Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 26, 1915.djvu/433

 Reviews, 419

from Central Asia, comprising the Finnic, Samoyedic, Turkic, Mongolia and Tungusic tribes. It is questionable whether she is correct in classing the Eskimo and the Ainu as Palaeo-Siberians. There can be little doubt that both these are intrusive peoples. The Eskimo are, according to the most recent researches, immi- grants from America, where the main stock has been located from time immemorial. The Ainu are only found in the islands of Yezo and Sakhalin, and would seem to be properly the aborigines of Japan, who have pushed (or been pushed) north- ward to islands now reckoned Siberian. It is a pity, by the way, that the first form of Batchelor's work (1892) on the Ainu is the only one used, instead of the enlarged and corrected edition published under the title of The Aitm and their Folk-Lore, in 1901, though it is true Miss Czaplicka has had the advantage of consulting the same author's article on their religion in the Encyclopaedia of Religio7i and Ethics.

From an enumeration of the tribes, she proceeds to an account of their sociology and religion in detail. Dealing with the principal tribes seriatim, she is led into a certain amount of repetition. This is unavoidable if vague and often misleading generalization is to be excluded. Students at all events will not be less grateful to Miss Czaplicka on this account. She concludes her enquiry with a very interesting chapter on Arctic Hysteria — a general term under which various nervous diseases are sub- sumed, either peculiar to the natives of high latitudes or common and highly developed there. The subject is all the more im- portant, because these diseases have been very little studied, and yet they play a prominent part in the life of the Siberian tribes, particularly in the religious life, contributing no little to the qualifications and power of the shamans.

Careful attention is devoted to the shamans, as the priests of the religion professed all over Siberia are called. Their training, their practices, their types, and their implements and accessories are described tribe by tribe. The difference between the Shamanism of the Palaeo-Siberians and that of the Neo-Siberians is discussed. Among the former " Family Shamanism " prevails, while among the latter it has developed into " Professional Shamanism." In the former there are no professional shamans,