Chapter XIV: Appendix

I append a synopsis of the culture-structure of the Semangs of the Malay Peninsula (references are to Skeat and Blagden's _Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula_ where not otherwise specified), in order that the position claimed for the one section of totemic belief may be tested by the remaining characteristics of Semang culture. I claim that there is nothing that remains which is inconsistent with the interpretation given of the totemic items.

_Physical_:--

(a). Live exclusively in the forest surrounded by hostile fauna (i. 13).

(b). Food consists of such wild vegetable food as may happen to fall from time to time in season (i. 109, 341, 525), together with small mammals and birds (i. 112), fish (i. 113).

(c). As soon as they have exhausted the sources of food in one neighbourhood they move on to the next (i. 109).

(d). Fire obtained by friction (i. 111, 113), but meat is eaten raw (i. 112).

(e). Nudity is alleged (_Journ. Indian Archipelago_, i. 252; ii. 258); no satisfactory proof (i. 137); do not use skins of animals nor feathers of birds (i. 138); a girdle of fungus string (i. 138, 142, 380); fringe of leaves suspended from a string (i. 139, 142); necklaces and ligatures of jungle fibre (i. 144, 145); women wear a comb made of bamboo as a charm against diseases (i. 149).

(f). Habitations are rock shelters (i. 173), tree shelters afforded by branches of trees improved by construction of a weather screen (i. 174); ground screen of palm leaves (i. 175).

(g). Hunt successfully the largest animals, escaping easily up the trees (i. 202-204).

(h). Knives made of bamboo, flakes and chips of stone, knives of bone (i. 249, 269); bow and arrow (i. 251, 255); not sufficiently advanced to have produced neolithic implements (i. 268); wooden spear (i. 270).

(i). Ignorant of pottery, vessels made from big stems of bamboo (i. 383).

_Social_:--

(j). Chief of the group is the principal medicine man, but is on an equal footing with his men, no caste and property is in common (i. 497, 499).

(k). Marriage rights are secured by the presentation of a jungle knife to the bride's parents and a girdle to the bride, and the bride never lets the girdle part from her for fear of its being used to her prejudice in some magic ceremony; adultery is punishable by death (ii. 58, 59) [but this information was not obtained from the most primitive of the Semang people].

(l). Semang women are common to all men (Newbold, _Political and Stat. Acc. of Settlements in Straits of Malacca_, ii. 379). Great ante-nuptial freedom (ii. 56, 218); "Of the Semang I have not had an opportunity of personally judging" (ii. 377, Newbold).

(m). Eat dead kindred except head (Newbold, ii. 379); burial takes place in the ground, and the older practice was exposure in trees; the Semang have no dread of ghosts of the deceased (ii. 89, 91).

(n). No sacred shrines or places (ii. 197).

(o). Avoidance of mother-in-law (ii. 204).

(p). Myth of the ringdove informing the children of the first woman that they had married within prohibited degrees of consanguinity, and advising them to separate and marry "other people" (ii. 218).

(q). Myth as to ignorance of cause of birth being dispelled by the cocoanut monkey informing the first man and woman (ii. 218).

(r). The Semang are almost ineradicably nomadic, have no fixed habitation, and rove about like the beasts of the forest (i. 172; ii. 470).

(s). Women and girls are not allowed to eat until the men and boys have finished their repast (i. 116); the men do most of the hunting and trapping, and the women take a large share in the collecting of roots and fruits; all the cooking is performed by the women and girls (i. 375).

(t). They are split up into a large number of dialects, each of which is confined to a relatively small area, and it often happens that a little [clan] or even a single family uses a form of speech which is differentiated from other dialects to be practically unintelligible to all except the members of the little community itself (ii. 379).

(u). Natural segregation of the [tribes] into small [clans] to some extent cut off from one another and surrounded by settled Malay communities (ii. 379).

(v). The most thoroughly wild and uncivilised members of our race, regarded by the Malays as little better than brute beasts, with no recorded history (ii. 384).

