The Irish standard., 1888-10-20
cratic party will do all that Is possible
for the prosperity of the masses.
Ideas of Savage Races

! Ideas OF savage AaceS'
Az a recent meeting of workingmen
| in London Sir John Lubbock spoke Of
the mental condition aud ideas Of saw
age races. He said Your empire con-
tanned representatives OF almost every
race of men and every stage Of human
progress. 70 understand their wants
and ideas was not only al intellectual
exercise but. political! problem Of great
| national Importance. Ii we often found
it far from easy to understand savages,
they naturally had much greater diff
Guilty in understanding us Our weap-
ons, tools. animals, in fact all our be-
! longings, were at first @ source Of great
| wonder. An Australian tribe. for III.
stance, when they first saw wagon
drawn by oxen. weTs much puzzled as
to what the oxen could be. It after
wards appeared that some thought they
were spirits. because they had spears
On their heads; while others maintained
that they were the wives Of the white
! lneu, because they carried the burdens,
which amongst Australians is the spe-
cial duty of women. Again. the modes
Of salutation among savageS were some
times very curious: and their modes OF
showing their feelings quite uuElke
ours. kissing seemed to us so natuta|
an expression Of affection that we
shonld expect to find it all over the
world; yet it was unknown &<' the il Aas~
tralian, the New ZpalaDGels, the Pap,
uans. the Esquimaux, and otf.er races,
The Polynesians and the Mz,lays always
sat down when speaking to a superior;
in some parts of Central Africa i! was
considered respectful TO turn the back
to a superior Captain Cook asserted
that the Inhabitants Of Mailiedo, an
island in the Pacific Ocean, showed
their admiration by hissl ing; the
Todas Of The Neilgherry hills In India
were said to show respect by raising The
open right hand to the bro,g, resting
the thumb on the nose; it Vsss asserted
that among the Esquimaux it was cus~
tomary to pull q person's nose as Q com
pliment; Chinaman put Or his hat
where we should take it off, and among
the same curious people coffin was re-
garded as a neat and appropriate pres
ent for an aged person, especially il in
bad health. LII many parts Of the world
a man was strictly forbidden to speak
to his mother. in~law. Again, probably
every Englishman who had not studied
other races would be aston!shed to meet
with nation in which, ou the birth OF
baby, the father, and not the mother,
was put to bed and nnrsed; yet, though
this custom seemed so ludicrous to us,
it prevailed very widely. Another suit
iiect on which aavages entertained ideas
different from ours was that Of relation
ships. Among most savage races when
a woman married, she did not become
one of her husband s clan, butremained
still a member OF her own. Hence, g
mans children did not belong TO his
clan, but his sisters children did; and
hence, again, what appeared to us the
singular anomaly that, among MANY
races, mans heirs were not his own,
but his sisters children. But though
in this respect the woman occupied an
important position, she was on The
whole greatly to be pitisd. In some
parts of Australia, when man mar
RED, each Of the brides relatives gave
him a good blow with stout stick, ny
way of warm welcome into the family.
w eekly Freeman.