Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/381

 Reviews. 353

data as to terms of kinship and marriage regulations. Dr. Rivers has already pointed out xn. Journal of the Anthropological Institute (vol. XXX., p. 74) the multifarious uses to which these genealogies can be put ; they will tell us, for example, the average fertility of a marriage, the relative fertility of marriages within and without the recognised intermarrying group, and many other things \ they may be used as a framework for a history of the community ; and they will naturally give the fullest information as to terms of kinship and marriage regulations. Beyond this, where, as in the present case, extensive somatological observations have been made, material for the study of heredity is provided, especially if, as was previously the case with the Torres Straits islanders, until a paternal (or grandmotherly) Government interfered, it is the custom to preserve the skulls or bones of deceased relatives.

The volume before us, a large portion of the materials for which was gathered in Mabuiag, opens with a short introduction, giving a general account of the islands and definitions of a few native terms left untranslated in the subsequent pages. Then follow forty-six folktales collected by Dr. Haddon, including nature myths, culture myths, totem myths, spirit myths, bogey tales, comic tales, sagas, and narratives about people. The plots of these are summarised and an abstract of the anthropological incidents is also given.

Next come the genealogies, and a discussion of them by Dr. Rivers The method of collecting them was simplicity itself. Some one man was taken as a starting point, and the names of his family noted, then those of his parents and parents-in-law, and so on ; and, in many cases, thanks to the small vocabulary required. Dr. Rivers was able to accomplish this without the aid of an inter- preter. As a proof of the dissociation caused by European in- fluences, it is interesting to note that on Mabuiag the genealogies might be and were discussed in public with gusto and even fervour, whereas on Murray Island, which is comparatively un- touched, information could only be got from a native when he was out of earshot of other islanders. Complications occasionally arose ; as for example when, owing to the custom of exchanging names, a number of individuals apparently figured in two quite distinct families ; the custom of adoption, too, introduced an element of uncertainty that was more difficult to eliminate. But on the whole Dr. Rivers is satisfied that the records are sub-

VOL. XV. 2 A