Chapter VIII: Preface: {vii} (8)

[Sidenote: Superstition the creed of the laggards in the march of intellect.] I have been led into making these remarks by the wish to explain why it is that superstitions of all sorts, political, moral, and religious, survive among peoples who have the opportunity of knowing better. The reason is that the better ideas, which are constantly forming in the upper stratum, have not yet filtered through from the highest to the lowest minds. Such a filtration is generally slow, and by the time that the new notions have penetrated to the bottom, if indeed they ever get there, they are often already obsolete and superseded by others at the top. Hence it is that if we could open the heads and read the thoughts of two men of the same generation and country but at opposite ends of the intellectual scale, we should probably find their minds as {169} different as if the two belonged to different species. Mankind, as it has been well said, advances in _échelons_; that is, the columns march not abreast of each other but in a straggling line, all lagging in various degrees behind the leader. The image well describes the difference not only between peoples, but between individuals of the same people and the same generation. Just as one nation is continually outstripping some of its contemporaries, so within the same nation some men are constantly outpacing their fellows, and the foremost in the race are those who have thrown off the load of superstition which still burdens the backs and clogs the footsteps of the laggards. To drop metaphor, superstitions survive because, while they shock the views of enlightened members of the community, they are still in harmony with the thoughts and feelings of others who, though they are drilled by their betters into an appearance of civilization, remain barbarians or savages at heart. That is why, for example, the barbarous punishments for high treason and witchcraft and the enormities of slavery were tolerated and defended in this country down to modern times. [Sidenote: Superstitions either public or private.] Such survivals may be divided into two sorts, according as they are public or private; in other words, according as they are embodied in the law of the land or are practised with or without the connivance of the law in holes and corners. [Sidenote: Examples of public superstitions.] The examples I have just cited belong to the former of these two classes. Witches were publicly burned and traitors were publicly disembowelled in England not so long ago, and slavery survived as a legal institution still later. The true nature of such public superstitions is apt, through their very publicity, to escape detection, because until they are finally swept away by the rising tide of progress, there are always plenty of people to defend them as institutions essential to the public welfare and sanctioned by the laws of God and man.

[Sidenote: The wide prevalence of private superstitions constitutes a standing menace to civilization.] It is otherwise with those private superstitions to which the name of folklore is usually confined. In civilized society most educated people are not even aware of the extent to which these relics of savage ignorance survive at their doors. The discovery of their wide prevalence was indeed only made last century, chiefly through the researches of the brothers {170} Grimm in Germany. Since their day systematic enquiries carried on among the less educated classes, and especially among the peasantry, of Europe have revealed the astonishing, nay, alarming truth that a mass, if not the majority, of people in every civilized country is still living in a state of intellectual savagery, that, in fact, the smooth surface of cultured society is sapped and mined by superstition. Only those whose studies have led them to investigate the subject are aware of the depth to which the ground beneath our feet is thus, as it were, honeycombed by unseen forces. We appear to be standing on a volcano which may at any moment break out in smoke and fire to spread ruin and devastation among the gardens and palaces of ancient culture wrought so laboriously by the hands of many generations. After looking on the ruined Greek temples of Paestum and contrasting them with the squalor and savagery of the Italian peasantry, Renan said, “I trembled for civilization, seeing it so limited, built on so weak a foundation, resting on so few individuals even in the country where it is dominant.”[170.1]

[Sidenote: It is the earliest and crudest superstitions that survive longest, because they answer to the calibre of the lowest minds. Hence while the surface of society is constantly changing, its depths, like those of the ocean, remain almost motionless.] If we examine the superstitious beliefs which are tacitly but firmly held by many of our fellow-countrymen, we shall find, perhaps to our surprise, that it is precisely the oldest and crudest superstitions which are most tenacious of life, while views which, though also erroneous, are more modern and refined, soon fade from the popular memory. For example, the high gods of Egypt and Babylon, of Greece and Rome, have for ages been totally forgotten by the people and survive only in the books of the learned; yet the peasants, who never even heard of Isis and Osiris, of Apollo and Artemis, of Jupiter and Juno, retain to this day a firm belief in witches and fairies, in ghosts and hobgoblins, those lesser creatures of the mythical fancy in which their fathers believed long before the great deities of the ancient world were ever thought of, and in which, to all appearance, their descendants will continue to believe long after the great deities of the present day shall have gone the way of all their predecessors. The reason why the higher forms of superstition or religion (for the religion of one generation is {171} apt to become the superstition of the next) are less permanent than the lower is simply that the higher beliefs, being a creation of superior intelligence, have little hold on the minds of the vulgar, who nominally profess them for a time in conformity with the will of their betters, but readily shed and forget them as soon as these beliefs have gone out of fashion with the educated classes. But while they dismiss without a pang or an effort articles of faith which were only superficially imprinted on their minds by the weight of cultured opinion, the ignorant and foolish multitude cling with a sullen determination to far grosser beliefs which really answer to the coarser texture of their undeveloped intellect. Thus while the avowed creed of the enlightened minority is constantly changing under the influence of reflection and enquiry, the real, though unavowed, creed of the mass of mankind appears to be almost stationary, and the reason why it alters so little is that in the majority of men, whether they are savages or outwardly civilized beings, intellectual progress is so slow as to be hardly perceptible. The surface of society, like that of the sea, is in perpetual motion; its depths, like those of the ocean, remain almost unmoved.

[Sidenote: The early history of mankind, reconstructed from the joint testimony of savagery and folklore, is full of gaps, which can only be imperfectly bridged by the Comparative Method.] Thus from an examination, first, of savagery and, second, of its survivals in civilization, the study of Social Anthropology attempts to trace the early history of human thought and institutions. The history can never be complete, unless science should discover some mode of reading the faded record of the past of which we in this generation can hardly dream. We know indeed that every event, however insignificant, implies a change, however slight, in the material constitution of the universe, so that the whole history of the world is, in a sense, engraved upon its face, though our eyes are too dim to read the scroll. It may be that in the future some wondrous reagent, some magic chemical, may yet be found to bring out the whole of nature’s secret handwriting for a greater than Daniel to interpret to his fellows. That will hardly be in our time. With the resources at present at our command we must be content with a very brief, imperfect, and in large measure conjectural account of man’s mental and social development in prehistoric ages. {172} As I have already pointed out, the evidence, fragmentary and dubious as it is, only runs back a very little way into the measureless past of human life on earth; we soon lose the thread, the faintly glimmering thread, in the thick darkness of the absolutely unknown. Even in the comparatively short space of time, a few thousand years at most, which falls more or less within our ken, there are many deep and wide chasms which can only be bridged by hypotheses, if the story of evolution is to run continuously. [Sidenote: The legitimacy of the Comparative Method in social anthropology rests on the similarity of the human mind in all races.] Such bridges are built in anthropology as in biology by the Comparative Method, which enables us to borrow the links of one chain of evidence to supply the gaps in another. For us who deal, not with the various forms of animal life, but with the various products of human intelligence, the legitimacy of the Comparative Method rests on the well-ascertained similarity of the working of the human mind in all races of men. I have laid stress on the great inequalities which exist not only between the various races, but between men of the same race and generation; but it should be clearly understood and remembered that these divergencies are quantitative rather than qualitative, they consist in differences of degree rather than of kind. The savage is not a different sort of being from his civilized brother: he has the same capacities, mental and moral, but they are less fully developed: his evolution has been arrested, or rather retarded, at a lower level. And as savage races are not all on the same plane, but have stopped or tarried at different points of the upward path, we can to a certain extent, by comparing them with each other, construct a scale of social progression and mark out roughly some of the stages on the long road that leads from savagery to civilization. In the kingdom of mind such a scale of mental evolution answers to the scale of morphological evolution in the animal kingdom.

