Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/201



HAVE been asked to state this evening my views on the Science of Folk-Lore, and, as the subject is still under discussion, it seems to me that it should be understood that the opinions put forward by any particular person are his only, and it is with this limitation that I now wish to speak. What follows is meant to be merely the expression of my ideas for the time being, subject to modification as the discussion wears on—to be, in fact, a contribution to aid in solving the question this Society has taken up. I should here mention that my arguments will be chiefly illustrated by reference to Indian Folk-lore, because that is the branch of the subject with which I am best acquainted.

When we come to talk of science we must begin with definitions, and the first matter to be defined in this connection is naturally the term "Folk-lore." What is Folk-lore, and what is not Folk-lore? These questions are not by any means easily answered, as I personally found when fixing on the headings under which to class the various contributions sent into Panjâb Notes and Queries. When an editor has to arrange a mass of miscellaneous paragraphs on various subjects connected with a land and its people, if he would avoid conveying to his readers a general sense of muddle, he must classify his information somehow. Music, Arts and Industries, Administration, Natural History, Botany, Geography, History, Antiquities, Numismatics, Bibliography, Ethnography, and Language, came naturally enough as distinct subjects. Then we have Religion, Social Customs, Songs and Catches, Proverbs and Sayings, and—shall we say it?—Folk-lore. Such an editor will soon find that Religion, so far as it is Superstition—and with many peoples it should be remembered that it is nothing else—is Folk-lore; so is a Social Custom, so far as it