publishing Co., Chi¬cago, 3rd impression, 1973.

Romanian Poets of Our Time.

Univers Publishing House, Bucha¬rest, 1974. 148 pp.

E One World Only: Industrialisationand Environment in Asia: ReportNo. 9. Edited by Dieter Bielenstein.Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Tokyo, 1973.369 pp.

B The Effects of Developments inthe Biological and Chemical Scienceson CW Disarmament Negotiations.Stockholm International Peace

Research Institute (SIPRI), 1974:54 pp.; The Problem of Chemicaland Biological Warfare, Vol. VI:Technical Aspects of Early Warningand Verification. A SIPRI Publication.

Almqvist and Wiksell International,Stockholm and Humanities Press Inc.,

New York, 1975. 308 pp.; Tacticaland Strategic Antisubmarine War¬fare. A SIPRI Monograph. The MITPress, Cambridge, Mass., and Lon¬don, U.K. and Almqvist and WiksellInternational,' Stockholm, 1974. 148 pp.

Global science

information network

Unesco has begun projects that willenable Bulgaria, Colombia, Guinea, Indiaand Sudan to establish or improve scientificand technological documentation and infor¬mation services. Costing nearly $2 million,the projects are the first phase of Unesco'sUNISIST programme, which aims to dev¬elop a world-wide network of scientificand technical information services that will

systematically process, store and exchangeinformation, studies and reports for thebenefit of scientists and technologists in allcountries.

World populationup by 78 million

The world's population reached 3,860million in mid-1973, an increase of 78 millionin one year, reports the latest U.N.Demographic Yearbook. The figure rep¬resents a 2.1 '% annual growth rate which,If maintained, will double world population(to over 7,700 million) by the year 2007.The U.N. Yearbook presents internationalstatistics on area, population, birth, death,marriage and divorce and life expectancy($38 cloth-bound; $30 paperbound; orderfrom Sales Section, United Nations, NewYork or Geneva, or from booksellers).

Unesco's literature

translations programme

Nearly 450 works have been translatedunder Unesco's auspices since its literaturetranslations programme was launched in1948. The works cover religion, philosophy,poetry, history, classical and modemnovels, among other literary genres. Theybelong to over 60 different literatures(Asian, African, Latin American, European,Arabic, Persian, as well as non-Slavicliteratures of the Soviet Union). Most havebeen translated into English and French,and others into German, Italian, Arabic,Spanish and some Asian and African lan¬guages. (See "Bookshelf this page.)

'To Reach the Village...'

In its series "Unesco in Action", Unesco'sOffice of Public Information has recentlypublished a booklet entitled, "To Reach theVillage...", describing Unesco's promotionof rural newspapers in Africa. The booklet,in English, French and Spanish languageeditions, traces the various stages leadingto the creation of rural newspapers in theCongo, Mali, Niger, Tanzania and Togo andof an African Association of Rural Journal¬

ists made up of editors from these countriesand from Senegal.

Women in science:

a man's world

"Women in science: a man's world" isthe theme of the latest issue of Unesco's

quarterly Impact of Science on Society(Vol. XXV, No. 2, April-June 1975). Lessthan a quarter of the world's scientists arewomen, although as physicist JacquelineFeldman points out in her article "Thesavant and the midwife", "the time whenthe proposition that women could be

scientists needed to be proved is past."Among other articles contributed by eightwomen scientists and science writers are

"Woman's scientific creativity", "Obstaclesto women in science" and "How a woman

scientist deals professionally with men."

Unesco studies

on Slavic cultures

Beginning this year, Unesco is to publisha series of booklets, in English and French,on leading figures of Slavic cultures. Theywill include works on Pushkin, the Ukrainianpoet Shevchenko, the famous Byelorussianscholar Skorna, the Polish poet and patriotMickiewicz and the Bulgarian writer andpatriot Botev. Other activities plannedunder Unesco's continuing project on thestudy of Slavic cultures include the publi¬cation (in French, in 1976) of an art albumon the Slavic peoples' use of wood inarchitecture and sculpture, and the prepa¬ration of art albums on the decorative arts,monumental painting and easel painting.

Flashes...

Nationwide health service campaignshave enabled Cuba to eradicate malaria and

poliomyelitis and to reduce the threat ofother diseases, reports WHO's monthlymagazine "World Health".

Two conferences on revising history andgeography textbooks are being held thisyear under the joint auspices of the NationalCommissions for Unesco in the German

Federal Republic and Poland.

In Bangladesh, WHO and UNICEF havelaunched emergency campaigns to distribute30 million vitamin capsules to protect thecountry's 15 million preschool children fromblindness due to vitamin deficiency.

B Art thefts are increasing, and accordingto one authority at least $100 billion worthof stolen works of art are currently at large.B Iran has become the 11th country toadhere to the Unesco Convention for theProtection of the World Cultural and Natural

Heritage.

