October 5, 191 1] 



NATURE 



47i 



included the abolition of signalling arrangements, increased 

 mean speed of travelling, and increased comfort due to 

 more gradual acceleration and retardation of the train. 



Owing to the late hour only a brief discussion was 

 possible ; and a very successful meeting terminated with 

 votes of thanks to the president and vice-presidents. 



E. G. Coker. 



ANTHROPOLOGY AT THE 

 ASSOCIATION. 



BRITISH 



'M'OTWH'HSTANDING the comparatively small numbers 

 -"■' attending the meeting of the association at Ports- 

 mouth, the audiences in Section H, which met under the 

 presidency of Dr. W. H. R. Rivers, F.R.S., were well up 

 to the average, at any rate in the morning sessions. In 

 the afternoons the attendances were sometimes small, 

 owing, no doubt, to the attractive nature of the local 

 arrangements for the entertainment of members. In the 

 circumstances it was thought advisable to abandon the 

 sectional meeting on the afternoon of the naval display, 



( and to adopt the unusual course of holding an evening 

 session. The wisdom of the change was made apparent 

 by the large audience which listened to the postponed 

 papers by Mr. R. R. Marett and Prof. A. Keith. 



The papers communicated to the section attained a 

 uniformly high level : some may be counted as of first 

 importance ; and it is perhaps not unsafe to say that the 

 discussions on totemism and on the institution of an 

 Imperial Bureau of Anthropology will be of far-reaching 

 effect. 



The discussion on totemism, to which the whole of a 

 morning session was devoted, was opened by Dr. A. C. 

 Haddon, who explained that totemism was usually re- 

 garded as the association of definite human groups with 

 non-human groups. After citing typical instances, he 

 pointed out that even in Australia there was much varia- 

 tion, and other customs and beliefs might be present. 

 Similar variability also obtained in other parts of the 

 world, so that it had become extremely difficult to frame a 

 definition of totemism that would hold good everywhere. 

 Although it was primarily a social and not a definitely 

 religious institution, in most cases it could not be dis- 

 tinguished from a religious sentiment. Dr. A. A. Golden- 

 weiser remarked that all attempts to characterise totemism 

 by a more or less definite set of features must needs be 

 artificial. Consequently, its distinctive characteristics 



I were not the individual features, but the relation into 

 which they entered. Dr. Graebner, whose paper, in the 

 unavoidable absence of the author, was read by the presi- 

 dent, said that every attempt to account for the origin 

 of totemism must first deal with the question whether 

 this institution was a cultural entity, for if it were once 

 conceded that the form of totemism found in different parts 

 of the earth had arisen independently, there could be no 

 justification for the assumption that it had had every- 

 where the same origin. An examination of the evidence 

 from the South Seas, from Africa, from South and North 

 America, and from Asia would appear to show that this 

 was the case ; there were no older forms from which group 

 totemism could be derived. In the older form, in which 

 totems were animals, there was an indefinite and unstable 

 relation of sympathy between man and beast which could 

 be explained simply by certain groups of men and animals 

 having co-existed locally in a region of diversified physical 

 character. Prof. Hutton Webster in his paper on the 

 relations between totem clans and secret societies pointed 



I out that secret societies, although acting as a native police 

 in West Africa and Melanesia, were not consciously devised 

 for this purpose. Investigation revealed the importance 

 of the part played by them in funeral rites, and especially 

 in initiation ceremonies at puberty. These and other 

 features appeared to be closely connected with the struc- 

 ture and function of totemic clans, and he suggested that 

 they had been transferred to the secret society in the 

 course of the disintegration of ancient totemic groupings. 

 In discussing methods of investigation, Prof. E. Waxweiler 

 said that light could only be thrown on the question of 

 totemism by the application of a scrupulously accurate 

 method of analysis, which should be mainly sociological, 

 i.e. it should consider the so-called totemic facts as being 



NO. 2l88, VOL. 87] 



imposed by the conditions of organised social life amongst 

 men. Further, its starting point should be " functional", 

 it must search for the social function from which totemism 

 had sprung. Analysing the phenomena of totemism on 

 these lines, it would appear that functionally it was a 

 social device for sanctioning permanent situations, which 

 were considered essential or peculiar in the organisation of 

 the group, wherein individuals, or more frequently groups 

 of individuals, appeared to remain. 