(w). Nomadic life of the Semang leads them over a considerable tract of country (ii. 388).

_Psychical_:--

(x). Decorative patterns on quivers representing natural objects, and possessing magical virtue to bring down various species of monkeys and apes and other small mammals (i. 417), and as charms for the men (i. 423).

(y). Decorative pattern on magic comb worn by women to serve as a charm against venomous reptiles and insects, similar design for similar reason sometimes painted on the breast (i. 41, 420-436).

(z). Child's name is taken from some tree which stands near the prospective birthplace of the child. As soon as the child is born this name is shouted aloud by the _sage femme_, who then hands over the child to another woman, who buries the afterbirth underneath the birth-tree or name-tree of the child. As soon as this is done the father cuts a series of notches in the tree, starting from the ground and terminating at the height of the breast. The cutting of these notches is intended to signalise the arrival on earth of a new human being, since it thus shows that Kari registers the souls that he has sent forth by notching the tree against which he leans. Trees thus "blazed" are never felled. The child must not in later life injure any tree which belongs to the species of his tree; for him all such trees are taboo, and he must not even eat their fruit, the only exception being when an expectant mother revisits her birth-tree. Every tree of its species is regarded as identical with the birth-tree (ii. 3, 4). When an East Semang dies his birth-tree dies too (ii. 5).

(aa). The child's soul is conveyed in a bird, which always inhabits a tree of the species to which the birth-tree belongs. It flies from one tree of the species to another, following the as yet unborn body. The souls of first-born children are always young birds newly hatched, the offspring of the bird which contained the soul of the mother. If the mother does not eat the soul-bird during her accouchement the child will be stillborn or will die shortly after birth (ii. 4, 192, 194, 216). She keeps the soul-bird within the birth-bamboo, and does not eat it all at once, but piecemeal (ii. 6). All human souls grow upon a soul-tree in the other world, whence they are fetched by a bird which was killed and eaten by the expectant mother (ii. 194).

(bb). Semang religion, in spite of its recognition of a thunder-god (Kari) and certain minor deities (so called), has very little indeed in the way of ceremonial, and appears to consist mainly of mythology and legend. It shows remarkably few traces of demon worship, very little fear of ghosts of the deceased, and still less of any sort of animistic beliefs (ii. 174). [As the Kari is the deity common to the Semang and the people higher in culture than the Semang, it is difficult to trace out the primitive idea. The myths also show a common impress, "which is probably mainly due to the same savage Malay element" (ii. 183).]

(cc). During a storm of thunder and lightning the Semang draw a few drops of blood from the region of the shin bone, mix it with a little water in a bamboo receptacle, and throw it up to the angry skies (ii. 204).

(dd). Pretend entire ignorance of a supreme being, but on pressure confessed to a very powerful yet benevolent being, the maker of the world (ii. 209).

FOOTNOTES:

[284] Beddoe, _Races of Britain_, cap. ii., and _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, xxxv. 236-7; Boyd-Dawkins, _Early Man in Britain_, cap. vii. viii. and ix.; Ripley, _Races of Europe_, cap. xii.

[285] Rhys, _Celtic Britain_, 271; Rhys, _Celtic Heathendom_, _passim_; Rhys and Jones, _Welsh People_, cap. i. and Appendix B on "Pre-Aryan Syntax in Insular Celtic," by Professor Morris Jones.

[286] Barrows, mounds, tumuli, stone circles, monoliths are generally admitted to belong to the Stone Age people before the Celts arrived, and when they are adequately investigated, as Mr. Arthur Evans has investigated Stonehenge (_Archaeological Review_, vol. ii. pp. 312-330), and the Rollright Stones (_Folklore_, vol. vi. pp. 5-51), the evidence of a prehistoric origin is unquestioned.

[287] I have worked out the evidence for this in the _Archaeological Review_, vol. iii. pp. 217-242, 350-375, and though I do not endorse all I have written there, the main points are still, I think, good.

