Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/152

 1 40 Reviews.

Hausa Superstitions and Customs. An Introduction to the Folk- Lore, and the Folk. By Major A. J. N. Tremf.arne. John Bale, Sons and Danielsson, 1913. 8vo., pp. xv + 548. Map + 41 pi. + 200 text figs. 21s. «. When the author sat down to write this volume he was full to overflowing of knowledge relating to the Hausas and their folk- lore, and hence it is not surprising that his pen gushed forth such a sparkling and limpid stream of information about that interesting people that no one at all curious about folklore can afford to ignore it.

The book is divided into three parts. Part. I. contains several chapters in which the stories related in Part. II. are analysed, and a fascinating account is given of native life and thought. There is scarcely any department of human life missing, so that the reader after a perusal of this work will have a clear and sympa- thetic understanding of a people who, though black, are by no means a negligible part of that Empire to which they have rendered such good service as soldiers. Part III. is composed of useful explanatory notes on words, phrases, etc. used in the stories.

It is interesting to me to meet so large a number of similarities between life in Hausaland and Congoland, and the space now available could be filled many times over with such parallels. Some writers, with only a superficial and distant acquaintance with Africa, think that polygamy makes for large families and for morality ; and it is therefore worthy of note that the author, from his wide knowledge of the polygamous Hausas, writes : " Sterility is common among the Hausas," (p. 96); " the late chief told me that there was not a virgin over ten in the whole township " (p. 88) ; and, again (p. 89), " I do not suppose that there is a single woman who has not had relations of some kind." Such also was the result of my investigations among the Congo people, only " not over five" would have to be substituted for "not over ten."

The ' types ' set out in the first edition of the Society's Handbook to Folklore for the classification of folk-tales are applicable almost solely to European collections, and leave unprovided for the enormous mass of African stories recently recorded. It may be of some little assistance to students, therefore, in constituting fresh types and in comparative study, if I give a brief note of