[Sidenote: It is only of late years that the importance of savagery as a document of human history has been understood.] From what I have said I hope you have formed some idea of the extreme importance which the study of savage life possesses for a proper understanding of the early history of mankind. The savage is a human document, a record of man’s efforts to raise himself above the level of the beast. It is only of late years that the full value of the document {173} has been appreciated; indeed, many people are probably still of Dr. Johnson’s opinion, who, pointing to the three large volumes of _Voyages to the South Seas_ which had just come out, said: “Who will read them through? A man had better work his way before the mast than read them through; they will be eaten by rats and mice before they are read through. There can be little entertainment in such books; one set of savages is like another.”[173.1] But the world has learned a good deal since Dr. Johnson’s day; and the records of savage life, which the sage of Bolt Court consigned without scruple to the rats and mice, have now their place among the most precious archives of humanity. Their fate has been like that of the Sibylline Books. They were neglected and despised when they might have been obtained complete; and now wise men would give more than a king’s ransom for their miserably mutilated and imperfect remains. It is true that before our time civilized men often viewed savages with interest and described them intelligently, and some of their descriptions are still of great scientific value. [Sidenote: Great impulse given to the study of savagery by the discovery of America and of the Pacific.] For example, the discovery of America naturally excited in the minds of the European peoples an eager curiosity as to the inhabitants of the new world, which had burst upon their gaze, as if at the waving of a wizard’s wand the curtain of the western sky had suddenly rolled up and disclosed scenes of glamour and enchantment. Accordingly some of the Spaniards who explored and conquered these realms of wonder have bequeathed to us accounts of the manners and customs of the Indians, which for accuracy and fulness of detail probably surpass any former records of an alien race. Such, for instance, is the great work of the Franciscan friar Sahagun on the natives of Mexico, and such the work of Garcilasso de la Vega, himself half an Inca, on the Incas of Peru. Again, the exploration of the Pacific in the eighteenth century, with its revelation of fairy-like islands scattered in profusion over a sea of eternal summer, drew the eyes and stirred the imagination of Europe; and to the curiosity thus raised in many minds, though not in Dr. Johnson’s, we owe some precious descriptions of the islanders, who, in those days of sailing ships, appeared to dwell so remote from us {174} that the poet Cowper fancied their seas might never again be ploughed by English keels.[174.1]

[Sidenote: The passing of the savage.] These and many other old accounts of savages must always retain their interest and value for the study of Social Anthropology, all the more because they set before us the natives in their natural unsophisticated state, before their primitive manners and customs had been altered or destroyed by European influence. Yet in the light of subsequent research these early records are often seen to be very defective, because the authors, unaware of the scientific importance of facts which to the ordinary observer might appear trifling or disgusting, have either passed over many things of the highest interest in total silence or dismissed them with a brief and tantalizing allusion. It is accordingly necessary to supplement the reports of former writers by a minute and painstaking investigation of the living savages in order to fill up, if possible, the many yawning gaps in our knowledge. Unfortunately this cannot always be done, since many savages have either been totally exterminated or so changed by contact with Europeans that it is no longer possible to obtain trustworthy information as to their old habits and traditions. But whenever the ancient customs and beliefs of a primitive race have passed away unrecorded, a document of human history has perished beyond recall. Unhappily this destruction of the archives, as we may call it, is going on apace. In some places, for example, in Tasmania, the savage is already extinct; in others, as in Australia, he is dying. In others again, for instance in Central and Southern Africa, where the numbers and inborn vigour of the race shew little or no sign of succumbing in the struggle for existence, the influence of traders, officials, and missionaries is so rapidly disintegrating and effacing the native customs, that with the passing of the older generation even the memory of them will soon in many places be gone. It is therefore a matter of the most urgent scientific importance to secure without delay full and accurate reports of these perishing or changing peoples, to take permanent copies, so {175} to say, of these precious monuments before they are destroyed. It is not yet too late. Much may still be learned, for example, in West Australia, in New Guinea, in Melanesia, in Central Africa, among the hill tribes of India and the forest Indians of the Amazons. There is still time to send expeditions to these regions, to subsidize men on the spot, who are conversant with the languages and enjoy the confidence of the natives; for there are such men who possess or can obtain the very knowledge we require, yet who, unaware or careless of its inestimable value for science, make no effort to preserve the treasure for posterity, and, if we do not speedily come to the rescue, will suffer it to perish with them. In the whole range of human knowledge at the present moment there is no more pressing need than that of recording this priceless evidence of man’s early history before it is too late. For soon, very soon, the opportunities which we still enjoy will be gone for ever. In another quarter of a century probably there will be little or nothing of the old savage life left to record. The savage, such as we may still see him, will then be as extinct as the dodo. The sands are fast running out: the hour will soon strike: the record will be closed: the book will be sealed. [Sidenote: The duty of our generation to posterity.] And how shall we of this generation look when we stand at the bar of posterity arraigned on a charge of high treason to our race, we who neglected to study our perishing fellow-men, but who sent out costly expeditions to observe the stars and to explore the barren ice-bound regions of the poles, as if the polar ice would melt and the stars would cease to shine when we are gone? Let us awake from our slumber, let us light our lamps, let us gird up our loins. The Universities exist for the advancement of knowledge. It is their duty to add this new province to the ancient departments of learning which they cultivate so diligently. Cambridge, to its honour, has led the way in equipping and despatching anthropological expeditions; it is for Oxford, it is for Liverpool, it is for every University in the land to join in the work.

