ed; but at all times they prefer the raw to the cooked victuals." By some ancient accounts of the Kamtschatkans they eat their meat either raw or frozen, and their messes of fish putrid. Of the Athabaskans it is related,* that "they are fond of unctuous substances, and drink immense quantities of oil, which they obtain from fish and wild animals. They also besmear their bodies with grease and colored earths. They like their meat putrid, and often leave it until the stench is, to any but themselves, insupportable. Salmonroes are sometimes buried in the earth, and left for two or three months to putrify, in which state they are esteemed a delicacy." And so it would appear that the extremes of civilization meet over the dinner-table; for our game would probably be as intolerable to an unsophisticated nose or palate, as these disgusting dishes.

solute appetite, and with other food to choose from. This last is true cannibalism. Of cannibalism so gratuitous as to come under the last of these categories, I know of no authentic cases; that is, I know of no case where the victim has been other than a captured enemy; but then I believe that the feast is one of the certaminis gaudia. The evidence is, in my mind, in favor of the Battas of Sumatra being cannibals in the most gratuitous form in which the custom exists."*

From social condition and diet, the transition is natural to a brief review of the most striking differences in manners, morals, and customs. On so extended a subject nothing in the way of an exhaustive or systematic account can be expect ed. We shall necessarily be fragmentary; and first on marriage relations. In Europe it is the custom, almost throughout, for one man to have one wife; in other parts Great are the varieties of national food of the world the rule seems to be that one -with which we have at present no con- man may have many wives; and this is cern, but there is one point in which the very general. A singular variety of polyrudest and the most polished nations agree gamy exists in Tibet-namely, polyandria; -they will have something narcotic and for whereas, in the East generally, one intoxicating. This is one of the most man has many wives, in Tibet one woman universally diffused practices with which has many husbands: for the most part, we meet-more universal than dress-as she marries a whole family of brothers. universal as a creed or superstition. Spir- The precise nature of this institution is its, chong, distilled rice, dakka, opium, not well known, nor, in consequence, is bang, hachish, betel-nut, tobacco-some. its bearing upon the country in general. thing to chew, drink, or smoke, universal Dr. Latham remarks upon it: man will have and with it, systematically, or on state occasions, he will get very intoxicated.

Perhaps we ought not to conclude this brief notice of dietetics without some remark on cannibalism. On the subject of this horrible practice much has been said on both sides, and high authorities have asserted its existence in the fullest acceptation of the term; whilst others, equally high, have denied it, except under much limitation. Dr. Latham, who is exceedingly cautious in weighing as well as accumulating testimony on all points, grants that there are three different influences under which savage tribes may taste or eat human flesh. 1. As a mark of honor-Sir Walter Raleigh writes of the Arawaks, that this was showing posthumous respect. 2. In the way of revenge, as eating a conquered enemy. 3. "Human flesh is eaten, as food, under incipient famine only; in others, from ab

* United States Exploring Expedition. VOL. XLIX-NO. 3

"I am slow to believe that polyandria can be an institution of any kind in its normal state. favor of a number of brothers having but one I was once slow to believe that the evidence in wife amongst them at the same time was unexceptionable. I must take it, however, as I find it. Turner especially states that women in Tibet, with their three or four husbands, were just as jealous as a Turk polygamist could have been of his harem. One woman he saw who had five brothers, all alive, and all her

husbands. At the same time he shows that the chief, perhaps the real husband, was the elder brother. He it was who chose; he it was who went through the marriage ceremonies; he it was who represented the union." †

In Europe it is the custom for a husband to receive property with his bride; in the East, wives are frequently purchased either by money or by actual service, as was the case with Jacob in his transactions with Laban. In many instances, wives thus purchased become

*Varieties of Man, p. 146. †Desc. Eth, vol. i. p. 45.

