396 Anthropology at the British Association. 
Miss M. A. Murray’s contribution, ‘Evidence for the 
Custom of Killing the King,’ concluded the papers relating to 
ancient Egypt. fFrazer’s theory of the general practice of 
killing the king which was not at first received by all, has 
been triumphantly confirmed by Seligmann’s discoveries 
among the Shilluks of the Nile Valley. The evidence of human 
sacrifice in ancient Egypt is conclusive. The fundamental belief 
underlying the sacrifice of the king was that in him the god of 
fertility was incarnate, and that in his declining days he must be 
extinguished, so that the deity could pass into a younger and 
stronger body, thus the god of fertility never suffered decay. 
Mr. R. Campbell Thompson contributed an outline of 
“A New System of Decipherment of the Hittite Hieroglyphs.’ 
There have been five previous decipherments, all of which 
show differences. Thompson’s system depends upon the 
application of the names of Hittite and other chiefs of the 
ninth century to the hieroglyphs, and then with the syllabic 
values thus obtained, the comparison of the grammer known 
from the Hittite cuneiform tablets from Boghaz Keui. 
African Anthropology was represented by four papers. 
Mr. E. S. Hartland showed in the ‘ Historical Value of the 
Traditions of the Baganda,’ that the recent marked tendency 
to accept at their face values oral traditions of peoples in the 
lower culture was contrary to true critical principles. 
Mrs. Charles Temple shows the great value of Applied 
Ethnology.. We have a striking example set forth in ‘ Social 
Organization amongst the Primitive Tribes of Northern 
Nigeria.” The Government in Northern Nigeria have, in 
certain cases, embodied native customs in local statutes. A 
review was given of the custom of those tribes usually called 
pagan, a misleading title, as in most cases their religion com- 
prises a belief in an all-powerful God, as well as in animism 
and ancestor worship, but useful to distinguish them from 
Moslems and Christians. 
In ‘ The Bori Cult in Tunis and Tripoli’ Major Tremearne 
gave a vivid picture of the Hausa ideas of the spirits which 
people their imaginative minds. The bori of the city are 
nearly equivalent to the Arab jinns, and are regarded as 
disease spirits, those of the forest are more nature gods. 
Generally speaking the bori have human forms but cloven 
hoofs, but they can assume any form at will. All bori, from 
Kuri the chief, downwards, move like the wind. 
Major Tremearne’s second paper, ‘Some Notes on Hausa 
Magic,’ is an extension of the former paper. The Hausa 
resorts to magic for success in love, in agriculture, in hunting, 
in war, to destroy a rival’s prosperity, and to promote trade. 
The Mohammedan Hausas worship Allah so long as all goes 
well, but if he fails they have recourse to magic. 
Naturalist, 
