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 AUTONOMY IN
LANGUAGE
LEARNING AND
TEACHING
New Research Agendas

Edited by
Alice Chik, Naoko Aoki
and Richard Smith
Autonomy in Language Learning and Teaching
 Alice Chik • Naoko Aoki
Richard Smith
Editors

Autonomy in
Language Learning
and Teaching
New Research Agendas
Editors
Alice Chik Naoko Aoki
Educational Studies Graduate School of Letters
Macquarie University Osaka University
North Ryde, NSW, Australia Kobe, Japan

Richard Smith
Centre for Applied Linguistics
University of Warwick
Coventry, UK

ISBN 978-1-137-52997-8    ISBN 978-1-137-52998-5 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52998-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017960759

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

Chapter 2 is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). For further details
see license information in the chapter.
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Kingdom
 Contents

1 Introduction   1
Alice Chik, Naoko Aoki, and Richard Smith

2 Learner Autonomy in Developing Countries   7

Richard Smith, Kuchah Kuchah, and Martin Lamb

3 Language Teacher Autonomy and Social Censure  29

Xuesong Gao

4 Learner Autonomy and Groups  51

David M. Palfreyman

5 Learner Autonomy and Digital Practices  73

Alice Chik

6 Researching the Spatial Dimension of Learner Autonomy  93

Garold Murray

Index 115

v
 Notes on Contributors

Naoko Aoki is a professor of Graduate School of Letters, Osaka

University, where she teaches Japanese as a second language pedagogy.
She started practising and writing about learner autonomy in the early
1990s and earned a PhD on that topic from Trinity College Dublin. She
is a founding co-coordinator of JALT’s Learner Development SIG and
was a co-convenor of AILA’s Learner Autonomy Research Network from
2011 to 2014. Her publications include Mapping the Terrain of Learner
Autonomy published by Tampere University Press in 2009, co-edited with
Felicity Kjisik, Peter Voller and Yoshiyuki Nakata; “Defending stories and
sharing one: Towards a narrative understanding of teacher autonomy” in
Pemberton, R., Toogood, S. & Barfield, A. (Eds.); Autonomy and
Language Learning: Maintaining Control published by Hong Kong
University Press in 2009; “A community of practice as a space for collab-
orative student teacher autonomy” in O’Rourke, B. & Carson, L. (Eds.);
and Language Learner Autonomy: Policy, Curriculum, Classroom
(pp. 63–78), published by Peter Lang in 2010.
Alice Chik is a senior lecturer in Educational Studies at Macquarie
University. Alice’s primary area of research examines language learning
and multilingual literacies in digital environments. She is especially inter-
ested in exploring how language learners construct and direct their auton-
omous learning in informal contexts. Alice is a leader of the Macquarie
Multilingualism Research Group. Her particular interest in multilingual-
ism is public discourse, representation and narratives of everyday multilin-

vii
viii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

gual experience. She is the lead co-editor of The Multilingual City: Sydney
Case Studies (Routledge, 2018). Her recent projects can be found on
www.multilingualsydney.org.
Kuchah Kuchah has been involved in ELT research and teacher educa-
tion for over 18 years. He is currently a lecturer in TESOL at the University
of Bath, UK. Previously, he worked as a teacher, teacher trainer and policy
maker in his home country Cameroon and, later, as a teaching fellow at
the Universities of Warwick and Sheffield in the UK. He has served as a
consultant on language policy and pedagogy with the Council of Europe
in Albania and with UNICEF and WTI in South Sudan and was recently
recognised as one of TESOL International Association’s “30 upcoming
leaders” in ELT. Kuchah’s research interests include teaching English to
young learners, English medium instruction, context-appropriate meth-
odology and teacher education. He is co-editor of International Perspectives
on Teaching English in Difficult Circumstances (forthcoming, Palgrave
Macmillan) and has published in Innovation in Language Learning and
Teaching, Issues in Educational Research, ELT Journal and Comparative
Education.
Martin Lamb is a senior lecturer in TESOL at the University of Leeds,
UK. After a brief stint in sales and marketing, he taught English in Sweden,
Indonesia, Bulgaria and Saudi Arabia, before moving into teacher training
and institutional development on various British Council projects. At
Leeds he teaches on undergraduate and postgraduate courses in language
teaching methodology, the psychology of language learning and language
assessment. His main research interests are in learner and teacher motiva-
tion, especially how it relates to identity, social context and pedagogy. His
articles have appeared in the academic journals Language Teaching, TESOL
Quarterly, Language Learning, System and others, and he is currently
working on Handbook of Motivation for Language Learning for Palgrave
Macmillan.
Garold Murray is an associate professor in the Center for Liberal Arts
and Language Education at Okayama University. His research interests
focus on learner autonomy, social learning spaces, semiotics of place and
imagination in language learning. He is the editor of the book The Social
Dimensions of Learner Autonomy (2014), and co-editor of Identity,
Motivation, and Autonomy in Language Learning (2011, co-edited with
Andy Gao and Terry Lamb), Social Spaces for Language Learning: Stories
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
   ix

