Note 1 — INTRODUCTION.
Herbert Allen Giles translation
“How can a statement as to customs, myths, beliefs, &c., of a savage tribe, be treated as evidence, where it depends on the testimony of some traveller or missionary, who may be a superficial observer, more or less ignorant of the native language, a careless retailer of unsifted talk, a man prejudiced or even wilfully deceitful?”—Tylor’s Primitive Culture, Vol. I., p. 9. return to text