[288] Wallace, _Darwinism_, cap. xv.

[289] Spencer and Gillen, _Central Tribes of Australia_, 12, 272, 324, 368, 420.

[290] _Descent of Man_, i. cap. vii. 176.

[291] _Cf._ Topinard's _Anthropology_, part iii., "On the Origin of Man," pp. 515-535, for the details of the various authorities ranged on the sides of monogenists and polygenists.

[292] Keane, _Man, Past and Present_, discusses the important evidence obtained by Dr. Dubois from Java, and Dr. Noetling from Upper Burma, pp. 5-8. It is only fair to that brilliant scholar, Dr. Latham, to point out that without the evidence before him to prove the point, he came to the same conclusion that the original home of man was "somewhere in intra-tropical Asia, and that it was the single locality of a single pair."--Latham, _Man and his Migrations_, 248.

[293] The most recent example of this is Mr. Thomas's extraordinary treatment of the evidence of migration in Australia. It produces in his mind "novel conditions," but has effects which he cannot neglect, but which he strangely misinterprets. N. W. Thomas, _Kinship Organisations in Australia_, 27-28.

[294] Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, i. 18.

[295] Lord Avebury, _Prehistoric Times_, 586.

[296] _Man, Past and Present_, pp. 1, 8.

[297] Latham, _Man and his Migrations_, 155-6.

[298] The ethnographic movement is a very definite fact in anthropological evidence, though it has been little noted. Thus "the Coles are evidently a good pioneering race, fond of new clearings and the luxuriant and easily raised crops of the virgin soil, and have constitutions that thrive on malaria, so it is perhaps in the best interest of humanity and cause of civilisation that they be kept moving by continued Aryan propulsion. Ever armed with bow, arrows, and pole-axe, they are prepared to do battle with the beasts of the forest, holding even the king of the forest, the 'Bun Rajah,' that is, the tiger, in little fear."--Col. Dalton in _Journ. Asiatic Soc., Bengal_, xxxiv. 9.

[299] Traditions of great migrations exist among most primitive races. Some of these contain unexpected corroboration from actual discoveries. Thus the natives of New Zealand had a tradition that their ancestors, when they arrived in their canoes some four centuries ago, buried some sacred things under a large tree. It is said that the tree was blown down in recent times and that the sacred things were discovered. Taplin records "a good specimen of the kind of migration which has taken place among the aborigines all over the continent" (_The Narrinyeri_, p. 4); and similar evidence could be produced in almost every direction. Mr. Mathew in _Eaglehawk and Crow_ deals with "the argument from mythology and tradition" as to the origin of the Australians in a very suggestive fashion (pp. 14-22). Stanley has preserved an African native tradition of local groups spreading out from the parent home _(Through the Dark Continent_, i. 346).

[300] I am aware this is disputed by O. Peschel--_Races of Man_, 137 _et seq._--but I think the evidence is sufficient; and it must be remembered that there is direct evidence of the most backward races not using the fire they possess for cooking, but always eating their animal food raw, as, for instance, the Semang people of the Malay Peninsula. (See Skeat and Blagden, _Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula_, i. 112.) The Andaman Islanders could not make fire, though they possessed and kept it alive. This shows that they must have borrowed it and did not previously possess it.--Quatrefages, _The Pygmies_, 108. Tylor, _Early History of Mankind_, cap. ix., should be consulted.

[301] The term political is, I confess, a little awkward, owing to its specially modern use, but it is the only term which, in its early sense, expresses the stage of social development represented by a polity as distinct from a mere localisation.

