Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/249

 Reviews. 225

Mr. Kidd tells us in his preface that he has not approached his subject from the anthropological point of view, but from that of broad human interest. He has none the less succeeded in pro- ducing a book which will appeal to every lover of folklore from its first page to its last. He has, it is true, consulted many works in piecing together his mosaic, and we are unfortunately often left in a state of uncertainty as to what is based on Mr. Kidd's personal testimony and what he has learnt from other English works, a list of which is given at the end of the book, with instructive notes on their value as authorities. In defence of the comparative absence of references Mr. Kidd explains that he has been unable to trace many statements to their original source, and has therefore not stated from what source he himself derived them. It is unfortunate that the share of each author in the work before us is not duly labelled. Let us hope that in a second edition a contribution to science will also be among the author's objects.

The term Kafir has, as Mr. Kidd is aware, no ethnological significance, and merely means infidel {i.e., a disbeliever in Mahom- medanism). He has therefore no scruple in extending the mean- ing of it to include, not only all Bantu people, but also Hottentots and Bushmen. The latter, however, occupy but a small portion of the book.

It is but natural that in a popular work we find no exhaustive discussion of any of the burning questions of anthropology which are raised perhaps without a knowledge that they have been the subject of much controversy. We read for example that Morimo is the god of the Bechuana, but there is no hint that the author has heard of the view which makes Barimo, ancestral spirits, the original object of Bechuana worship, such as it was, and assigns to the singular of this word, Morimo, at any rate in the sense of God, a Christian origin. (But on this point see Nature, vol. xlvi., p. 79.) Of Unkulunkulu on the other hand we read that he is probably the generalised ancestor, so to speak, of the race. The Zulus go back in their genealogy about five genera- tions, and then Unkulunkulu makes his appearance in the list. The author supposes that no Zulu can remember the honorific names in his own family for more than five generations, and so gives this name to all older ancestors. The genealogy of tribal chiefs is carried back further, but here too we reach the

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