Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/276

 238 Reviews.

weak, it should be noted, is the belief, that " the question of totem has nothing whatever to do " with the blood-feud, or the duty of standing by a man in his quarrels. This is regulated by the marriage-class or group ; his brothers and " the sons of his mother and father's brothers, blood and tribal, will stand by him to see that, at least, he gets fair play." " It is only indeed during the performance of certain ceremonies that the existence of a mutual relationship, consequent upon the possession of a common totemic name, stands out at all prominently."

For other details reference must be made to this extraordinary book. There seems no doubt that the authors are right in calling this strange institution totemism. But it is totemism of a kind that turns our previous ideas on the subject topsy-turvy ; and we shall have enough ado to reconstruct the theory so as to make it fit the newly discovered facts. The authors warn us in their pre- face of the " very considerable diversity " that overlies the uni- formity, such as it is, in the totemic customs of Australia. We must perhaps wait for information as to tribes hitherto undescribed in the central and western parts of the continent before the theory can find a new and secure foundation.

Totemism has been so much the subject of discussion of late that I make no apology for referring to it at such length. Other subjects treated of are, however, not less interesting. The sacred cere- monies are described fully. The account includes nothing fairly to be labelled worship, even of the embryonic sort with which we have been, by a recent discussion, familiarised among the tribes of Victoria and New South Wales. Is it possible these Central Tribes have no rudimentary notions of higher beings more or less superintending the affairs of men, or even retired from that arduous business ? The Ungambikula are a kind of dens ex inachina for the sole purpose, not of creation, but of completing the conversion of lower organisms into human beings ; and they afterwards became lizards. There must also be stories not recorded here, though they need not be religious or quasi-religious in character. It would be interesting, too, to have some account of the languages, including the outline of a grammar and a vocabulary. The tables, maps, and plates, and a number of the figures in the text are excellent. Many of the figures, however, are inferior to those in the Report of the Horn Expedition, which gave us our first glimpse of these curious peoples, and do not enable