Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/140

 REVIEWS.

Folklore FRO!\r West Africa.

ASHANTi Proverbs. Translated from the original, with Gramma- tical and Anthropological Notes, by A. Sutherland Rattray, with a Preface by Sir Hugh Clifford. Oxford : The Clarendon Press. 1916.

A Hausa Botanical Glossary. By J. M. Dalziel, M.D. London: Fisher Unwin, Limited. 1916.

In 1S79 ^^^^ Basel Evangelical Missionary Society published a collection, in the vernacular, of some 3,600 proverbs in use among the negroes of the Gold Coast, collected by the late Rev. S. G. Christaller. This great collection was inaccessible to European students until, with the permission of the Society, Mr. Rattray translated in the present volume some 500 proverbs, selected chiefly with the view of " illustrating some custom, belief, or ethical determinant pure and simple, which may be of interest to the anthropologist ; or some grammatical or syntactical construction of importance to the student of the language." It is important to remember that Mr. Christaller's collection was made more than thirty years ago, at a time when education and European influence were not so widely felt as is the case at present. Many of the proverbs have now fallen out of recollection, and the rites and practices on which they are based are rapidly disappear- ing. Besides the interest of the book as a collection of proverbs, Mr. Rattray's voluminous notes are a storehouse of interesting belief and custom.

In these popular sayings the High Gods, known as Onyame, or Nyankopon, figure largely. Colonel Ellis, who, with all due