Many Asian countries are falling serious¬ly behind U.N. targets for development ofwater resources, reports the U.N. Economicand Social Commission for Asia and thePacific.

INTERNATIONALWOMEN'S YEAR

w JB ^

This stamp commemorating InternationalWomen's Year 1975 was issued by theUnited Nations Postal Administration, onMay 9, 1975. Depicting a silhouette of aman and a woman, shown together asequals, it underlines the United Nationscall for "a change in laws and traditionsthat discriminate against women..." and"action to redress the existing imbalancesin all fields..."

33

Letters to the Editor

VOTES FOR WOMEN

IN ISLE OF MAN

Sir,

Your March 1975 issue on Inter¬

national Women's Year is excellent and

I look forward to the August-September1975 issue on the same subject withthe greatest interest.

In the March issue it is stated that

New Zealand was, in 1893, the firstnation in the world to grant women thevote. In fact women obtained the vote

in the Isle of Man in 1881.

D.H. RowledgeDerby, U.K.

Editor's note: Situated half waybetween England and Ireland, the Isle ofMan has a 1 ,000-year-old parliament, theCourt of Tynwald, which is the oldestparliament in the British Commonwealth.

PERILS OF POLLUTION

Sir,

Keeping the oceans clean frompollution is a problem throughout theworld. Equally vital is the problem ofdisease among the commercial varietiesof fish, much of it caused by suchpollution. I believe readers would beinterested to know about some of the

results obtained by scientists in thisfield, such as the causes of certaindiseases, preventive measures, deathrate among fish population from malig¬nant tumours, etc.

Lidia Borovik,

Student, Department of Biology -& Soil Science

Voronezh University, U.S.S.R.

'ON TRANSLATION'

Sir,

I would like to congratulate you forpublishing the most interesting article,"On Translation", by Octavio Paz inyour February 1975 issue. Equallyinteresting was the accompanying illus¬tration of the engraving detail from"Metamorphosis II" by the Netherlands'artist, Mauritz Cornelis Escher.

D.G. Sudra

Thornton Heath

Surrey, U.K.

THE ODYSSEY

OF VLADIMIR RUSANOV

Sir,

November 1975 marks the birth

centenary of Vladimir AlexandrovichRusanov, Russian scientist, traveller anda great explorer of the Arctic region.

. , For some years Rusanov lived inFrance, where he studied naturalsciences at the University of Paris andwhere he joined a French Arcticexpedition under Charles Bernard in1908. Then he was approached by the

Russian government, and at its requesthe led four subsequent expeditions intothe Arctic, each of which was a majorcontribution to the exploration andconquest of the Polar region.

In 1912, after a successful expeditionto Spitzbergen, during which geologicalprospecting and hydrographie investi¬gations were carried out, Rusanov madeup his mind to navigate from theAtlantic to the Pacific via the Arctic

Ocean on board his sailing and motorship Hercules.

This expedition ended disastrouslywith the deaths of all its eleven

members, including Rusanov's fiancée,Juillet Jean, who had joined the ventureas the expedition's doctor.

Vladimir Rusanov, who sacrificed hislife for the sake of world science and

the exploration of the Arctic, is wellremembered and respected by scientistsand Polar explorers in many countries.I believe his efforts and achievements

should be made more widely known onthe occasion of his centenary this year.

Alexander Ustinskikh

U.S.S.R. Journalists' Union

Orel, U.S.S.R.

EDUCATION FOR PROGRESS

Sir,

A student in my final year at school,I am a member of a Unesco club which

I also founded. My wish is to help toeducate the African villagers who arestill illiterate, to teach them to read andwrite so that they can overcome thescourge of ignorance which is holdingback the development of Africancountries.

Instead of spending enormous sumson weapons, it is time to provide thesepeoples with help and teaching so thatthey can improve sanitation and farmingtechniques. "Dignity comes throughlearning", my fellow-African, AmadouMahtar M'Bow, Director-General ofUnesco, has said. Only through edu¬cation can we get rid of numerousobstacles which prevent the Africanvillagers from climbing the ladder ofprogress.

François NkodiaBrazzaville

The People's Republic of the Congo

AFRICAN VILLAGE NEWSROOM

Sir,

A sixth-former at Loum, in Cameroon,I came across the "Unesco Courier" for

the first time at the home of the head¬

master of a school at N'Lohe, 12 km

away. I thoroughly enjoy reading yourmagazine, published as It is by Unesco,the world organization best qualified toinform and educate the public.

In the rural area where I live we

have great difficulty in obtaining news.The local newspapers provide, newsabout our own country, but in themodern world it is vital to find out about

world problems and we do not have thispossibility. So we have formed a groupof senior pupils, of which I am president,

in order to collect information and ideas

to pass on to our fellow pupils and thepeople at large, since we- do not evenhave a library.

