Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/418

 398 Reviews.

A number of disconnected beings, such as the Wind, the Thunder- bird, the Sun, the Moon, as well as a race of giants and of dwarfs, shared the beliefs of the people. " It would seem," writes Mr. Teit, " that only the sun, the dawn of the day, the rain, tops of mountains, certain lakes, the spirit of sweat-bathing, and perhaps also the Old Man, can in any way be considered as tribal deities. All the others " (that is, all other beings to whom anything like prayer was offered) " were guardian spirits that were individually acquired." The Old Man was a personage who resided in high mountains, and made rain or snow by scratching himself and otherwise. He is sometimes called the Chief, the Great Chief, or the Big Mystery. He is gifted with a supreme power of magic, is a " transformer like the Coyote, and, like him, is expected to return and to bring good and happy days for the Indians. So far as I can learn he was not made an object of prayer, and, like the Coyote, was not held in particular reverence." It is evident that such a being contained many possibilities, only they were not developed.

The belief in guardian spirits individually acquired at puberty is prominent. Coupled with the absence of totems, it demands a searching inquiry into the groundwork of the religion of the North- western tribes, and indeed of the American race in general. The generalisations of the past thirty years on the subject of savage religion, it is evident, must be reconsidered in the light of these and other facts made manifest by more recent research. I have no space to refer to the many other subjects of interest disclosed in these pages. I can only congratulate Mr. Jesup on the valuable material obtained in such profusion by the expedition which he has fitted out, and again commend this and the other volumes comprising it to the attention of my fellow-students.

E. Sidney Hartland.

Madras Government Museum. Bulletin, Vol. III., No. i. Anthropology. Notes on some of the people of Malabar; Mala Vedars of Travancore ; Miscellanea. With six plates. Madras: Government Press. 1900.

Three years ago the Madras Government Museum began the issue of Bulletins under the editorship of the curator, Mr. Edgar