Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/345

 Rh even there is it quite separated from social relations. At a lower stage religion is eminently social, and cannot be distinguished from other social precepts and practices. It is not so much that there is a religious sanction for certain rules of conduct, as that religion is one aspect, and a necessary aspect, of every part of social life.

We expect, therefore, to find the tribal ethics and principles of government inculcated in ceremonies like those of the admission of the young tribesmen to the privileges and responsibilities of manhood. Henceforward the youths are to take their place in the social system as something more than mere appendages. The power of the tribe to hold its own in the struggle for life, and hence its continued existence as a tribe, will be dependent on their rigorous adherence to the customs handed down from their forefathers, customs that have made the tribe what it is, and without which its social life must have been long ago dissolved or transformed. Among the Kurnai the chief precepts laid upon the neophytes are given by Mr. Howitt under five heads. Mr. Lang, in enumerating them, punctuates them with references to the Bible—a subtle rhetorical device intended to lead up to a theological conclusion, but not quite in place in a scientific work.

Let us look at these five precepts, premising that, so far as we have information, they are similar in general terms to those inculcated throughout the eastern part of the continent.

The first is: "To listen to and obey the old men." "Fifth Commandment," says Mr. Lang in parenthesis. With all respect to him, it has no more to do with the Fifth Commandment than with the Vaccination Act. "Honour thy father and thy mother," says the Fifth Commandment. The Kurnai commandment refers not to parents as such,