Note 2.1 — RITUAL AND BELIEF

Other causes are equally prolific of error in regard to savage beliefs. Sir Edward Tylor refers to haste and imperfect acquaintance by the traveller with the people whose beliefs he is professing to repeat. These are obvious causes on which it is needless to dwell. Many peoples, too, are accustomed out of mere politeness to endeavour to divine what sort of answer to his remarks will please a guest, or what sort of answer an enquirer expects to his questions, and to make it accordingly, regardless whether it has any relation to the facts or not. This courtier-like etiquette of agreement applies to every subject, and is emphasized when the enquirer is an official or social superior from whom favour may be looked for or displeasure apprehended. The Malayans, a jungle tribe of southern India, invariably say “Yes” in reply to a question by a government officer or a member of a higher caste, “believing that a negative answer might displease him.”2.1 In such cases it is difficult to extract the truth on the most indifferent and trivial, to say nothing of weightier, matters.