Note 1 — GENERAL INTRODUCTION.

The ethnographical literature may not, however, be used without a thorough criticism. We shall often meet with very loose and inaccurate statements, and this book will afford many instances of the careless use of the terms “slave” and “slavery” by ethnographers. The zoölogist and the geologist have only to deal with accounts of their fellow-scientists; but the ethnologist is obliged always to rely on ethnographers, who often have no notion of ethnology, and sometimes no notion of science at all. Hence the very bad terminology; hence also the frequent omission of details which would have been very valuable. Yet, regarding the very little that has as yet been achieved in ethnology, we can hardly blame the ethnographers. It is true, if the ethnographical literature were better, ethnology would greatly profit by it; but, on the other hand, even with the help of the existing literature, which, after all, is not so very bad, much more might be attained than is actually done. And as long as ethnology is still in an unsettled condition, it is perhaps better that an ethnographer should have no ideas at all on ethnological subjects, than premature, quasi-scientific, and probably erroneous ideas. Montaigne, one of the most sensible men who have ever lived, speaking of his informant on the cannibals of America, says: “This man whom I had was a simple and rude man, which is a condition conducive to reliable testimony; for refined people observe more curiously and observe more things; but then they gloss them; and in order to force their interpretation on you, they cannot but change the story a little; they never represent you the pure facts; they warp and mask them according to the point of view from which they regard them; and in order to give credit to their judgment and make you accept their view, they readily add something to the matter on that side and exaggerate it. A man must be either very truthful, or so simple that he does not want to construct false inventions and give them a semblance of truth, and is not riveted to a theory.” What we want is, as the same writer has it, la matière de l’histoire nue et informe1. An ethnographer should be taught what to observe and how to observe, and how to record his observations. But when this ideal cannot be attained, it is better to have an ethnographer who only knows that every correct statement of his will interest the men of science, than one whose perceptive faculties are troubled by preconceived opinions.