ETHNOLOGICAL CONDITIONS
Already I have had to point out that an appeal to ethnological
evidence is the means of avoiding the wholesale rejection of custom
and belief recorded of early Britain, because it has been rejected as
appertaining to the historic Celt. I will now proceed with the
definite proposition that the survivals in folklore may be allocated
and explained by their ethnological bearing.
Some years ago I advanced this proposition in my little book entitled
_Ethnology in Folklore_. Only haltingly have my conclusions been
accepted, but I nowhere find them disproved,[466] while here and there
I find good authorities appealing to the ethnological element in
folklore to help them in their views. Mr. MacCulloch, for instance,
prefers to go for the basis of the Osiris and Dionysius myths to an
earlier custom than that favoured by Mr. Frazer and Mr. Grant Allen,
namely, to the practices of the neolithic folk, in Egypt and over a
wide tract of country which includes Britain, of dismembering the
dead body previous to its burial.[467] Mr. Lang, Mr. Frazer, Mr.
Hartland, and others are strangely reticent on this subject. That Mr.
Lang should be content to trace a story from the Vedas, in which
Urvasi tells Pururavas that he must never let her see him naked, to "a
traditional Aryan law of nuptial etiquette,"[468] seems to be using
the heaviest machinery for the smallest purposes, while for other and
greater purposes he fails to find in ethnological distinctions,
explanations which escape his research.[469] That Mr. Frazer should
have been able to examine in so remarkable a manner the agricultural
rites of European peoples, and only to have touched upon their
ethnological bearings in one or two isolated cases, seems to me to be
neglecting one of the obvious means of arriving at the solution of the
problem he starts out to solve.[470]
I do not want to discount these fragmentary appeals to the
ethnological element in folklore. I accept them as evidence that the
appeal has to be made. I would only urge that it may be done on more
thorough lines, after due consideration of all the elements of the
proposition and of all that it means to the study of folklore. We
cannot surrender to the palaeontologist all that folklore contains in
tradition and in custom as to pygmy peoples, or to the Egyptologist
all that it contains as to dismemberment burial rites, without at the
same time realising that if it is correct to refer these two groups of
folklore respectively to the earliest ages of man's existence as man
and to the neolithic stage of culture, they must be withdrawn from all
other classification. We cannot use the same items of folklore in two
totally different ways. The results of withdrawal are as important as
the results of allocation, and the necessity for the correct docketing
of all groups of folklore is thus at once illustrated.
The first point in the argument for ethnological data being
discoverable in folklore is that a survey of the survivals of custom,
belief, and rites in any given country shows one marked feature, which
results in a dividing line being drawn as between two distinct
classes. This feature is the antagonism which is discoverable in these
classes. On one side of the dividing line is a set of customs,
beliefs, and rites which may be grouped together because they are
consistent with each other, and on the other side is another set of
customs, beliefs, and rites which may be grouped together on the same
ground. But between these two sets of survivals there is no agreement.
They are the negations of each other. They show absolutely different
conceptions of all the phases of life and thought which they
represent, and it is impossible to consider that they have both come
from the same culture source. I have applied the test of ethnology to
such cases in Britain, and this appears to answer the difficulty which
their antagonism presents. It appears too to be the only answer.
The subjects which show this antagonism are all of vital importance.
They include friendly and inimical relations with the dead; marriage
as a sacred tribal rite and marriage as a rule of polyandrous society;
birth ceremonies which tell of admittance into a sacred circle of
kinsmen, and birth ceremonies which breathe of revenge and hostility;
the reverential treatment of the aged folk and the killing of them
off; the preservation of human life as part of the tribal blood, and
human sacrifice as a certain cure for all personal evils; the worship
of waters as a strongly localised cult, preserved because it is local
by whatsoever race or people are in occupation and in successive
occupation of the locality; totemic beliefs connected with animals and
plants contrasted with ideas entirely unconnected with totemism--all
this, and much more which has yet to be collected and classified,
reveals two distinct streams of thought which cannot by any process be
taken back to one original source.
This fact of definite antagonism between different sets of surviving
beliefs existing together in one country leads to several very
important conclusions. This is the case with the Irish Sids. These
beings are said to be scattered over Ireland, and around them
assembled for worship the family or clan of the deified patron. While
there were thus a number of topical deities, each in a particular spot
where he was to be invoked, the deities themselves with the rest of
their non-deified but blessed brother spirits had as their special
abode "Lands of the Living," the happy island or islands somewhere far
away in the ocean. Now this Sid worship, we are told by Irish
scholars, "had nothing to do with Druidism--in fact, was quite opposed
to it," the Sids and the Druids being "frequently found at variance
with each other in respect to mortals."[471]
This is the commencing point of the evidence which proves Druidism to
have belonged to the pre-Celtic people, though finding an adopted home
among them. This is so important a subject and has been so strangely
and inconsistently dealt with by most authorities that it will be well
to indicate where we have to search for the non-Celtic, and therefore
pre-Celtic, origin of Druidism. The Druidism revealed by classical
authorities is, for the most part, the Druidism of continental peoples
and not of Britain, and I hesitate to accept off-hand that it is
proper to transfer the continental system to Britain and say that the
two systems were one and the same. There is certainly no evidence from
the British side which would justify such a course, and I think there
is sufficient argument against it to suspend judgment until the whole
subject is before us. If Professor Rhys is right in concluding that
Druidism is at its roots a non-Celtic religion,[472] we must add to
this that it was undoubtedly a non-Teutonic religion. Celts and
Teutons were sufficiently near in all the elements of their
civilisation for this want of parallel in their relationship to
Druidism to be an additional argument against the Celts having
originated this cult. And then the explanation of the differences
between continental and British Druidism becomes comparatively easy to
understand. The continental Celts, mixing more thoroughly with the
pre-Celtic aborigines than did the British Celts, would have absorbed
more of the pre-Celtic religion than the British Celts, and hence all
the details which classical authorities have left us of continental
Druidism appear as part of the Celtic religion, while in Britain these
details are for the most part absent. But this is not all. There are
certain rites in Britain noted by the early authorities which are not
attached to any particular cult. They are not Druidic; they are not
Celtic. They are, as a matter of fact, special examples of rites
practised in only one locality, and accordingly referred to as
something extraordinary and not general. From this it is clearly
correct to argue that the British Celts had in their midst a cult
which, if they did not destroy, they certainly did not absorb, and
that therefore this cult being non-Celtic must have been pre-Celtic.
I do not wish to argue this point out further than is necessary to
explain the position which, it appears to me, Druidism occupies, and I
will therefore only add a note as to the authorities for the
statements I have advanced. The differences between continental and
British Druidism are definite and pronounced,[473] the mixture of the
continental Celts with the Iberic people, which they displaced, is
attested, by ancient authority and modern anthropology,[474] while the
only evidence of such a mixture in Britain is the prominently recorded
instance of the Picts intermarrying with the Gael,[475] and this has
to be set against the close distinction between tribesmen and
non-tribesmen, which is such a remarkable feature of Celtic law;[476]
the existence of local cults in early Britain having all the
characteristics of a ruder and more savage origin, and not identified
with Celticism, is a point derived from our early authorities.[477]
These are the main facts of the case, and the subject has to be
worked out in considerable detail before it can be settled.
