Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/216

 2o5 Reviews.

For other examples of belief and practice, I must refer readers to the book itself, which will be valued both within and without the county of Sufifolk for its record of many things now fast passing or altogether passed away.

E. Sidney Harti.and.

American Indians. By Frederick Starr. Boston : D. C. Heath & Co. 1899.

This is the first to be published of a series of Ethno- Geographic Readers by Professor Starr, intended for use in schools. It gives a clear account in simple language of the aborigines of North America. It is illustrated by good cuts of the people and of objects connected with them, and by two excellent maps, one showing the former location of the most important groups and the other the present Indian reservations in the United States. The author wisely gives no footnotes ; they would be out of place in a book of the kind. But at the end of most of the sections he mentions in smaller type the names of the writers to whom he is indebted and makes a short statement of what they have done.

No book could be better calculated to effect its purpose — that of interesting youth, especially the youth of the United States, in the Indian population. The final section is an appeal on behalf of a dying race, all the more hkely to be successful because of its very moderate and gentle tone. In dealing with the legends the author glides deftly over points unsuitable for the reading of boys and girls — for example, in the North-Western Story of the Raven, p. 190. He writes in a bright and lively style likely to seize the attention of the public he addresses.

One interesting fact recorded may be here referred to, for it illustrates the question how long the memory of an event may be retained by tradition alone. In the year 1832 Catlin sojourned among the Mandans on the Missouri River, and there painted some of his most famous pictures. Thirty-three years later Dr. Washington Matthews visited the same tribe, carrying with him a copy of Catlin's book containing engravings of his pictures. The people "had completely forgotten Catlin's visit, but were much