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ree had its name, there was no word for 'tree' in general, nor for qualities such as hard, soft, hot, cold, etc. Anything hard was 'like a stone,' anything round 'like the moon,' and so on, the speaker suiting the action to the word, and supplementing the meaning to be understood by some gesture." [109] Here the original concrete form of language can be clearly discerned. They had a sufficiency of names for all the objects which were of use to them, and apparently verbal ideas were largely conveyed by gesture. Captain Forsyth states [110] that though the Korkus very seldom wash themselves, there exist in their language eight words for washing, one for washing the face, another for the hands and others for different parts of the body. Thus we see that the verbal idea of washing was originally conceived not generally, but separately with reference to each concrete object or noun, for which a name existed and to which water was applied. 56. Concrete nature of primitive ideas. The primitive languages consisted only of nouns or the names of visible objects, possibly with the subsequent addition of a few names for such conceptions as the wind and the voice, which could be heard, but not seen. There were no abstract nor semi-abstract terms nor parts of speech. The resulting inability to realise any abstract conception and the tendency to make everything concrete is a principal and salient characteristic of ethnology and primitive religion. [111] All actions are judged by their concrete aspect or effects and not by the motives which prompted them, nor the results which they produce. For a Hindu to let a cow die with a rope round its neck is a grave caste offence, apparently because an indignity is thus offered to the sacred animal, but it is no offence to let a cow starve to death. A girl may be married to inanimate objects as already seen, or to an old man or a relative without any intention that she shall live with him as a wife, but simply so that she may be married before reaching puberty. If she goes through the ceremony of marriage she is held to be married. Yet the motive for infant-marriage is held to be that a girl should begin to bear children as soon as she is physically capable of doing so, and such a marriage is useless from this point of view. Some castes who cannot afford to burn a corpse hold a lighted brand to it or kindle a little fire on the grave and consider this equivalent to cremation. Promises
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