Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/139

 REVIEWS.

Festskrift tillegnad Edvard Westermarck. I anledning av Hans Femtivarsdag Den 20 November 19 12. Helsingfors : J. Simelii Arvinjars Boktryikeriaktiebolag, 191 2. 8vo, pp. vii + 304.

That a Festschrift should be presented to Prof. Westermarck on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday was no more than a deserved honour, and we take the opportunity of wishing him many more years of activity in the studies to which he has so markedly contributed. The book consists of fourteen essays, mostly by Prof. Westermarck's pupils. Of these, six are in Swedish, and we regret that our linguistic limitations prevent us from criticizing them. The rest, with one exception (K. R. Brotherus on Die Stelljifig der ant/iropogeograpJiischefi Syn these in der Soziologie imd Geschichtsphilosophie), are in English, and include contributions by Dr. A. C. Haddon and Dr. W. H, Rivers. The former, in a learned discussion of the houses of New Guinea, tries to bring some order into that most chaotic subject, and comes somewhat tentatively to the following conclusions (pp. 55 et seq.): (i) The ground-houses, at least in the west and south-west of the island, are not borrowings from Melanesia, but " essentially belonging to the true Papuan culture." (2) The characteristic pile-houses are found side by side with segregation of the sexes, — men's houses, sometimes women's houses also, — but not with totemism, except in regions where this was already in existence. Indeed this culture is anti-totemic in its tendencies. But whether it was the culture of one race or several is one of the questions which with our present knowledge it is impossible to answer. Dr. Rivers has written a most interesting essay on the disappearance of certain