774 REPORT — 1894. 



made in anthropolop;ical research in other countries than our own. The numerous 

 workers on this subject in the United States of America are, with great assistance 

 from the Government, very properly devoting themselves to exploring, collecting, 

 and publishing, in a systematic and exhaustive manner, every fact that can still be 

 discovered relating to the history, language, and characters of the aboriginal 

 population of their own land. They have in this a clear duty set before them, 

 and they are doing it in splendid style. I wish we could say that the same has 

 been done with all the native populations in various parts of the world which have 

 been, to use a current phrase, ' disestablished and disendowed ' by our own country- 

 men. We are, however, now, as I have shown, not altogether unmindful of what 

 is our duty to posterity in this respect ; a duty, perhaps, more urgent than that 

 of any other branch of scientific investigation, as it will not wait. It must be 

 done, if ever, before the rapid spread of civilised man all over the world, one of the 

 most remarkable characteristics of the age in which we live, has obliterated what 

 still remains of the original customs, arts, and beliefs of primitive races ; if, indeed, 

 it has not succeeded — as it too often does — in obliterating the races themselves. 



The following Reports and Papers were read : — 



1 . The Report of the Anthropometric Laboratory Committee. 

 See Reports, p. 444. 



The Report of the Ethnograjihical Stirvey Committee. 

 See Reports, p. 419. 



3. The Report of the Committee on Anthropometry in Schools. 

 See Reports, p. 439. 



4. On the Diffusion of Mythical Beliefs as Evidence in the History of 

 Culture. By Edward B. Ttlor, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S. 



The purpose of this communication was to illustrate and systematise the use of 

 correspondence in culture as means of tracing lines of connection and intercourse 

 between ancient and remote peoples. Mythical beliefs are especially referred to as 

 furnishing' good evidence of this class, notwithstanding their want of objective 

 value. The conception of weighing in a spiritual balance in the judgment of the 

 dead, which makes its earliest appearance in the Egyptian religion, was traced 

 thence into a series of variants, serving to draw lines of intercourse through the 

 Vedic and Zoroastrian religions, extending from Eastern Buddhism to Western 

 Christendom. The associated doctrine of the Bridge of the Dead, which separates 

 the good, who pass over, from the wicked, who fall into the abyss, appears first in 

 ancient Persian religion, reaching in like manner to the extremities of Asia and 

 Europe. By these mythical beliefs historical ties are practically constituted, con- 

 necting the great religions of the world, and serving as iines along which their 

 interdependence is to be followed out. Evidence of the snme kind was brought 

 forward in support of the theory, not sufficiently recognised by writers on culture 

 history, of the Asiatic influences under which the prfe-Cohimbian culture of 

 America took shape. In the religion of old Mexico four great scenes in the 

 journey of the soul in the land of the dead are mentioned by early Spanish writers 

 after the conquest, and are depicted in a group in the Aztec" picture-writing known 

 as the Vatican Codex. The four scenes are, first, the crossing of the river ; second, 

 the fearful passage of the soul between the two mountains which clash together ; 

 third, the soul's climbing up the mountain set with sharp obsidian knives ; foiirthj 