There is one other primary subject which bears upon the question of
race distinctions in folklore. With the fact of conquest to reckon
with, the relationship of the conqueror to the conquered is a matter
to consider. In the European tribal system it was a definite
relationship, so definite that the conquered, as we have seen, formed
an essential part of the tribal organisation--the kinless slaves
beneath the tribal kindred. There was a place for the kinless in the
tribal economy and in the tribal laws. There was also a place for them
in the tribal system of belief, and the mythic influence of the
conquered is a subject that needs very careful consideration.
It is an influence which appears in all parts of the world. Thus, to
give a few instances, in New Guinea they have no idols, and apparently
no idea of a supreme being or a good spirit. Their only religious
ideas consist in a belief in evil spirits. They live a life of slavish
fear to these, but seem to have no idea of propitiating them by
sacrifice or prayer. They believe in the deathlessness of the soul. A
death in the village is the occasion of bringing plenty of ghosts to
escort their new companion, and perhaps fetch some one else. All night
the friends of the deceased sit up and keep the drums going to drive
away the spirits; they strike the fences and posts of houses all
through the village with sticks. This is done to drive back the
spirits to their own quarters on the adjacent mountain tops. But it is
the spirits of the inland tribes, the aborigines of the country, that
the coast tribes most fear. They believe, when the natives are in the
neighbourhood, that the whole plain is full of spirits who come with
them. All calamities are attributed to the power and malice of these
evil spirits. Drought, famine, storm and flood, disease and death are
all supposed to be brought by Vata and his hosts, so that the people
are an easy prey to any designing individuals who claim power over
these. Some disease charmers and rain-makers levy heavy toll on the
people.[478]
It appears that the native population of New Zealand was originally
composed of two different races, which have retained some of their
characteristic features, although in course of time they have in all
other respects become mixed, and a number of intermediate varieties
have thence resulted. From the existence of two races in New Zealand
the conclusion might be drawn that the darker were the original
proprietors of the soil anterior to the arrival of a stock of true
Polynesian origin, that they were conquered by the latter and nearly
exterminated. There is a district in the northern island, situated
between Taupo and Hawke's Bay, called Urewera, consisting of steep and
barren hills. The scattered inhabitants of this region have the renown
of being the greatest witches in the country. They are very much
feared, and have little connection with the neighbouring tribes, who
avoid them if possible. If they come to the coast the natives there
scarcely venture to refuse them anything for fear of incurring their
displeasure. They are said to use the saliva of the people whom they
intend to bewitch, and visitors carefully conceal their spittle to
give them no opportunity of working their evil. Like our witches and
sorcerers of old, they appear to be a very harmless people, and but
little mixed up with the quarrels of their neighbours.[479] The
Australians, according to Oldfield, ascribe spirit powers to those
residing north of themselves and hold them in great dread.[480]
In Asia the same idea prevails among the native races. Thus Colquhoun
says,
"it was amusing to find the dread in which the Lawas
[a hill tribe] are held by both Burmese and Siamese.
This is due to a fear of being bitten by them and
dying of the bite. They are called by their Burmese
neighbours the 'man-bears.' A singular custom obtains
amongst these people which may perhaps partly account
for this superstition. On a certain night in the year
the youths and maidens meet together for the purpose
of pairing. Unacceptable youths are said to be bitten
severely if they make advances to the ladies."[481]
The Semang pygmy people, afraid to approach the Malays even for
purposes of barter, "learnt to work upon the superstition of the
Malays by presenting them with medicines which they pretended to
derive from particular shrubs and trees in the woods."[482] That this
is a real superstition of the conquerors for the conquered is proved
from other sources to which I have referred elsewhere.[483]
In Africa it appears as a living force, and we are told that the
stories current in the country of the Ukerewe, "about the witchcraft
practised by the people of Ukara island, prove that those islanders
have been at pains to spread abroad a good repute for themselves; that
they are cunning, and aware that superstition is a weakness of human
nature have sought to thrive upon it."[484]
It appears in more definite form with the Hindus. The Kathkuri, or
Katodi, have a belief that they are descended from the monkeys and
bears which Adi Narayun in his tenth incarnation of Rama, took with
him for the destruction of Rawun, King of Lanka, and he promised his
allies that in the fourth age they should become human beings. They
practise incantation, and encourage the awe with which the Hindu
regards their imprecations, for a Hindu believes that a Katodi can
transform himself into a tiger.[485]
To this day the Aryans settled in Chota-Nagpore and Singbhoom firmly
believe that the Moondahs have powers as wizards and witches, and can
transform themselves into tigers and other beasts of prey with the
view of devouring their enemies, and that they can witch away the
lives of man and beast. They were in all probability one of the tribes
that were most persistent in their hostility to the Aryan
invaders.[486] In Ceylon the remnants of the aborigines are found in
the forests and on the mountains, and are universally looked upon and
feared as demons, the beliefs engendered therefrom being exactly
parallel to the witch beliefs of our own country.[487]
There is similar evidence among European peoples. Formerly in Sweden
the name of Lapp seems to have been almost synonymous with that of
sorcerer, and the same was the case with Finn. The inhabitants of the
southern provinces of Sweden believed their countrymen in the north to
have great experience in magic.[488] The famous Gundhild, of Saga
renown, was believed to be a sorceress brought up among the
Finns,[489] and even in respect of classical remains Mr. Warde Fowler
"prefers to think of the Fauni as arising from the contact of the
first clearers and cultivators of Italian soil with a wild aboriginal
race of the hills and woods."[490]
These facts are sufficient to show that the mythic influence of a
conquered race is a factor which may assist in the discussion of the
ethnological conditions of folklore, and it is obvious that they
reveal a very powerful influence for the continuance of ancient ideas
as well as for the creation of fresh examples of ancient ideas applied
to new experiences. It is well in this connection to remember certain
historical facts connected with the settlement of the English in
Britain.
From Freeman's _Old English History_ it appears that at the beginning
of the seventh century "the tract of country which the English then
ruled over south of the Humber, coincided almost exactly with the
boundary of the Gaulish portion of Britain," as distinct from
non-Aryan Britain. This apparent recognition of Celtic landmarks, says
Professor Rhys, by the later invaders, "is a fact, the historical and
political significance of which I leave to be weighed by others,"[491]
and I venture to suggest that one important result is to show Britain
to have contained an Aryan culture-ground and a non-Aryan
culture-ground. If we try to step from one to the other we quickly
discover the mythic relationship of conqueror to the conquered.
[Illustration: SCENE FROM THE LIFE OF ST. GUTHLAC SHOWING THE ATTACKS
OF THE DAEMONES]
Thus in the Anglo-Saxon life of St. Guthlac we have an interesting
glimpse into the conditions of the country and the attitude of the two
hostile races, Celts and Teutons, to each other.
"There is in Britain a fen of immense size which
begins from the river Granta, not far from the city,
which is named Grantchester ... a man named Tatwine
said that he knew an island especially obscure, which
ofttimes many men had attempted to inhabit, but no
man could do it on account of manifold horrors and
fears, and the loneliness of the wild wilderness....
No man ever could inhabit it before the holy man
Guthlac came thither on account of the dwelling of the
accursed spirits there.... There was on the island a
great mound raised upon the earth, which same of yore
men had dug and broken up in hopes of treasure....
