Indians of British Guiana.--Caribs.--Warows.--Wapisianas.--
Tarumas.--Caribs of St. Vincent.--Trinidad. 224

PREFACE.

The following pages represent a Course of Six Lectures delivered at the
Royal Institution, Manchester, in the months of February and March of
the present year; the matter being now laid before the public in a
somewhat fuller and more systematic form than was compatible with the
original delivery.

ETHNOLOGY
OF
THE BRITISH DEPENDENCIES.

CHAPTER I.

DEPENDENCIES IN EUROPE.

HELIGOLAND AND THE FRISIANS.--GIBRALTAR AND THE SPANISH
STOCK.--MALTA.--THE IONIAN ISLANDS.--THE CHANNEL ISLANDS.

_Heligoland._--We learn from a passage in the _Germania_ of Tacitus,
that certain tribes agreed with each other in the worship of a goddess
who was revered as _Earth the Mother_; that a sacred grove, in a sacred
island, was dedicated to her; and that, in that grove, there stood a
holy wagon, covered with a pall, and touched by the priest only. The
goddess herself was drawn by heifers; and as long as she vouchsafed her
presence among men, there was joy, and feasts, and hospitality; and
peace amongst otherwise fierce tribes instead of war and violence. After
a time, however, the goddess withdrew herself to her secret
temple--satiated with the converse of mankind; and then the wagon, the
pall, and the deity herself were bathed in the holy lake. The
administrant slaves were sucked up by its waters. There was terror and
there was ignorance; the reality being revealed to those alone who thus
suddenly passed from life to death.

Now we know, by name at least, five of the tribes who are thus connected
by a common worship--mysterious and obscure as it is. They are the
Reudigni, the Aviones, the Eudoses, the Suardones, and the Nuithones.

Two others we know by something more than name--the Varini and the
Langobardi.

The eighth is our own parent stock--the _Angli_.

Such is one of the earliest notices of the old creed of our German
forefathers; and, fragmentary and indefinite as it is, it is one of the
fullest which has reached us. I subjoin the original text, premising
that, instead of _Herthum_, certain MSS. read _Nerthum_.

"----Langobardos paucitas nobilitat: plurimis ac valentissimis
nationibus cincti, non per obsequium sed pr[oe]liis et periclitando tuti
sunt. Reudigni deinde, et Aviones, et _Angli_, et Varini, et Eudoses, et
Suardo