Tom Tit Tot, an Essay on Savage Philosophy in Folk-Tale by Edward CloddReview by: T. V. H.The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 28, No. 1/2(1899), pp. 179-180Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and IrelandStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2842951 .

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Anthropological Rcriews and Misrecl nra. 179

a botanic and zoological garden, and the necessary apparatus for illustrating every branch of physical scielnce. Some account i;: givenl in this volurme of various men of more or less eminience who have been colncer ned in the government on the Institution, and especially of its three secretaries: and chlapters are devoted to an account of the growtll of its library and m-auseurn. As regards the latter-, the collections wlhich had beeni formed by tlh National Instituite between 1841 and 18631 were, on its dissolultion in the last-named year, deposited in the Smithsonian Institution. In 1890 a Natiolal Zoological Park was form-led in the ncighbonrhood of Wasbington and placLed nder the direction of the Regents of tiho Smithsonian Inistitutioni.

It is of course unniecessary here to say anythin-g about the worlk. done by the Institution in Astronolmiy, Physics, and most other branches of Natural Science. As regards Anthropology, it happened that the first scientific memoir submitted to the Iiistituition for publication, and published by it, was the wor-k of Squier and Davis oni the Ancient M1wumoen's of the ATissis.sippi Vcalley. A chapter is devoted to ani account of the origin and developmenit of the Bureau of American- Ethnology, and its connection with the Smnithsonian Institution, under l-hose directioni it now renmLiii.

The collection of objects of anitropological interest in the m<useumiii of the Institution is mentionied as " enormous." In short, the followinig paragraph (p. 770) sums up the work of the Institution, more especially in its conlnection vith Anthropology:

"As a national ilnstitution, there is but one ideal pozsible for the SSmithsonian Institution, and that the highest, the leading scielntific centre of the initelleetnal life of a great lnation. In American anthropology it should stand, a's it has stood, wvitlhout a rival in this field; niot onie of several institutions fostering Americani science, buLt the leader, appealing to scholars throuLgh the most profouLnLd researches, anid to the public and students through the most carefully-arranged museumii in the couLntry."

The book is adorned by excellent portraits of the three secretaries, Joseph Heniry, Spencern FuLllerton Baird, and Professor Samnel Pierpont Lanlgley, who have succes- sively served the Tnstitution since its foulndation, and the last-menitionied of whom is still living. There are also likeniesses of the Founder, of soi-e of the menmbers of the Board of Regents, and of other persons of emilnence who have beeln specially ilntelested in the working and development of tlle Smithsoniian Institution.

T. V. H.

TOM TIT Toy,, an Essay oln Savage Philosophy in Folk-Tale. By Edward Clocid. Duckworth & Co., 1895, 5s. net.

The folk-tale which forms the niucleus of this volume is one of a group united by a common motzf of wlhich variants are found in mniany counitries, and called by various names. Tom Tit Tot is a Suffolk variant of the story wvhich is probably best kuiown as "Rumpelstiltskini," from the Germani versioni in Grimilm's collectionj, the Welsh name of the fairy being " Trwvtyn-Tratyn," the Irish " Trit a Trot," alnd the Scottish " Whuppity Stoorie." MVr. Clodd notes the existelnce of nmany other variants of this story, alnd the difficulty, perlhaps the impossibility, of determining in what quarter widely diffused folk-tales have otiiinated. On comparing T om Tit Tot with the othel above-mentioned British variants, we find that wlhlereas in Scotlande, Ireland and Wales, the magical helper is a fairy, in Suffolk " a small little black thing' with a long tail " assists the distressed spinnier, and inisists, in ret-urn, onl the guessing of its name. The author then commiients on the incidental features of the stories, pointing out how much light is throwln on them by the habits, customs and beliefs of primitive people in all parts of the world. A belief in magic everywhere rules the

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180 Anlthropological Revirevs atn(d Miscellanea.

life of the savage, and, absur'd as its precepts may secem to us, they nevertheless form a consistent whole. Priimitive man has everywhere looked at nature and life in the same general way, and it is only by realising his poilnt of view that we become capable of seeing that the incidents in folk stories express the ordilnary beliefs of the time at which they originated, and are not the efforts at romance of somo primitive Mun- chausen. Wanting this clue, civilized miian now, like Plutarchl in the past, sees nothing in the beliefs and customs of his remote anicestors but meaningless absnrdities. Mr. Clodd points ont with much wealth of illustration how thle incidenits in Tom Tit Tot harmonise with the primitive beliefs in magic still to be found in our own and other countries. Indeed, he may be thought to lhave gone beyolnd wlhat was strictly necessary for that purpose. But this is hardly to be regretted, for in this little book of 249 pages we bave practically, from the pen of a past president of the Folk-Lore Society, a most useful alnd aagreeable introcltiction to the snbject of Folk-Lolc.

T. V. H.

LES VIEIUX CHANTS POPULAIRES SCANDSNAYES (GAMLE NOLDISKE FOLKVISEIZ), ETUDE DE LITTETiATURE COIIPARi,E. Par Le6on Pincan. T. F,poque Sauvawge. Los Chants de Magie. Paris: fmilc Bouillon, 1898.

Two reasons, M. Pineau tells us in his preface, have prompted him to undertake this work, namely, the ardent desire to make known in France one of the fairest pages of Northern poetry, and the secret hope of thus contributing to make French national folk-poetry appreciated in France as it deserves. The Scandinavian ballads, which form his subject, have been collected during the last three cenituries, or a little more, if we recklon from the publication by Vedel in 1591 of the first hundred Danish heroic ballads. All the Scandinavian nations have contributed to the production of this great body of folk-song-first, Denmark, then Sweden and the Faeroe Islands, and (since the middle of the present century) Norway and Iceland. Various theories on the origin of the ballads have been broached; as to their age critics are still more divided. ?trimm dates them from the beginning of the twelfth centuLry. Others bring them down even to the fou-rteenth and fifteenth centuries. The influences suLpposed to be detected in form or subject have played a great part in the decision of the date; and Rosenberg, whio decides for the twellth cent Lry, attributes the inspiration of the ballads to the contact betweeni the Scanldinavian anld Celtic races during the Viking expeditions.

Whlat is certain about the ballads is that they were found among "the folk." M. Pinean, therefore, studies them as folk-lore. He draws a picture of ani early state of culture, which lie identifies with savagery, a state in which no hard and fast linie of demarcation is believed to exist between man and animal; ini which totemism is universal (though anthropologists, we may observe, are by no means agreed upon this) ; in which the idea of the soul has arisen as the double, thle other self, capable of bei-ng detached from the body, of passing from body to body, though somrehow dependenit for its manifestation, if not for its existence, on having a body of soImeo kind ready for it; in which the cult of the dead has arisen, and primitive animism has giveln way to the personification of nature. He calls attention to tlle fact that material remains throughout Europe, and ini particular in Scandinavian lands, have disclosed the fornmer existence in these countries of savages, who, he argues, must have left not only material relics, but also traces of their intellectual culture. He points to the beliefs, usages and stories still existinig among the peasantry as traditions going back to tlhe age of savagery, anld contends that the ballads are equally to be ascribed

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