[Sidenote: The duty of the State.] More than that, it is the public duty of every civilized state actively to co-operate. In this respect the United States of America, by instituting a bureau for the study of the aborigines within its dominions, has set an example {176} which every enlightened nation that rules over lower races ought to imitate. [Sidenote: The duty of England.] On none does that duty, that responsibility, lie more clearly and more heavily than on our own, for to none in the whole course of human history has the sceptre been given over so many and so diverse races of men. We have made ourselves our brother’s keepers. Woe to us if we neglect our duty to our brother! It is not enough for us to rule in justice the peoples we have subjugated by the sword. We owe it to them, we owe it to ourselves, we owe it to posterity, who will require it at our hands, that we should describe them as they were before we found them, before they ever saw the English flag and heard, for good or evil, the English tongue. The voice of England speaks to her subject peoples in other accents than in the thunder of her guns. Peace has its triumphs as well as war: there are nobler trophies than captured flags and cannons. [Sidenote: _Monumentum aere perennius._] There are monuments, airy monuments, monuments of words, which seem so fleeting and evanescent, that will yet last when your cannons have crumbled and your flags have mouldered into dust. When the Roman poet wished to present an image of perpetuity, he said that he would be remembered so long as the Roman Empire endured, so long as the white-robed procession of the Vestals and Pontiffs should ascend the Capitol to pray in the temple of Jupiter. That solemn procession has long ceased to climb the slope of the Capitol, the Roman Empire itself has long passed away, like the empire of Alexander, like the empire of Charlemagne, like the empire of Spain, yet still amid the wreck of kingdoms the poet’s monument stands firm, for still his verses are read and remembered. I appeal to the Universities, I appeal to the Government of this country to unite in building a monument, a beneficent monument, of the British Empire, a monument

“_Quod non imber edax, non Aquilo impotens_ _Possit diruere, aut innumerabilis_ _Annorum series, et fuga temporum._”

[The End]

INDEX

{177}

Aborigines of Australia, the severity with which they punish sexual offences, 71 _sqq._

Abraham and Sarah, 60 _sq._

Abyssinia, 66, 81

Action and opinion, their relative values for society, 155

Adulterer and injured husband, physical relationship supposed to exist between, 104 _sq._

---- called a murderer, 65, 104

Adultery, expiation for, 44 _sq._; disastrous effects supposed to flow from, 44 _sqq._, 60 _sq._; punishment of, 46, 50 _sq._, 63 _sqq._; supposed to be dangerous to the culprits, their spouses, and their offspring, 102 _sqq._ _See also_ Infidelity.

Africa, superstitious veneration for kings in, 12 _sqq._; superstition as a support of property in, 38 _sqq._; disastrous effects supposed to flow from sexual immorality in, 54 _sqq._; British Central, 66, 79, 105; British East, 77, 81, 92, 105, 115, 123; German East, 92, 105, 106; North, 119

Akamba, the, of British East Africa, 77 _sq._, 105

Akikuyu, the, of British East Africa, 92, 105, 115, 128

Aleutian hunters, 106

Algonquin Indians, their modes of keeping off ghosts, 139

Amboyna, taboo in, 27 _sq._

America, Indians of North, 130 _sq._; the discovery of, 173

Amulets for the protection of fruit-trees, 29 _sqq._

Analogy between the reproduction of men, animals, and plants, 99 _sqq._

Ancestor-worship, 7

Anger of gods or spirits at sexual offences, 44, 46, 47, 50, 51, 54, 55 _sq._, 57, 61, 63, 107

Angola, 108; Cazembes of, 11

Angoni, the, of British Central Africa, 79, 132

Annam, savages of, 46

Annamites, the, 33

Anne, Queen, 18

Anointing the nail instead of the wound, 166

Antambahoaka, the, of Madagascar, 59

Anthropology, social, the scope of, 157 _sqq._

Anyanja, the, of British Central Africa, 66, 79, 105

Arab merchant in Darfur, 39

Araucanians of Chili, 84

Arawaks of British Guiana, 83

Areopagus, trials for murder before the, 156

Argos, massacre at, 115

Aricara Indians, 118

Armenians, their mutilation of the dead, 133

Assam, tribes of, 45

Attic law as to homicides, 114

_Atua_, guardian spirit, 118

_Atua tonga_, divinity, 8

Aunt, incest with, 50, 51

Australia, aborigines of, the severity with which they punish sexual offences, 71 _sqq._

----, Western, 74

Australian aborigines, their precautions against ghosts, 137

Avebury, Lord, 159

Avoidance, ceremonial, of relations by marriage, 75 _sqq._; a precaution against incest, 75, 84 _sqq._, 93; of wife’s mother, 75 _sqq._, 86 _sq._, 90 _sq._; between father-in-law and daughter-in-law, 76; between various relations, 76 _sq._; between father and daughter, 78, 85, 87; between father-in-law and son-in-law, 79 _sq._; of wife of wife’s brother, 80; of brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, 81; of future parents-in-law, 81, 83; between woman and her father-in-law, 82; between a man and his father-in-law, 82, 83; of blood relations, 84 _sqq._; between brother and sister, 85, {178} 86, 87, 88, 90; between mother and son, 85, 86, 87

Awemba, the, of Northern Rhodesia, 66, 79, 103 _sq._, 120

Babylonian code of Hammurabi, 64

---- kings, their curses, 37 _sq._

Baddat Dyaks of Borneo, 48

Baganda, punishment of sexual offences among the, 64 _sq._; rules of ceremonial avoidance among the, 90 _sq._; their ideas as to adultery, 102 _sq._; their ideas as to effect of wife’s infidelity on absent husband, 106 _sq._

Bakerewe, a Bantu people, 78

Bali, punishment of incest and adultery in, 68

Balkan peninsula, the Slavs of the, 97

Balonda, the, 38

Bangala, the, of the Upper Congo, 107

Banggai Archipelago, 54

Banishment of homicides, 113 _sqq._

Banks’ Islands, 6, 86

Banner, a fairy, 17

Bantu tribes, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 103, 123

Bantus, the, of South Africa, their customs as to the marriage of cousins, 91

Barea, the, tribe on the borders of Abyssinia, 66

Barring the road from the grave against the ghost, 138 _sq._

Basis of morality shifted from supernatural to natural, 153

Basoga, the, of Central Africa, 65

Bastards put to death, 96, 97

Basutos, the, 56; purification for homicide among the, 120 _sq._

Batamba, the, of Busoga, 76

Batang Lupar river in Borneo, 48

Battas, or Bataks, of Sumatra, their ideas as to sexual immorality, 46; their punishment of adultery, 69; their rules of ceremonial avoidance, 85

Bavili, the, of Loango, 55

Ba-Yaka, the, of the Congo Free State, 124

Beech, M. W. H., 129 _n._ 1

Belief in immortality a fruitful source of war, 129 _sq._; waste of life and property entailed by the, 111 _sq._

Bella Coola Indians, mourning customs of the, 144

Beni Amer, tribe on the borders of Abyssinia, 66

Bering Strait, 132

Besisi, the, of the Malay Peninsula, 137

Bhotias, the, of the Himalayas, 141

Bilaspore in India, 133

Bismarck Archipelago, 131

Black and white Furies, 117

Blood of pigs used in expiatory ceremonies, 44 _sqq._; of incestuous persons not to be shed on the ground, 52, 53, 68; of pigs used in ceremonies of purification, 116 _sq._; of the slain drunk by the slayers, 118 _sq._

