PDF - Wallace Online

196 NATURAL SELECTION ixmen and women, wore the kangaroo -skin, which was theironly covering, not from any feeling of modesty, but over theshoulders to keep the back dry and warm. A cloth over theshoulders was also the national dress of the Maories. ThePatagonians wear a cloak or mantle over the shoulders, andthe Fuegians often wear a small piece of skin on the back,laced on, and shifted from side to side as the wind blows.The Hottentots also wore a somewhat similar skin over theback, which they never removed, and in which they wereburied. Even in the tropics most savages take precautionsto keep their backs dry. The natives of Timor use the leafof a fan palm, carefully stitched up and folded, which theyalways carry with them, and which, held over the back, formsan admirable protection from the rain. Almost all the Malayraces, as well as the Indians of South America, make greatpalm-leaf hats, four feet or more across, which they use duringtheir canoe voyages to protect their bodies from heavy showersof rain ;and they use smaller hats of the same kind whentravelling by land.We find, then, that so far from there being any reason tobelieve that a hairy covering to the back could have beenhurtful or even useless to prehistoric man, the habits ofmodern savages indicate exactly the opposite view, as theyevidently feel the want of it, and are obliged to providesubstitutes of various kinds. The perfectly erect posture ofman may be supposed to have something to do with the disappearanceof the hair from his body while it remains on hishead ;but when walking, exposed to rain and wind, a mannaturally stoops forwards and thus exposes his back and the;undoubted fact that most savages feel the effects of cold andwet most severely in that part of the body, sufficiently demonstratesthat the hair could not have ceased to grow there merelybecause it was useless, even if it were likely that a characterso long persistent in the entire order of mammalia could haveso completely disappeared under the influence of so weak aselective power as a diminished usefulness.Man's Naked Skin could not have been produced by Natural SelectionIt seems to me, then, to be absolutely certain that naturalselection could not have produced man's hairless body by