Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/105

Rh lands. To this I prefixed an Introduction on the Ethnography of Turkey, which proved that in these lands there had, from time immemorial, been such a difference of races as is required by my Matriarchal theory. And then, having carefully analysed all the vast mass of facts collected, at my instance, by Miss Garnett, I pointed out, in a conclusion, that an extraordinarily large proportion could be no otherwise interpreted than as survivals of matriarchal marriage customs. This varied collection and classification both of ethnographical and of folklore facts occupies two large volumes and 1,000 pages. And though many more equally large collections of facts may be required in order to an assured solution of the general problem, I leave it to the readers of Folk-Lore to judge of the fairness of such remarks as those above quoted with respect to the suggested origin of Amazonian Matriarchy. And further, as, in your review of Greek Folk-Poesy, neither the problem, nor the solution of the problem, for the sake of which this great classified collection of folk-documents was made — the problem as to the primitive folk-conception of Nature — is even mentioned, permit me also to point to these other two volumes and their 1,000 pages as a further illustration of my asserted indifference to the verification of my suggestions.


 * Haslemere,
 * 3rd February, 1898.

[Mr. Stuart-Glennie might prove conclusively that the "Amazonian Matriarchy" was ethnological in its origin, and yet leave the general problem of the Matriarchate unsolved. On the other hand, a reasonable explanation of the problem as a whole will probably be true of the "Amazonian Matriarchy." There is a simple and reasonable explanation to hand, in the fact that a child's mother cannot be doubtful, but his father may be, and often is. This does not explain everything, of course; but it does make it easier to understand why kinship and inheritance should be reckoned through the mother, and why the mother has an important status in the household. We therefore hold to this. If Mr. Stuart-Glennie wishes to convert us, he must collect and analyse evidence from all parts of the world, not from Turkey only. Nor can we admit for a moment that all the facts analysed in his 1000 pages (if this be the book we reviewed), or in The