Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/288

262 biological studies have given him just the methods of observation which are wanted. No one but a biologist could have written so able a work as this, in which thousands of facts are collected and summarised with consummate skill and industry.

For Mr. Roth has, it is clear, lived with the natives he describes, has saturated himself with their language, both of gesture and of tongue; has doctored them by hundreds; has assisted at their corroborees, at their births, marriages, and deaths. Above all, he does not flinch from recording exactly what he has seen. No doubt not a few of their habits and customs are filthy from our point of view, but that is no reason for not describing them accurately in a scientific work like the present. These aborigines are rapidly disappearing before the white settlers, and it is therefore all the more important that such work as Mr. Roth's should be undertaken at once, and in an equally exhaustive manner, for the natives of other remote parts of Australia. For the Pitta-Pitta natives the work of Mr. Roth strikes us as final. The following is a list of its contents:—

Chapter I.—The Spoken Language of the Pitta-Pitta Aboriginals. (This contains a well-arranged and very full analysis of the grammar, copious reading lessons, and a long vocabulary.)

Chapter II.—Tabular Comparison between various Selected Words used in the different Ethnographical Districts of North-West-Central Queensland.

Chapter III.—Social and Individual Nomenclature: Class Systems.

Chapter IV.—The Expression of Ideas by Manual Signs: a Sign Language.

Chapter V.—The Search for Food. Piturí.

Chapter VI.—Domestic Implements and Utensils. Fire-sticks and Yam-sticks. Huts and Shelters.

Chapter VII.—Personal Ornamentation and Decoration. Mural Painting.

Chapter VIII.—Recreations: Corroborees, Sports, and Games.

Chapter IX.—Travel, Trade, and Barter. The so-called Letter or Message Stick.

Chapter X.—The Maintenance of Law and Order: Fighting, Fighting Weapons.