The discussion on an Imperial Bureau of Anthropology 

 was opened by a paper by Mr. J. Gray, who dealt specific- 

 ally with the anthropometric work which might be carried 

 out under the supervision of such a bureau, and laid 

 stress upon its importance not only to the man of science 

 but to the statesman and social reformer. Mr. T. C. 

 Hodson, in a paper dealing with the ethnographic side 

 of the work, gave an account in outline of the ethno- 

 graphic and linguistic investigations instituted by the 

 Government in India, the Sudan, and southern Nigeria, 

 and dwelt on the importance of the extension and organisa- 

 tion of such work through a central body as a means of 

 securing sympathetic administration of the affairs of 

 dependent races and of ensuring that they should be 

 trained on right lines to take their place as constituent 

 parts of the Empire. In the discussion which followed 

 the reading of the papers, Prof. J. L. Myres made a 

 detailed survey of the efforts of the British Association 

 at various times to obtain the cooperation of the Govern- 

 ment, and expressed a hope that urgent pressure might 

 bring Government departments and public opinion to a 

 sense of the responsibility of this country for a proper 

 record of our own population and of the ways of life of 

 our large masses of native dependents abroad. Prof. 

 Ridgeway recalled the memorials which had been pre- 

 sented to the Government by the Royal Anthropological 

 Institute, and emphasised, by an apt citation of Mr. 

 Crooke's paper on the cow in India, the importance to 

 administrators and commercial men of the information 

 concerning customs and beliefs which such a bureau would 

 make accessible. The Rev. Dr. Bryce explained the 

 organisation of the Canadian Ethnographical Survey, 

 which had been set up as a department of the Geological 

 Survey as a result of the representations made to the 

 Canadian Government by the association at its Winnipeg 

 meeting, and Prof. Hutton Webster gave a brief descrip- 

 tion of the work of the United States Bureau of 

 Ethnology. 



Among the remaining contributions to the proceedings, 

 archaeology held first place in point of numbers, although 

 papers of an ethnographical character were more numerous 

 than they had been for the last few years. With one 

 exception, however, these dealt with particular points of 

 research, and were not generally descriptive of a geo- 

 graphical or cultural area. The exception was Captain 

 Rawling's account of the tribes of the Mimika district, 

 of the tribes of the sea coast, and of the Tapiro pygmies 

 encountered by the recent expedition to Dutch New Guinea, 

 which is likely to provide ethnologists with material for 

 discussion for some time to come. Mr. Crooke's paper 

 on the reverence for the cow in India attributed the recent 

 extension of the recognition of the sanctity of the cow, 

 which had existed in a more restricted degree since Indo- 

 Iranian times, to the rise of Neo-Brahmanism. Prof. 

 Hutton Webster's paper on the origin of rest-days proffered 

 an elucidation of Hebrew and Babylonian Sabbatical 

 observances by bringing them into relation with the 

 periods of communal cessation from work and of fasting, 

 as a protective or conciliatory measure, among lower races 

 on critical, usually seasonal, occasions. Mr. Hobley's 

 account of the religious beliefs of the Akikuyu and 

 Akamha of British East Africa dealt, among other matters 

 of belief and ritual, with the Thahu, an analogue of the 

 mediaeval curse, and its effect on social custom and culture. 

 Major A. J. N. Tremearne described the customs and 

 beliefs of the Hausas in so far as these may be deduced 

 from, or illustrated by, an analysis of their legends and 

 folklore. Dr. C. G. Seligmann raised many points of 

 interest in his important paper on the divine kings of 

 the Shilluk. It is noteworthy that these kings, who 

 trace their descent from Nyakan, a semi-divine founder, 

 are sacrificed ceremonially when they become senile or 



