THE SCOPE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY
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THE SCOPE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY
[A lecture delivered before the University of Liverpool, May 14th, 1908.]
Social Anthropology. The subject of the chair which I have the honour to hold is Social Anthropology. As the subject is still comparatively new and its limits are still somewhat vague, I shall devote my inaugural lecture to defining its scope and marking out roughly, if not the boundaries of the whole study, at least the boundaries of that part of it which I propose to take for my province.
Anthropology a study of recent date. Strange as it may seem, in the large and thriving family of the sciences, Anthropology, or the Science of Man, is the latest born. So young indeed is the study that three of its distinguished founders in England, Professor E. B. Tylor, Lord Avebury, and Mr. Francis Galton, are happily still with us. It is true that particular departments of man’s complex nature have long been the theme of special studies. Anatomy has investigated his body, psychology has explored his mind, theology and metaphysics have sought to plumb the depths of the great mysteries by which he is encompassed on every hand. But it has been reserved for the present generation, or rather for the generation which is passing away, to attempt the comprehensive study of man as a whole, to enquire not merely into the physical and mental structure of the individual, but to compare the various races of men, to trace their affinities, and by means of a wide collection of facts to follow as far as may be the evolution of human thought and institutions from the earliest times. The aim of this, as of every other science, is to discover the general laws to which the particular facts may be supposed to conform. I say, may be supposed to conform, because research in all departments has rendered it antecedently probable that everywhere law and order will be found to prevail if we search for them diligently, and that accordingly the affairs of man, however complex and incalculable they may seem to be, are no exception to the uniformity of nature. Anthropology, therefore, in the widest sense of the word, aims at discovering the general laws which have regulated human history in the past, and which, if nature is really uniform, may be expected to regulate it in the future.
The scope of Social Anthropology more limited than that of Sociology; it includes only the rudimentary phases of human society. Hence the science of man coincides to a certain extent with what has long been known as the philosophy of history as well as with the study to which of late years the name of Sociology has been given. Indeed it might with some reason be held that Social Anthropology, or the study of man in society, is only another expression for Sociology. Yet I think that the two sciences may be conveniently distinguished, and that while the name of Sociology should be reserved for the study of human society in the most comprehensive sense of the words, the name of Social Anthropology may with advantage be restricted to one particular department of that immense field of knowledge. At least I wish to make it perfectly clear at the outset that I for one do not pretend to treat of the whole of human society, past, present, and future. Whether any single man’s compass of mind and range of learning suffice for such a vast undertaking, I will not venture to say, but I do say without hesitation or ambiguity that mine certainly do not. I can only speak of what I have studied, and my studies have been mostly confined to a small, a very small part of man’s social history. That part is the origin, or rather the rudimentary phases, the infancy and childhood, of human society, and to that part accordingly I propose to limit the scope of Social Anthropology, or at all events my treatment of it. My successors in the chair will be free to extend their purview beyond the narrow boundaries which the limitation of my knowledge imposes on me. They may survey the latest developments as well as the earliest beginnings of custom and law, of science and art, of morality and religion, and from that survey they may deduce the principles which should guide mankind in the future, so that those who come after us may avoid the snares and pitfalls into which we and our fathers have slipped. For the best fruit of knowledge is wisdom, and it may reasonably be hoped that a deeper and wider acquaintance with the past history of mankind will in time enable our statesmen to mould the destiny of the race in fairer forms than we of this generation shall live to see.
“Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would we not shatter it to bits—and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart’s desire!”
At least the present lecturer limits himself to these phases. But if you wish to shatter the social fabric, you must not expect your professor of Social Anthropology to aid and abet you. He is no seer to discern, no prophet to foretell a coming heaven on earth, no mountebank with a sovran remedy for every ill, no Red Cross Knight to head a crusade against misery and want, against disease and death, against all the horrid spectres that war on poor humanity. It is for others with higher notes and nobler natures than his to sound the charge and lead it in this Holy War. He is only a student, a student of the past, who may perhaps tell you a little, a very little, of what has been, but who cannot, dare not tell you what ought to be. Yet even the little that he can contribute to the elucidation of the past may have its utility as well as its interest when it finally takes its place in that great temple of science to which it is the ambition of every student to add a stone. For we cherish a belief that if we truly love and seek knowledge for its own sake, without any ulterior aim, every addition we may make to it, however insignificant and useless it may appear, will yet at last be found to work together with the whole accumulated store for the general good of mankind.
