Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/41

 Presidential Address. 29

when the serf performs his blood sacrifice in her presence, her image is discreetly veiled.^®

In short, throughout the world, the fusion of religion and social culture presents itself in many varied forms. Some- times the new race destroys the indigenous people ; some- times the women alone are permitted to survive, and are admitted to rights of connubium and tribal worship with their conquerors; sometimes, as in the case of modern migra- tions to America and elsewhere, the two races become fused on practically equal terms. At times the union is purely mechanical, like that of sand and water ; sometimes it is a true chemical union. But, as a whole, the result may be compared to a geological conglomerate, breccia formed out of water-worn pebbles, some of which are recognisable as fragments of some ancient rock, now cemented into an apparent unity by later filtration. Or, to use a metaphor employed by Mr. Lang,^' they resemble the Corinthian bronze composed of gold and silver, copper and lead, all molten together at the burning of the great city.

Apart from the effects of transmission, the localisation of folk belief and usage deserves attention. In many countries, Egypt, Babylonia, China, India, where the facts are more or less capable of determination, this localisation is apparent. The oldest deities are those of the family, the group, the tribe, and it is only through a process of sj-n- cretism due to special causes, such as the welding of the scattered units into an empire, or the preaching of some eminent leader, that they become combined into a pol)-- theistical system. Such local beliefs are singularly per- sistent, and seem to be little affected by racial movements or political revolution. In Australia the first thing that strikes one about the groups constituting the tribe is their essentially local character.^" These groups are a t}'pe of


 * E. Thurston, Castes and T) ibes of Soul hern Itidia, vol. vii., p. 211.

^* History of English Literature, p. 71.

" B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, Across Australia, vol. ii., p. 255.