Primitive Intelligence

A BOOK that should be read by every person interested in race relations has just been published (at 12/6) by the Macmillan Company of New York • Primitive Intelligence and Environment, by Dr. Stanley D. Porteus, Victorian-born psychologist at the University of Hawaii, who formerly was with the Victorian Education Department and on the staff of the Melbourne University.

Dr. Porteus’s book, in comparing the aboriginals of Central Australia with the bushmen of the Kalahari desert of South Africa, soundly refutes the notion that the Australian aboriginals are the lowest ol mankind. He concludes that on one count only did the bushmen excel, and that is ir* their remarkable skill in rock painting. In knowledge and use of their environment they are adjudged the equals of the Australians, but asl regards social organisation and tested intelli gence, the bushmen are hopelessly be hind.

The material upon which the book is based was collected by Dr. Porteus dur ing a . field expedition in 1929 to the interior of Australia undertaken at the invitation of the Australian National Re search Council, supplemented by a simi lar excursion to the Kalahari desert in 1934, backed by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Psychology of a Primitive People, in which Dr. Porteus described the life and tribal customs of the abori gines, in November, 1931, was chosen as the book of the month by the American Scientific Book Club, and the c'ub again has honoured Dr. Porteus by voting his latest book the July, 1937, book of the month.

Throughout the new book Dr. Porteus keeps admirable poise. He happily i* not impaled on either horn of the opposing propositions that people are made what they are by the place where they live, or that they live where they do because that is the kind of people they are.

Nor does he mistake racial differences for racial inequalities, though inequali

ties, too, may exist.

John Williams.