Social Anthropology embraces the study, first, of savagery, and, second, of folklore, that is, of the traces of savagery in civilization. Thus the sphere of Social Anthropology as I understand it, or at least as I propose to treat it, is limited to the crude beginnings, the rudimentary development of human society: it does not include the maturer phases of that complex growth, still less does it embrace the practical problems with which our modern statesmen and lawgivers are called upon to deal. The study might accordingly be described as the embryology of human thought and institutions, or, to be more precise, as that enquiry which seeks to ascertain, first, the beliefs and customs of savages, and, second, the relics of these beliefs and customs which have survived like fossils among peoples of higher culture. All civilization evolved from savagery. In this description of the sphere of Social Anthropology it is implied that the ancestors of the civilized nations were once savages, and that they have transmitted, or may have transmitted, to their more cultured descendants ideas and institutions which, however incongruous with their later surroundings, were perfectly in keeping with the modes of thought and action of the ruder society in which they originated. In short, the definition assumes that civilization has always and everywhere been evolved out of savagery. The mass of evidence on which this assumption rests is in my opinion so great as to render the induction incontrovertible. At least, if any one disputes it I do not think it worth while to argue with him. There are still, I believe, in civilized society people who hold that the earth is flat and that the sun goes round it; but no sensible man will waste time in the vain attempt to convince such persons of their error, even though these flatteners of the earth and circulators of the sun appeal with perfect justice to the evidence of their senses in support of their hallucination, which is more than the opponents of man’s primitive savagery are able to do.
Hence a study of savagery essential to an understanding of the evolution of humanity. Thus the study of savage life is a very important part of Social Anthropology. For by comparison with civilized man the savage represents an arrested or rather retarded stage of social development, and an examination of his customs and beliefs accordingly supplies the same sort of evidence of the evolution of the human mind that an examination of the embryo supplies of the evolution of the human body. To put it otherwise, a savage is to a civilized man as a child is to an adult; and just as the gradual growth of intelligence in a child corresponds to, and in a sense recapitulates, the gradual growth of intelligence in the species, so a study of savage society at various stages of evolution enables us to follow approximately, though of course not exactly, the road by which the ancestors of the higher races must have travelled in their progress upward through barbarism to civilization. In short, savagery is the primitive condition of mankind, and if we would understand what primitive man was we must know what the savage now is.
Savages of the present day are primitive only in a relative sense, namely by comparison with civilized peoples; their customs and beliefs are in fact the product of a long course of evolution as to which we can know little or nothing. But here it is necessary to guard against a common misapprehension. The savages of to-day are primitive only in a relative, not in an absolute sense. They are primitive by comparison with us; but they are not primitive by comparison with truly primæval man, that is, with man as he was when he first emerged from the purely bestial stage of existence. Indeed, compared with man in his absolutely pristine state even the lowest savage of to-day is doubtless a highly developed and cultured being, since all evidence and all probability are in favour of the view that every existing race of men, the rudest as well as the most civilized, has reached its present level of culture, whether it be high or low, only after a slow and painful progress upwards, which must have extended over many thousands, perhaps millions, of years. Therefore when we speak of any known savages as primitive, which the usage of the English language permits us to do, it should always be remembered that we apply the term primitive to them in a relative, not in an absolute sense. What we mean is that their culture is rudimentary compared with that of the civilized nations, but not by any means that it is identical with that of primæval man. It is necessary to emphasize this relative use of the term primitive in its application to all known savages without exception, because the ambiguity arising from the double meaning of the word has been the source of much confusion and misunderstanding. Careless or unscrupulous writers have made great play with it for purposes of controversy, using the word now in the one sense and now in the other as it suited their argument at the moment, without perceiving, or at all events without indicating, the equivocation. In order to avoid these verbal fallacies it is only necessary to bear steadily in mind that while Social Anthropology has much to say of primitive man in the relative sense, it has nothing whatever to say about primitive man in the absolute sense, and that for the very simple reason that it knows nothing whatever about him, and, so far as we can see at present, is never likely to know anything. To construct a history of human society by starting from absolutely primordial man and working down through thousands or millions of years to the institutions of existing savages might possibly have merits as a flight of imagination, but it could have none as a work of science. To do this would be exactly