Blood covenant, 118, 119

---- relations, ceremonial avoidance of, 84 _sqq._

Blu-u Kayans, the, of Borneo, 51

Boas, Franz, quoted, 126 _sq._, 146 _sq._

Bogos, tribe on borders of Abyssinia, 81

Bolivia, 106

Boloki, the, of the Congo, 39, 75, 107, 128

Borneo, the Sea Dyaks of, 34, 47 _sq._, 51, 136; pagan tribes of, 49 _sq._; tribes of Dutch, 50 _sq._

Brazil, Indians of, 96

British Columbia, mourning customs among the tribes of, 142 _sqq._

Brooke, Charles, quoted, 50

Brooke, Rajah, 12

Brother and sister, ceremonial avoidance between, 77, 85, 86, 87, 88, 90; incest of, 51, 54, 59, 60 _n._ 1, 62, 67, 68

Brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, mutual avoidance of, 81

Buduma, the, of Lake Chad, 109

Bugineese, the, of Celebes, 51

Bukaua, tribe of German New Guinea, 82, 131

Bureau of Ethnology in the U.S. America, 175

Burgundians, the, 16

Burma, 119, 130, 134, 135, 138; the Karens of, 44 _sq._

Burning as punishment of sexual crime, 63, 64, 68

Buru, an East Indian island, 109 _n._ 3

Burying alive as punishment, 46, 68, 69

Busoga, 76

Cairbre Musc, Irish legend of, 62

Calabria, superstition as to murderers in, 119

Californian Indians, 83

Cambridge in relation to anthropology, 175

Cameroon negroes, 116

Car Nicobar, rite of purification in, 116 _sq._

Caribs, the, 83

Caroline Islands, rules of ceremonial avoidance in the, 87 _sq._

Cazembes of Angola, 11

Celebes, 68

---- Central, 12, 29, 30, 52, 53, 122

---- Southern, 51

Celts of Ireland and Scotland, 17

Central Provinces of India, 33

{179}

Ceram, island of, 51; taboo in, 28

---- Laut Islands, taboo in, 28 _sq._

Ceylon, modes of protecting property in, 33

Chad, Lake, 109

Charms to protect property, 25 _sqq._, 38 _sq._, 41 _sqq._; for the protection of fruit-trees, 29 _sqq._

Chastity required of those who handle corn or enter a granary, 56 _sq._

Chiefs, supernatural powers attributed to, 6 _sqq._

Children supposed to suffer for the adultery of their father or mother, 102 _sqq._

Chili, 84

Chinese, their faith in ghosts, 149 _sqq._

Chinook Indians, their purification of homicides, 126 _sq._

Chins of Burma, their burial customs, 138 _sq._

Chitomé, the sacred pontiff of Congo, 108

Circumcision, orgies at, in Fiji, 60 _n._ 1

Civilization evolved from savagery, 162; endangered by superstition, 170

Clan, marriage within the, forbidden, 45, 65, 71; marriage within mother’s clan forbidden, 55

Claudius, the emperor, 61

Clytemnestra, ghost of, 118

Codrington, Dr. R. H., 6, 85 _n._ 1, 86

Communism, era of sexual, 164 _sq._

Comparative Method in anthropology, legitimacy of the, 172

Condon, Father M. A., quoted, 76 _sq._

Confession of sin, 45, 57, 61, 62, 64 _sq._, 103, 104, 107, 109

Congo, the, 39, 75, 107, 108, 124

Consanguineous marriages, question as to the results of, 95 _sq._

Continence required at certain times, 106 _sq._, 108

Corc and Cormac, Irish legend of, 62 _sq._

Corn, chastity required of persons who handle, 56 _sq._

Corpses mutilated in order to disable the ghosts, 132 _sq._, 134, 136, 137

Cousins, marriage of, 88 _sq._, 91; expiation for, 47 _sq._, 92 _sq._; forbidden, 47, 48, 53, 67, 72, 89, 90, 91, 92; punished, 67; supposed to be unfruitful, 92

----, mutual avoidance between male and female, 88 _sqq._

Cow’s dung as a detergent of ghosts, 123

Cowper, the poet, 174

Crawford, Raymond, 17 _n._ 5

Criminals, precautions against the ghosts of executed, 132

Crops, chiefs and kings thought to have power over the, 11 _sq._, 15, 16 _sq._; supposed to be blighted by sexual immorality, 44 _sq._, 46, 48, 49, 50 _sqq._

Cross-stick taboo, 25

Cumana in South America, 33

Curses as modes of protecting property, 24 _sq._, 28, 29, 31 _sq._, 34 _sqq._, 40 _sq._

Cycles in human affairs, 165 _sq._

Cynaetha in Arcadia, 115

_Damzogs_, guardian-spirits of property, 39 _sq._

Darfur, 39, 81

Daughter, incest with, 49, 51, 54, 58, 67, 68; and father, mutual avoidance of, 78

David, his sin, 107

Dawson, James, quoted, 71 _sq._

Dead, the fear of the, 111 _sq._; carried out of house by a special opening, 135

De Groot, Professor J. J. M., quoted, 150 _sq._

Delagoa Bay, 57, 80, 92, 104, 121

Delphic oracle, 61

Demeter and Persephone, 36

Destruction of the property of the dead, 111 _sq._, 135

Deuteronomy, 37

Development of moral theory, hypothetical, 102

“Devil going on his wife,” 54 _n._ 2

Devils, exorcism of, 116 _sq._

Diana, sacred grove of, 61

Dinkas, the, of the Upper Nile, 57

Divinity of Maori chiefs, 7 _sqq._; of kings, 10 _sqq._

Donaglas, the, 81

d’Orbigny, A., quoted, 111 _sqq._

Doreh in Dutch New Guinea, 131

Dos Santos, J., Portuguese historian, 13, 14

Drinking water as test of wife’s fidelity, 107

Drowning as a punishment for sexual offences, 49, 51, 52, 53, 54, 65, 66, 67, 68

Dunvegan, 17

Durham, Miss M. Edith, 97

Dyaks of Borneo, 47 _sq._, 51, 137; curses among the, 34 _sqq._

---- of Sarawak, 11

Early history of mankind, the imperfection of the record, 171 _sq._

Earthquakes thought to be caused by sexual immorality, 54

East Indies, sexual offences severely punished in, 67 _sqq._

Edward the Confessor, 18

Egypt, divinity of kings in ancient, 14 _sq._

Ekoi, the, of Southern Nigeria, 39

Epidemics supposed to be caused by incest, 46, 51

Eruptions of volcanoes supposed to be caused by incest, 54

{180}

Esquimaux of Bering Strait, 132

Evolution, a scale of mental, 172

Ewe negroes of Togoland, 142

---- speaking tribes of the Slave Coast, 41

Executioners taste the blood of their victims, 119

Exorcism of devils, 116 _sq._

Expiation for sexual immorality, 44 _sqq._, 57, 61, 62 _sq._; for marriage of cousins, 92 _sq._; for incest, 105 _sq._; for homicide, 128 _sq._