from the L-café (2016, co-edited with Naomi Fujishima) and Space, Place
and Autonomy in Language Learning (2018, co-edited with Terry Lamb).
David Palfreyman is an associate professor in the Department of English
and Writing Studies at Zayed University, Dubai. Since 1995 he has worked
in higher education at undergraduate and postgraduate level in Turkey
and the UAE. His research interests include learner autonomy, the devel-
opment of academic biliteracy and the contributions of sociocultural con-
text (particularly the family and peer groups) to learning. He has presented
research at numerous international conferences and has published his
work in journals and books. He is the editor of Learner Autonomy Across
Cultures (2003, with Richard Smith), Learning and Teaching Across
Cultures in Higher Education (2007, with Dawn L. McBride) and
Academic Biliteracies (2017, with Christa van der Walt); he also edits a
journal titled Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: Gulf Perspectives.
He is currently coordinating a cluster of research projects on “Languaging
and higher education in bilingual contexts”.
Richard Smith is a reader (associate professor) at the University of
Warwick, UK. He co-founded the JALT Learner Development SIG in
1994, and formerly edited both its newsletter Learning Learning and
IATEFL Learner Autonomy SIG’s publication, Independence, subse-
quently co-convening the AILA Research Network on Learner Autonomy
(2008–2014). His publications include Learner Autonomy Across Cultures
(co-edited with David Palfreyman, 2003), as well as chapters and articles
on teacher-learner autonomy, pedagogy of autonomy as appropriate meth-
odology and the relationship of teacher-research and teacher autonomy.
Recently he has been focusing on work with teachers in developing coun-
tries in this latter area as academic coordinator for teacher-research men-
toring schemes in Latin America and India. His related innovative, open
access e-books include (for the British Council) Champion Teachers: Stories
of Exploratory Action Research and Children and Teachers as Co-researchers
in Indian Primary English Classrooms, as well as (for IATEFL Research
SIG) Teachers Research!
Xuesong Gao recently joined the School of Education, the University of
New South Wales, as an associate professor. He used to teach at the
University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Institute of Education. His
research and teaching interests include language learner autonomy, lan-
guage teacher education, language policy, reading, second language
x NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

a­cquisition and sociolinguistics. His publications appeared in journals

including Applied Linguistics, Asia Pacific Education Researcher, Asia
Pacific Education Review, Educational Studies, Journal of Education for
Teaching, Journal of Language, Identity and Education, Journal of
Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Language Awareness,
Language Teaching Research, Modern Language Journal, Studies in Higher
Education, System, Teacher Development, Teaching and Teacher Education,
TESOL Quarterly and World Englishes. He co-edits the System journal and
the Springer book series on English Language Education.
 List of Tables

Table 6.1 Multiple timescales at the L-café 98

Table 6.2 A research agenda for the spatial dimension of
learner autonomy 107

xi
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Alice Chik, Naoko Aoki, and Richard Smith

Abstract This introductory chapter provides background to and outlines

the main arguments for exploring new research agendas in autonomy in
language learning and teaching research. As research on autonomy in lan-
guage teaching and learning approaches the four-decade mark, the field is
rapidly moving in different directions. However, the most recent overview
of the field was published ten years ago (Benson, Lang Teach 40:21–40,
2007). Picking up from Benson’s (Lang Teach 40:21–40, 2007) state-of-­
the-art article, this introductory chapter overviews various relatively recent
developments in autonomy research with learners and with teachers and
briefly summarizes the contribution of each chapter.

Keywords Learner autonomy • Research agenda

A. Chik (*)
Educational Studies, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW, Australia
N. Aoki
Graduate School of Letters, Osaka University, Kobe, Japan
R. Smith
Centre for Applied Linguistics, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

© The Author(s) 2018 1

A. Chik et al. (eds.), Autonomy in Language Learning and
Teaching, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52998-5_1
2 A. CHIK ET AL.

