Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 26, 1915.djvu/138

 128 Psychology and Ethnology.

views of things and his practical needs ; it is vastly more important to him than the obscure and exceedingly dog- matic assertions of the White Man, who, besides being an utter stranger and without practical experience of native afifairs, manifestly has not a few bees in his bonnet. So far, therefore, from listening to the Voice of Reason speaking through the White Man, he has the audacity, if he is a thinker, to deduce his own gods, medicine, chiefs, and birth- rate from self-evident truths, even in the style of a European philosopher.^^

It is as well that the savage does not read our anthro- pological works, or his peace of mind might be disturbed for ever. Alas ! poor savage ! Little does he suspect, as he sits crossed-legged in his hut, waggling his toes, discus- sing the yam crop and the weather, getting excited over the description of a monster rock-cod, seeking relaxation in tales that are best translated into Latin, hearing with interest how Mary in a passion left her husband after breaking up every object in the house, listening to John relating how he saw a ghost at dusk and ran away for dear life, discussing the next feast and the morrow's work, — little does he suspect what sums of mysticism, of awe, and fear are being placed to his account in Europe. Would he recognize himself in that timorous creature described as ever moving in a world not yet realized, like one continually turning corners into the mysterious Unknown, and as fresh and unused to the game as when he first started a few myriads of years ago ?

Let us suppose that a savage of a more curious turn of mind and superior intelligence, having listened to the relations of his travelled friends about European customs and beliefs, should set himself to explain to his countrymen the workings of the European mind. He might write some- what in the following style :

" With civilized man the bacterio-medical side of every-

^'^ Hibbert Journal, I.e.