Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/184

 1 74 Reviews.

Nor do Mr. Perry's assumptions end here. But a point comes at which the reader, remembering Mark Twain, is ready to exclaim : " Enough, enough ! Lump the whole thing ! Say the stone-using immigrants created Indonesian civihzation to exhibit Mr. Perry's amazing audacity of assumption, his in- genuity, and the tenuity of his proofs." The truth is that he has taken too large an order, and he has not set about the right way to execute it. It may be quite correct that a civilization marked by megalithic monuments has penetrated the great archipelago. The way to prove it is by the slow and patient method applied to our own megaliths — by the spade, by anthro- pometry of the living and dead, by linguistics, by minute investigation of the customs of the people and their traditional tales, such as Dr. Rivers' methods further east have exemplified, not by a rapid and superficial sketch in which assumptions are multiplied and interpretations posited " according to the scheme of this book." Far be it from me to wish to discourage any earnest worker in the field of anthropology — least of all one who, like Mr. Perry, has youth with all its immeasurable advantages on his side, has ability and enthusiasm for research. Such workers are needed more than ever. But let him see to it that his methods are scientific, that his inferences are sound, carefully thought out and checked, and that the authorities he makes use of are accurately represented.

This last point is important. It corresponds to one of the cardinal rules in forensic advocacy — not to overstate the evidence of the witnesses you are about to call. For example, whatever might be the meaning of a distinction the author is seeking to establish between the fate after death of the nobles and that of the common people in these islands (and it is manifestly capable of more than one interpretation), it is certain that his authorities do not always support his facts. In Watubela the ghosts of warriors as a class do not go to the moon : what Riedel, whom he cites, says is that those who fall in war go immediately to the moon and seldom return like the ghosts of other people to the earth. Their residence there is a special personal reward. Nor do the ghosts of Bontoc Igorot warriors go to the sky indiscriminately. Only the warrior whose head has been taken