THE FOLKLORE OF BOMBAY. By R. E. Enthaven, (Clarendon Press,
14s.)' THE FOLKLORE OF BOMBAY. By R. E. Enthaven, (Clarendon Press, 14s.)'
MR. Erman-EN modestly describes this work as an attempt to carry out the design laid down by a brilliant member of his service, -Mr. A. M. T. Jackson, assassinated. in 1909. There can be no doubt of the value to Indian administrators of a bi:,ek tabulating the immense mass of superstition which affoats the whole life of an Indian province. But for the Ordinary reader such a book is among the most unreadable. It is not possible in such a catalogue to correlate and explain. For instance, we are told simply that temples and holy are decorated with indecencies because indecencies scare the- evil eye. In a book more philosophic and less statistical it might be discussed whether this is not done because the wino or vital force held to reside in such objects shatters what is hostile to it. Throughout the volume facts are set down without the least inflection in the writer's utterance. "The parrot is worshipped by dull persons desirous of proving their intelligence" : Anatole France might have. made use of that sentence. Does Mr. Enthoven see this and conceal his enjoyment ? Or does anthropolcgy kill humour ? "A learned man proud of his great knowledge passes his time as a spirit repeating what he has learnt," just as the dead miser haunts his treasure. If there were good grounds for this folk belief, anthropologists would pass through- a dreadful kind of purgatory.
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