[302] It was one of the first efforts of the science of language to endeavour to trace out the original home of the so-called Aryas and their subsequent migrations. "Emigration," said Bunsen, "is the great agent in forming nations and languages" (_Philosophy of Hist._, i. 56); and Niebuhr, who has traced out most of the migrations of the Greek tribes, observes that "this migration of nations was formerly not mentioned anywhere" (_Anc. Hist._, ii. 212). Quite recently, Professor Flinders Petrie has worked at the question of European migrations in the Huxley lecture of 1907 (_Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, xxxvi. 189-232), his valuable maps showing "the movements of twenty of the principal peoples that entered Europe during the centuries of great movements that are best known to us" (204). In the meantime, the folklorist has much to do in this direction, and up to the present he has almost entirely ignored or misread the evidence. I do not know whether Mr. Nutt would still adhere to his conclusion that the myth embodied in the Celtic expulsion-and-return formula is undoubtedly solar (_Folklore Record_, iv. 42), but a restatement of Mr. Nutt's careful and elaborate analysis would lead me to trace the myth to the migration period of Aryan history, just as I agree with von Ihering that the _ver sacrum_ of the Romans is a rite continued from the migration period to express in religious formulae, and on emergency to again carry out, the ancient practice of sending forth from an overstocked centre sufficient of the tribesmen and tribeswomen to leave those who remained economically well-conditioned (_The Evolution of the Aryan_, 249-290). Pheidon's law at Corinth, alluded to by Aristotle (_Pol._, ii. cap. vi.), could only be carried out by a sending out of the surplus. See also Aristotle, _Pol._, ii. cap. xii.; and Newman's note to the first reference, quoting similar laws elsewhere. Both the "junior-right" traditions and customs take us back to the same conditions. The occupation of fresh territories is an observable feature of the Russian mir (Wallace, _Russia_, i. 255; Laveleye _Primitive Property_, 34), and Mr. Chadwick has recently called attention to the corresponding Scandinavian evidence (_Origin of the English Nation_, 334).

[303] Mr. J. R. Logan long ago pointed out that "the further we go back, we find ethnic characteristics more uniform," and further concluded that certain facts observed by himself "lead to the inference that the Archaic world was connected."--_Journ. Indian Archipelago_, iv. 290, 291.

[304] _Descent of Man_, pp. 590, 591.

[305] _Studies in Ancient History_, i. 84.

[306] _History of Human Marriage_, cap. ii.

[307] _Ancient Society_, p. 10.

[308] _Secret of the Totem_, p. 32.

[309] N. W. Thomas, _Kinship Organisation in Australia_, 4.

[310] _Folklore_, xii. 232.

[311] Both Dr. Haddon and myself made the same point on a criticism of Mr. Fraser's _Golden Bough_, mine being from the Aricia rites, and Dr. Haddon's from the savage parallels thereto. See _Folklore_, xii. 223, 224, 232.

[312] Sproat's _Scenes and Studies of Savage Life_, 19. The use of the term "tribe" in this quotation is, of course, descriptive only. There is no tribal constitution among the Ahts, and "group" would have been the preferable term.

[313] Dr. W. H. Rivers' recently published work on the Todas is the best authority.

[314] Rivers, _op. cit._, 432, 455.

[315] Rivers, _op. cit._, cap. xxi. 504, 517.

[316] Rivers, _op. cit._, 452-456.

[317] Latham, _Descriptive Ethnology_, ii, 137.

[318] Bucher, _Industrial Evolution_, 56.

[319] Rev. George Taplin, _The Narrinyeri; South Australian Aborigines_, 40. _Cf._ Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-east Australia_, 710-720; Grierson, _The Silent Trade_, 22.

[320] _Cf._ Skeat and Blagden, _Pagan Tribes of Malay Peninsula_, i, 10.

[321] Graham, _Bheel Tribes of Khandesh_, 3.

[322] Herodotos, iv. 180.

[323] _Journ. Asiatic Soc., Bengal_, xiii. 625.

[324] Major Gurdon, _The Khasis_, 76, 82.

[325] N. W. Thomas, _Kinship Organisations in Australia_, 124.

[326] Fustel de Coulange's _Cite Antique_, cap. xiv. and xv., is, however, the most exaggerated example of this point of view.

