Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/137

 Reviews. 105

or rattle carried by the medicine man to scare evil spirits, a sanctity later on extended to the bell and shell trumpet of the Hindu temple.

With the most elaborate chapters of Dr. Rivers' book I cannot deal here — the complete account of the rites connected with the sacred dairy and its officiant ; the rites performed at birth, marriage, and death ; and last but not least the description of the tribal organisation. In this last department Dr. Rivers has adopted and still further developed the system of recording genealogies, an invention of his own, used with singular success in his investigation of the people of Murray Island, and here applied with no less valuable results to the sociology of a small, isolated tribe. All these chapters supply novel facts which must be taken into account by all students of primitive races.

On the whole, it is safe to regard this monograph on the Todas as one of the most important recent contributions to Indian ethnology. It is no proof of the failure of his mission that much work still remains to be done. On the contrary, the energy and tact applied to the survey of a very reticent, suspicious race are no less admirable than the scientific forms in which the results of his visit have been summarised, and the modesty which has saved the author from rash generalisation and haphazard comparison of Toda beliefs and customs with those of the races by whom they are surrounded.

W. Crooke.

The Native Races of the British Empire. Natives of Australia. By N. W. Thomas, M.A. London, Archibald Constable & Co. Ld., 1906.

Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia. By Northcote W. Thomas, M.A. Cambridge, University Press, 1906.

If we may judge by the first volume, the series of Native Races of the British Empire is likely to prove very useful to readers who simply want to know the general facts about one or