Robert M'Pondo

Loum, Cameroon

VICISSITUDES

OF A LEONARDO MANUSCRIPT

Sir,

Your impressive issue on the re¬discovered manuscripts of Leonardo daVinci (October 1974) gave readers agood opportunity to get acquaintedwith Leonardo's projects and ideaswhich placed him far ahead of thecontemporary scientific world. I do notthink there is another written source on

Leonardo so well and clearly worded,and so rich in facts about Leonardo's

versatile genius.

However, I would like to comment onPaolo Galluzzi's article, "The StrangeVicissitudes of Leonardo's Manuscripts".In it he writes that Leonardo's Codex

on The Flight of Birds was sold by acertain Count Manzoni to the eminent

Leonardo scholar, Theodore Sabach-nikoff. In fact, Fyodor VasilyevichSabachnikov bought this manuscriptfrom Manzoni's heirs at an auction after

the Count's death. Moreover, althoughthe article does say that Sabachnikoffhanded over the Codex to the Biblioteca

Reale in Turin, it fails to mention that

the Russian scholar made a gift of thisinvaluable document to the Italian

people. With the help of eminentscientists, Sabachnikov published a fac¬simile edition of this Codex. It came

out in 300 copies in 1893. Printed onthe kind of parchment used in Leonardo'stime, specially produced for theoccasion, it still remains a unique workof facsimile printing of ancient manu¬scripts.

Yu. Elenev-PerovskyMoscow, U.S.S.R.

EXPLORING THE UNIVERSE

Sir,

I eagerly await the arrival of the"Unesco Courier", because the subjectstreated in the magazine are alwaysdealt with in a thorough and stimulatingway.

Your magazine thus keeps me fullyinformed on a wide range of topics ofparamount interest to the modern world.I particularly enjoyed the issues devotedto Copernicus (April, 1973) and Leo¬nardo da Vinci (October, 1974).

Astronomy, one of the world's oldestsciences, has reached a very high levelof technical achievement through theextraordinarily precise and abundantdata about the universe which are

available to modern scientists. I hopeyou will consider this exciting subjectas a possible theme when planningfuture issues.

Marina Núñez Jordán

Santiago de Cuba, Cuba

Editor's note: We are consideringthis as a future subject.

z<

oUJ

34

Just published

by Unesco

Leading environmental experts from eight countries ana¬lyse a major dilemma facing modern society: should wepreserve or rebuild our cities?

Why trouble with historic towns? Anxieties of city dwe¬llers Europe: the comprehensive effort Japan: thegrowing threat to two ancient capitals Tunisia:hopes for the Medina of Tunis Iran: the vitality of Isfa¬han Italy: the other Venice.

An outstanding contribution to the international debateon conservation.

186 pages 50 F

Co-edition : doom Helm I Unesco

Exclusive distributor in the U.K.:

Croom Helm Ltd., London

Where to renew your subscriptionand place your order for other Unesco publications

Order from any bookseller or write cured to the NationalDistributor in your country. (See 'list below; names ofdistributors in countries not listed, along with subscrip¬tion rates In local currency, will be supplied on request.)

AUSTRALIA. Publications: Educational Supplies Pty.Ltd., P.O. Box 33, Brookvale, 2100, NSW; Periodicals: Do¬minie Pty., Limited, Box 33, Post Office, Brookvale 2100,NSW. Sub-agent: United Nations Association of Australia,Victorian Division 5th floor, 134-136 Flinders St, Mel¬bourne (Victoria), 3000. AUSTRIA. Verlag GeorgFromme & C\, Arbeitergasse 1-7, 1051, Vienna. BEL¬GIUM. "Unesco Courier" Dutch edition only: N.V. Han-delmaatschappij Keesing, Keesinglaan 2-18, 2100Deurne-Antwerpen. French edition and general Unescopublications agent: Jean de Lannoy, 112, rue du Trône,Brussels 5. CCP 708-23. BURMA. Trade Corporation N°9, 550-552 Merchant Street. Rangoon. CANADA. In¬formation Canada, Ottawa (Ont.). CYPRUS. "MAM",Archbishop Makarios 3rd Avenue, P. O. Box 1722, Nicosia.

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ART OF OceaniaNew Guinea-Melanesia, which spans the western Pacific from West Irian to .NewCaledonia, is one of the major cultural areas of Oceania. In New Guinea,500 languages are spoken, a diversity that also characterizes its ways of life andart. This mask of "tapa" (bark cloth) from the Papuan Gulf area of the island isone of many used in initiation rituals held every 10 or 20 years. (See pages 14-23for article and photo report on the art of Oceania.)

Photo National Museum. Wellington, New Zealand

111111

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