Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/179

Rh I trust I have now said sufficient to show at least the possibility that these "dancing" ceremonies may have originated in some custom of treating ceremonially at periodic intervals the implements and objects which are connected with the food supply of the tribe; in which case they should be regarded, of course, as survivals in magic.

The moral with which I should like to conclude is, that it is for ethnologists to try and impress upon all who are in a position to collect, the absolute and vital necessity of finally abandoning, before it is too late, the "gibberish" theory of savage incantations, an idea which I find has still plenty of vitality. In the present instance, my greatest difficulty has been throughout the insufficiency of our information in this very respect. From the point of view of language alone, the archaic forms which charms so often contain would make them worth the attention of serious students, and as a factor in the interpretation of folklore they are, when properly collected and collated, simply invaluable. It is only through the study of incantations that we can ever hope satisfactorily to settle such problems as those here raised, and I am confident that it is only through the study of incantations that we shall ever be able to decide definitely many of the knotty points which at present confront the folklorist at every turn. It is perhaps not too much to say, that we can no more hope to reconstruct savage religion on really sound lines without a close and laborious study of savage incantations, than we could hope to reconstruct Confucianism without the writings of Confucius, Mohammedanism without the Koran, or Christianity without the Scriptures. Moreover, from all of these latter there is incontestably far less of importance still remaining to be learnt by those who are interested in studying the evolutional growth and development of the human mind, than from those products of a more untutored imagination for the study of which I appeal.