Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/291

 BOOK REVIEWS 279

work if I devote the major part of this review to criticism. I will begin with some comments on the book as a record of facts. Considering the wide field which it covers the number of omissions and errors is very small. In -Oceania attention must be drawn to the omission of any reference to the eriam and kimta of Bartle bay in New Guinea, an omis- sion especially unfortunate because these institutions furnish by far the most characteristic examples of age-grades and sexual communism in this part of the world. The omission is evidently due to lack of acquaintance with Dr. Seligman's book on The Melanesians of British New Guinea and is important because it has contributed to the acceptance, though in qualified form, of Schurtz's mistaken view that age-grades and men's societies are closely related to one another. The connection between age-grades and sexual communism both in New Guinea and among the Masai, and the absence of any such connection in the case of the secret societies of Melanesia, together with many other differences between the two kinds of grouping, suggest that in spite of a superficial resemblance, age-grades and men's societies belong to widely different categories of social institution.

In the references to Africa the omissions are more numerous and there are several somewhat serious errors. The generalization of Hahn that gardening with the hoe is woman's distinctive occupation is said to hold good of Africa, whereas as a matter of fact, men and women hoe the fields together among most Bantu peoples as well as in West Africa, while among some peoples, such as the Lendu of Uganda, the men work in the fields and the women do not. The fact that the men do not take part in horticulture among the Baganda while they do so among the more agricultural Bantu suggests that the division of labor in which women undertake the duties of horticulture is a relatively late result of the influence of the pastoral element of the Bantu peoples. Again, the statement that vendettas are rare in Africa is contrary to the facts, for many examples are to be found in such a work as Post's Afrikanische Jurisprudenz.

Some of the accounts of the Masai are misleading. Thus, a state- ment on p. 390 suggests that the smiths have sibs peculiar to themselves, whereas with one exception they are members of the same sibs as the rest of the people. It is also said that there is no suggestion of any racial differences between the smiths and the general body of the Masai. This does not agree with the opinions of Johnston and Elliot, both of whom connect the smiths with the Andarobo on the ground of physical similarity, an opinion strengthened by native traditions. Peculiarities

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