We have seen that the early Scandinavian release was primary, is it unreasonable to suggest that the Mediterranean release may have been first practiced by the Eskimo and from this race the races to the south acquired it? If in paleochrystic ice or prehistoric Eskimo deposits we could find the flattened nock end of an arrow it might settle the question.
It is a curious fact that the release universally practiced by the Mediterranean nations, and a release which I thought was associated with the higher races is also seen among the lowest savage races today, namely, the Andaman Islanders, the Pygmy negritos of the Philippine Islands, the Veddahs of Ceylon, the Botocudo Indians of Brazil and other low savage peoples.
On an island in the Gulf of California is found the remnant of a tribe known as the Seri Indians. A voluminous report of these Indians was published in the 17th Annual Report of the U. S. Bureau of Ethnology, by DR. WM. MCGEE. MAJOR POWELL, as Chief of the Bureau, in an introductory note to the Report says, "Among these aborigines known to Caucasians the Seri Indians appear to stand nearly or Fig. 19 Apache quite at the bottom of the scale. They are without agricultural or other organized industries: they still haunt their primeval shorelands, and their fisheries are crude and simple, while their water-craft (in which their culture culminates) are practically individual in design, manufacture and function; and their social organization is of peculiarly significant simplicity." In this report one figure is given of a Seri warrior in the attitude of shooting the bow. A perfect Mediterranean release is shown. (Fig. 18).
DR. TEN KATE sent me a photograph of an Apache warrior from San Carlos, Arizona. He is in the act of shooting the bow. (Fig. 19). The release is clearly Mediterranean using three fingers.