PREFACE 



IN the year 1894, m the first volume of a study of The 

 Legend of Perseus (3 vols., London, D. Nutt, 1894-5-6), 

 I examined the world-wide story-incident of Supernatural 

 Birth. Summing up the results of the inquiry, I sug- 

 gested that the incident and the actual practices and 

 superstitions corresponding to it originated in the 

 imperfect recognition, or rather the non-recognition, 

 in early times of the physical relation between father 

 and child. At that time I was not in a position to 

 carry the conjecture further. It remained, however, in 

 my mind as a subject for investigation. During the 

 period that has since elapsed large contributions have 

 been made by explorers, missionaries, and scientific 

 anthropologists to our knowledge of savage and bar- 

 barous peoples in many parts of the world. In the 

 light of these contributions I now venture to lay before 

 the reader the case for the conjecture I made sixteen 

 years ago. 



The beliefs, customs, and institutions of tribes in a 

 low degree of civilisation are our only clue to those of 

 a more archaic condition no longer extant. They are 

 evolved from them, and are in the last resort the 

 outgrowth of ideas which underlay them. When, there- 

 fore, we find a belief, a custom, or an institution still 

 more when we find a connected series of beliefs, customs, 

 and institutions overspreading the lower culture we 



