Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/275

 REVIEWS 261

serves consideration. He says : "It is worthy of note that in tales of Iruam, the Ti birds, and Kultut, the girls cook an ager in an earth- oven, ame, which food is now rarely eaten. Can it be that these tales date back to a time before the cultivation of yams and sweet potatoes, when the islanders were merely collectors of food? If this be granted some of the folk-tales may be classified chronologi- cally as follows: (i) the peopling of the Murray Islands; (2) the collecting stage of culture; (3) the introduction of cultivation; (4) the introduction of ceremonies connected with death; (5) the introduction of the Bomai-Malu cult." As is to be expected rigid classification of the stories is impossible. They are roughly grouped into nature myths, culture myths, religious myths, tales about peo- ple, and comic tales. The stories are conscientiously presented. Dr. Haddon adheres, in part, to the practice of the earlier volume, and gives at least the conversational portions in the jargon-English of the original narrators. Too little of scientific value results from this procedure for it to be worth while. On the whole the picture of life and thought given by the stories is disjointed and irra- tional. The islanders as depicted in them are fickle and changeable, controlled by sex-impulses, braggarts, cowardly; the incoming stranger does what he likes with strange freedom and is punished or not, in unreasonable wise; most simple and natural occurrences cause extraordinary surprise, while impossible transformations and incidents are narrated as commonplaces. While inconsistencies are to be expected in all folk-tales they are rarely so flagrant as here. The hero stories as given by Dr. Haddon are composites and might easily have been given as several separate tales. As it is they are developed from scraps and short stories into veritable sagas. In framing up these composites care has been taken not to lose the original. The stories, as their kind everywhere, carry important suggestions and hints as to the origin or introduction of the arts of life, language, magic, mysteries, etc. The heroes are stated to have introduced devices (such as fish-weirs, which have not been made within the memory of men now living), local and dialectic language forms, preferences in conduct, and the like. Among the many curious and interesting customs and ideas mentioned in these stories are divination by lice, arrangement of dead men's bones and their restoration to life, and the constant transformation of those who have played their part into memorial stones.

Dr. Rivers found greater difficulty in securing genealogies among