Record of American Folk- Lore. 143
N. S. 1899, pp. 646-674) of the "American Anthropologist." Primitive counting, mystical and symbolical numbers, and the alma- cabala, traces of which still exist in Aryan culture, are discussed with illustrations drawn from China, Polynesia, Australia, and America. Worthy of note in America are " the barefoot Mexicans with their vigesimal system," the "Cult of the Quarters," and "the fetishistic Middle."
Museums. In " Science " (vol. xi. N. S. pp. 19-21) for January 5, 1900, Prof. F. W. Putnam describes " The Mexican Hall of the Amer- ican Museum of Natural History," in New York, where are stored or reproduced in models many of the most important Nahuatl and Mayan monuments, — The Tablet of the Cross, The Mexican Cal- endar Stone, Statue of Chac-Mool, " Great Turtle of Quirigua, the Quiriguan stele known as the ' Dwarf,' " Tarascan terra-cotta figures and stone sculptures, stone sculptures from Copan (originals), Casas Grandes pottery, ancient Mexican implements, copies of Mexican and Mayan manuscripts, etc. Altogether a collection of great inter- est to folk-lorists.
Music. Under the title, "Recent Outlooks upon Music," Charles K. Wead discusses in " Science " (vol. xi. N. S. pp. 206-215) for February 9, 1900, the recent books of Klauser, Parry, Wallaschek, Miss Alice C. Fletcher, — the folk-musical literature of 1893 chiefly. The author seems to believe that Professor Fillmore's position as to the nature of savage music cannot be maintained, and that Miss Fletcher's aim is artistic to the exclusion of the physical or scientific presentation. Mr. Wead asks why, if complete knowledge of one's mother tongue by no means implies ability to grasp a foreign lan- guage, should our high musical training be held per se a means of understanding savage music ? — To the " American Anthropologist " for January-March, 1900, the same writer contributes a brief article (PP- 75-79) on " The Study of Primitive Music," in which he makes some suggestions regarding the investigation of the music of savage and barbarous people. The notation of primitive music by civilized observers is far from being more accurate than the record of the languages of primitive peoples. The song-record of the civilized observer is often as full of his errors as has often been that of the phonetician. In music he should " strive always to obtain and to report the objective truth, free from all subjective interpretations." — A model in more than one way is Mr. Henry Balfour's "The Natural History of the Musical Bow. A Chapter in the Develop- mental History of Stringed Instruments of Music. Primitive Types " (Oxford, 1899, pp. 87, 61 figures and map). The author's summary of known facts is admirable, as one might reasonably expect from the Curator of the Pitts-Rivers Museum. The author takes the view
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