Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/472

 444 Revieivs.

breaking off the seed stalks, drops the pods into the hole and gently covers them over with fertile leaf mould " (p. 56 note).

The Sky Road: the Milky Way: the Stars. — "The great sky road is the Milky Way. The souls of the dead are supposed to journey over the broad band and divide at the forks. The multi- tude of stars are thought to be the footprints of the dead " (p. 62 note).

W. Crooke.

Ohabolana, or Malagasy Proverbs, illustrating the Wit and Wisdom of the Hova of Madagascar. Collected, translated and arranged by the Rev. J. A. Houlder, with translations into French by M. Henri Noyer. Edited by the Rev. James SiBREE, D.D., F.R.G.S. Part I., including 1236 Proverbs. Antananarivo : Press of Friends' Foreign Missionary Associa- tion. 1915.

It gives very great pleasure to welcome a book on the title-page of which the name of our old friend and fellow-member of the Folk-Lore Society, Dr. Sibree, appears. It is nine-and-twenty years since he ceased to be a member of the Society; and after his excellent book on Madagascar and his contributions to the pages of the Folk-Lore Journal, his loss to the science of folklore was the subject of many regrets. May we venture to hope that the part he has taken in the production of Mr. Houlder's collec- tion of Hova proverbs will result in further contributions to our knowledge of Malagasy folklore, in which he is so profoundly versed ? The Antananarivo Annual, to which he from time to time contributed, has been extinct since 1900. It is in this country very rare. Consequently, its inaccessibility to folklore students is as great as its value. There seems little hope of its republication, though there was a second edition some years ago of some of the issues. Some French research has been carried on since the French occupation of the island, but the works which have been produced are, with the exception of Prof, van Gennep's Tabou et Toiemism, little known to English readers. An authoritative collection and exposition, especially relating to some of the older tribes, are sadly needed. For this reason the work before us, a