Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 22, 1911.djvu/302

 266 Reviews.

The Naga Tribes of Manipur. By T. C. Hodson. Published

under the authority of the Government of Eastern Bengal

and Assam. Macmillan, 191 1. 8vo, pp. xiii + 212. Map

and 16 ill.

When we examine a new account of a backward tribe in India,

which has been little affected by the predominant influence of

Brahmanism, we naturally seek for light on some of the questions

which now occupy the attention of students of Comparative

Religion, — totemism, preanimistic beliefs, and the existence of a

superior, non-animistic, often ethical Father, Master, or Maker.

To begin with totemism, — the evidence of its existence among the Nagas is very slight, and there is no reason to believe that it affects their religious beliefs. The ancestors of the people of Maram, finding that there was some hindrance to their union, had a dream, in which a god appeared to the man and told him he might marry, but only on the condition that henceforth none of his descendants ate pork ; accordingly the clan now abstains from it. It is not easy to see how Mr. Hodson finds in this legend " the almost totemistic connection of an animal ancestor with the prohibition against the flesh of the animal." It may be one of the non-totemistic food taboos. The other suggested case of totemism is found in the custom of the Mao Nagas wearing a sort of tail with its curve turned upwards. Some- thing like a horn is also worn on the helmet, and, while admitting that there may be therio-mimesis in the scheme of decoration, Mr. Hodson thinks that one of the three tails worn may be " a totemistic survival, but three are surely swagger." These examples obviously give no good evidence of the existence of totemism.

The difficulty of investigating the religion of this tribe is obvious. They are in a very low stage of mentality, which is attributed " in part to the narrow limits imposed upon them by the comparative inflexibility of their language, and in part to the absence of exterior stimulations and to the lack of opportunity for enhancing their accumulation of culture." Besides this Mr. Hodson used Meithei, the dialect of their present over-lords, in conversing with them ; and he admits it to be possible that this may have led him to think that the hill people "attached the same value to such terms as Deity, soul, or spirit as do the