Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/161

 Revieivs. 145

harbourage in another, or they float away and coalesce with similarly floating incidents to form new stories. The catena of incidents in a story is always changing. The early studies of the Folk-Lore Society showed without any doubt that the point on which attention should be directed is not so much the plot of the whole story as the separate incidents. They are the units out of which a tale is made by ever new combinations. The incidents are very largely a common stock, — one cannot quite say a universal possession of mankind. Whatever origin may be assigned to them, they are presumably very ancient. It is their changing combinations and modifications to suit different stages and forms of culture that constitute the puzzle which they often present. The plots resulting from such modifications and com- binations may often be new or peculiar to different peoples. In this sense a tale may be sometimes quite modern, while the stuff out of which it is woven is almost as old as the human race itself Kthnographically the chief interest of folk-tales lies in these changes and the hints they may give us of political, economic, or social evolution or environment of the people that tell them.

Interesting as are the chapters in which the author deals with this side of the mental and emotional life of the Thonga, far more interesting is the part of the volume consecrated to their religious life. It is probable that, from causes we can but vaguely con- jecture, the Thonga have emerged from a type of totemism common to other branches of the Bantu race. The totem-kin has broken down. It is in fact everywhere breaking down among the Bantu. Among the Thonga it has disappeared with practical completeness. The family, descendible through males, has taken its place as the social unit ; and the only beings who receive any- thing like an organized cult are the Manes of ancestors, either of the family or the chief of the group which M. Junod calls a clan. Traces of maternal descent seem, however, to be found in the veneration of maternal, as well as of paternal, ancestors. There is some want of precision in the author's information on the subject : it does not distinctly appear whether the maternal Manes that are honoured are those of the mother's maternal ancestors or of her paternal ancestors. The chief performs rites addressed to his ancestors on behalf not only of himself and his family, but also of

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