Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/427

 Rei'ieivs. 395

Pemha, the Spick Island of Zanzip.ar. By Captain J. E. E.

Craster, Demy 8vo. Pp.358. 12s. 6d. London : T. Fisher

Unwin. 191 3. This is an interesting account of the adventures of two British ofticers engaged in the survey of the island of Pemba, the climate of which is most dangerous to Europeans, and the inhabitants, a half-negro, half-arab breed, suspicious and hard to manage. As Captain Craster worked through an interpreter, he has little to tell of the people and their folklore. He could find no case of totemism, except where a mother warns her children not to eat some particular food. " That is women's business : why should we bother about it?" was the reply to his enquiries (p. 104). The only way of preventing theft of the cloth used as flags was to smear it with red paint (p. 105), The baobab tree is haunted by devils ; any one who climbs it, or cuts its branches, will meet with an accident (p. 156). The witch doctors gave a good deal of trouble in the hope of getting rid of the strangers. Demonism is the prevailing belief — a compound of the Negro and Arab systems (chap. XV.). The blue water lily, the acacia flower, and shoots of the tree aloe are used to invoke devils (p. 311). Coconuts, with texts from the Koran written on their shells, are put beside paths to keep off spiritual and human enemies (p. 315). To cure disease, charms are written on a saucer, the ink is dissolved in water, and administered to the patient (p. 324 et seq.).

Religious Chastity. An Ethnological Study. By John Main. New York, 1913. Svo, pp. xxii + 365. (No price.)

With books as with people prejudices are easily aroused to bias judgment. It is possible that this is a better book than I believe it to be. The author's ear for style is none too acute, though doubtless some of her phrases will jar less on American ears. I do not know if the verb "to tote about" or the substantive "chores" belong to the literary idiom of the sister branch of the English language. But there are many indications of loose writing which in any language indicate a want of clarity of thought. A state- ment, for example, on p. 183 literally means that unborn children