[327] Lang, _Social Origins_, 1. The latest exponent of anthropological principles affirms that "the family which exists in the lower stages of culture, though it is overshadowed by the other social phenomena, has persisted through all the manifold revolutions of society."--N. W. Thomas, _Kinship Organisations in Australia_, 1.

[328] Jevons' _Introd. to Hist. of Religion_, 195.

[329] See also Prof. Geikie in _Scottish Geographical Mag._ (Sept. 1897).

[330] _Early Hist. of Mankind_, 303; MacCulloch, _Childhood of Fiction_, 396; Gould, _Mythical Monsters_.

[331] Mr. Westermarck has collected excellent evidence as to the economic influences upon savage society (_Hist. of Human Marriage_, 39-49), and we may quite properly assume the same conditions for earliest man.

[332] A very good summary of the pygmy peoples in all parts of the world is given by Mr. W. A. Reed in his useful _Negritos of Zambales_, 13-22. _Cf._ Keane, _Man, Past and Present_, 118-121; Keane, _Ethnology_, 246-248; and Sir W. H. Flower, _Essays on Museums_, cap. xix.

[333] Latham, _Man and his Migrations_, 55, 56. Dr. Beke was a most cautious observer, and I have consulted all his contributions to the _Journal of the Geographical Society_ (vol. xiii.) and have found no sign of his retraction of the evidence. His correspondence in the _Literary Gazette_ of 1843, p. 852, discusses the question of the Dokos being pygmies, but he adheres to his information as to the absence of social structure being correct.

[334] Lib. ii. 32, 8; _cf._ Quatrefages, _The Pygmies_, cap. 1, "The Pygmies of the Ancients."

[335] Lieut.-Col. Sutherland, _Memoir respecting the Kaffirs, Hottentots, and Bosjemans_, i. 67 (Cape Town, 1846).

[336] Burrows, _The Land of Pygmies_, 182.

[337] Mr. A. B. Lloyd's volume _In Dwarfland and Cannibal Country_, p. 96, is the most recent evidence.

[338] It is worth noting here that the Chinese traditions of the pygmies are exceedingly suggestive and curious. See Moseley, _Notes by a Naturalist_, 369.

[339] Skeat and Blagden, _Malay Peninsula_, ii. 443.

[340] _Journ. Indian Archipelago_, iv. 425-427; _cf._ _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, xvi. 228; Wallace, _Malay Archipelago_, 452.

[341] Clifford, _In Court and Kampong_, 171-181.

[342] Skeat and Blagden, _Pagan Races of Malay Peninsula_, i. 13.

[343] _Op. cit._, i. 53-4, 139, 169, 172, 341.

[344] _Op. cit._, i. 170.

[345] _Op. cit._, i. 243-248, 268.

[346] _Op. cit._, i. 494; ii. 56, 218.

[347] _Op. cit._, ii. 3. Compare _Journ. Indian Archipelago_, iv. 427, "they are called after particular trees, that is, if a child is born under or near a cocoanut or durian, or any particular tree in the forest, it is named accordingly," and John Anderson, _Considerations relative to Malayan Peninsula_, 1824, p. xli.

[348] _Op. cit._, ii. 4, 192, 194.

[349] _Op. cit._, ii. 174, 209.

[350] _Archaeological Review_, i. 13, from an official report published in a Government Blue Book.

[351] Brinton, _The American Race_; Curtin, _Creation Myths of Primitive America_.

[352] Darwin, _Journal of Researches_, 228.

[353] _Anthropological Inst._, vii. 502-510.

[354] Quatrefages, _The Pygmies_, 24, 48, 69.

[355] There is ample evidence of this characteristic. Thus, of the Australians of Port Lincoln district, it is said that "the habit of constantly changing their place of rest is so great that they cannot overcome it even if staying where all their wants can be abundantly supplied."--_Trans. Roy. Soc., Victoria_, v. 178.