24

however, generally considered as a serious crime.

heritable property. Amongst the Mongols, a son inherits all the wives of his father except his own mother. Amongst There is one point connected with this the Kaffres, the wife is purchased as a subject that we should not have expected, slave, and is such. Side by side, how-d priori, from nations so far behind Euroever, with the purchase of wives, we meet, in isolated instances, with the custom of receiving a dowry with them, as amongst the Sheraunis.

peans in civilization. Throughout the greater part of what we consider the uncivilized world it is absolutely forbidden to marry near relations; and in some even of the rudest tribes the strictest pedLath-igrees are preserved, in order to prevent the possibility of the union of any related even remotely by consanguinity. Writing on the Magars, Dr. Latham remarks:

A savage custom exists in Borneo and Sumatra, thus noticed by Dr.

am:

"In Borneo, head-hunting is one of the essential elements of courtship. Before a youth can marry he must lay at the feet of his bride- "All individuals belonging to the same thum elect the head of some one belonging to another (or tribe) are supposed to be descended from the tribe, killed by himself. According, then, to same male ancestor; descent from the same theory, every marriage involves a murder...great mother being by no means necessary. A morbid passion for the possession of hu- So husband and wife must belong to different man heads is a trait of the Dyak character. thums. Within one and the same there is no Skulls are the commonest ornament of a Dyak marriage. Do you wish for a wife? If so, house; and the possession of them the best look to the thum of your neighbor; at any prima facie evidence of manly courage. Hence rate, look beyond your own. This is the first warfare, marauding and internecine, is the nor- time I have found occasion to mention this mal state of these islands."* practice; it will not be the last. On the contrary, the principle it suggests is so common, as to be almost universal. We shall find it in Australia; we shall find it in North and Southfind it in Europe; we shall suspect and infer it America; we shall find it in Africa, we shall in many places where the actual evidence of its existence is incomplete."

A curious custom prevails in Australia, some parts of Africa, and we believe in other parts of the world-namely, when a young man becomes of marriageable age, he undergoes a ceremony of initiation, the details of which are unknown, except that, as part of it, two of his front-teeth are knocked out.

According to Dr. Pickering there is one caste amongst the Hindoos, the Manabhawa, in which marriage is strictly forbidden; the children are regularly killed, and the caste kept up by purchase. In general, however, it is an institution in much favor, and greatly encouraged. In some districts an awful fate awaits old bachelors who persist in their solitude to an advanced age. Thus in Kumaon, one of the sub-Himalayan districts, it is believed that "the bachelor who, without getting married, dies at an advanced age, becomes a will-of-the wisp, or tola, whose society is shunned even by his brotherspirits; for which reason he is only seen in low places." The sanctity of the marriage-tie is very differently regarded, in the most heterogeneous manner, amongst half-civilized tribes. Sometimes its disregard is viewed as of no consequence whatever. In a neighboring tribe it may be punished with instant death; it is,

* Varieties of Man, p. 166.

We occasionally meet with complications of the marriage-tie, in the Eastern regulations, that are quite incomprehenPrichard sible to the European mind. states, that "the marriages of the Nayrs, (the caste in dignity next to the Brahinins,) so termed, are contracted when they are ten years of age; but the husband never lives with his wife, who remains in the home of her mother or brother, and is at liberty to choose any lover of a rank Her children are not equal to her own. considered as her husband's, nor do they inherit from him. Every man looks upon his sister's children, who alone are connected with him by ties of blood, as his heirs."* Perhaps this would admit of further investigation.