Then in the stillness of the night it happened
suddenly that there came great hosts of the accursed
spirits, and they filled the house with their coming,
and they poured in on every side from above and
beneath and everywhere. They were in countenance
horrible, and they had great heads and a long neck and
lean visage; they were filthy and squalid in their
beards, and they had rough ears and distorted face,
and fierce eyes and foul mouths: and their teeth were
like horses' tusks, and their throats were filled with
flame, and they were grating in their voice: they had
crooked shanks and knees, big and great behind, and
distorted toes, and shrieked hoarsely with their
voices, and they came with such immoderate noises and
immense horror that it seemed to him that all between
heaven and earth resounded with their dreadful cries.
Without delay, when they were come into the house,
they soon bound the holy man in all his limbs, and
they pulled and led him out of the cottage and brought
him to the black fen and threw and sunk him in the
muddy waters. After that they brought him to the wild
places of the wilderness, among the dense thickets of
brambles that all his body was torn. After they had a
long time thus tormented him in darkness they let him
abide and stand awhile, then commanded him to depart
from the wilderness, or if he would not do so they
would torment and try him with greater plagues."[492]
These doings are not sufficiently remote from sober fact for us to be
unable to detect human enemies in the supposed beings of the spirit
world, and this conclusion is confirmed by a later passage in the same
narrative describing Guthlac awakened from his sleep and hearing "a
great host of the accursed spirits speaking in British [bryttisc] and
he knew and understood their words because he had been erewhile in
exile among them."[493] Guthlac in England is only experiencing what
other saints experienced elsewhere,[494] and we cannot doubt we have
in these reminiscences of saintly experience that mixture of fact with
traditional belief which would follow the priests of the new religions
from their native homes to the cell.
It is necessary to consider another great element in human life with
reference to its ethnological value, for folklore has always been
intimately associated with it, and recently, owing to Mr. Frazer's
brilliant researches, this branch of folklore has been almost unduly
accentuated. I mean, of course, agriculture. Mr. Frazer has ignored
the ethnological side of agriculture, and it has been appropriated by
the student of economics as a purely historical institution. This has
caused a special position to be given to agricultural rites and
customs almost without question and certainly without examination, and
it will be necessary to go rather closely into the subject in order to
clear up the difficulties which present neglect has produced. I shall
once again draw my illustrations from the British Isles.
[Illustration: SCENE FROM THE LIFE OF ST. GUTHLAC SHOWING THE ATTACKS
OF THE DAEMONES]
I put my facts in this way: (1) In all parts of Great Britain there
exist rites, customs, and usages connected with agriculture which are
obviously and admittedly not of legislative or political origin,
and which present details exactly similar to each other in
_character_, but differing from each other in _status_; (2) that the
difference in status is to be accounted for by the effects of
successive conquests; (3) that the identity in character is not to be
accounted for by reference to manorial history, because the area of
manorial institutions is not coincident with the area of these rites,
customs, and usages; (4) that exact parallels to them exist in India
as integral portions of village institutions; (5) that the Indian
parallels carry the subject a step further than the European examples
because they are stamped with the mark of difference in race-origin,
one portion belonging to the Aryan people and the other to the
non-Aryan.
I shall now pick out some examples, and explain from them the evidence
which seems to me to prove that race-distinction is the key for the
origin of these agricultural rites and usages in Europe as in India. I
have dealt with these examples at some length in my book on the
village community, and I shall only use such details as I require for
my immediate purpose.
My first point is that to get at the survivals of the village
community in Britain it is not necessary to approach it through the
medium of manorial history. Extremely ancient as I am inclined to
think manorial history is, it is unquestionably loaded with an
artificial terminology and with the chains so deftly forged by
lawyers. An analysis of the chief features in the types of the English
village community shows that the manorial element is by no means a
common factor in the series. These types mark the transition from the
tribal form to the village form. In Harris Island we have the chief
with his free tribesmen around him, connected by blood kinship, living
in scattered homesteads, just like the German tribes described by
Tacitus. Under this tribal community is the embryo of the village
community, consisting of smaller tenantry and cottar serfs, who live
together in minute villages, holding their land in common and yearly
distributing the holdings by lot. In this type the tribal constitution
is the real factor, and the village constitution the subordinated
factor as yet wholly undeveloped, scarcely indeed discernible except
by very close scrutiny.
At Kilmorie the tribal community is represented merely by the
scattered homesteads. These are occupied by a joint farm-tenantry, who
hold their lands upon the system of the village community. Here the
village constitution has gradually entered into, so to speak, the
tribal constitution, and has almost absorbed it.
At Heisgier and Lauder the tribal community is represented by the last
link under the process of dissolution, namely, the free council of the
community by which the village rights are governed, while the village
community has developed to a considerable extent.
At Aston and at Malmesbury the old tribal constitution is still kept
alive in a remarkable manner, and I will venture to quote from my book
the account of the evolution at Aston of a tenantry from the older
tribal constitution, because in this case we are actually dealing with
a manor, and the evidence is unique so far as England is concerned.
The first point is that the village organisation, the rights of
assembly, the free open-air meetings, and the corporate action
incident to the manor of Aston and Cote, attach themselves to the land
divisions of sixteen hides, because although these hides had grown in
1657 into a considerable tenancy, fortunately as a tenancy they kept
their original unity in full force and so obstinately clung to their
old system of government as to keep up by _representation_ the once
undivided holding of the hide. If the organisation of the hide had
itself disappeared, it still formed the basis of the village
government, the sixteen hides sending up their sixteen _elected_
representatives. How the tenancy grew out of the original sixteen
homesteads may perhaps be conjecturally set forth. In the first place
the owners of the yard-lands succeeded to the place originally
occupied by the owners of the sixteen hides. Instead of the original
sixteen group-owners we have therefore sixty-four individual owners,
each yard-land having remained in possession of an owner. And then at
succeeding stages of this dissolution we find the yard-lands broken up
until, in 1848, "some farmers of Aston have only half or even a
quarter of a yard-land, while some have as many as ten or eleven
yard-lands in their single occupation." Then disintegration proceeded
to the other proprietary rights, which, originally appendant to the
homestead only, became appendant to the person and not to the
residence, and are consequently "bought and sold as separate property,
by which means it results that persons resident at Bampton, or even at
great distance, have rights on Aston and Cote Common." And finally we
lose all trace of the system, as described by Mr. Horde and as
depicted by the representative character of the Sixteens, and in its
place find that "there are some tenants who have rights in the common
field and not in the pasture, and _vice versa_ several occupiers have
the right of pasture who do not possess any portion of arable land in
the common field," so that both yard-lands and hides have now
disappeared, and absolute ownership of land has taken their place. Mr.
Horde's MS. enables us to proceed back from modern tenancy-holding to
the holding by yard-lands; the rights of election in the yard-lands
enable us to proceed back to the original holding of the sixteen
hides.
At Hitchin, which is Mr. Seebohm's famous example, we meet with the
manorial type. But its features are in no way peculiar. There is
nothing which has not its counterpart, in more or less well-defined
degree, in the other types which are not manorial. In short, the
manorial framework within which it is enclosed does little more than
fix the details into an immovable setting, accentuating some at the
expense of others, legalising everything so as to bring it all under
the iron sovereignty which was inaugurated by the Angevin kings.