Extinction of the savage, 174 _sq._

_Fady_, or taboo, in Madagascar, 31 _sq._

Fairy banner, 17

---- changeling, 166

Father, incest with, 106

---- and daughter, mutual avoidance of, 78, 85, 87

Father-in-law avoided ceremonially by his daughter-in-law, 82; avoided ceremonially by his son-in-law, 82, 83

Fear of ghosts, 111 _sqq._; salutary effect of, 111, 113, 149 _sqq._; of women who die in pregnancy or childbed, 133 _sqq._

Fertility of women and cattle, supposed power of chiefs and kings over the, 14, 16; of land supposed to be impaired by sexual offences, 44 _sqq._

----, Diana a goddess of, 61 _sq._

Fetishes in Guinea, 41

Fetters put on the dead, 137

Fidelity, test of conjugal, 107

Fig-tree, sacred, among the Akikuyu, 128 _sq._

Fiji, authority of chiefs in, 7; taboo in, 27; orgies at circumcision in, 60 _n._ 1

Fijians, their custom of driving away ghosts, 131 _sq._

Finger, sacrifice of, 117

First-fruits offered to chiefs, 7

Fish sacred, 36

Floods supposed to be caused by incest, 49

Folklore, a department of Social Anthropology, 166, 169

Food-supply supposed to be affected by improper relations between the sexes, 100 _sq._

Fornication, expiation for, 44 _sq._; disastrous effects supposed to flow from, 44, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 55, 57, 63, 65, 96; punishment of, 44, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 55, 57, 63, 65, 66, 96 _sqq._

Frenzy caused by sight or thought of blood, 122 _sq._

Fruit-trees, charms for the protection of, 29 _sqq._

Furies of Clytemnestra, 117

Galelareese, the, of Halmahera, 54

Galton, Sir Francis, 159

Garcilasso de la Vega, quoted, 15 _sq._; on the Incas, 173

Gardens, superstition as to, 57

Gennep, A. van, 31

Ghostly power ascribed to chiefs, 6 _sq._

Ghosts as protectors of property, 26; the fear of, 111 _sqq._; salutary effect of belief in, 111, 113, 149 _sqq._; of all who have died violent deaths accounted dangerous, 130; of bad people, precautions against the, 132 _sq._; disabled by the mutilation of their corpses, 132 _sq._, 134, 136, 137; blinded, 133

---- and goblins outlast the high gods, 170 _sq._

---- of slain especially dreaded by their slayers, 113 _sqq._; thought to drive their slayers mad, 117 _sqq._; precautions taken by slayers against the, 117 _sqq._, 123 _sqq._; scared or driven away, 126, 130 _sqq._; especially dreaded by their kinsfolk and neighbours, 127 _sqq._

---- of women dying in pregnancy or childbed especially feared, 133 _sqq._

Girdle of red feathers, badge of royalty, 10

Girschner, Max, quoted, 87 _sq._

Goat, expiatory sacrifice of, 92

Gods or spirits angry at sexual offences, 44, 46, 47, 50, 51, 54, 55 _sq._, 57, 61, 63, 107; the creations of man’s fancy, 99; the stalking-horses of savages, 101; the high, ephemeral compared to ghosts and goblins, 170 _sq._

Government, superstition as a prop of, 6 _sqq._; of mankind essentially aristocratic, 167

Governors, supernatural powers attributed to, 6

Granaries, superstitions concerning, 56 _sq._

Gran Chaco, Indians of the, 140

Granddaughter, incest with, 48

Grave, the road from the, barred against the ghost, 138 _sq._

Greasing the hands of the dead, 137 _sq._

Greece, superstitious veneration for kings in Homeric, 16

_Greegrees_, charms, 42

Greek purification of homicides, 116, 120, 123 _sq._

Greeks, the ancient, their use of curses, 36 _sq._; their ideas as to incest, 61; their customs as to homicide, 113 _sq._

Grimm, the brothers, 169 _sq._

Guiana, British, 83; Indians of, their notion as to homicides, 117 _sq._

Guinea, fetishes in, 41

Gula, Babylonian goddess, 38

Haida Indians of Queen Charlotte Islands, 107

{181}

Hair of homicides shaved, 123 _sq._, 128

Halmahera, East Indian island, 54

Hammurabi, code of, 64

Hanging as punishment for incest, 90

Hebrews, their ideas as to adultery, 60 _sq._

Heraclitus on purification for homicide, 117

Herbert River in Queensland, 137

Herero, the, of South Africa, 133

Herzegovina, 98

Hindoos of the Punjaub, 133; ancient, burial custom of the, 137

Hippopotamus hunters, superstitions of, 57 _sqq._

History regulated by general laws, 160; of mankind, imperfection of the early records, 171 _sq._

Hlengoues, the, of South-East Africa, 57

Hobley, C. W., 105 _n._ 2; quoted, 115 _n._ 5

Homicide, purification for, 114, 115 _sqq._, 120 _sqq._, 123 _sqq._; expiation for, 128 _sq._

Homicides fear the ghosts of their victims, 113 _sqq._; secluded, 114 _sq._, 120, 121 _sq._, 124, 125 _sqq._; taste the blood of their victims, 118 _sq._

Horror of sexual irregularities among savages, suggested reason for, 101

Hose, Ch., and McDougall, W., quoted, 49 _sq._

Hottentots forbid marriage of cousins, 67

Howitt, A. W., 75 _n._ 1, 85 _n._ 1

Huichol Indians of Mexico, 106

Human history regulated by general laws, 160

---- life, superstition as a prop to the security of, 111 _sqq._

Huth, A. H., 95

Hypotheses, their place in science, 172

Ibo, the, of Nigeria, 119

Iguana used in magic, 30 _sq._

Illegitimate children put to death, 96 _sq._

Immorality, sexual, disastrous effects believed to flow from, 44 _sqq._, 63; supposed to disturb the course of nature, 99 _sqq._; original ground of the conception unknown, 102; supposed to be injurious to the culprits themselves and their relations, 102 _sqq._; superstition as to, 110

Immortality, waste of life and property entailed by the belief in, 111 _sq._; belief in, a fruitful source of war, 129 _sq._

Impalement as punishment of adultery, 67

Inbreeding, question of the effects of, 95 _sq._

Incas of Peru, 173

Incest, disastrous effects supposed to flow from, 45 _sqq._, 61; with granddaughter, 48; with adopted daughter, 49; punishment of, 49 _sq._, 51, 52 _sqq._, 90, 91; with aunt, 50, 51; with a mother, 51, 61, 67; with a niece, 51, 53; with a daughter, 51, 54, 58, 67, 68; with a sister, 51, 54, 59, 60 _n._ 1, 62, 67, 68, 105; enjoined in certain circumstances, 57 _sqq._; expiation for, 105 _sq._; with father, 106