[356] _Fortnightly Review_, lxxviii. 455.

[357] _Secret of the Totem_, 125, 140.

[358] _British Association Report_, 1902, p. 745. _Cf._ Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, 160.

[359] Lang, _Secret of the Totem_, 140, quoting Grey, _Vocabulary of the Dialects of South-west Australia_.

[360] Spencer and Gillen, _Tribes of Central Australia_, 119.

[361] The reader should consult Mason's _Women's Share in Primitive Culture_, and Bucher's _Industrial Evolution_, for evidence on this point.

[362] Livingstone, _South Africa_, 462.

[363] Sleeman, _Rambles of an Indian Official_, i. 43. "Banotsarg is the name given to the marriage ceremony performed in honour of a newly planted orchard, without which preliminary observance it is not proper to partake of its fruit. A man holding the Salagram personates the bridegroom, and another holding the sacred Tulsi personates the bride. After burning a hom or sacrificial fire, the officiating Brahmin puts the usual questions to the couple about to be united. The bride then perambulates a small spot marked out in the centre of the orchard. Proceeding from the south towards the west, she makes the circuit three times, followed at a short distance by the bridegroom holding in his hand a strip of her chadar of garment. After this, the bridegroom takes precedence, making his three circuits, and followed in like manner by his bride. The ceremony concludes with the usual offerings" (Elliot, _Folklore of North-west Provinces of India_, i. 234).

[364] Myths explaining the domestication of animals belong to this stage of culture. The dog is a sacred animal among the Khasis, with certain totemic associations, and there is a very realistic and humanising myth relating how the dog came to be regarded as the friend of man (Gurdon, _The Khasis_, 51, 172-3). The Kyeng creation legend includes a good example of animal friendship with man (Lewin, _Wild Races of South-east India_, 238-9). The American creation myths afford remarkable testimony to this view of the case. "Game and fish of all sorts were under direct divine supervision ... maize or Indian corn is a transformed god who gave himself to be eaten to save men from hunger and death" (Curtin, _Creation Myths of Primitive America_, pp. xxvi, xxxviii). The Narrinyeri Australians "do not appear to have any story of the origin of the world, but nearly all animals they suppose anciently to have been men who performed great prodigies, and at last transformed themselves into different kinds of animals and stones" (Taplin, _The Narrinyeri_, 59).

[365] _Legend of Perseus_, i. cap. vi.

[366] _Secret of the Totem_, 29.

[367] Mitchell, _Australian Expeditions_, i. 307; _cf._ Fison and Howitt, _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, 200, 224; Taplin, _The Narrinyeri_, 10.

[368] Curr, _Australian Race_, i. p. 193; _cf._ Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, ii. p. 316.

[369] Fison and Howitt, _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, 66, 285, 289.

[370] Fison and Howitt, _op. cit._, 68, 73.

[371] Lang, _Secret of the Totem_, 64.

[372] Spencer and Gillen, _Central Tribes_, 7.

[373] Spencer and Gillen, _Central Tribes_, 120, 124, 133.

[374] _Globus_, xci, a very important criticism of Spencer and Gillen's work.

[375] Spencer and Gillen, _op. cit._, 139, 154.

[376] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes_, 144.

[377] _Globus_, xci, gives important evidence of traces of female descent among the Arunta.

[378] There is conflict of testimony on this point. Spencer and Gillen deny that the Arunta recognise the fact of paternity in any way (see _Northern Tribes_, pp. xiii, 145, 330), and yet talk of the "actual father" in ceremonial functions (p. 361).

[379] Skeat and Blagden, _Malay Peninsula_, ii. 218.

[380] Newbold, _Political and State Acc. of Malacca_, ii.; Skeat and Blagden, _op. cit._, ii. 56.

[381] Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, _Central Tribes_, 36, give a useful note on this point.

