Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/270

232 the stories have not all been taken down from the same tribe. Various other tribes have been laid under contribution, though Mrs. Parker has confined herself "as far as possible to the Noongahburrah names, thinking," she says, "it would create confusion if I used those of each dialect—several different names, for example, for one bird or beast." This and the omission, dependent upon the same reasoning, to indicate from which particular tribe each legend comes, detract much from the scientific value of the collection, which cannot, therefore, be used with the same confidence as the former. Mrs. Parker has been drawn two ways: she has not been able to make up her mind whether her book is to be for the amusement of children or for the instruction of students of savage psychology.

This is unfortunate, because the stories in themselves are of high value as manifestations of the mental characteristics of the aborigines. Many of them, most of them, are astrological myths, the offspring of savage speculation. It is especially important to know accurately the sources of such tales. A tale of another kind is "Wurrunnah's Trip to the Sea." This may record a real event. It seems to be a Noongahburrah tale. The name of the tribe should be explicitly recorded, for one of the most interesting and complex questions in folklore is: Under what conditions and to what extent can the recollection of facts be preserved without the aid of writing? The story also puts us on inquiry about many things incidentally mentioned, such as the law of Byamee against leaving one's own hunting-ground. Mrs. Parker has recorded in her preface various fragments of aboriginal folklore. They were all well worth preserving; and we hope she may give us more of them. While she is gathering these, the laws of Byamee would form an item that students would appreciate. But the greatest care would have to be taken to sift these laws, to winnow away all Christian teaching which may have become mingled with them, and to let us know exactly what the different tribes hold in respect to them. However, Mrs. Parker understands the business of collection. All we need do, therefore, is to urge that in future volumes the exact source (tribe and clan, if possible, and even individual) of every item be given, and that the names be not translated into those of one idiom, at any rate without mention of the equivalent words and phrases actually used by the narrator.