or he may be a sceptic about revealed religion. In the latter case he is perhaps unconsciously moved to put burlesque versions of Biblical stories into the mouths of his native informants, or to represent the savages as ridiculing (Dr. Moffat found that they did ridicule) the Scriptural traditions which he communicates to them. Yet again we must remember that the leading questions of a European inquirer may furnish a savage with a thread on which to string answers which the questions themselves have suggested. "Have you ever had a great flood?" "Yes." "Was any one saved?" The leading question starts the invention of the savage on a Deluge-myth, of which, perhaps, the idea has never before entered his mind.
The last is a source of error pointed out by Mr. Codrington:[1] "The questions of the European are a thread on which the ideas of the native precipitate themselves." Now, as European inquirers are prone to ask much the same questions, a people which, like some Celts and savages, "always answers yes," will everywhere give much the same answers. Mr. Romilly, in his book on the Western Pacific,[2] remarks, "In some parts of New Britain, if a stranger were to ask, 'Are there men with tails in the mountains?' he would probably be answered 'Yes,' that being the answer which the New Briton" (and the North Briton, too, very often) "would imagine was expected of him, and would be most likely to give satisfaction. The train of thought in his mind would be something like this, 'He must know that there are no such men, but he cannot have asked so foolish a question without an object, and therefore he wishes me to say 'Yes!' Of course the first 'Yes' leads to many others, and in a very short time everything is known about these tailed men, and a full account of them is sent home."
What is true of tailed men applies to native answers about myths and customs, when the questions are asked by
- ↑ Journal of Anthrop. Inst., February 1881.
- ↑ The Western Pacific and New Guinea, London, 1886, pp. 3–6.
