THE ARUNTA : A STUDY OF A STONE AGE PEOPLE.
By Sir Baldwin Spencer and the late F. .1. Gillen. (Mac- millan. 2 vols. 36s.)—Working among the aborigines of Central Australia a generation ago, Messrs. Spencer and Gillen produced a first-hand account of the 'usages of these-primitive folk which has long been an anthropological classic.. Mr. Gillen is dead, but his colleague, now Sir Baldwin Spencer, has recently restudied one tribe, the Arunta, and presents his somewhat modified conclusions in these two scholarly and finely illustrated volumes. Many of the groups which he knew have disappeared ' • few of the older men who knew the old customs and beliefs survive, and the younger men are indifferent to such things. The book is thus a record which can never be repeated ; it provides a mass of minute details about ritual, beliefs, and customs which is invaluable to all students of early society and of the primitive mind. Sir Baldwin Spencer likes the black fellow and speaks well of him. One new conclusion to which he comes is that the word " Alchera " is not applied to any superhuman being and that it is.-in no sense identical with God.
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