296 American Association. 



tions in ethnology, to ascertain what other sections had had insti- 

 tutions of the same kind. He had ascertained that they existed 

 in south. America, and in parts at least of the islands of the South 

 Pacific." 



ETHNOLOGICAL SPECIMENS FKOM THE ISLAND OF ANEITEUM. 



" Professor Dawson communicated some facts collected by a 

 missionary to this Island, one of tlie new Hebrides. The people 

 were of the Pupuan or Austral negro race, perhaps with some in- 

 termixture of the Polynesian. Their colour a dark copper, their 

 forms undersized and slender, and the hair crisp but round oval 

 in its cross-section, and more smooth on the surface than that of the 

 European, with the internal fibrous structure very strongly deve- 

 loped, and an intense brownish colour. It was trained by the 

 chiefs in slender locks, bound together by vegetable fibre. He 

 mentioned some facts relating to the religious observances of 

 this race, apparently one of the most degraded on the globe. 

 Travellers and even missionaries often did great injustice to bar- 

 barous people, by representing that they worshipped objects, which 

 were in fact merely symbols of the spiritual beings to whom they 

 rendered their devotion. Some tribes allied to these had even 

 been represented as having no religious ideas. His friend Mr. 

 Geddie, missionary in this island, had found on the contrary that 

 these islanders believe in a number of spiritual beings called 

 ISTatmasses, apparently identical with the Nats of Burmah, and with 

 the genii and demi-gods of other mythologies. One of these 

 superior to the rest had drawn up the island from the depths of 

 the ocean when fishing. The others were the special deities of 

 particular places and objects. They were worshipped by means 

 of sacred stones. Some of these are pieces of vesicular trap in the 

 cavities of which the spirits were supposed to reside; others were 

 of rounded, conical and cylindrical forms, due to weathering and 

 beach rolling. Another object of veneration was the decayed 

 trunk of a tree, having a rude resemblance to the human form, -• 

 and perforated by cavities apparently caused by decay, and in 

 which the spiritual essence was believed to reside. It was unne- 

 cessary to point out the essential identity of this religious system 

 with the prevalent mythologies of antiquity, though the rudeness 

 of its appli:iiices corresponded with the lov/ state of civilization of 

 the people. 



He concluded by mentioning that these islanders apparently so 

 degraded, had aUeaJy received a considerable amount of civiliza- 



