  CHAPTER I.
SOME SAVAGE MYTHS AND BELIEFS. | | | The universality of religion—Nature and tests of the evidence relating to the subject—Savage ideas of creation: ideas of a first man confused with ideas of a first cause—Illustrative examples of primitive cosmogony—Origin of the myth of the Two Contending Brothers—Prevalence of the belief in a Golden Age—Deluge-myths—Their possible origin in recollections of local floods, in the changes of the land-level, or in fancies about the skies—Absence in most of them of any connection with human crime—Vivid belief in futurity among the lower races—Gradual growth of the idea of the future life as affected by the present one—Difficulties in the attainment of future happiness—The great difference between savage and civilised beliefs regarding the Unknown illustrated by the savage belief in a future life for animals or things as well as for men—Compensations in the savage’s creed: no terror of death nor of the future | pages 1-40 | CHAPTER II.
SAVAGE MODES OF PRAYER. | | | Difficulties in the study of natural religions—Importance of prayer in savage life—Examples of savage prayers—Are they limited to temporal interests?—Baptismal rites equivalent to prayers—Prayers in the form of toasts—The worship of evil spirits—Doubtful distinction between good and bad divinities among savages—Treatment of obdurate gods—Relation of sacrifice to prayer—Tendency of sacrifices to become more numerous and severe—Pantomimic dances possibly acted petitions—The African gorilla-dance, the Mandan buffalo-dance, the Sioux bear-dance, the Australian kangaroo-dance—A similar idea in prayers for rain—War-dances—Fetichistic practices perhaps extinct forms of prayer—Prayers to animals, to the moon, to trees, and their survival in modern folk-lore | 41-77 | CHAPTER III.
SOME SAVAGE PROVERBS. | | | Differences of national character reflected in proverbs—Illustrated by Italian and German sayings on the custom of the Vendetta, by Italian and Persian proverbs about truth, by Catholic and Protestant sentiments about priests—Comparison between the proverbs of savage and civilised communities—Similarities of their feeling as regards poverty, blame, experience, perseverance, habit, cause, mendacity—Intelligence displayed in many savage proverbs—European proverbs of savage coinage, exemplified by a comparison between African and European proverbs relating to women—Inferences deducible from known proverbs | 78-100 | CHAPTER IV.
SAVAGE MORAL PHILOSOPHY. | | | Are there any authentic cases of a total absence of moral distinctions among savages?—Unsatisfactory evidence regarding their moral notions—The Bushman’s notion of a good and bad action—The fear of fellow-tribesmen, of spirits and ghosts, the primary source of distinction in the moral quality of actions—Moral restraints in secular punishments—Compensation necessary for homicide—Collective responsibility for crimes—Is murder ever regarded as indifferent?—Different institutions for the prevention of wrongs—Greenland singing-combats, tabu, muru, confession. Sins or fanciful wrong acts, illustrated by feelings of proper behaviour with regard to storms, to ancestors, to names, and to animals—Little evidence among savages of any idea of moral qualities apart from the consequences of actions—Their ideas of a future state throw little light on their moral sentiments—Doubtful evidence of a belief in a future life as affected by good or bad conduct—Fundamental agreement between savage and civilised morality | 101-129 | CHAPTER V.
SAVAGE POLITICAL LIFE. | | | Theory of social evolution—The hunting state not necessarily one of political inferiority—Do any tribes exist without any form of social government?—Examples of the loosest social connections—Connection of agriculture and slavery with more complex social systems—Freedom and equality little known in savage life—Natural foundations for distinction between aristocracy and commonalty—Ordeals previous to admission to higher ranks—Devices for marking differences of position: scars, dress, titles, artificial language, funeral ceremonies, crests—Savage monarchy—Confusion between gods and kings—Old Japanese and Samoan feelings about monarchy—Limitations on savage despotism—Orders of society, approaching to a system of caste—The relation of tabu to monarchy—Primogeniture in Tahiti—Absurd rights of nephews in Fiji—Taxation a festival in savage life—The subordination of the priesthood to the State | 130-161 | CHAPTER VI.
SAVAGE PENAL LAWS. | | | The interest of savage laws—Stage in which the redress of wrongs is a merely personal matter—Tendency of offences to be regarded as matters of family or tribal interest—Growth of the conception of crime as an offence against the tribe, promoted by the custom of submitting disputes to the judgment of chiefs, and marked by customs, which, while making such chiefs judges, leave the punishment of the criminal to the injured party—Such customs found in America, Africa, Samoa, Afghanistan—Tendency of penal laws to become more cruel—Primitive punishments not gratuitously cruel—Savage laws not always arbitrary nor uncertain—Force of precedents in Caffre law—Regularity in legal procedure—Curious notions of equity—The ordeal in savage law, not an appeal to the judgment of God, but an invention of priestcraft for the detection of guilt—Comparison of some ordeals—Their utility for the discovery of guilt—Death a frequent result of concealing real or fancied guilt—Oaths a later development of the ordeal—The English judicial oath compared with that in vogue in Samoa—Origin of the supposed virtue in touching or kissing the thing sworn by—Invisible connection between the thing touched and the calamity invoked in touching it | 162-187 | CHAPTER VII.
EARLY WEDDING CUSTOMS. | | | Curious wedding custom of the Garos, in India—Natural affection among savages, tested by some of the evidence of eye-witnesses—Love-stories—Treatment of women not uniformly bad among savages—Married life—Duty of bashfulness, displayed in curious manners and notions of the Esquimaux, the Hottentots, the Hos, the Thlinkeets, the Kirghiz, Kamschadals, the Bushmen, the Zulus, and the Bedouins—Conventional reserve between husband and wife—Restrictions on intercourse between near relations—Kicking and screaming the proper behaviour at weddings—Real disinclination also often a cause for the employment of real force—The ceremony of capture affords a bride a real chance of escape from a bridegroom she dislikes—Mercantile aspect of marriage—Marriages by capture often voluntary elopements in defeat of parental contracts, illustrated by customs in India, Afghanistan, Bokhara—Such marriages legalised by successful elopement and subsequent settlement with parents—Exogamy and endogamy, how related—Doubtful origin of exogamy—Its effect in preserving peace between tribe
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