My suggestion is that these examples are but varying types of one
original. The Teutonic people, and their Celtic predecessors, came to
Britain with a tribal, not an agricultural, constitution. In the
outlying parts of the land this tribal constitution settled down, and
was only slightly affected by the economical conditions of the people
they found there; in the more thickly populated parts this tribal
constitution was superimposed upon an already existing village
constitution in full vigour. We, therefore, find the tribal
constitution everywhere--in almost perfect condition in the north, in
Wales, and in Ireland; in less perfect condition in England. We also
find the village constitution everywhere--in almost embryo form in the
north, Wales, and in Ireland; in full vigour and force in England,
especially in that area which, as already noted, has been identified
as the constant occupation-ground of all the races who have settled in
Britain.
Now the factor which is most apparent in all these cases is the
singular dual constitution which I have called tribal and village. It
is only when we get to such cases as Rothwell and Hitchin that almost
all traces of the tribal element are lost, the village element only
remaining. But inasmuch as this village element is identical in
_kind_, if not in degree, with the village element in the other types,
and inasmuch as topographically they are closely connected, we are, I
contend, justified in concluding that it is derived from the same
original--an original which was composed of a tribal community with a
village community in serfdom under it.
This dual element should, I think, be translated into terms of
ethnology by appealing to the parallel evidence of India. There the
types of the village community are not, as was thought by Sir Henry
Maine and others, homogeneous. There the dual element appears, the
tribal community at the top of the system, the village community at
the bottom of the system. But in India a new factor is introduced by
the equation of the two elements with two different races--the tribal
element being Aryan, and the village element non-Aryan. Race-origins
are there still kept up and rigidly adhered to. They have not been
crushed out, as in Europe, by political or economical activity.
But if crushed out of prominent recognition in Europe, are we,
therefore, to conclude that their relics do not exist in peasant
custom? My argument is that we cannot have such close parallels in
India and in England without seeing that they virtually tell the same
story in both countries. It would require a great deal to prove that
customs, which in India belong now to non-Aryan aborigines and are
rejected by the Aryans, are in Europe the heritage of the Aryan race.
The objections to my theory have been formulated by Mr. Ashley, who
follows Mr. Seebohm and M. Fustel de Coulanges as an adherent of the
chronological method of studying institutions. Like the old school of
antiquaries, this new school of investigators into the history of
institutions gets back to the period of Roman history, and there
stops. Mr. Ashley suggests that because Caesar describes the Celtic
Britons as pastoral, therefore agriculture in Britain must be
post-Celtic. I will not stop to raise the question as to who were the
tribes from which Caesar obtained his evidence. But it will suffice to
point out that if Caesar is speaking of the Aryan Celts of Britain--and
this much seems certain--he only proves of them what Tacitus proves of
the Aryan Teutons, what the sagas prove of the Aryan Scandinavians,
what the vedas prove of the Aryan Indians, what philology, in short,
proves of the primitive Aryans generally, namely, that they were
distinctly hunters and warriors, and hated and despised the tillers
of the soil.
It does not, in point of fact, then, help the question as to the
origin of agricultural rites and usages to turn to Aryan history at
all. In this emergency Roman history is appealed to. But this is just
one of those cases where a small portion of the facts are squeezed in
to do duty for the whole.
Both M. Fustel de Coulanges and Mr. Seebohm think that if a Roman
origin can be _prima facie_ shown for the economical side of
agricultural institutions, there is nothing more to be said. But they
leave out of consideration a whole set of connected institutions.
Readers of Mr. Frazer's _Golden Bough_ are now in possession of facts
which it would take a very long time to explain. They see that side by
side with agricultural economics is agricultural religion, of great
rudeness and barbarity, of considerable complexity, and bearing the
stamp of immense antiquity. The same villagers who were the observers
of those rules of economics which are thought to be due to Roman
origin were also observers of ritual and usages which are known to be
savage in theory and practice. Must we, then, say that all this ritual
and usage are Roman? or must we go on ignoring them as elements in the
argument as to the origin of agricultural institutions? One or the
other of these alternatives must, I contend, be accepted by the
inquirer.
Because the State has chosen or been compelled for political reasons
to lift up peasant economics into manorial legal rules, thus forcibly
divorcing this portion of peasant life from its natural associations,
there is no reason why students should fix upon this arbitrary
proceeding as the point at which to begin their examination into the
origin of village agriculture. Manorial tenants pay their dues to the
lord, lot out their lands in intermixed strips, cultivate in common,
and perform generally all those interesting functions of village life
with which Mr. Seebohm has made us familiar. But, in close and
intimate connection with these selfsame agricultural economical
proceedings, it is the same body of manorial tenants who perform
irrational and rude customs, who carry the last sheaf of corn
represented in human or animal form, who sacrifice animals to their
earth deities, who carry fire round fields and crops, who, in a
scarcely disguised ritual, still worship deities which there is little
difficulty in recognising as the counterparts of those religious
goddesses of India who are worshipped and venerated by non-Aryan
votaries. Christianity has not followed the lead of politics, and
lifted all this portion of peasant agricultural life into something
that is religious and definite. And because it remains sanctioned by
tradition, we must, in considering origins, take it into account in
conjunction with those economic practices which have been unduly
emphasised in the history of village institutions. In India primitive
economics and religion go hand in hand as part of the village life of
the people; in England primitive economics and _survivals_ of old
religions, which we call folklore, go hand in hand as part of the
village life of the people. And it is not in the province of students
to separate one from the other when they are considering the question
of origin.
This is practically the whole of my argument from the folklore point
of view. But it is not the whole of the argument against the theory
of the Roman origin of the village community. I cannot on this
occasion re-state what this argument is, as it is set forth at some
length in my book. But I should like to point out that it is in
reality supported by arguments to be drawn from ethnological facts.
Mr. Ashley surrenders to my view of the question the important point
that ethnological data, derived from craniological investigation, fit
in "very readily with the supposition that under the Celtic, and
therefore under the Roman rule, the cultivating class was largely
composed of the pre-Celtic race; and allows us to believe that the
agricultural population was but little disturbed." Economically it was
certainly not disturbed by the Romans. If the agricultural implements
known to and used by the Romans were never used in Britain after their
departure; if the old methods of land-surveying under the agrimensores
is not to be traced in Britain as a continuing system; if wattle and
daub, rude, uncarpentered trees turned root upwards to form roofs,
were the leading principles of house-architecture, it cannot be
alleged that the Romans left behind any permanent marks of their
economical standard upon the "little disturbed agricultural
population." Why, then, should they be credited with the introduction
of a system of lordship and serf-bound tenants, when both lordship and
serfdom are to be traced in lands where Roman power has never
penetrated, under conditions almost exactly similar to the feudal
elements in Europe? If it be accepted that the early agricultural
population of Britain was non-Aryan; if we find non-Aryan agricultural
rites and festivals surviving as folklore among the peasants of
to-day; why should it be necessary, why should it be accepted as a
reasonable hypothesis, to go to the imperial and advanced economics of
Rome to account for those other elements in the composition of the
village community which, equally with the rites and festivals, are to
be found paralleled among the non-Aryan population living under an
Aryan lordship in India? The only argument for such a process is one
of convenience. It does so happen that the Roman theory _may_ account
for some of the English phenomena. But, then, the Celtic and Teutonic,
or Aryan theory also accounts for the same English phenomena, and,
what is more, it accounts for other phenomena not reckoned by the
Roman theory. My proposition is that the history of the village
community in Britain is the history of the economical condition of the
non-Aryan aborigines; that the history of the tribal community is the
history of the Aryan conquerors, who appear as overlords; and that the
Romans, except as another wave of Aryan conquerors at an advanced
stage of civilisation, had very little to do with shaping the village
institutions of Britain.[495]
It is necessary before leaving this subject to take note of a point
which may lead, and in fact has led to misconception of the argument.
