466 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XI. No. 273 



not have read the proof of names for this con- 

 tinent. It is a little diflScult for the English 

 reader to detect ' Shahaptian ' in 'Chahaptes.' 

 The Trenton gravel controversy is an open 

 question, and Dr. Deniker should have left it so 

 on page 511. He does the cause no good, and 

 his friends, Wilson and Boule, harm in setting 

 them up as a court of last appeal. 



O. T. Mason. 



Malay Magic: Being an Introduction to the 

 Folk and Popular Eeligion of the Malay 

 Peninsula. By Walter William Skeat, 

 with preface by Charles Otto Blagdon. 

 London, Macmillan & Co. 1900. Pp. xiv + 

 686, 7 figs., 28 plates. Price, $6.50. 

 The folk mind, everywhere, stands in the 

 same relation to truth that a celestial globe oc- 

 cupies with respect to the heavens. Here and 

 there a star is in the right place, but all the 

 rest is fanciful. But truth is exact agreement 

 between what is and what is said, so, notwith- 

 standing folk-lore is fancy, the beliefs are actu- 

 ally held, and we may have the truth about 

 them. No other student within our acquaint- 

 ance is better equipped for a work of this kind 

 than Mr. Skeat. 



Folk-lore, in this volume, is taken to mean 

 the lore of the uncivilized races, containing in 

 the germ, as yet undeveloped, the notions from 

 which religion, law, medicine, philosophj', nat- 

 ural science and social customs are evolved. 

 The operative side of living is excluded, but the 

 regulative thoughts are folk-lore. 



The word Malay incidentally includes with 

 the people of that race in the peninsula others 

 of the same blood near by, but the lore of the 

 Chinese and other non-Malaj'an folk is ex- 

 cluded. The magician is the middle man be- 

 tween Malays and the spirit world. If he 

 knows and reveals, he is Paivang ; if he heals, 

 he is Bomor. All that either does or says is 

 classed by Mr. Skeats under magic. The 

 Malays have had a series of religions, to wit, 

 the aboriginal cult, which is a primitive sort of 

 Brahmanism, with extensive pantheon, Budd- 

 hism and Blohammedanism. Now, it is easily 

 comprehended, as Mr. Skeat shows, that these 

 Pawanga and Bomors have nothing to do with 

 Imams, Khatihs and Bilals of the mosques. 



Also, if the reader is familiar with the present 

 cult of the Latin American tribes, or of the 

 Filippinos, he would not be shocked to see a 

 long string of Malay invocations and magical 

 rites performed before Hindu divinities, de- 

 mons, ghosts and nature spirits, beginning 

 with: "Jft the name of God, the Merciful, the 

 Compassionate,^^ and ending with: ^^ There 

 is no god hut God, and Mohammed ia His 

 pi'ophet." 



In order to prepare the way for a better com- 

 prehension of Malay magic the author devotes 

 the first fifty pages to native cosmogony, an- 

 thropogony, animism and notions about souls. 

 Nearly as many pages discuss the world of 

 spirits, the Malay pantheon and its relation to 

 our world, as well as the class of men who act 

 as go between from world to world. 



The remainder of the work gives us the 

 story of Malay beliefs and practices concerning 

 fire, air, earth, water, and the life of man, in 

 which the spirit world is involved, together 

 with the description of paraphernalia the re- 

 cital of formulae, prayers, sacrifices, lustrations, 

 fastings, divinations and witchcraft involved. 

 Wisely, in the midst of so much jumbling of 

 ethnic creeds and cults, the author abstains 

 from attempts to analyze, and contents himself 

 with recording in the most scrupulous manner 

 the data on which philosophic discussion must 

 be based. Pages 581-672 are devoted to Malay 

 texts. 



It would be unkind to point out little errors 

 and omissions, since an enforced absence from 

 England prevented the author from revising 

 the proofs. The illustrations are not so good as 

 those of Dr. Fevvkes along the same line pub- 

 lished by the Smithsonian Institution. 



O. T. Mason. 



Plant Structures. A second book of Botany. 

 By John M. Coulter, A.M., Ph.D., Head of 

 Department of Botany, University of Chi- 

 cago. Twentieth Century Text-Books. D. 

 Appleton & Company. 1900. Pp. x -f 348. 

 12mo, with 289 illustrations. 

 Several months ago the companion volume 



to the work now under review appeared, and 



was noticed in Science (December 8, 1899). 



That volume was designated as ' a first book of 



