Sept. 14, 188S.] 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



30; 



I thought it high time to charge again and shoot one of 

 them, which I did." Thus this wretched savage lost his 

 life because Dampier did not remember that pooh, pooh, 

 or puff, puff, is the name which savages, like children, 

 apply to guns. 



Mr. Taplin, a missionary to whom we are indebted for 

 an excellent account of the natives of Australia, tells a 

 curious story of this kind against himself. He asked 

 the native word for " sins," but as the Australians do 

 not use the letter "s," but replace it by "th," they mis- 

 understood him and gave him the word " Yrothelum " 

 which means thin, and he used this for a considerable 

 time before he found out his mistake. I must, however, 

 let him tell it in his own words. "When," he says, " I 

 asked the word for sin, they gave the one for 'thin,' 

 and so I was led into representing that it was hateful to 

 God for men to be thin : that they would be condemned 

 for it. So they came to the conclusion that it was pleas- 

 ing to God for people to be fat. In fact, I had been 

 telling them that all lean people went to hell, and fat 

 people to heaven." (Rev. G. Taplin, " The Narrinyeri. 

 Account of the South Australian aborigines," page 86.) 

 Some ideas, indeed, which appear to us inexplicable 

 and fantastic, are very widely distributed. For instance, 

 medicine ; our system seems so natural : send for doctor, 

 get prescription, pay him, take medicine. By no means. 

 In some cases a sorcerer is sent for, who frightens evil 

 spirits by making a noise. In others, a wizard comes 

 with a charm on a board. In others, a doctor drinks his 

 own medicine. In China, they pay the doctor while well. 



In many parts of the world a man is strictly forbidden 

 to speak to his mother-in-law. Again, probably every 

 Englishman who had not studied other races would be 

 astonished to meet with a nation in which, on the birth 

 of a baby, the father and not the mother was put to bed 

 and nursed ; yet though this custom seems so ludicrous 

 to us, it prevails very widely. 



Commencing with the Abipones of South America, 

 Dobritzhoffer says that " no sooner do you hear that 

 a woman has borne a child than you see the husband 

 lying in bed, huddled up with mats and skins, lest some 

 ruder breath of air should touch him, and for a number 

 -of days abstaining religiously from certain viands ; you 

 would swear it was he who had had the child. ... I 

 had read about this in old times, and laughed at it, never 

 thinking I could believe such madness . . . but at 

 last I saw it with my own eyes." Other travellers men- 

 tioned the existence of a similar custom in Kamskatka, in 

 part of China, in Borneo, in the North of Spain, in Cor- 

 sica, and in the South of France, where it was called 

 " faire la Couvade." The reason probably was that the 

 father and child being regarded as intimately connected, 

 it was supposed that any exposure of the one to cold, 

 wet, or other unwholesome conditions would be injurious 

 to the other. 



Again, it might have been thought that forms and 

 -ceremonies were especially characteristic of civilised 

 life ; but here again the actual fact is the very reverse 

 of what might have been not altogether unnaturally 

 expected. 



" Custom hangs on them with a weight 

 Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life." 



The salutations, ceremonies, and legal proceedings of 

 savages are, in fact, most tedious and complex. Eyre 

 mentions that in their intercourse with one another the 

 natives of Australia are extremely punctilious. Captain 

 TSurton states that the Egbas or West African tribe spend 



at least an hour every day in troublesome ceremonies 

 and have a great variety of salutations suitable for every 

 possible occasion. 



Another subject on which savages entertain ideas dif- 

 ferent from ours is that of relationships. It used to be 

 supposed that the original family was founded on the 

 Patriarchal basis — that the father was lord and head ot 

 the family ; and that the ideas of relationships were 

 founded, like ours, on marriage and descent through the 

 male line. We regard a child as related equally to its 

 father and its mother. We make no difference between 

 a father's brother and a mother's brother on the one 

 hand ; a father's sister and a mother's sister on the other. 

 Recent researches, however, especially those of Bachofen, 

 Maclennan, Morgan, and Tylor, have not only modified, 

 but I must say, with all respect to the justly high 

 authority of my friend, Sir H. Maine, revised our ideas 

 on these subjects. Herodotus long ago observed 

 that the Lycians " had this peculiar custom, wherein 

 they resemble no other men, they derive their names 

 from their mothers." So far, however, from this being 

 peculiar, it is, as a matter of fact, very general. Among 

 most savage races when a woman marries she does not 

 become one of her husband's clan, but remains still a 

 member of her own. Now, the children cannot belong 

 to both. Consequently if they are regarded as belonging 

 to the mother's clan, they cannot be included in that of 

 the father. But among the lower races it is most usual 

 that descent is traced through the mother. Hence a 

 man's children do not belong to his clan, but his sister's 

 children do ; and hence again, what appears to us the 

 singular anomaly that among many races a man's heirs 

 are not his own, but his sister's children. But though 

 in this respect the woman occupies an important position, 

 she is, on the whole, greatly to be pitied. The Hindoo 

 maxim " never strike a wife even with a flower" is, no 

 doubt, comparatively speaking, of modern origin. In 

 fact, the original idea of marriage was one mainly of 

 possession. The wife was the property of the husband. 

 In many cases, no doubt, she was a war captive. Hence, 

 I have suggested, arises the very prevalent custom of 

 marriage by capture. Originally a stern reality, it 

 became to be a mere symbol. All over the world we 

 find that even after all the arrangements have been satis- 

 factorily and amicably concluded, the bridegroom makes 

 a pretence of carrying off the bride by force. Thus in 

 the Phillippine Islands, when a man wishes to marry a 

 girl, her parents send her before sunrise into the woods. 

 She has an hour's start, after which the lover goes to 

 seek her. If he finds her and brings her back before 

 sunset, the marriage is acknowledged ; if not, it is broken 

 off. 



In some parts of Australia when a man marries, each 

 of the bride's relations gives him a good blow with a 

 stout stick, by way I suppose of a warm welcome into 

 the family. 



Among the Kalmucks of Central Asia, again, the 

 marriage ceremony is very romantic. The girl is put on 

 a horse and rides at full speed. When she has got a 

 fair start the lover sets off in pursuit ; if he catches her 

 she becomes his wife, but if he cannot overtake her the 

 match is broken off; and we are assured, which I can 

 well believe, that a Kalmuck girl is very seldom caught 

 against her will. 



If time allowed I could show you that this idea of 

 capture in marriage occurs almost all over the world. 

 Hence no doubt the custom of lifting the bride over the 



