Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/431

 Reviezvs. 405

psychological experiments on tractive force, colour distinction, attention, suggestion, counting, association, and so fortli. The second part is concerned with art, and it forms the most important section of the work. The twenty-one plates of native drawings and photographs of native objects which form section five are discussed at length in this part. Part three is inconsiderable, and is concerned with language. The fourth part deals with the mental life of the natives, and it forms a noteworthy contribution to the literature of the subject.

A striking feature of the native mind is its inertia. For example, a tree-trunk lying across the road will not be removed, but a great detour will be made to avoid it (p. 100). Again, in conversation, a subject will be discussed for interminable periods, and a joke will be repeated times without number and without any decrease of zest (p. 116). Corresponding to this inertia is a capacity for performing for interminable periods such appallingly monotonous tasks as, for example, hewing a drum with a stone adze out of a log of hard wood (p. 10 1). Dr. Thurnwald also states that the native becomes quickly tired when engaged upon any task requiring a constant exercise of attention. This may, however, be due to the fact that the native quickly becomes bored when not interested. Once a native is really interested in the discussion of a subject, he will often tire out a white man.

Another important mental characteristic of the native is his " egocentricity," i.e. "the identification of one's personal existence with that of others." Dr. Thurnwald's native " butler," Ungi, one day appeared to be ill, and spent the whole day loafing around doing nothing. The Doctor was quite unable to find out what was tiie matter, except that he did not feel well, and so gave him some aloe pills, but without result. He then discovered that Ungi was not really ill at all, but that his wife was. Dr. Thurn- wald calls this "physiological sympatliy." "This incident points to a probable origin of the so-called 'couvade'" (p. 103).

The native opinion of white men is most interesting. White men are magicians. " In general these mighty magicians are very dangerous, unfriendly and cunning beings, who carry off men and take away land, who can kill with " thunder and lightning," and who often burn villages and make everyone do just what they