The inheritance of property out of Europe is subject to very singular varieties, In the Kooch tribe, when a man marries, he goes to live with his stepmother, and his property is made over to his wife, and becomes her daughter's when she dies. Amongst the Boda the sons inherit equally; but amongst the Singpho (both Ti

* Prichard, op. cit. vol. iv. p. 161.

betan tribes) the eldest and youngest sons | counts to inquirers as will suit their predivide the property; the rest get nothing. In another allied tribe the youngest son takes all; and amongst the Garo, the youngest daughter inherits every thing. It would be extremely difficult to trace these varieties to any special law of human thought; they are also quite independent of geographical interpretation. The same irrelevancy will be found in our next notices, those of death and burial.

often great numbers of women and slaves | cognition of a power higher than manare buried alive in one pit. The butcher- greater, certainly, if not higher. Is there ies amongst other African tribes on such any tribe or nation without a religion? occasions are too horrible to dwell upon; It is so asserted by some; but is the often many thousand persons are destroy- authority indisputable? We can not ed during the awful rites that succeed a affirm positively; we have seen some funeral. According to Pickering, the reason to doubt this from internal eviM'Knafi tribe have a very summary me- dence, in the case of the "Original Peothod of saving trouble with their dead ple" of the Malay peninsula; the same friends they put them in the bush for doubts may extend further with reason. the wild beasts to eat. "The friends According to Pickering, the M'Knafi afterwards cry for ten or twenty days, tribe, already mentioned, "have neither and then kill three bullocks and make a prayers nor religion, but they eat and feast." Perhaps some of these customs sleep;" yet he mentions that even they are related without sufficient investiga have a deity, called Angayai. We have tion. We can imagine an utter stranger never met with any history of a tribe with to our customs visiting England, and con- which the narrators could hold any interveying a very incorrect impression to his course, that had not some kind of creed, friends in Africa by hasty induction from some recognition of a spiritual power, a limited number of observations, as thus: gross though it might be some idea of a "When a rich man dies in England, his cultus. That these ideas vary is not to friends meet and feast, and rejoice great- be wondered at; that they are often the ly; his widow wears for a year an unbe- grossest burlesques upon worship is incoming garb, but does not appear other- evitable. The refined mythologies of wise affected. When a wife dies, the ancient Greece and Rome were little else 'husband buries her, and goes to his club; than coarse embodiments and caricatures he soon marries again." of human emotions, affections, passions, and vices; what are we to expect, then, from races whose highest hopes and aspirations are centred upon the supply of today's food, with an occasional or habitual longing for the skull of his neighbor? Man by wisdom has not found, can not find, God; but he has the divine idea within, obscured, hid, almost lost, it may be; but degraded as he may and can become, he can never shake himself loose from the conviction that there is a God that besets him around and before. Him, in his way, under some name or other, as a benevolent or a malevolent being, he recognizes and propitiates to obtain his favor, or to avert his wrath; this he does, waiting until the Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached to him, and the fullness of the Gentiles be brought in.

Wherever we meet with funeral ceremonies we see indications of a belief in a 'separate state of spirits; perhaps no tribes believe actually in annihilation, although some have no definite notions of a future life. The victims that are slain at the tomb are not without some alleged purpose. The horse, the servant, the wife, are all intended to serve their master in his changed estate. In many tribes particular places are kept sacred for some time, for the use of the spirit that still haunts the scenes of his former life. Thus Dr. Latham says of the Ho, an Indian tribe: "Dead bodieds are interred, and gravestones placed over them. This, however, is insufficient to keep down the spirits, which are believed to walk about during the day, and to keep within doors at night. A certain spot, upon which is placed an offering, is kept clean for them." In many parts of the East, euhemerism, or a worship of departed spirits, chiefly heroes, is an important part of the religion. This all but universal belief in a future life would of itself afford a strong 'argument for the unity of the species, such psychological phenomena being very significant.

The same observation might apply to the universal, or all but universal, existence of some form of worship-some re

The primary forms in which this deeprooted instinct of our nature develops itself, are the endless varieties of paganism and schamanism-these being but two names for the same thing the former usually used with respect to Africa, the latter to Asia and some parts of Europe. Perhaps its most unmodified, or purest, consequently its grossest, form is found amongst the Gold Coast tribes. "We are in the region of snake-worship, medicine-men, obi-sorcerers, superstitious ordeals, devil-drivers, and Mumbo-jumbos.

