Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/650

the necessity of caution in drawing conclusions; thus, a certain coiffure, which had been referred to the fourteenth century, had in fact only attained its present amplitude during the nineteenth.

Mr. R. Rosières attempted to formulate certain laws for the development of legends; such he thought were, that among all peoples of the same mental capacity the imagination worked in the same manner, and often gave birth to similar legendary creations ; again, that in proportion as the reputation of any hero declines, the legend which had been created in his honor attaches itself to another more famous personage; further, every legend which alters its medium transforms itself in such manner as to correspond to the ethnographic and social conditions of the new medium. Mr. M. Tcheraz discussed the "Origin and Development of Legends in Armenia," arriving at the following conclusions: the reservoir from which these legends have issued is not India, but Bactriana; each tale had for author some man of genius, who at a later period had interpolators and imitators. These views were naturally objected to by partisans of the theory of independent origins. The Comte de Charencey read a memoir on "Negro Folk-Lore in America," in the course of which he analyzed two tales, one found among negroes in Africa, the other in Guiana, which had the common trait of "the decapitated by persuasion." The story of Cayenne he considered to be formed by a combination of an aboriginal element with elements Indian and civilized. Mr. S. Prato read a specimen of a "Comparative Study of Popular neo-Greek Songs and of European and Oriental Songs." Mr. Kunz presented a printed memoir on the folk-lore of the precious metals exposed in the section of the United States. Mr. Hoffmann-Krayer read a study on "Folk-Lore in Switzerland," and also gave an account of the formation of the Swiss Folk-Lore Society, which now numbers nearly 500 members. He exhibited a magnificent album of Swiss costumes, published by the Polygraphic Society of Zurich. Mr. T. Volkov exemplified the primitive and traditional processes by the aid of which the peasants of the Ukraine make their arithmetical and geometrical calculations. In the course of discussion, similar methods of peasants in Poitou were pointed out.

Zum Animismus der Südamerikanischen Indianer, von Theodor Koch (Supplement zu Band XIII. Internationales Archiv f. Ethnographie). Leiden: E. J. Brill. 1900. Pp. viii, 146.

In this elaborate essay, which is provided with an excellent index (135–145, three columns to a page) and a less satisfactory bibliography (pp. vii.–viii.), the author confines himself to the record and discussion of animistic phenomena among the Indians of South America alone, not venturing upon