I have stated that all custom, rite, and belief which is Aryan custom,
rite, and belief, as distinct from that which is pre-Aryan--pre-Celtic
in our own country--must have a position in the tribal system, and I
have said that custom, rite, and belief which cannot be traced back
to the tribal system may be safely pronounced to be pre-tribal in
origin and therefore pre-Celtic, to have survived, that is, from the
people whom the Celts found in occupation of the country when first
they landed on its shores. I did not interrupt my statement of the
case to point out one important modification of it, because this
modification has nothing to do with the great mass of custom and
belief now surviving as folklore, but I will deal with this
modification now so that I may clear up any misconception. We have
already ascertained that over and above the custom and belief, which
may be traced back to their tribal origins, there are both customs and
beliefs which owe their origin to psychological conditions, and there
are myths surviving as folk-tales or legends which owe their origin to
the primitive philosophy of earliest man. Neither of these departments
of folklore enters into the question of race development. The first
may be called post-ethnologic because they arise in a political
society of modern civilisation which transcends the boundaries of
race; the second may be called pre-ethnologic, because they arise in a
savage society before the great races had begun their distinctive
evolution. The point about this class of belief is that it has never
been called upon to do duty for social improvement and organisation,
has never been specialised by the Celt or Teuton in Europe, nor by
other branches of the same race. The myth alone of these two groups of
folklore could have had an ethnological influence, and this must have
been very slight. It remained in the mind of Aryan man, but has never
descended to the arena of his practical life. It has influenced his
practical life indirectly of course, but it has never become a brick
in the building up of his practical life. This distinction between
custom and belief which are tribal and custom and belief which are not
tribal, is of vast importance. It has been urged against the
classification of custom, rite, and belief into ethnological groups
that it does not allow for the presence of a great mass of belief,
primitive in character and undoubtedly Aryan, if not in origin at all
events in fact. The objection is not valid. The custom, rite, and
belief which can be classified as distinctively Aryan is that portion
of the whole corpus of primitive custom, rite, and belief, which was
used by the Aryan-speaking folk in the building up of their tribal
organisation. They divorced it by this use from the general primitive
conceptions, and developed it along special lines. It is in its
special characteristics that this belief belongs to the tribal system
of the Aryans, not in its general characteristics. Not every custom,
rite, and belief was so used and developed. The specialisation caused
the deliberate rejection or neglect of much custom, rite, and belief
which was opposed to the new order of things, and did not affect the
practical doings of Aryan life.
There are thus three elements to consider: (1) the custom, rite, and
belief specialised by the Aryan-speaking people in the formation and
development of their tribal system; (2) the custom, rite, and belief
rejected or neglected by the Aryan tribesmen; and (3) the belief which
was not affected by or used for the tribal development, but which, not
being directly antagonistic to it, remained with the primitive Aryan
folk as survivals of their science and philosophy.
For ethnological purposes we have only to do with the first group. It
is definite, and it is capable of definite recognition within the
tribe. When once it was brought into the tribal system it ceased to
exist in the form in which it was known to general savage belief; it
developed highly specialised forms, took its part in the formation of
a great social force, a great fighting and conquering force, a great
migratory force. In accomplishing this task it grew into a solid
system, each part in touch with all other parts, each part an
essential factor in the ever-active forces which it helped to fashion
and control.
It is in this wise that we must study its survivals wherever they are
to be found, and the study must be concentrated within certain
definite ethnographic areas. If I were to pursue the subject and
choose for my study the folklore of Britain, I should have to object
to the treatment accorded to British custom, rite, and belief by even
so great an authority as Mr. Frazer, because they are used not as
parts of a tribal system but as mere detritus of a primitive system of
science, or philosophy. According to my views they had long since
become separated from any such system and it is placing them in a
wrong perspective, giving them a false value, associating them with
elements to which they have no affinity to divorce them from their
tribal connection. The custom, rite, and belief which were tribal,
when they were brought to their present ethnographic area, cannot be
considered in the varied forms of their survival except by restoration
to the tribal organisation from which they were torn when they began
their life as survivals.
What I have endeavoured to explain in this way are the principles
which should govern folklore research in relation to ethnological
conditions. The differing races which made up the peoples of Europe
before the era of political history must have left their distinctive
remains in folklore, if folklore is rightly considered as the
traditional survivals of the prehistory period. To get at and classify
these remains we must be clear as to the problems which surround
inquiry into them. The solution of these problems will place us in
possession of a mass of survivals in folklore which are naturally
associated with each other, and which stand apart from other survivals
also naturally associated with each other. In these two masses we may
detect the main influences of the great tribal races and the
non-tribal races. We cannot, I think, get much beyond this. We may,
perhaps, here and there, detect smaller race divisions--Celtic,
Teutonic, Scandinavian or other distinctions, according to the area of
investigation--but these will be less apparent, less determinable, and
will not be so valuable to historical science as the larger division.
To this we shall by proper investigation be indebted for the solution
of many doubtful points of the prehistoric period, and it is in this
respect that it will appeal to the student of folklore.
FOOTNOTES:
[466] Mr. Nutt's presidential address to the Folklore Society in 1899
does not, I think, disprove my theory. It ignores it, and confines the
problem to legend and folk-tale. Mr. Nutt's powerful, but not
conclusive, study is to be found in _Folklore_, x. 71-86, and my reply
and correspondence resulting therefrom are to be found at pp. 129-149.
[467] MacCulloch, _Childhood of Fiction_, 90-101; Greenwell, _British
Barrows_, 17, 18.
[468] _Custom and Myth_, 76.
[469] _Myth, Ritual and Religion_, ii. 215, compared with Gomme,
_Ethnology in Folklore_, 16.
[470] I have discussed this point at greater length in _Folklore_, xii.
222-225.
[471] Mr. J. O'Beirne Crowe in _Journ. Arch. and Hist. Assoc. of
Ireland_, 3rd ser., i. 321.
[472] Rhys, _Lectures on Welsh Philology_, 32; _Celtic Heathendom_,
216; _Celtic Britain_, 67-75; Rhys and Brynmor-Jones, _Welsh People_,
83.
[473] The continental evidence has been collected together in
convenient shape by modern scholars: thus Mr. Stock, in his work on
_Caesar de bello Gallico_, notes and compares the evidence of Caesar,
Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, Ammianus Marcellinus, Mela, Lucan, and Pliny
as it has been interpreted by modern scholars (see pp. 107-113), and he
is followed by Mr. T. Rice Holmes in his study of _Caesar's Conquest of
Gaul_, pp. 532-536. The Druidic cult of belief in immortality,
metempsychosis, ritual of the grove, augury, human sacrifice, is all
set out and discussed. These are the continental Druidic beliefs and
practices, and they may be compared with the Druidic Irish beliefs and
practices in Eugene O'Curry's _Manners and Customs of the Ancient
Irish_, lect. ix. and x. vol. ii. pp. 179-228, and Dr. Joyce's _Social
History of Ancient Ireland_, i. 219-248, where "the points of agreement
and difference between Irish and Gaulish Druids" are discussed. Mr.