Ten years ago, Benson’s comprehensive review of research into autonomy

in language learning and teaching (Benson, 2007) showed that the field
was flourishing and outlined several future research directions. The first
involved expanding the definition of autonomy to cater better for social
processes. Secondly, Benson also suggested greater exploration of rela-
tionships between autonomy and other student-focused constructs such as
self-regulation, self-motivation, agency and identity. Finally, he argued for
a stronger base for empirical understanding of the various ways autonomy
is actualized in different contexts and settings. These suggestions were
proposed in response to the emerging research trends in the field at the
time. Since 2007, while the field of autonomy is still flourishing, we have
witnessed changing perspectives on language learning and teaching in
general. New research agendas are needed.
There are various detailed definitions of learner autonomy, but for this
chapter, we will start with the definition of it as ‘the capacity to take con-
trol of one’s learning’ (Benson, 2011, 58). Inevitably, questions about
who, what, when, where and why emerged. Who is taking control? Taking
(or retaking) this control from whom? What types of control? When do
the learners exercise control? And in what places and spaces do learners
take control? Clearly, such questions invite further exploration and think-
ing about new dimensions of autonomy.
In this volume, the order of chapters to some extent matches the order
of these who, what, when, where and why questions. The first chapter
addresses the question of how suitable the concept of autonomy is in
developing countries and under-resourced learning and teaching contexts.
‘For whom is it feasible and desirable?’, in other words. Then we see how
language teachers and social censure might impact on conceptualizations
of autonomy. Another, less frequently discussed dimension of autonomy is
group and group dynamics. The reimagination of groups in the discourse
on learner autonomy also brings into question the fundamental nature of
interaction and space. In our contemporary world, the most popular
spaces for group interaction are certainly digital rather than physical. As
we rethink new learning affordances, a discussion of spatial dimensions
provides much needed expansion in the field.
Autonomy has been argued to be a Western concept, but Aoki and
Smith (1999), Littlewood (1999) and others have disputed this falsely
constructed binary with regard to East Asian contexts. Instead, these writ-
ers argue, autonomy needs to take into consideration the characteristics
and needs of learners in specific contexts, and learners should not be
 INTRODUCTION 3

s­ tereotyped. Expanding the discussion further, Smith, Kuchah and Lamb

in this volume critically examine the relevance of the concept of autonomy
in developing countries. Rather than viewing autonomy as culturally lim-
ited, they propose availability of resources as a critical criterion for engage-
ment of learners and teachers with autonomy. Developing countries differ
in cultural, social, linguistic, religious, political and educational systems,
but one commonly shared factor could well be a constraint on resources
for language learning and teaching. From this starting point, Smith,
Kuchah and Lamb outline various perspectives for understanding of and
research into autonomy.
Of course, resources are not the only constraint. Autonomy also
involves interdependence between learners and teachers. What happens
when teachers feel that they not only have to deal with institutional con-
straints (e.g. curriculum, public examinations) but also social censure?
Gao, in his chapter, discusses impacts of public scrutiny and censure on
teachers’ professional identities and sense of autonomy. Public censure of
teachers is increasingly gaining traction in the media, especially in teaching
contexts where English is viewed as an important tool for academic and
social advancement. In addition, with the ever-prevailing permeation of
social media platforms, the general public also appears to have extremely
high expectation for language teachers beyond their professional duties.
This might have been tended to be true in East Asian contexts, especially
in countries where there are clashes between more traditional Confucian
expectations and modern education consumerism. Gao provides a detailed
discussion with examples drawn from Hong Kong and China and suggests
possible ways forward.
Another dimension in autonomy that has raised questions is the role of
groups. By association, autonomy has often been framed as a learner’s
lone quest to forge his/her learning journey. The concept of ‘group’ may
appear to counter that of autonomy, but in his chapter here, Palfreyman
examines different facets of groups, grouping and group dynamics to
argue for their benefit in fostering autonomy among learners. This is an
especially important issue to consider as contemporary learning theories
emphasize that learning does not just happen within the learner. Learning
happens from interaction and that requires consideration to be given not
only to contexts but also other learners in the learning environment. In
addition, institutional learning is still pretty much designed for groups of
learners, not necessarily individually tailored. So the examination of groups
in the conceptualization and development of autonomy is essential.
4 A. CHIK ET AL.

