ent of the last two
centuries has simply thrown aside as worthless?'

_Distinguo!_ That does not seem to me to be the issue. In my opinion the
issue is: 'Have the Red Indian, the Tatar, the Highland seer, and the
Boston medium (the least reputable of the menagerie) observed, and
reasoned wildly from, and counterfeited, and darkened with imposture,
certain genuine by-products of human faculty, which do not _prima facie_
deserve to be thrown aside?'

That, I venture to think, is the real issue. That science may toss aside
as worthless some valuable observations of savages is now universally
admitted by people who know the facts. Among these observations is the
whole topic of Hypnotism, with the use of suggestion for healing purposes,
and the phenomena, no longer denied, of 'alternating personalities.' For
the truth of this statement we may appeal to one of the greatest of
Continental anthropologists, Adolf Bastian.[2] The missionaries, like
Livingstone, usually supposed that the savage seer's declared ignorance--
after his so-called fit of inspiration--of what occurred in that state,
was an imposture. But nobody now doubts the similar oblivion of what has
passed that sometimes follows the analogous hypnotic sleep. Of a
remarkable cure, which the school of the Salpetriere or Nancy would
ascribe, with probable justice, to 'suggestion,' a savage example will be
given later.

Savage hypnotism and 'suggestion,' among the Sioux and Arapahoe, has been
thought worthy of a whole volume in the Reports of the Ethnological Bureau
of the Smithsonian Institute (Washington, U.S., 1892-98). Republican
Governments publish scientific matter 'regardless of expense,' and the
essential points might have been put more shortly. They illustrate the
fact that only certain persons can hypnotise others, and throw light on
some peculiarities of _rapport._[3] In brief, savages anticipated us in
the modern science of experimental psychology, as is frankly acknowledged
by the Society for Experimental Psychology of Berlin. 'That many mystical
phenomena are much more common and prominent among savages than among
ourselves is familiar to everyone acquainted with the subject. The
_ethnological_ side of our inquiry demands penetrative study.'[4]

That study I am about to try to sketch. My object is to examine some
'superstitious practices' and beliefs of savages by aid of the comparative
method. I shall compare, as I have already said, the ethnological e