[382] In this they are exactly paralleled by the Khasi people of Assam, among whom we find a limited sort of male chiefship by succession through females, and an absolute succession to property by females by succession through females (Gurdon, _The Khasis_, 68, 88). Descent from the female is absolute in both cases, and all we get is male ascendancy.

[383] _Secret of the Totem_, 73.

[384] _Op. cit._, 79.

[385] Lang, _Secret of the Totem_, 148.

[386] _Central Tribes_, 72. Mrs. Langloh Parker's information as to the origin of the Euahlayi two-class division having arisen from an amalgamation of two distinct tribes, points to the same facts.--_Euahlayi Tribe_, 12.

[387] Spencer and Gillen, _Tribes of Central Australia_, 96, 99, 106.

[388] Lang's Introd. to Bolland's _Aristotle's Politics_ (1877), p. 104; Grant Allen's _Anglo-Saxon Britain_ (1888), pp. 79-83.

[389] _Topography of Ireland_, lib. ii. cap. 19.

[390] _Hist. of Ireland_, ii. 361.

[391] _Irish Nennius_, p. 205; Lang, _Custom and Myth_, p. 265; _Revue Celtique_, ii. 202.

[392] _View of the State of Ireland_, p. 99.

[393] Moryson, _Hist. of Ireland_, ii. 367.

[394] Aubrey, _Remaines of Gentilisme_, 204.

[395] Camden, _Britannia_, iii. 455; iv. 459.

[396] The significance of the word "gossip" is worth noting. Halliwell says it "signified a _relation_ or sponsor in baptism, all of whom were to each other and to the parents _God-sibs_, that is, _sib_, or related by means of religion." This meaning does not seem to have died out in the days of Spenser, and his use of the word to describe the relationship of the men of Ossory to wolves is very significant. For the history of this important word see Hearn's _Aryan Household_, 290.

[397] Otway, _Sketches in Erris_, 383-4.

[398] _Folklore Record_, iv. 98.

[399] _Ulster Journ. Arch._, ii. 161, 162. They have also another primitive trait. Their trade emblems are carved on their tombstones. _Roy. Irish Acad._, vii. 260.

[400] This I gather from _Ulster Journ. Arch._, ii. 164, where it is stated that the hare is unpropitious.

[401] _Folklore Journal_, ii. 259.

[402] _Folklore Journal_, ii. 259; _Folklore Record_, iv. 104. Miss Ffennell kindly informed me at the meeting of the Folklore Society where I read a paper on the subject, that she had frequently heard the islanders of Achill, off the coast of Ireland, state their belief that they were descended from seals.

[403] Published by the _Irish Archaeological Society_, p. 27; there is a Seal Island off the coast of Donegal (Joyce, _Irish Place-Names_, ii. 282); and some Shetland legends of the seal will be found in _Soc. Antiq. Scot._, i. 86-89. Seals are eaten for food in the island of Harris (see Martin, _Western Islands_, 36), and one called the Virgin Mary's Seal is offered to the minister (Reeves, _Adamnan Vita. Columb._, 78, note _g_). The attitude of the Irish to seals is shown by the two following notes:--"At Erris, in Ireland, seals are considered to be human beings under enchantment, and they consider it unlucky to have anything to do with seals, and to have one live near their dwelling is considered as productive of evil to life and property. A story current, in 1841, describes how a young fisherman came in a fog upon an island whereon lived these enchanted men in their human form, but when they quitted it they turned to seals again" (Otway, _Sketches of Erris_, 398, 403). Off Downpatrick Head they used to take seals, but have given up the practice, because once two young fellows had urged their curraghs into a cave where the seals were known to breed, and they were killing them right and left when, in the farthest end of the cave and sitting up on its bent tail in a corner, there sat an old seal. One of the boys was just making ready to strike him, when the seal cried out, "Och, boys! och, ma bouchals, spare your old grandfather, Darby O'Dowd." He then proceeded to tell the boys his story. "It's true I was dead and dacently buried, but here I am for my sins turned into a sale as other sinners are and will be, and if you put an end to me and skin me maybe it's worser I'll be, and go into a shark or a porpoise. Lave your ould forefather where he is, to live out his time as a sale. Maybe for your own sakes you will ever hereafter leave off following and parsecuting and murthering sales who may be nearer to yourselves nor you think." The story is universally believed, and on the strength of it the people have given up seal hunting (Otway, _Sketches of Erris_, 230).

