Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 17, 1906.djvu/270

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

256 Reviews.

Anthropos : Internationale Zeitschrift fur Volker- u. Sprachenkunde. Edited by P. W. Schmidt. Band I, Heft I, 2. Salzburg : Zaunrith'sche Buch- Kunst- und Stein- druckerei. 15 kr. p. a. This new periodical is diflferentiated from other folk-lore publi- cations by several special features. It is projected by certain Austrian and German Missionary Societies for the purpose both of giving to the world the ethnographical observations of Roman Catholic Mission-priests in every quarter of the globe, and of providing ethnographical information for the use of the mission- aries themselves. It is a polyglot publication. The Latin pre- face tells us that communications from missionaries will be printed in the language in which they are received, whether Latin, German, Italian, English, or Spanish; books will be reviewed in the language in which they are written ; articles dealing with the native races of a region in which some European language is generally known will appear in that language, {e.g., articles on India in English, on South America in Spanish, etc.) ; and other matter will be duplicated in German and French.

We could wish to see the opening article, Le role scientifique des Missmmires, by the Superior of the Congregation du Saint- Esprit at Paris, circulated among missionaries of every denom- ination, so well does it set forth the importance of ethno- graphical study to mission-work itself. Other articles deal with the Religious Rites of the D3'aks, the Folk-Tales of Brazil, the Sorcerers of Equatorial Africa, the Songs and Music of the Ewe Negroes, Chinese Hairdressing, etc., giving definite first-hand information in a way that suggests a high standard of cultivation among Roman Catholic as compared with Protestant missionaries. The weak point is the apparent unconsciousness of the existence of any ethnographical work outside that of the authors' own col- leagues. However, the Bibliography and Reviews go far to neutrahze this blemish.

Charlotte S. Burne.

Books for Review should be addressed to The Editor of Folk-Lore c/o David Nutt, 57-59 Long Acre, London.