Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 16, 1905.djvu/553

 Reviews. 49 5

magical powers of his own; {c) through familiar spirits (in what form ?) ; through aid of gods ? Is he the master or the servant of the means by which he acts ? (5) Is the magician also the leech ? What ceremonies ? (6) Songs, charms, spells, etc., connected with the magician's art? (7) Do they fear the evil eye ? Means of averting ? Cursing ? (8) Any reason to suppose victims die of fear or any other cause ? (9) Can magician take a man's soul away? By using his name or how? (10) Are images of victim used ? Is sympathetic magic used, e.g. keeping weapon bright when it has inflicted a wound, in order to cure? (11) Divination by crystal or mirror ? How ? By divining-rod ? By other objects? (12) Familiar spirits ? Animals? How acquired? What if the animal is killed ? "

West Africa before Europe, and Other Addresses. By E. W. Blyden, LL.D. London : C. M. PhiUips, 1905. 8vo. Pp. iv, 158.

There is a widely spread idea that what is good for the white man is good for the negro, including, inter alia, religion, clothing, government, etc. Other things, such as bad gin, are admittedly bad for the white man, but we let him have them because it is difficult to stop him or because it is a man's birthright to consume drugs, exhilarating or otherwise, in poisonous quantities, or for some equally sapient reason : the export of bad gin, etc., to the negro would be easily prevented, and we do not consider the rights of man where non-European races are concerned ; " they are only niggers"; anything is good enough for them, and the interests of commerce and revenue demand that the export of gin should go on unchecked ; therefore we do not interfere with the exporta- tion of spirituous consolation to the heathen, though we prohibit Christian missionaries from worrying the Mussulmans of Khartoum, for it would be inadvisable in the interests of good government for them to stir up religious strife.

The part of the present work which concerns the anthropologist