to reverse the proper mode of scientific procedure. It would be to work a priori from the unknown to the known instead of a posteriori from the known to the unknown. For we do know a good deal about the social state of the savages of to-day and yesterday, but we know nothing whatever, I repeat, about absolutely primitive human society. Hence a sober enquirer who seeks to elucidate the social evolution of mankind in ages before the dawn of history must start, not from an unknown and purely hypothetical primæval man, but from the lowest savages whom we know or possess adequate records of; and from their customs, beliefs, and traditions as a solid basis of fact he may work back a little way hypothetically through the obscurity of the past; that is, he may form a reasonable theory of the way in which these actual customs, beliefs, and traditions have grown up and developed in a period more or less remote, but probably not very remote, from the one in which they have been observed and recorded. But if, as I assume, he is a sober enquirer, he will never expect to carry back this reconstruction of human history very far, still less will he dream of linking it up with the very beginning, because he is aware that we possess no evidence which would enable us to bridge even hypothetically the gulf of thousands or millions of years which divides the savage of to-day from primæval man.
For example, the marriage customs and systems of relationship prevalent among many savage tribes appear to have been evolved from a preceding, but not necessarily primitive, state of sexual promiscuity. It may be well to illustrate my meaning by an example. The matrimonial customs and modes of tracing relationships which prevail among some savage races, and even among peoples at a higher stage of culture, furnish very strong grounds for believing that the systems of marriage and consanguinity which are now in vogue among civilized peoples must have been immediately preceded at a more or less distant time by very different modes of counting kin and regulating marriage; in fact, that monogamy and the forbidden degrees of kinship have replaced an older system of much wider and looser sexual relations. But to say this is not to affirm that such looser and wider relations were characteristic of the absolutely primitive condition of mankind; it is only to say that actually existing customs and traditions clearly indicate the extensive prevalence of such relations at some former time in the history of our race. How remote that time was, we cannot tell; but, estimated by the whole vast period of man’s existence on earth, it seems probable that the era of sexual communism to which the evidence points was comparatively recent; in other words, that for the civilized races the interval which divides that era from our own is to be reckoned by thousands rather than by hundreds of thousands of years, while for the lowest of existing savages, for example, the aborigines of Australia, it is possible or probable that the interval may not be greater than a few centuries. Be that as it may, even if on the strength of the evidence I have referred to we could demonstrate the former prevalence of a system of sexual communism among all the races of mankind, this would only carry us back a single step in the long history of our species; it would not justify us in concluding that such a system had been practised by truly primæval man, still less that it had prevailed among mankind from the beginning down to the comparatively recent period at which its existence may be inferred from the evidence at our disposal. About the social condition of primæval man, I repeat, we know absolutely nothing, and it is vain to speculate. Our first parents may have been as strict monogamists as Whiston or Dr. Primrose, or they may have been just the reverse. We have no information on the subject, and are never likely to get any. In the countless ages which have elapsed since man and woman first roamed the happy garden hand in hand or jabbered like apes among the leafy boughs of the virgin forest, their relations to each other may have undergone innumerable changes. For human affairs, like the courses of the heaven, seem to run in cycles: the social pendulum swings to and fro from one extremity of the scale to the other: in the political sphere it has swung from democracy to despotism, and back again from despotism to democracy; and so in the domestic sphere it may have oscillated many a time between libertinism and monogamy.
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 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. 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. 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.
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 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.
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. 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. 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.
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 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. 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.
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 which every enlightened nation that rules over lower races ought to imitate. 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. 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
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, 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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
Yabim, the, of German New Guinea, 127, 131
Yncas of Peru, superstitious veneration for the, 15 sq.
Yucatan, Indians of, 83
Yuin tribe of New South Wales, 74
Zanzibar, 78
Zeus as guardian of landmarks, 37
Zulus, their ideas as to injurious effects of adultery, 107 sq.