Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/67

Rh “honour the king,” if not to “the First Commandment with promise.” It includes the germinal form of both injunctions, relatively to the social condition of the race. As to unselfishness, the Kurnai first rite was an innovation, because the boys had now become “selfish,” says Mr Howitt, from associating with white fellows (Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. xiv., p. 310). If only “tribal regulations as to the distribution of food” are meant here, as Mr. Hartland thinks, Mr. Howitt does not say so. Food-taboos on the initiate (as at the Eleusinia) he mentions later. He says that “the boys are no longer inclined to share that which they had made by their own exertions, or had given them, with their friends.” That seems to include money earned by black boys; that cannot possibly refer to native food, we don’t give a black boy witchetty grubs. Mr. Hartland wishes to make Mr. Howitt’s words mean “all the food they made by their own exertions, or had given them” (Folk-Lore, p. 321). Mr. Howitt does not say this, and how could rules about native food apply to tinned lobsters or a round of beef? If a black has no property except food, what he has he gives; no man can do more; few do as much in Christian lands. I refer Mr. Hartland to what Dampier says: “Be it little or be it much they get, everyone has his part, as well the young and tender as the old and feeble, who are not able to go abroad.” Compare Mr. Man on another very low race, the Andamanese: “Every care and consideration are paid by all classes to the very young, the weak, the aged, and the helpless; and these being made special objects of care and attention, invariably fare better in regard to the comforts and necessaries of daily life than any of the otherwise more fortunate members of the community” (Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. xii., p. 93). Mr. Hartland may, for Australia, also consult Spencer and Gillen. Curious and touching examples of unselfish generosity, extended to three wandering white men, occur