Sir George Dunbar's Study of Primitive Peoples (Nicholson and Watson,
los. 6d.) begins with a general survey of pre- historic society and then gives more detailed accounts of the extinct Tasmanians, the North American Indians as first known to Europeans, and the Abors in the foothills of the Hima- layas. It may be objected that the Red Indians and the Abors are not exactly primitive in the same sense as the Tasmanians were. The Indians had indeed built up a complex social and political organisation, and the Abor hillmen, whom the author visited in the course of his official duties, live in villages and till the soil. Sir Georg2 is justified in comparing what is known about these three peoples' religious conceptions and speculating about the origin of the supernatural idea. But his first-hand account of the Abors, whom their neighbours dislike but whom he found attractive, is the best part of a somewhat confusing book.
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