Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/40

 28 Presidential Address.

of a primitive cast ; the prevalence of tradition conncctinf^ by lineal descent certain stocks with the divinity in question.^'

In Greece the evidence, literary and archaeological, for distinguishing what is indigenous from what is foreign, i.s abundant. But this is an exceptional case, and in most other regions the material is imperfect. This is notably the case in India, which would seem naturally to be a pro- mising field for such enquiries. But, as I have already said, the literary record, ancient though it be, is tainted by the prejudices of its compilers. Broadly speaking, we may con- clude that in northern India the Aryan-speaking emigrants formed a more or less intimate association with the tribes which they found in occupation, and Hinduism, rather a social system based upon caste and tribal organisation than what we call a " religion," represents a fusion of cultures, the lower element contributing the demonology and fertility cults which have swamped the nature worship of the Vedic age, and replaced the tribal organisation by a system of totemic, endogamous groups. This process of absorption was restricted by the rise of Brahmanism, which formed a barrier to further race amalgamation, with the result that, when, at a much later age, it was extended by missionary effort to the south of the peninsula, the two races are found practically distinct, — at the top a priestly class, nervously tenacious of its claims to superiority, and much more tra- melled by caste restrictions than their northern brethren ; at the bottom a servile population, unaffected by Brahm.an control, and practising demon worship and blood sacrifice in their most brutal forms. We can even watch the begin- nings of a partial amalgamation. In one famous south Indian temple, the goddess placidly receives the simple Brahman offering of milk and the fruits of the earth ; but,

discussion of the problem, see E. S. Hartland, The Intemalioual Folk-Lcre Congress, 1 89 1 [Papers and Transactions), pp. 15-38.
 * " L. K. Farnell, The Culls of the Greek Stales, vol. ii., p. 619. For a good