Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/291

 Sir Marc, aided by his Chinese secretary, after long and skilful negotiations, spread over many days and at different times, bore away about 9000 manuscripts in Chinese, and others in Tibetan, Iranian, Sanskrit, Old Turkish, and unknown languages, a collection of moral tales of animals and men in Runic Turki and not later than the eighth century, and, above all, a roll containing the Confession-prayer of the Manichæan layman. The last named is at present the only complete document known to exist of the faith of the Persian who called himself the Paraclete, though Dr. von Lecocq obtained fragments of both Manichæan and Nestorian texts in his excavations at Turfan in 1904-7. In addition to writings, Sir Marc obtained over 300 religious pictures, painted or embroidered on silk and linen (mostly dating from the seventh to ninth centuries), ex votos and temple banners of silk and brocades, and many other art relics. This mass of material must solve, and raise, many problems, and cannot fail to yield results of the greatest importance to the study of culture drift and of the history of religion.

The persistence of sacred rites and sites is often illustrated. At the desert station of the (Mohammedan) "Pigeons' Shrine" holy birds are now fed in place of the sacred rats of Buddhist days (vol. i., p. 161). Amongst the Kirghiz of the Turfan region, a shrine with the usual Mohammedan votive offerings also contains a slab carved with a male figure holding a curved sword, said to depict the wife of Kaz-ata, an ancient hero himself represented by an inaccessible rock pinnacle above the shrine,—an indubitable relic of a more primitive worship (vol. ii., p. 425).

Turning to non-religious folklore, one regrets very much that the author's time and objects did not allow him to hunt after superstitions and traditions as diligently as he did after river sources and antique frescoes. Evidently living folklore was even more abundant than the archæological remains for which at times he raked over ancient but still evil-smelling rubbish heaps, and we pick up from his casual notes stray ears from the great sheaves that might have been reaped. In one place he himself exclaims (vol. i., p. 39),—"What a rich harvest could be gathered here by the student of old customs and folk-lore!" When he sees a polo game at Chitral he remarks that "plenty of fairies were said to