354. SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H. 
sees how European cradles evolved in the course of ages from boards. 
Only two stages in this evolution appear to be missing in present Albanian 
practice. 
Specimens of existing stages were on view at the lecture. 
Miss E. Dora Eartoy.—The health cult of an African tribe, with special 
reference to child life (11.0). 
Under the auspices of the Save the Children Fund this investigation was 
undertaken during the winter of 1932-33 in the Liberian Hinterland and in 
Sierra Leone. References are also made to studies among VaLenge children 
of Portuguese East Africa. Health is of paramount importance to an 
African, and its quest often supersedes that of food. 
Health forms the main subject of prayers to ancestral spirits, hence it 
belongs to the domain of religion. Children, forming indispensable links 
in the chain of dead and living, are from birth guarded from hostile in- 
fluences by various rites, votive offerings and medicines. ‘The author has 
studied the ‘ sacrifices’ or votive offerings to the spirits for safeguarding 
the child’s health ; and plants used in medicine, the botanical determina- 
tions having been made by the Department of Botany of the British Museum. 
The tribes studied are the Kisi and Gbande tribes of Liberia, the Mendi 
of the Sierra Leone Protectorate, the people of Freetown, and the VaLenge 
of Portuguese East Africa. Brief references are made to special diseases 
and ailments of child life, with some tentative constructive criticism. 
A description is given of a ‘ sick town’ or hospital settlement in the 
Liberian hinterland, frequented by little-known tribes. 
Capt. R. S. Rattray, C.B.E—The future of anthropology in Africa or 
elsewhere (12.0). 
Is this science, which the European has built up around African and other 
races under the name of Anthropology, destined in the future to be regarded 
by the subjects of these scientific investigations as just so much interesting 
archeological data concerning their own dead past ? 
Alternatively : Will these peoples come to recognise anthropology as 
something which has been a living vital factor in shaping their own destinies ? 
The answer to these questions would seem largely to depend on two 
things : 
(a) Whether the European can, before it is too late, enlist the whole- 
hearted interest and co-operation, in his anthropological experiments, 
of the more highly educated members of such communities ; 
(6) Ability and understanding to discriminate—among the mass of data 
which we have now accumulated—between what is, and what is not, 
vital for the attainment of the object which we have in view. 
This object may perhaps be defined as the retention of the particular 
genius and individuality of the races concerned. ~ 
AFTERNOON. 
Mr. J. H. Driserc.—African ancestor worship : a new view (2.0). 
It is maintained that the attitude of Africans towards their dead does not 
involve a religious cult and that the relationship between the living and 
the dead is entirely a secular one. There is abundant evidence that for 
two generations after death the dead continue to function within the 
organisation of the tribe without any substantial change in social estimation. 