Elton notices the difference between the continental and the British
Druids, but ascribes it to unequal development (_Origins of Eng.
Hist._, 267-268). Caesar's well-known account of the wickerwork
sacrifice is very circumstantial. It is not repeated by either Diodorus
or Strabo, who both refer to individual human sacrifice. Pliny
introduces the mistletoe, oak, and serpent cults, and the other three
authorities are apparently dependent upon their predecessors.
[474] The mixture of Celt and Iberian is very ably dealt with by Mr.
Holmes in his _Caesar's Conquest of Gaul_, pp. 245-322, and by Ripley,
_Races of Europe_, 461, 467, together with cap. vii. and xii.; see also
Sergi, _Mediterranean Race_, cap. xii.
[475] The intermarrying of the Picts with the Celts of the district
they conquered is mentioned in all the chronicles as an important and
significant rite, which determined the succession to the Pictish throne
through the female side (Skene's _Chron. of the Picts and Scots_, 40,
45, 126, 319, 328, 329). Beda, i. cap. i., mentions female succession.
Skene discusses this point in _Celtic Scotland_, i. 232-235, and
McLennan includes it in his evidence from anthropological data
(_Studies in Anc. Hist._, 99).
[476] Mr. Seebohm is the best authority for the importance of the
non-tribesman in Celtic law (_Tribal System in Wales_, 54-60).
[477] The local cults in Great Britain which are not Celtic in form,
and do not seem to be connected with Celtic religion on any analogy,
are those relating to Cromm Cruaich, referred to in the _Tripartite
Life of St. Patrick_ (see Whitley Stokes in _Revue Celtique_, i. 260,
xvi. 35-36; O'Curry, _MS. Materials of Anc. Irish History_, 538-9;
Joyce, _Social History of Ancient Ireland_, i. 275-276; Rhys, _Celtic
Heathendom_, 200-201). I do not follow Rhys in his identification of
this cult as a part of the ceremonies on mounds, and suggest that Mr.
Bury in his _Life of St. Patrick_, 123-125, gives the clue to the
purely local character of this idol worship which I claim for it.
Similarly the overthrow of the temple at Goodmanham, Godmundingham,
described by Beda, ii. cap. 13, with its priest who was not allowed to
carry arms, or to ride on any but a mare, is the destruction of a
successful local cult, not of a national or tribal religion. I confess
that Dr. Greenwell's observations in connection with his barrow
discoveries (_British Barrows_, 286-331) are in favour of an early
Anglican cultus, but I think his facts may be otherwise interpreted,
and in any case they confirm my view of the special localisation of
this cult.
[478] Rev. W. G. Lawes in _Journ. Royal Geographical Soc._, new series,
iii. 615. _Cf._ Romilly, _From my Verandah_, 249; _Journ. Indian
Archipelago_ vi. 310, 329.
[479] Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 7, 10, 59.
[480] _Trans. Ethnol. Soc._, new series, iii. 235.
[481] Colquhoun's _Amongst the Shans_, 52; Bastian, _Oestl. Asien_, i.
119.
[482] Skeat and Blagden, _Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula_, i. 228;
and compare Rev. P. Favre, _Account of Wild Tribes of the Malayan
Peninsula_ (Paris, 1865), p. 95.
[483] _Ethnology in Folklore_, 45; and see Tylor, _Primitive Culture_,
i. 112-113.
[484] Stanley, _Through the Dark Continent_, i. 253. _Cf._ Burrows,
_Land of the Pigmies_, 180, for the state of fear which the pygmies
cause to their neighbours.
[485] Latham, _Descriptive Ethnology_, ii. 457.
[486] _Journ. As. Soc. Bengal_, 1866, ii. 158; see also Geiger,
_Civilisation of Eastern Iranians_, i. 20-21.
[487] _Journ. Ceylon As. Soc._, 1865-1866, p. 3. _Journ. Ind.
Archipelago_, i. 328; Tennant, _Ceylon_, i. 331; J. F. Campbell, _My
Circular Notes_, 155-157.
[488] Landtman, _Origin of Priesthood_, p. 82, quoting the original
authorities.
[489] Vigfusson and Powell, _Corpus Boreale_, ii. 38; and see i. 408.
[490] _Roman Festivals_, 264.
[491] Rhys, _Lectures on Welsh Philology_, 196.
[492] _Life of St. Guthlac_, by Felix of Crowland, edit. C. W. Goodwin,
pp. 21, 23, 27, 35.
[493] _Life of St. Guthlac_, p. 43.
[494] Wright, _Essays on Popular Superstitions of the Middle Ages_, ii.
4-10.
[495] The substance of this part of my subject, with more elaboration
in detail, is taken from a paper I contributed to the _Transactions of
the Folklore Congress_, 1891.
INDEX
aborigines, savage, 219
Abyssinian pygmies, 241
African pygmy people, 241-2
aged, killing of the, 68-78
agricultural custom, 49, 163, 188, 192, 220, 311, 339, 352-3, 359
Ahts of Vancouver Island, 62, 228
All Souls, feast of, 331
allocation of folklore items, 340
altar superstitions, 198, 200
American Indian creation myths, 131, 141, 258
American Indian traditions, 144, 246
analysis of custom, 159
Andaman islanders, 218
animal traditions, 239
animals, domestication of, 258
antagonism in folklore, 340
anthropological conditions, 208-302
apparitions, 188
arm, right, left unchristened, 324, 325
arresting force of Christianity, 321, 322
Arthur traditions, 29, 33-34
Arunta people (Australians), 265-274
Ashantee creation myth, 141, 142
ashes, custom connected with, 160
aspirations of man, 145
association, law of, in folklore, 166-9
Aston and Cote, manor, 355
Australian evidence, 61, 142, 143, 156, 187, 213, 217, 230, 232, 251,
256, 258, 262-74, 347
Australoid race, 296
Avebury (Lord), quoted, 65, 215
Balder myth, 108
ballads, growth of, 13
baptism, 323-4, 325, 328
baptismal water, 197
barbaric conquest, 219
Beddgelert bridge tradition, 26
Bedfordshire evidence, 95, 287
bees, telling the, 162, 164
Bega (St.), 323
belief the foundation of myth, 140-6
Beowulf, quoted, 89
Berkshire evidence, 95, 162
boar as a totem animal, 287
Border civilisation, 31, 183-5
Boudicca, hare portent of, 288
bow and arrow, 218
Breton tradition, 21-22, 28
bridges, tradition concerning, 25, 26
Britain, totemism in, 276-96
Buckinghamshire evidence, 162
bull (white) ceremony, 161
Bund (Willis), quoted, 118
burial superstition, 198, 324, 339
Burmese evidence, 347
Bury (J. B.), quoted, 35, 345
Bushmen dances, 141
Caesar, food taboos in Britain, 286-91
Canary Islanders, custom, 325
Catskin story, 59-66
cattle, telling of death to, 162
Celtic mythology, 103
Celtic tribes of Britain, 25-28, 103-5, 111, 310