An additional reason for considering the role of groups in autono-

mous language learning and teaching is that one of the fastest areas of
growth for group interaction is certainly in digital space. Historically,
work with autonomy has benefited from technological advancement,
especially when the technologies were designed for independent use. In
more recent times, user-generated Web 2.0 content has certainly enabled
greater access to target language communities and learning content
(Reinders & White, 2016). Chik’s chapter in this volume adopts an
autoethnographic approach to examining the learning on language
learning social network sites—the affordances and the constraints. Using
an analytical framework for informal language learning on Duolingo,
Chik suggests how further empirical knowledge can be acquired regard-
ing how learners autonomously direct their learning pathways while
engaging in different digital practices.
While digital spaces might provide new affordances, there is also a new
call for rethinking the spatial dimension of learner autonomy, taking con-
sideration of the social dimension of learner autonomy a step further. On
the basis of a case study of a learning space in a Japanese university lan-
guage centre, in the final chapter in this volume, Murray argues that new
configurations of space will create new learning, and, by the same token,
new forms of learning call for new kinds of space. Changes in space and
learning impact social relationships, which in turn impact the conceptual-
ization and exercise of autonomy. To conclude, Murray proposes the
adoption of an ecological approach to examining innovations in and sym-
bioses between space and learning.
The research agendas suggested in these five chapters are not meant to
be exhaustive. And, as we deepen our understanding of autonomy and
how it is conceptualized and manifested in various learning contexts, these
research agendas will themselves be taken into new directions and require
renewal.

Acknowledgement The research agendas presented in this volume began life as

moderated discussions on the AILA Research Network for Learner Autonomy
discussion board, AUTO-L, when we were joint coordinators of the network
(2011–2014). They benefitted considerably from feedback at the 2014 AILA
Congress in Brisbane, Australia, and subsequent peer review. We thank all those
who have helped with their feedback in the process of construction of this
volume.
 INTRODUCTION 5

References
Aoki, N., & Smith, R. (1999). Autonomy in cultural context: The case of Japan.
In S. Cotterall & D. Crabbe (Eds.), Learner autonomy in language learning:
Defining the field and effecting change, Bayreuth contributions to glottodidactics
(Vol. 8, pp. 19–28). Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Peter Lang.
Benson, P. (2007). Autonomy in language teaching and learning. Language
Teaching, 40, 21–40.
Benson, P. (2011). Teaching and researching autonomy (2nd ed.). London: Pearson
Longman.
Littlewood, W. (1999). Defining and developing autonomy in East Asian con-
texts. Applied Linguistics, 20(1), 71–94.
Reinders, H., & White, C. (2016). 20 years of autonomy and technology: How far
have we come and where to next? Language Learning & Technology, 20(2),
143–154. Retrieved from http://llt.msu.edu/issues/june2016/reinder-
swhite.pdf
 CHAPTER 2

Learner Autonomy in Developing Countries

Richard Smith, Kuchah Kuchah, and Martin Lamb

Abstract Learner autonomy may have special relevance now in develop-

ing countries, where a dissonance often exists between what formal edu-
cation offers and what many learners want or need. Globalization and its
technologies are providing new means of accessing knowledge, but
school language lessons remain largely unchanged. Almost by default,
successful language learners in developing country contexts are autono-
mous learners who can exploit out-of-school resources, while some of the
most effective pedagogy involves promoting autonomy as a means of
confronting low-­ resource challenges. This chapter argues for more
research into both these phenomena, in order to increase understanding
of them and to enable identification of principles for practice. It also
emphasizes the need for such research to be conducted with and by local
teachers and learners.

R. Smith (*)
Centre for Applied Linguistics, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
K. Kuchah
Department of Education, University of Bath, Bath, UK
M. Lamb
School of Education, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

© The Author(s) 2018 7

A. Chik et al. (eds.), Autonomy in Language Learning and
Teaching, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52998-5_2
8 R. SMITH ET AL.

Keywords Learner autonomy • Developing countries • Difficult

circumstances • Appropriate methodology • Mobile learning •
Teacher-research • Researching with children

Introduction
Learner autonomy as a concept has its origins in Europe and, for a time,
there were even questions about whether it had relevance for educa-
tional cultures elsewhere. This chapter suggests that it may, in fact, have
particular relevance now for learners in developing countries, and spe-
cifically in less well-­resourced contexts. We should recognize at the start
that ‘developing countries’—using the broadly accepted, though not
unproblematic (see, e.g. Khokhar, 2015), definition of such countries as
those with a lower standard of living, undeveloped industrial base and
moderate-to-low Human Development Index (HDI) relative to oth-
ers—are themselves highly diverse contexts, presenting stark contrasts
between urban and rural areas, for example, and between private and
public institutions. Our focus in this chapter will be mainly on those set-
tings within developing countries which are less well-resourced, and
where official provision of education (whether publicly or privately
funded) is currently most deficient in enhancing the life chances of
young people. In this chapter, we report on some of the research which
has been undertaken with as well as ‘into’ learners and teachers in such
contexts, and we highlight areas which would benefit from further
research.