[404] _Kinship and Marriage in Arabia_, 188. _Cf._ Mr. Jacobs' articles in _Archaeological Review_, "Are there totem clans in the Old Testament?" vol. iii. pp. 145-164.

[405] _Origins of English History_, 297.

[406] _Proc. Roy. Irish Acad._, x. 436; Lang's _Custom and Myth_, 265; Elton's _Origins of English History_, 299-300; _Revue Celtique_, i. 50; iii. 176.

[407] _Rev. Celtique_, vi. 232.

[408] Aubrey's _Remaines of Gentilisme_, 102.

[409] _Folklore Record_, i. 243.

[410] Xiphilinus in _Mon. Hist. Brit._, p. lvii.

[411] _Choice Notes, Folklore_, p. 16.

[412] _Vulgar Errors_, p. 320.

[413] Aubrey, _Gentilisme and Judaisme_, 109; Napier, _Folklore of West of Scotland_, 26. Consult Mr. Billson's valuable paper on "The Easter Hare" in _Folklore_, iii. 441-466.

[414] Gregor, _Folklore of North-East Scotland_, 129, 199.

[415] O'Curry, _Manners of the Anc. Irish_, i. p. ccclxx.

[416] _Notes and Queries_, 3rd ser. iv. 82, 158; Dyer's _Popular Customs_, 384.

[417] Gordon Cumming, _Hebrides_, 369.

[418] Gordon Cumming, _Hebrides_, 369.

[419] _Gentleman's Magazine Library, Pop. Sup._, 216.

[420] It will be useful to refer to Mr. Thrupp's paper on "British Superstition as to Hares, Geese, and Poultry" in _Trans. Ethnological Society of London_, new ser. vol. v. pp. 162-167.

[421] _Origins of English History_, 170.

[422] Gordon Cumming, _Hebrides_, 365.

[423] Dalyell's _Darker Superstitions of Scotland_, 431. It should be noted that Dalyell wrote before the age of scientific folklore, and therefore his observations are founded more upon conjectures derived from the practices and beliefs themselves than from any theory as to origins.

[424] White horse, p. 208; black cat, p. 211, note 3; two magpies, p. 224; crickets, p. 238; hawthorn, p. 244.

[425] _Fortnightly Review_, xii. 562.

[426] It is just possible that the value of investigating Australian totemism may prove to have a still more direct bearing upon British folklore, for Huxley's opinion as to the Australoid race is not entirely to be neglected. He argued that "The Australoid race are dark complexion, ranging through various shades of light and dark chocolate colour; dark or black eyes; the hair of the scalp black and soft, silky and wavy; the skull dolichocephalic. The great continent of Australia is the headquarters of the Australoid race.... The Dekkan, which is so remarkably isolated on the north by the valleys of the Ganges and Indus, beyond these by the Himalaya Mountains, and on the east and west by the sea, was originally inhabited, and is still largely peopled by men who completely come under the definition of the Australoid race given above. In Abyssinia and Egypt there is a smooth-haired, dark-complexioned, long-headed stock which I am strongly inclined to regard as a westward extension of the Australoid race. I would venture to suggest that the dark whites who stretch from Northern Hindostan through Western Asia, skirt both shores of the Mediterranean, and extend through Western Europe to Ireland, may have had their origin in a prolongation of the Australoid race, which has become modified by selection or intermixture" (Huxley in _Prehistoric Congress, 1868_, pp. 92-94). This point of view is confirmed by Mr. Mathew's conclusions, _Eaglehawk and Crow_, cap. iii.