India, superstitious veneration for kings in ancient, 16

Indian Archipelago, precautions against ghosts of women dying in childbed in the, 136

Indians of North America, their custom of driving away the ghosts of the slain, 130 _sq._

Infanticide in China checked by fear of ghosts, 150 _sq._

Infection, physical, supposed to be spread by unchaste persons, 109

Infertile marriage, dread of, 94

Infertility thought to be caused by sexual immorality, 57, 60 _sq._; of women and cattle supposed to be caused by fornication, 109 _sq._

Infidelity of husband supposed to be dangerous to his offspring, 103; of wife supposed to endanger her husband, 106 _sqq._ _See also_ Adultery

Inoculation, magical, of hunters, 57 _sq._; of homicides, 121

Insanity, temporary, caused by blood, 122 _sq._

Institutions, early history of, imperfections in the records, 171 _sq._

Ireland, superstitions as to kings in ancient, 17

Irish legend as to incest of brother and sister, 62

Ishtar, the goddess, 38

Isla del Malhado in Florida, 83

Issoudun in British New Guinea, 147

Ja-Luo, the, of Kavirondo, 123

Job on adultery, 60

Johnson, Dr. S., 17, 18; on _Voyages to the South Seas_, 173

_Jok_, ancestral spirits, 57

Joustra, M., 85 _n._ 1

Jupagalk tribe of Australia, 74

Juris, the, of Brazil, 33

Kabyles, the, of North Africa, 119

Kachins of Burma, their fear of the ghosts of women dying in childbed, 135 _sq._

Kai, the, of German New Guinea, their fear of the ghosts of the slain, 124 _sq._

Kamilaroi tribe of New South Wales, 74

{182}

Karens of Burma, their ideas as to sexual immorality, 44 _sq._; their dread of ghosts, 130

Kavirondo, the, of British East Africa, 65, 123

Kawars, the, 33

Kayans, the, of Borneo, 49, 50, 51

Khasis, the, of Assam, 45

Kickapoo Indians, 130

Kikuyu. _See_ Akikuyu

King’s Evil, touching for, 17 _sq._

Kings, superstitious veneration for, 10 _sqq._

---- of Tahiti, their sacredness 10 _sq._

Kouis, the, of Laos, 32

Kubus, the, of Sumatra, 67

Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia, mourning customs of the, 146 _sq._

Landmarks protected by gods and curses, 37 _sq._

Laos, 32

Laurel leaves used in purificatory rites, 117

Laws regulating marriage, their origin unknown, 102; which regulate human history, 160

Leaden tablets, 36

Leaping over grave of murdered man, 119

Leaves used in exorcism, 116 _sq._

Lengua Indians, their fear of ghosts, 140 _sq._

Leviticus, 61

Licence, periods of, 60 _n._ 1

Lightning a punishment of incest, 45

Lillooet Indians of British Columbia, mourning customs of the, 145 _sq._

Livingstone, David, quoted, 38

Lkungen or Songish Indians of Vancouver Island, mourning customs of the, 143

Loango, the king of, 12, 13; ideas as to sexual immorality in, 54 _sq._

Lombok, sexual offences severely punished in, 70

Looboos, a people of Sumatra, 82, 109

_Looï_, pollution incurred by unchastity, 109

Loowoo, in Celebes, 12

Louis XV., 18

Louis XVI., 18

Low, Hugh, 48

Lushai, the, of North-Eastern India, 119 _sq._

Macassars, the, of Celebes, 51

McDougall, W., and Hose, Ch., quoted, 49 _sq._

Macleods, chief of the, 17

Madagascar, 59, 106; taboo in, 31 _sq._

Madness supposed to be caused by homicide, 117 _sqq._

Magic older than religion, 100

Magical rites tend to become religious, 100

Maiming as a punishment of adultery, 64

Malagasy charms, 31

Malay Archipelago, taboo in the, 27 _sq._

---- Peninsula, 137

---- peoples, the severity with which they punish sexual offences, 70 _sq._

---- region, divinity of kings in the, 11 _sqq._

Maloulekes, the, of South-Eastern Africa, 57

Mamoedjoe, district of Celebes, 68

Man, the science of, 159 _sq._; primæval, unknown, 163 _sq._

_Mana_, supernatural power, 6

Mangars, a tribe of Nepal, 138

Mankind dominated by an enlightened minority, 167 _sq._

Manslayer. _See_ Homicide

Mantineans, their purification, 115

Manu, laws of, 16, 63

Maori chiefs, authority of, 7 _sqq._; esteemed gods, 7 _sq._

Maoris, taboo among the, 20 _sqq._

Marks of taboo to protect property, 25 _sqq._, 38 _sq._, 41 _sqq._

Marquesas Islands, taboo in the, 23 _sq._

Marrah, in Darfur, 39

Marriage, superstition in relation to, 44 _sqq._

---- of cousins, different customs as to the, 88 _sq._, 91; forbidden, 89, 90, 91, 92, supposed to be unfruitful, 92; expiation for the, 92 _sq._

---- laws, their origin unknown, 102

Marriages, consanguineous, question as to the results of, 95 _sq._

Masai, the, of British East Africa, 81; of German East Africa, 105

Medicine-man, respect for, 14

Melanesia, taboo as a preserver of property in, 26 _sq._

Melanesians, authority of chiefs among the, 6 _sq._; rules of ceremonial avoidance amongst the, 86 _sq._; of the Bismarck Archipelago, 131

Men Aziottenos, 37

Men naturally unequal, 166 _sq._

Mental evolution, a scale of, 172

Meteors, superstition as to, 141

Milky Way, 141

Mimic warfare, 129

Mimicry in magic, 100

Minority, mankind dominated by an enlightened, 167 _sq._

Montenegrin peasantry, their strict views of sexual immorality, 97

Moral theory, hypothetical development of, 102

{183}

Morality, sexual, enforced by superstition, 44 _sqq._; change in the theoretical basis of, 101 _sq._; basis of, shifted from supernatural to natural, 153

Morocco, superstitions concerning granaries in, 56 _sq._

Mosaic law, punishments for sexual offences under the, 64

Mother, incest with a, 51, 61; and son, ceremonial avoidance between, 85, 86, 87

Mother-in-law, ceremonial avoidance of, 75 _sqq._, 86 _sq._, 90 _sq._

Mount Elgon, 123

Mourning customs of widows and widowers, 142 _sqq._

Moxos Indians of Bolivia, 106

Mukjarawaint tribe of Victoria, 74

Murderer, rules observed by pardoned, 126

Murderers, their precautions against the ghosts of their victims, 117 _sqq._

Mutilation of corpses in order to disable the ghosts, 132 _sq._, 134, 136, 137; of the dying or dead, 141

