Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/297

 Reviews. 275

Karen, and in a lesser degree with the Cliin, Kakhyen, and with the Naga in a still less degree.

The Kayan have "imparted to the Kenyah and many of the Klemantan tribes the principal elements of the peculiar culture which they now have in common " (p. 243).

The Murut, again, are thought by the authors to be immigrants from the Philippines or from Annam. The Iban are a Proto- Malay stock. " \\'e have little doubt that they are the descendants of immigrants who came into the South-Western corner of Borneo at no distant date. We regard them as Proto-Malays, that is to say, as of the stock from which the true Malays of Sumatra and the peninsula were difTerentiated by the influence of Arab culture " (p. 248).

Why, though, this insistence upon the "cultural" side of the work in a periodical devoted to the study of folklore? The reason is this. If it be conceded that the culture of a peojile such as the Kayan be complex, that is to say, compounded of two or more distinct cultures, then it becomes at once apparent that, before we can proceed to the discussion of the origin and develop- ment of any custom or social phenomenon, we must make it quite clear that the facts are considered in their proper setting, and that we are not talking of "development" when we ought to speak of " the result of the mixture of cultures." As an example of this let us consider the hypotheses put forward by the authors to account for the origin of totemism and head-hunting. In the case of totemism the clan-totem is said to develop from the individual totem. Quite so, but, first of all, since totemism proper does not exist in Borneo, and since the culture of the Kayan is supposed by the authors to be complex, we should be led to enquire whether it be not possible that what the authors would tske to be the beginning of totemism among the Kayan are, on the contrary, relics. In the region whence the authors suppose the Kayan to have come, a totemic culture or group of cultures exists, and this fact would tell against the authors and "in favour of the suggestion just put forward that the Kayan have retained the elements in question from one of the contributing cultures.

Let us now examine the explanations of the origin of head- hunting. Two are offered (vol. i., p. 188). In the first case "It