Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/632



wide knowledge of the problems of human marriage acquired by Dr. W. H. R. Rivers, by study and field-work, pointed him out as the scholar best qualified to review this work. To the intense regret of his many friends and of all who appeciated his eminent services to Anthropology, his unexpected death prevented the execution of this project. He made it a condition of undertaking to write the review that he might have the privilege, if necessary, of contributing to Folk-Lore a separate paper dealing with Dr. Westermarck’s criticisms of certain theories advanced by him. Dr. Rivers, before his death, had studied the work and had made some notes, which have passed into my possession through the courtesy of Dr. A. C. Haddon. But these are so fragmentary that they do not illustrate in detail the lines on which he intended to write his review. He would naturally object to Dr. Westermarck’s criticism of the theory of the diffusion of culture, identified with the name of Graebner, which Dr. Rivers developed in his Presidential Address before the Anthropological Section at the Portsmouth Meeting of the British Association in 1911. He also expressed regret that no reference was made to the important contributions to the study of this question made by Professor Elliot Smith. He was prepared to reply to the criticism on his discussion of Cross Cousin Marriage in India, and he would naturally refuse to accept the view that “the endeavour hitherto made to use the classificatory terms of relationship as a means