Nails used to prevent ghosts from walking, 133

Names of kings sacred, 10

Nandi, the, of British East Africa, 14, 56, 66, 118; curses among the, 40 _sq._

Natchez Indians of North America, 124

Natural inequality of men, 166 _sq._

Nature, why illicit relations between the sexes are thought to disturb the balance of, 99 _sqq._

---- the Sphinx, 102

Nebuchadnezzar, the king, quoted, 37 _sq._

Nepal, 138

Nets to catch ghosts, 139

New Britain, 109; taboo in, 26 _sq._

---- Guinea, British, 125, 147; Dutch, 131; German, 82, 124, 127, 131

---- Hebrides, 86

---- Ireland, 89, 90

---- Mecklenburg, 89

---- South Wales, 74

---- Zealand, authority of chiefs in, 7 _sqq._ Nias, the island of, 46 _sq._; curses in, 34

Niece, incest with, 51, 53

Niger, tribes of the Lower, 119

Nile, the Upper, 57

Ninib, Babylonian god, 38

_Nuru_, the spirit of the slain, 121

Nusku, Babylonian god, 38

Oaths and imprecations as preservers of property, 24 _sqq._ _See also_ Curses

_Obeah_ man, magician, 42

_Obi_, magic, 42

Oedipus, the incest of, 61

Ojèbways, their modes of keeping off ghosts, 139 _sq._

Omaha Indians, 132 _sq._; their customs as to pardoned murderers, 126

Opinion and action, their relative values for society, 155

Orang Glai, the, savages of Annam, 46

Oraons of Bengal, their fear of the ghosts of women dying in childbed or pregnancy, 134

Oregon, Chinook Indians of, 126

Orestes, the matricide, 114, 115, 117, 118, 119, 126

Orinoco, the, 112

Ottawa Indians, 131

Ovakumbi, a tribe of Angola, 108

Ovambo, a Bantu people of South-West Africa, 80 _sq._

Pacific, first exploration of the, 173

Paestum, the temples at, 170

Paint-house, the, 55

_Pamali_, taboo, 27

Papuans of New Guinea, 131; of Issoudun, 147

Parents-in-law, ceremonial avoidance by man of his future, 81, 83

Parricide, Roman punishment of, 52; guilt of, 61

Pasemhers, a tribe of Sumatra, 69

Pasir, a district of Borneo, 51

Patagonians, their fear of the dead, 111 _sqq._

Peasantry of Europe, their intellectual savagery, 170

_Pemali_, taboo, 27

Pepper put in eyes of corpse to blind ghost, 133

Perham, J., 47

Persephone, 36

Peru, the Yncas of, 15 _sq._, 173

_Petara_, Dyak name for deity, 47

Pig’s blood used in ceremonies of purification, 116 _sq._

Pigs used in expiatory ceremonies, 44 _sqq._

Physical causation, false notions of, 100

---- infection supposed to be spread by unchaste persons, 109

---- relationship supposed to exist between adulterer and injured husband, 104 _sq._

Plato on sanctity of landmarks, 37

Pollution, ceremonial, 93, 105; incurred by homicide, 115 _sqq._, 128

----, dangerous, supposed to be incurred by unchastity, 109

Polynesia, authority of chiefs in, 7 _sqq._; taboo in, 20 _sqq._

_Pomali_, taboo, 27

_Pontianak_, ghost of woman who died in childbed, 137 _n._

{184}

Precautions taken by homicides against the ghosts of their victims, 117 _sqq._, 123 _sqq._; against the ghosts of bad people, 132 _sq._; against ghosts of women dying in pregnancy or childbed, 133 _sqq._; taken by widows and widowers against the ghosts of their spouses, 142 _sqq._

Prehistoric ages, imperfections in the records of, 171 _sq._

Primæval man unknown, 163 _sq._

Primitive, relative sense in which the word is applied to existing savages, 163 _sq._

Private property, superstition as a prop of, 20 _sqq._

Propagation of animals and plants supposed to be affected by the relations of the human sexes, 99 _sqq._

Property, superstition as a support of private, 20 _sqq._; of the dead destroyed, 111 _sq._, 135

_Psanyi_, 122

Punans, the, of Borneo, 50

Punishments, severe, for sexual offences, 63 _sqq._, 96 _sqq._

Punjaub, the, 133

Purification for unchastity by means of blood, 44 _sqq._; for unchastity by means of water, 109; for homicide, 114, 115 _sqq._, 120 _sqq._, 123 _sqq._; and capital punishment, 151 _sq._

Queen Anne, 18

Queen Charlotte Islands, 107

Queen Draga of Servia, 97

Queensland, native tribes of, 72 _sqq._; their mutilation of the dead, 137

Rain, kings expected to give, 13 _sq._; failure or excess of, supposed to be caused by sexual immorality, 44, 46, 47, 48, 54, 55, 56

Rajah Brooke, 12

Rajamahal in Bengal, 45

Ramanandroany, a Malagasy deity, 31

Rape, punishment of, 66

Red paint put on homicides, 118, 124, 127

Regalia, sanctity of, 11

Relations by marriage, ceremonial avoidance of, 75 _sqq._

Religion supplies the new theoretical basis of sexual morality, 101; of one generation the superstition of the next, 170 _sq._

---- and magic, their relations, 100

Renan, Ernest, on the menace to civilization, 170

Reproduction of men, animals, and plants, analogy between the, 99 _sq._

Rhodesia, Northern, 66, 79, 103, 120

Rhys, Sir John, quoted, 54 _n._ 2, 62 _sq._

Rio de Janeiro, 96

Risley, Sir Herbert H., quoted, 138

Road from the grave barred against the ghost, 138 _sq._

Robert the Pious, 18

Roman custom as to incest, 61 _sq._

---- punishment of parricide, 52

Roscoe, Rev. J., quoted, 64 _sq._, 90 _sq._, 102 _sq._

Ruanda, a district of Central Africa, 96

Sacred chiefs, 7 _sqq._

---- fig-tree among the Akikuyu, 128 _sq._

---- fish, 36

Sacredness of chiefs in Polynesia, 7 _sqq._

Sahagun on the natives of Mexico, 173

St. Patrick, canon of, 17

Samoa, superstition as a preserver of property in, 24 _sqq._

Samoan taboos, 25 _sq._

Sarah and Abraham, 60 _sq._

Sarawak, Hill Dyaks of, 11 _sq._, 48

Savage, the, a human document, 172 _sq._; the passing of the, 174 _sq._

Savage horror of sexual irregularities, suggested reason for, 101

Savagery, civilization evolved out of, 162; importance of the study of, 162 _sq._, 172 _sqq._; intellectual, of European peasantry, 170

