Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/319

Rh at present be made to fit into any purely materialistic conception of the universe:" meaning, I presume, that the savage theory of the soul is, substantially and in its main outlines, a correct interpretation of facts.

Now, whether this be so or not, is not a question within the domain of the science of folklore. As students of folklore we must be content to leave the inquiry to scientific psychologists. The facts, at all events as regards the savage phenomena, have by no means been overlooked. The only debate here is on the relative importance to be attached to them as part of the foundation of the savage theory of the soul. It is well that attention should be called to them in an emphatic way, for one of the dangers attending an inquiry into a subject as complex as that of savage philosophy and religion is that of unduly neglecting one or more series of phenomena in favour of another or of others. To this extent, therefore, Mr. Lang has rendered a service to anthropology for which we must be grateful.

Incidentally also he brings into prominence unsolved questions, like that of the reason for tying up a seer, which may have an unsuspected value for the determination of larger issues. The author conjectures that the seer was tied up because corpses were tied up, so as to put him "on a level with the dead, who will then communicate with him." The range of the two customs, however, does not appear to be identical; and it may turn out, though Mr. Lang does not suggest it, that the seer was not tied up to introduce him to the society of the dead, but that the dead and the seer were alike tied up for a common reason. If so, that reason remains to be discovered. We think we know why the dead were bound, but we may not, after all, have got to the bottom of the mystery. Now that the resemblance between the binding of the dead and the binding of the seer, and the apparent connection between them, have been pointed out, students may be led to further and, let us hope, successful research.