Primitive Games. 271 



kindly noted down the following wealth of synonyms:— 

 amusements, diversions, entertainments, sports, games, 

 relaxations, play, merry-making, frisks, and frolics. But 

 no one of these taken by itself seems to me better than 

 the word "games ;" and even the whole list collectively 

 does not by any means cover all that is required. Anthro- 

 pologists seem to me either unusually liable to suffer 

 from the insufficiency of adequate terms or to be pecu- 

 liarly non-inventive in supplying this defect. That one 

 equally terrible and unavoidable word " savage," used 

 to express a man in an uncivilised state (it really, by the 

 way, means a woodman or man of the silvage) has never 

 yet been replaced by anything more satisfactory. As, in 

 default of a better, we still use the word " savage," so, 

 equally in default of a better, I must here continue to 

 use the word "games." Hence it is necessary to define 

 the meaning of this latter word as here used ; but this 

 definition itself is no easy task. 



A game is any exercise of any of the bodily or mental 

 faculties without any other purpose than, either the mere 

 enjoyment of the exercise or (2) of developing the 

 faculties exercised, or (3) of exciting a fervid state of 

 mind, the latter generally for religious purposes. 



I do not, on this occasion, intend to examine or prove 

 the truth of this definition. I only wish to point out 

 that it includes not only all that in common thought we 

 class under the name 'games' but also dances in all their 

 many forms, uncivilized and civilized, non-religious 

 and religious ; games of imitation whether, as in the case 

 of many children's games, of the doings of their elders or 

 as in many games both of children and adults, of the doings 

 of animals ; games of endurance, and many others. 



