Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/427

Rh the women, which, without being directly folklore, is valuable to the folklore student. It is to be wished that the herb mentioned in the following note might be more exactly identified. It seems that, as usual among Arabs, the only plants which receive much attention are scented herbs. "Three species in particular are grown, one worn by tribesmen generally, on festive occasions, one used at weddings, and a third the shukr shahed (or herb of witness) to place beneath the head of a corpse as it lies on its side with its face towards Mecca in the recess of its last tenement."

The author affects an easy, not to say familiar, style, but that he has a real literary power is visible in certain passages, and in some very charming verses which breathe the true spirit of the East. Indeed this is one of those very rare volumes written by one who really knows the country of which he writes, and as such especially valuable to those who are also students of oriental lands, as well as really informing and directing to those who stay at home.

these two volumes the author, a student of the Oriental Institute in Vladivostock, adduces the evidence and arguments in favour of mother-right and matriarchate among some peoples and tribes of Eastern and Central Asia. He regards them as proving that among the several peoples and tribes in question there existed matrilineal organizations, and that some of the latter had passed through a matriarchate stage. Mr. Matsokin offers evidence that totemism existed among the Tibetans, Mongols, and some tribes in China, and at the same time he brings facts in