Primitive Manners and Customs

The universality of religion—Nature and tests of the evidence relating to the subject—Savage ideas of creation: ideas of a first man confused with ideas of a first cause—Illustr...

Difficulties in the study of natural religions—Importance of prayer in savage life—Examples of savage prayers—Are they limited to temporal interests?—Baptismal rites equivalent...

Differences of national character reflected in proverbs—Illustrated by Italian and German sayings on the custom of the Vendetta, by Italian and Persian proverbs about truth, by...

Are there any authentic cases of a total absence of moral distinctions among savages?—Unsatisfactory evidence regarding their moral notions—The Bushman’s notion of a good and ba...

Theory of social evolution—The hunting state not necessarily one of political inferiority—Do any tribes exist without any form of social government?—Examples of the loosest soci...

The interest of savage laws—Stage in which the redress of wrongs is a merely personal matter—Tendency of offences to be regarded as matters of family or tribal interest—Growth o...

Curious wedding custom of the Garos, in India—Natural affection among savages, tested by some of the evidence of eye-witnesses—Love-stories—Treatment of women not uniformly bad...

Primitive philosophy of nature—Astro-mythology of Australian tribes, of the Tasmanians, the Bushmen, the Esquimaux, Hervey Islanders, Thlinkeet Indians—Such myths invented to ac...

Interest of folk-lore due to the wide range of similar superstitions—Three ways of accounting for such resemblances—Great extent of superstition in civilised life—Savage incompl...