Ceylon evidence, 31
Chadwick (H. M.), quoted, 223
charms, 188
Cheshire evidence, 162
child relationship to parents, 232
child thought, 186, 187
Childe Rowland story, 314-15
children not related to parents, 61, 268, 271
Christianity and paganism, 320-37
church ceremony of marriage, 90-1
church, sacred character of objects and buildings, 197-9
churning superstition, 202
civil war pamphlets, 195
Claddagh fisherfolk, 279
clan songs, 97
class system in Australian totemism, 264, 265, 270, 272
classification, false, of folklore, 166
Clonmel witch case, 205
club, for killing the aged, 74-76
cock as a totem animal, 286, 289
comparative folklore, 170-9
conjectural method of inquiry, 225-6, 239, 250
conquered, mythic influence of, 345-9
conscious use of experience or observation, 211, 212
conquest in man's history, 219
Cook (A. B.), quoted, 106, 108
Cornwall evidence, 20, 55, 162, 164, 193, 196, 324
Crawley (E.), quoted, 155
Crayford legend, 43
creation myths, 130-9
Cromm Cruaich, 344
Cuchulain, totem descent of, 286
Cuerdale hoard of coins, 30-31
Cumberland evidence, 162, 184, 323
custom, belief, and rite, 10, 123, 125, 154-70
Cynuit, fight with Danes at, 5-6
Danish conquest in tradition, 22, 31, 41, 192
Darwin (C.), quoted, 213, 224, 247
death beliefs, 191-2
death, telling of, to bees, 162
decay the principal force in folklore, 157-9, 319
definitions, 129
Demeter temple custom, 150
Derbyshire evidence, 162
descent, use of the term, 270
Devonshire evidence, 5, 95, 96, 324
differential evolution, 228
diffusion of folk-tales, 153
dog as a totem animal, 286
doom rings, 323
doors, decoration of, 334
Dorsetshire evidence, 45, 94
dreams, 13-20, 188
Druidism, 341, 342-4
duplication of myth, 33, 34
Durham evidence, 162, 184, 324
Easter-tide, 328
economic influences upon early man, 219, 257
Egyptian civilisation, 108
Elton (C.), quoted, 73, 74, 78, 114, 286, 290, 344
Essex evidence, 95
ethnographic movements of man, 216
ethnological conditions, 338-66
Eucharist, sacred elements of, 197
European conditions, 320-37
European sky god, 106
Evans (Arthur), quoted, 209
Exeter custom, 96
exogamy, 252, 271
fact, basis of tradition upon, 10, 47-49
fairs, 45
family, the term, 235-7
Farrer (J. A.), quoted, 145
father kinship, 231, 259
father and daughter marriage, 59-66
female descent, 271
festivals, pagan in origin, 328
fictional literature, 6, 123, 145
Fijian creation myth, 131
Fir-Bolgs, 101
fire, non-use of, 218
fire worship, 106, 108, 160, 163, 317
first foot custom, 162, 164
fish as a totem, 290
folklore, necessities of, 4-7
folk-tales, 46-84, 123, 127, 129, 148-9
food taboos in ancient Britain, 286
formula of custom, 159
fox totem in Connaught, 278-80
Frazer (J.), quoted, 62, 108-9, 110, 140, 228, 253, 255, 265, 274, 283,
285, 287, 329, 338, 339, 365
Fuegians, 247
Gambia district, peoples of, 245
Genesis creation myth, 137-8, 150
geological age of man, 214
giants, 194
Gibbon (E.), quoted, 321, 327, 334
Giles (Dr.), quoted, 113
Gold coast natives, 230
Gomme (Mrs.), quoted, 26
goose as a totem animal, 286, 289
Gospels used as charms, 199
gossip, meaning of, 278
Gregory (Pope), letter of, to Mellitus, 329-30
Greek totemism, 275
Greek laws, 85, 86, 87, 88
Grey (Sir George), quoted, 143
Grierson (P. J. H.), quoted, 45, 230
Grimm, quoted, 7, 78-81, 327-8
group (human) the unit of anthropological work, 234
Guthlac (St.) legend, 350-2
Haddon (A. C.), quoted, 188, 228, 253, 254
Hampshire evidence, 96, 162, 192
hare as a totem animal, 280, 287-9
Harris, island of, 354
Hartland (E. S.), quoted, 23, 148, 259, 265
Hawick Common riding, 98-99
Hebrew creation myth, 137-8
Hereward in history and tradition, 35-40
historians, neglect of folklore, 110-20
historical material, 2-4
history and folklore, 1-122, 315
holy, the word, 317
"holy mawle," 74
horde, type of society, 225
hostility among primitive groups of mankind, 264
Howitt (A. W.), quoted, 142, 230
hunting stage of society, 220
Huxley (T. H.), quoted, 138
idols in Christian churches, 328
Indian evidence, 13, 27, 31, 52, 55, 63, 66, 72, 73, 78, 85, 86, 87,
101, 109, 119, 135-6, 146, 151, 174, 175, 193, 217, 229, 231, 258,
271, 309, 310, 315, 348, 349, 353, 357
industrial evolution, 228-30
Innis (Thomas), quoted, 113
institutions and religion, 305, 306, 360
Irish evidence, 11, 49, 50, 56-59, 88, 97, 108, 159, 163, 177, 182, 183,
198, 205, 276-82, 286, 287, 324, 330
Italy, Christian and pagan beliefs in, 331-4, 335
Java, remains of man in, 214
Jevons (F. B.), quoted, 140, 141, 145, 236
Jewish temple rite, 200
Joyce (Dr.), quoted, 116
junior right inheritance, 96, 172-4, 223, 313
Keane (A. H.), quoted, 214, 215, 241
Keary (J. F.), quoted, 313
Kemble (J. M.), quoted, 3, 42, 89
Kent evidence, 43, 191, 330
Kentish laws, 92
Kilmorie, 352
kinship, 219, 220, 226, 230, 261
kinlessness, 225, 231, 235, 240-7, 256, 261, 268
Kronos myth, 134
Lambeth pedlar legend, 20
Lancashire evidence, 20, 162, 191, 289, 324
lands, surrender of, to sons, 70-2
Lang (A.), quoted, 7, 116, 131, 132, 153, 225, 226, 236, 253, 254,
255, 263, 265, 271, 272, 273, 275, 339
Lapps as sorcerers, 349
Lappenberg (J. M.), quoted, 113
Latham (Dr.), quoted, 214, 215-16, 241
Lauder, 354
Law, traditional origin of, 84-100, 196, 328
left and right superstition, 166
legend, 124, 127, 129, 151-2
legislation, primitive, 213, 273
Leicestershire evidence, 198
Lincolnshire evidence, 30, 162, 350-2
Litlington tradition, 43
local traditions, 13-33
locality influence of, 219, 344
Lockyer (Sir Norman), quoted, 107
logic of primitive man, 140
London Bridge legends, 13-33
Lud, Celtic god, 105
Lundinium (Roman), 24, 25, 105
Mabinogion creation myth, 136
MacCulloch (Mr.), quoted, 47, 82, 123, 173, 239, 313, 338
Maine (Sir Henry), quoted, 85, 87, 117, 226, 235
male descent, 269, 270
male groups, 225, 239
manorial evidence, 94-96, 305
manumission formula, 92
Manx custom, 160, 162
Maori myths, 143, 144
marriage ceremony, 90-91, 162
marriage customs in folk-tales, 65
materials and methods, 123-79
McLennan (J. F.), quoted, 61, 65, 225, 293
midsummer festivals, 328
migratory movements of man, 214-17, 221, 222, 223, 224, 237, 251, 264,
266
monogenists, 213
Morgan (L. H.), quoted, 225, 275
mother influence in totemism, 257, 267
mother kinship, 231
Moytura monuments, 101, 102
