Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/497

 REVIEWS.

Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula. By W. W. Skeat and C. O. Blagden. 2 vols. Macmillan & Co. 1906.

The contributions of Mr. Skeat to our knowledge of the popular religion and folk-lore of the Peninsula in his Malay Magic, Fables and Folk-tales from an Eastern Forest ; his Progress Reports addressed to the British Association, describing the work of the Cambridge Expedition which visited the Siamese Malay States under his leadership in 1899-1900, and which provided the fine collection now exhibited in the Cambridge Etiinological Museum, raised high expectations of the book in which he proposed to sum up the final results of his studies among these interesting and little-known races. These expectations have been to a large extent realised in the present work, which appears in two portly volumes lavishly illustrated by admirable photographs. A curious omission, it may be incidentally remarked, is that of a good political map of the country, which should accompany each volume. The map appended to the second volume is obviously inadequate. Mr. Skeat might also with advantage have given us a short sketch of the adventures of his Expedition. Possibly, however, he is reserving this for another book.

Some exception may perhaps be taken to the title of the book — the " Pagan Races " — which is for various reasons unsatis- factory, and to that of one section — Natural Religion — which has an established connotation other than that with which the author associates it. He has, again, after much consideration,