Yet it seems to be the opinion of those writers who have most attentively studied the subject, that fetichism or schamanism is not altogether a system of willful imposture, but one involving curious and recondite psychological principles. The following remarks of Baron von Wrangell, who, according to Prichard, has given the best portrait of schamanism extant, are worth attention:

The inhabitants of a Fanti village meet! at nightfall, with sticks and staves, to yell and howl. By doing this, they fancy that they have frightened the devils from the land, which when they have done, they feast." Snake-worship appears to have been one of the most generally diffused forms of cultus, from the earliest known times; in Cashmir it appears to have been very ancient, and also to have been diffused over the whole of India. In many instances it is found associated with legends, "Schamanism has no dogmas of any kind; it which bear more or less the traces of the it is not a system taught or handed down from one age to another; though widely-spread, it original temptation by the Serpent; some originates in every individual as the fruit of a of them certainly traces so strong as al- highly-excited imagination, acted upon by exmost absolutely to preclude the idea of trrnal impressions which are every where simicoïncidence, and to suggest that even lar through the vast wilderness of northern Sibethis benighted Paganism is not the ear-ria. Schamans are not mere impostors, they are liest development of human religious sentiment, but a falling away from a previous higher state.

11

His

persons born with excitable feelings and ardent lief in ghosts, wizards, and mysterious powers imagination, who grow up amidst a general beThe fundamental idea of Paganism conceives a strong desire to partake in these suin nature, wielded by sorcerers. The youth seems to be dread - dread of evil from pernatural gifts. No one teaches him. natural objects, directed by unseen male- enthusiastic fancy is worked upon by solitude, ficent powers; which powers have to be by contemplating the gloomy aspect of surpropitiated by sacrifice, or counteracted rounding nature, by long vigils, fasts, and the by charm or formula. It is destitute of use of narcotic drugs, till he becomes persuaded any literature, traditionary creed, or doc- that he has seen the shadowy beings who dwell trine; unattended by any moral teaching. whese voices are heard in the winds of the desin the obscurity of forests and mountains, and The fetich-men, obis, or sorcerers are the ert. He then becomes a schaman, and is instimedia of communication between men tuted with many ceremonies, which are held and the spirits; they alone see and hold during the silence of the night, and receives communion with them; they alone ap- from his order the magic drum. Still, his acpease them or compel them to their sway. tions are those of the individual mind. The Endless are the forms of development of schaman is not a cool deceiver, but a psycholothese ideas, so much so as to render im-gical phenomenon of a wonderful sort. When I have seen them perform, they have always possible any classification or analysis; left a permanent gloomy impression on my yet, in whatever form they are met with, mind." they are fundamentally the same in type, but differing in each tribe, village, nation, or community, in the gods worshiped, and in the forms with which they are worshiped. This applies equally to Africa and Asia. The degree of respect with which the gods are treated, varies much; to some the best of every thing must be rendered; to others the most worthless objects are sacrificed. Thus amongst the Nagas, the chief evil spirit is Rupaiba, blind of one eye; but his assistant, Kanquiba, is blind altogether, very bad-tempered and very malicious. "He must, however, be propitiated; and this can be done cheaply. A fowl is the sacrifice, bnt the sickliest and smallest of the roost will do. He can only feel what room it takes; so the crafty Nagas put the little bird in a big basket, and so deceive Kanquiba the sightless."

Most Pagan tribes carry on their worship through recognized ministers of some sort; some few have no such office, but, as amongst the Khumia, each man worships and sacrifices as he thinks proper. Although some tribes recognize spirits that are rather good than bad, they sacrifice to the bad ones only; the Lepcha say: Why should they sacrifice to the good spirits, they are harmless enough? The same ideas are found in some mixed religions. The Kurds are Mohammedans, at least more Mohammedan than any thing else, yet they confess to conciliating the devil; they mention him with respect, if compelled to mention him at all; and object to hearing his name taken in vain.

* Prichard, vol. iv. p. 610.