SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS— H. 403 



It is evident that the Indo-Oceanic problems are very complex. It 

 is first necessary to identify the original cultures, a task which is very diffi- 

 cult on account of the assimilations and consequent changes that have 

 taken place. We must discover the relative chronology of these spreads, 

 with the hope that ultimately we can arrive at a dateable chronology 

 Our President's address will assist towards the elucidation of these 

 problems. 



Lady Raglan. — The green man in church architecture (10.35). 



In many English churches, dating from the twelfth to the fifteenth 

 centuries, are to be found carvings of men's faces with oak or other leaves 

 issuing from the mouth, nostrils, etc. It has usually been supposed that 

 these carvings were allegorical or merely fanciful, but the wideness of their 

 distribution in Western Europe, their general similarity, and the important 

 position in churches which they so often occupy, suggest that they had 

 some more concrete significance. 



Slides are shown illustrating the various types which the figure assumes, 

 and a connection is suggested with the personage known as the ' Green Man,' 

 the ' King of May,' or Robin Hood, who was the chief actor in the May-day 

 festivities, the form in which the most important of pagan rites survived 

 into Christian times. 



Prof. S. H. HooKE. — Cain and Abel (11. is)- 



A short discussion of the origin and meaning of the fratricide motive in 

 early myth and ritual, and its later development in legend and folklore. 

 Osiris and Set in Egyptian myth ; Mot and Alein in the Ras Shamra texts ; 

 Cain and Abel in Hebrew myth. Racial, political and ritual elements in 

 the myths. Conflict between pastoral and agricultural modes of life. 

 Significance of the motive in Western folklore. 



Mr. C. F. Tebbutt. — Cart-front designs (12.0). 



In the counties of Lincoln, Leicester, Rutland, Huntingdon and Cam- 

 bridge, and in parts of Nottingham, Northampton, Bedford, Hertford, 

 Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, farm carts and wagons sometimes have 

 their fronts ornamented with a design known to wheelwrights as ' the 

 spectacles.' 



In the typical example the front is double boarded and the design is cut 

 out of the front boarding to expose that at the back. At the extreme edges 

 of the above area degenerate and freak forms occur, but all obviously derived 

 from the same source. 



Inquiries among wheelwrights have failed to find a purpose or origin of 

 the ornament, but it must originally have had a good luck, or fertility, 

 significance. 



The Fenland and its borders would appear to have been the distributing 

 centre of the design, for there most examples still occur, and nearly all are 

 typical ones. 



The ornament occurs most frequently on the scotch cart and less often 

 on tumbril carts and wagons, and is not entirely confined to agricultural 

 carts. 



The field of research among English farm implements is a promising one 

 and is almost untouched. In a very few years it will be closed for ever. 



