TOTEMISM AND EXOGAMY 237 



evidence, and where, one may safely ask, would 

 ethnologists and folk-lorists be to-day without 

 the details collected by missionaries of all kind ? 

 If this warning must be borne in mind, as it un- 

 doubtedly must, so also must this further warning : 

 that even if the language is tolerably well under- 

 stood, the workings of the mind of the man who 

 employs that language, even if he wants as he 

 by no means always does those workings to be 

 understood, are not easy of comprehension. The 

 savage is not an expert psychologist and has never 

 concerned himself with the distinctions which 

 arise in our more civilized minds. An example of 

 what is meant by this may now be given. The 

 present writer was once very anxious to ascertain 

 whether the savage who sets up a lump of stone 

 in his patch of yams as a protector, regards that 

 stone as an actual god or only as the representation 

 of a god, and made inquiry on the subject from 

 a very distinguished writer who had spent much 

 time as an observer amongst the peoples in ques- 

 tion. His first reply was that the savage was not a 

 psychologist and did not distinguish between the 

 two ideas above mentioned. And, finally, he could 

 not commit himself to anything further than the 

 statement, that probably the savage in some 

 measure considered that the godhead was focussed 

 in the stone. This wise and cautious attitude 

 might well be considered by the cocksure persons 

 who theorize at second or third-hand about the 

 views of people who may quite possibly really 

 believe things wholly different from those which 

 their observers suppose them to believe. Look at 



