2/8 Reviews.
Across Australia. By Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen. 3 vols. Macmillan, 1912. 8vo, pp. xiv, xvii + 515. Col. and other ill. Maps. 21s. n.
Everything coming from the pen of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen has a " precium affectionis " for the anthropologist ! It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that, since the publication of their first volume, half of the total production in anthropological theory has been based upon their work, and nine-tenths affected or modified by it. For the theories of kinship and religion, social organization, and primitive belief, the central and northern tribes of the Australian continent have proved a mine of invaluable facts and information.
It is impossible to find in recent anthropological literature a single publication referring to the origins of religion, government, or law, to the primitive forms of totemism, marriage, or magic, which does not deal at length with the data provided by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen ; an omission of such treatment would rightly be considered unpardonable.
In this country the monumental works of Dr. Frazer, as well as the piercing analysis and brilliant conceptions of the late A. Lang, owe their leading features to the " howling and naked sa-vages " of Central Australia. In the history of religion, two of the most important recent works are based mainly on the Arunta folklore, customs, and rites. I refer to Mr. Crawley's Tree of Life and Professor Uurkheim's recent work on Les Formes Elevie7itaires de la Vie Religieuse. The beliefs about "spirit children " and rein- carnation of ancestors have thrown a most illuminating light upon savage mentality, and upon the primitive ideas of kinship. All who know Mr. Sidney Hartland's Primitive Paternity are able fully to appreciate the discovery of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen.
With reference to this point, as well as to some others, there has arisen a little confusion from the apparent contradictions involved in the statements of the Rev. C. Strehlow, who studied the Arunta after Messrs. Spencer and Gillen and is publishing a series of excellent pamphlets on the subject. But on a closer inspection these contradictions are seen to be due only to a different manner of looking at facts, and in no way to a variance in the facts recorded.
