Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/331

 Correspondence. 319

accept Mr. Marett's singular solution. If we found the Bull Roarer wherever, among low savages, we find a celestial Superior Person, Mr. Marett's logic would be less open to criticism. But we don't.

A. Lang.

By the kindness of the Editor I have been permitted to see the proofs of Mr. Lang's communication ; but the unkindness of certain temporal and local conditions forbids me to reply thereto in as fitting a manner as I could wish. Howbeit I would say a word or two e'en so.

In the first place, it is very encouraging to me (as a tyro in these matters) to find that Mr. Lang had long ago forestalled me in " adopting " the view that forms the backbone of my paper in the last number of Folk-Lore. By the way, I suppose that even in 1872 the theory was not exactly new. There are traces of it, I fancy, in Primitive Culture (187 1) — not to mention \he De Rerum Natiira. But to pass, as the philosophers say, from the stand- point of Origin to that of Validity, am I right in gathering from Mr. Lang's remarks that he still holds more or less by the hypo- thesis in question ? If that be so, then I am so much the more encouraged.

Next, as regards the relevancy of certain of my examples. I confess to having doubted at the time of writing whether the instances of the hurricane and the Aurora Borealis were altogether in point. At all events, however, they seemed to illustrate ' Animatism.' Further, I am by no means convinced that abusive yelling and the throwing of filth " denote rather an absence of Awe than otherwise " in the case of the savage, who after all is a very different person from that product (or bye-product) of civilisa- tion, " the modern street-boy." Thus I take it that an Australian native feels ' awe ' of a religious or quasi-religious kind towards the ' dead hand ' which he carries about with him as something half- way between a charm and a ' familiar.' Yet, if it do not twitch at the opportune moment, he will not scruple to say to it : ' Speak, or I throw you to the dogs.' Or again, the Zulu may certainly be said to ' worship ' the ghost of his departed sire. Yet he is quite capable of winding up an invocation to the latter with the warning : ' Help us, or you will feed on nettles.' Mr. Lang, of course, is perfectly familiar with such facts as these. Will he, then, be pre-