Savages of to-day primitive only in a relative sense, 163 _sq._

Saxons, their punishment of sexual offences, 97

Scapegoat for ghosts, 141 _sq._

Scarecrows for ghosts, 139

Scepticism, religious, undermines foundations of society, 7

Science of man, 159 _sq._

----, the temple of, 161

Scrofula, touching for, 17 _sq._

Scythians drank the blood of friends and foes, 118

Sea-pike taboo, 25

Seclusion of homicides, 114 _sq._, 120, 121 _sq._, 124, 125 _sqq._

Semendo, a district of Sumatra, 68

Servius Tullius, King, 61

Sexual communism, era of, 164 _sq._

---- immorality supposed to be injurious to the culprits themselves and to their relations, 102 _sqq._; superstitions as to, 110

---- morality enforced by superstition, 44 _sqq._; change in the theoretical basis of, 101

---- offences punished severely, 63 _sqq._, 96 _sqq._; reason why savages punish these offences severely, 99 _sqq._

“Shaking tubercule,” 32

Shans, the, of Burma, 119, 134

{185}

Sheep, expiatory sacrifice of, 92, 93

Shushwap Indians of British Columbia, mourning customs of the, 142 _sq._

Siam, 32

Sibuyaus, the, of Sarawak, 48

Sibylline Books, 173

Sickness caused by evil spirits or sorcerers, 141

“Sickness of relationship,” 76 _sq._

Sierra Leone, 42

Similarity of the human mind in all races, 172

Sister, incest with a, 51, 54, 59, 60 _n._ 1, 62, 67, 68, 105

Sisters and brothers, mutual avoidance of, 77

Slave Coast, the, 41

Slavery in England, 169

Slavs, punishment of sexual offences among the Southern, 97 _sq._

Slayers fear the ghosts of their victims, 113 _sqq._

_Sle_, pollution incurred by unchastity, 109

Smyrna, 36

Social anthropology, the scope of, 157 _sqq._

Society, concerned with conduct, not opinion, 155; ultimately controlled by knowledge, 167; sapped by superstition, 170; its surface in perpetual motion, 171

Sociology, 160

Sofala, the king of, 13, 14

Son-in-law, ceremonial avoidance of, 79 _sq._

Sophocles on Oedipus, 61

Sphinx, riddles of the, 102

State, duty of the, in regard to anthropology, 175 _sq._

Stinks to keep off ghosts, 139

Stoning as a punishment of sexual offences, 64, 97 _sq._

Sulka, the, of New Britain, 109

Sumatra, 46, 67, 68, 69, 82, 109

Sun, Yncas descended from the, 15

Supernatural powers attributed to chiefs, 6 _sqq._

Superstition, baneful effects of, 3; a plea for, 3 _sq._, 154 _sq._; as a prop of government, 6 _sqq._; as a prop of private property, 20 _sqq._; as a prop of marriage, 44 _sqq._; as a prop to the security of human life, 111 _sqq._; heavy toll paid to, 113; services which superstition has rendered to humanity, 154 _sq._; at the bar, 155 _sq._; the creed of the laggards in the march of intellect, 168 _sq._; a danger to society, 170; the religion of a past generation, 170 _sq._

Superstitions either public or private, 169; the crudest, survive longest, 170 _sq._

Superstitious fear of contact with Maori chiefs, 9 _sq._

Surface of society in perpetual motion, 171

Survivals of savagery in civilization, 166

Swedes, the ancient, 16

Taboo as a support of chiefs, 7 _sqq._; as a prop of private property, 20 _sqq._; (_tambu_) in Melanesia, 26 _sq._

Tabooed, homicides, 121

Tahiti, sacredness of kings of, 10 _sq._

Tamanaques, the, of the Orinoco, 112

_Tambu_ (taboo) in Melanesia, 26 _sq._

_Tapu_ (taboo) among the Maoris, 20 _sqq._

Tattooing of homicides, 121

Taylor, Rev. Richard, 8

Ternate, 54

_Thahu_, ceremonial pollution, 93, 105, 115, 128

Theal, G. McCall, quoted, 91

Theoretical basis of sexual morality, 101

Thieves cursed, 34 _sqq._

Thompson Indians of British Columbia, mourning customs of the, 144 _sq._

Thomson, Basil, quoted, 7

Thomson, J. Arthur, quoted, 95 _sq._

Thonga tribe of South-East Africa, 57, 80, 92, 104; their purification of homicides, 121 _sq._

Thorn bushes to keep off ghosts, 142 _sq._, 144, 145

Thunder taboo, 26

Tigers, plague of, a punishment for sexual offences, 45, 46

Timor, taboo in, 27

Togoland, 142

Tololaki, the, of Central Celebes, 53

Tomori, the, of Central Celebes, 52

Tonga, sacredness of chiefs in, 10; taboo in, 26

Tonquin, 33

Toradjas of Central Celebes, 12, 29, 30, 122; their fear of the ghosts of the slain, 129

Torture to extract confession, 64 _sq._

Touched, chiefs and kings not to be, 9, 11

Touching for scrofula, 17 _sq._

Traitors disembowelled in England, 169

Travail pangs supposed to be aggravated by adultery, 104

Travancore, 132

Trembling thought to be caused by contact with certain relations, 77, 90

Troezen, purification of Orestes at, 115

Tsetsaut Indians of British Columbia, mourning customs of the, 143

Tubercule, the shaking, 32

Tunguses, their burial customs, 137, 138

Turner, Dr. George, quoted, 24 _sq._, 26

{186}

Tylor, Sir E. B., 159

Ulcer taboo, 25 _sq._

Unchastity, supposed physical infection of, 109

United States of America, their Bureau of Ethnology, 175

Universities, the function of the, 175

Unmarried persons, disastrous effects supposed to flow from sexual intercourse between, 44, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 55, 57, 63, 65, 96

Vancouver Island, 143

Victoria, aborigines of, 71 _sq._

---- Nyanza, Lake, 78

_Voyages to the South Seas_, 173

Wagogo, the, of German East Africa, 92, 106

Wakelbura tribe of Queensland, 72

Wallace, A. R., quoted, 27, 70

Wanigela River, 125

Wanika, the, of East Africa, 38

War, a sacred duty, 129; wives expected to be faithful during their husbands’ absence at the, 106 _sq._

Warfare, mimic, conducted by women and children at home, 129

Washamba, the, of German East Africa, 106

Water ordeal, 107

Wawanga, the, of British East Africa, 123

Weeks, Rev. John H., 85 _n._ 1; quoted, 75 _sq._, 128

Welsh saying as to rain, 54 _n._ 2

West Indies, charms to protect property in the, 42 _sq._

Westermarck, Dr. Edward, 32, 56

White-shark taboo, 25

Widows and widowers, precautions taken by them against the ghosts of their spouses, 142 _sqq._

Wife of wife’s brother, ceremonial avoidance of, 80

Wife’s mother, ceremonial avoidance of, 75 _sqq._, 86 _sq._, 90 _sq._

Witches burned in England, 169

Women dying in pregnancy or childbed, fear of their ghosts, 133 _sqq._

Wotjobaluk tribe of Victoria, 74