[117] Weeks, Among Congo Cannibals, p. 311.
[118] Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, p. 79.
[119] Tends to be assimilated—for if the presentation have some special character of Animism, it will be assimilated to the animistic system; or if Animism be the more active and fashionable theory in a man’s social group.
[120] It has been thought strange that such a thing as a whirlwind may excite in the savage either fear or anger. To explain this we must consider the nature of wonder: it is an imaginative expansion of surprise, temporary paralysis of the imagination, with emotional disturbance, but no progressive instinct of its own. It either subsides helplessly, or gives place to curiosity, or passes into some other emotion that is connected with an instinct. Accordingly, it usually passes into curiosity or else fear, but sometimes into anger: which of these emotions shall be aroused depends, partly, upon the character of the person who wonders, partly, upon circumstances.
[121] Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, VI. p. 321.
[122] W. G. Aston, Shinto, p. 52.
[123] One may trace this process in the interesting collection of spells in Skeat’s Malay Magic.
[124] Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 397.
[125] Seligman, Melanesians of British New Guinea, p. 376.
[126] Turner, Samoa, p. 138. For further development of the spell, see (besides Skeat, op. cit.) the collected examples at the end of Sayce’s Religion of the Ancient Babylonians.