Murray (Dr.), quoted, 98
myth, 127, 129, 130-48
mythology, 9, 100-10, 128, 146-8, 303
names (totem), origin of, 260
natural objects, interpretation of, 193
neglect of observation, 231
neolithic burial custom, 339
New Guinea evidence, 345
New Zealand myths, 131, 132-3, 190, 217, 346
Nicholson (Dr.), quoted, 172, 173
Nod, Celtic god, 105
Nonconformist appeal to church, 200
Norfolk evidence, 14-19, 42, 163
Norse custom, 174, 175
Norse tradition, 22-23, 32
Northamptonshire evidence, 198, 288
Northumberland evidence, 162, 324, 325
_Notes and Queries_, quoted, 6
Nottinghamshire evidence, 96, 162
nursery rhymes, growth of, 13
Nutt (A.), quoted, 6, 222, 339
oath-taking customs, 200
O'Curry (Eugene), quoted, 113
offertory money, 197
oral tradition, force of, 87, 125
outlawry, 311
oxen, slaughter of, 329
palaeolithic implements, 217, 218
Palgrave (Sir F.), quoted, 88, 113
parallel practices as evidence of common origin, 109, 171-6, 227
pastoral stage of society, 220, 358
Pearson (Dr. Karl), quoted, 47, 78, 201
Pearson (C. H.), quoted, 115
Pedlar of Swaffham legend, 14-19
personal traditions, 33-46
Petrie (Flinders), quoted, 222
Pictish marriage custom, 344
political races, 209, 219, 221
polygenists, 213
pottery, 218
Powell (York), quoted, 3, 8, 104
practice and rule, 227
pre-Celtic remains, 101, 118-20, 209, 275, 318, 350
priest's grave superstition, 199
priests of old religion regarded as magicians, 200
promiscuity, 224
Protestants appeal to Roman Catholicism, 200
psychological conditions, 180-207
purpose of custom, 159
pygmy peoples, 238, 241-5, 248, 348
Ramsay (Sir James), quoted, 115
record of custom, 156, 165
religion and folklore, 140
religion and myth, 138
religion and science, 138-9, 206
result in custom, 159
retrogression in human society, 249
Rhodopis tradition, 53
rhyming tenures, 94-95
Rhys (Sir John), quoted, 29, 33, 34, 105, 114, 115, 161, 163, 209,
342, 345, 350
Ridgeway (Prof.), quoted, 308
right and left superstition, 166
rites explained by myth, 146
Rivers (Dr. W. H. R.), quoted, 150, 174, 229
Robertson-Smith (W.), quoted, 147, 174, 282, 303, 304
Rollright stones, 209
Roman Britain, 25, 30, 105, 360-2
romances, 124
Rome, ancient customs of, 26, 34, 151, 332, 349
sacrifice (human), 174-6
savage customs in Britain, 112-16
savage incidents in folk-tales, 78-82
Scandinavian custom, 71, 223, 323, 328
Scarborough warning, 93-94
science, primitive, 130, 131
Scottish evidence, 20, 48, 49, 50, 56, 65, 67-78, 92, 149, 162, 181,
182, 198, 288, 289, 290
seal totem in Connaught, 280-2
Semangs of Malay peninsula, 218, 242-5, 267, 269, 270, 278, 297-302,
348
sermon quoted, 189
sex cleavage in human evolution, 251, 260
Shrewsbury Abbey Church, tradition, 43
Shropshire evidence, 43, 95, 162, 292
Sids, Irish, 341
Skene (W. F.), quoted, 114, 115, 344
sky-god, 106
Slavonian tradition, 54
snake stones of Whitby, 194
sociological conditions, 303-19
Somersetshire evidence, 45, 95, 162, 205
soul resident in backbone, 189, 190
Southampton custom, 96
specialisation of culture, 227, 233, 364
Spencer (Herbert), quoted, 117, 214
Spencer and Gillen, quoted, 143, 265
Spenser (Edmund), quoted, 4, 11, 177
Squire (Mr.), quoted, 33, 34, 101-3, 117
stationary conditions of life, 223, 224
state religion, 103-5
Stevenson (W. H.), quoted, 5
Stewart (J. A.), quoted, 145
stone circles, 107, 193, 194
Stonehenge, 107, 209
Suffolk evidence, 161, 162, 192
Sullivan (W. R.), quoted, 113, 120
Surrey evidence, 20, 162
survivals, 154-5, 319, 336
Sussex evidence, 41, 162
tappie, tappie, tousie, 92
telling tales, 149
Teutonic religion, 104
Teutonic tribes, 310
Thomas (N. W.), quoted, 214, 226, 232, 236, 265
threshold custom, 159, 334
toad in witchcraft, 203
Todas, loss of myth by, 150
totemism, 209-10, 252, 253-61, 274-96
transfer of superstition to different objects, 163, 325
treasure legends, 13-24, 30
trees, marriage of, India, 258
tribal life in tradition, 51-59, 103-5
tribal institutions, 307-18, 356, 364
tribe, the term, 234, 308
Tuatha de Danann, 101
Turner (Sharon), quoted, 113
Tylor (E. B.), quoted, 9, 133, 154, 200, 233, 239
Upsall, Yorks, legend from, 19
ver sacrum, 223
Vortigern, 62
water god, 105
well worship, 163, 164, 323, 326
Welsh evidence, 20, 26, 34, 162, 194, 200, 202
Westermarck (Dr.), quoted, 225, 239
Westmoreland evidence, 184
Wilde (Sir W.), quoted, 45, 101
William the Conqueror, Sussex tradition, 41
Wiltshire evidence, 44, 45, 95, 162, 287, 288, 354
witchcraft, 194, 201-6
wolf totem in Ossory, 276-8
women in early industrialism, 257
Worcestershire evidence, 162
Yorkshire evidence, 19, 20, 30, 78, 93, 162, 184, 194, 324, 325
Yule-tide, 328
Zulu folk-tales, 51, 64
Transcriber's Notes:
This book contains some archaic and variant spelling, which has been
retained as printed. Hyphenation has been made consistent where
appropriate, without note. Minor printer errors (missing or transposed
letters or punctuation, etc.) have been amended. The list of amendments
is included below.
There are a few instances of oe ligatures; these have been rendered
simply as oe. There are also a few Greek words, which have been
transliterated in this version, in the form [Greek: word].
Illustrations have been shifted slightly, so that they are not in the
middle of paragraphs. The frontispiece illustration has been moved to
follow the title page.
Transcriber's List of Amendments:
Page 42--ryhme amended to rhyme--"... the old rhyme is still
remembered ..."
Page 76--missing accent added to "vice versa".
Page 92--signifiance amended to significance--"... rhythmical formulae
which have legal significance."
Page 118--missing accent added to "prima facie".
Page 184--preceeding amended to preceding--"... those immediately
preceding the reign ..."
Page 198--bedesecrated amended to be desecrated--"must not be
desecrated"
Page 271--missing apostrophe added--"do not go to the wives' region of
abode."
Page 368--Firbolgs amended to Fir-Bolgs, in line with other
occurrences.
Footnote 358--missing period added at end of footnote.
Footnote 416--Ser. made consistent with other occurrences--amended to
"ser."
Footnote 469--comma added--"Myth, Ritual and Religion".
Footnote 473--precedessors amended to predecessors--"... apparently
dependent upon their predecessors."