Evidence of Autonomy in Developing Country

Contexts
In the past, ‘learner autonomy’ has often tended to be associated with
technology-rich self-access centres (‘resource centres’), and with technol-
ogy in general. Indeed, autonomy research has been mainly carried out
with learners in well-resourced Western or East Asian settings. In apparently
‘under-resourced’ contexts, its importance may have seemed less salient.
Nevertheless the affordances that are available in such settings should not
be underestimated, as we shall see. At the same time, it seems particularly
important to study autonomy in developing country contexts, given its
relevance in many learners’ lives.
 LEARNER AUTONOMY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES 9

Signs of Autonomy in Learner Beliefs and Behaviours

As part of a broader study in Cameroon, Kuchah (2013) set out to elicit
from state school primary children aged around 11–12 what they thought
were good English language teaching practices. Through the use of various
participatory approaches to data collection, children, in both urban and rural
contexts, were found to be able to identify a number of practices as either
good or bad and, in each case, provide reasons for their judgements. For
example, they wanted teachers to encourage them to work in groups or pairs
to develop their own ideas. They did not like teachers who explained every
detail to them, but instead wanted to be challenged to think for themselves:

JosephineB5: I like when the teacher is explaining something, but she

should not explain it all. I like that she should allow some for us to go and
find out and come and explain in class.
[…]
GraceG1: If she ask us to go and find out, it will make me to make an
effort to learn […] it is not good when the teacher tells us everything; it is
good that we should also do our homework so that we can learn on our own
and understand. (ibid, pp. 149–150)

Among the good practices identified by children, a few were particularly

absent from the practices of their teachers. Children’s desire for homework
which would enable them to engage in independent learning outside the
school environment was one case in point. Another was the desire of some
children to be involved in providing teaching materials/aids because they
thought the process of producing or finding such materials would help
them develop a better understanding of what they study in class:

AlbertoG5: If we bring the things to class, it will be more interesting because

we will see if we can remember the names of all the things that we need to
cook [the food] […] then it will be easier for us to understand how to write
the composition because we already know how to cook it. (ibid, p. 151)

Hamid and associates’ work in Bangladesh (Hamid & Baldauf, 2011;

Hamid, Sussex, & Khan, 2009) has pointed to a similar dissonance
between state provision of English and what young people desire:

Students’ voices help us to understand how the discourses of the benefits of

English lead learners in developing areas to struggle with English with their
10 R. SMITH ET AL.

limited resources and how the teaching and learning of English have come
to rely on non-curricular and non-methodological means (i.e. private tutor-
ing) in the context of poor performance of the public sector English teach-
ing. (Hamid & Baldauf, 2011, p. 214)

Given the social inequities of this state of affairs—with only children of

the better off likely to achieve any meaningful proficiency—Hamid and
Baldauf (2011) call for more research into the lives and learning behaviour
of young people in disadvantaged areas.
Indeed, while researching the motivation to learn English of young
people just entering junior high school in a provincial town in Indonesia,
Lamb (2004) was immediately struck by the important role of out-of-class
learning. A wide range of activities were reported which involved the use
of English: listening to radio programmes in English, listening to and
learning pop songs, watching English language films or TV shows (some-
times with subtitles covered), playing computer games, reading English
language teenage magazines and novels, studying independently at home,
practising English conversation with friends. Even at the age of 12–14,
these learners were able to distance themselves from their school English
classes, often casting a jaundiced eye over events there: apart from the dull
lessons, they were aware that some teachers in the school struggled to
speak English fluently themselves. Indeed, the teachers were aware that
many learners studied the language independently. One teacher who had
done some action research commented:

It’s the interesting [idea] that I got from my research at that time, that the
students want to study based on their […] activity, they don’t want only to
wait […] on the teacher. (cited in Lamb 2004, p. 238)

Most school teachers were not familiar with the concept of ‘learner
autonomy’, and there was little evidence, either in their talk or their
teaching, that they deliberately promoted it. Yet, as Lamb’s findings
reveal (see also Lamb, 2002), students were able to improve their English
language by independent means.
In a later study, in a relatively remote rural area, Lamb (2013) again
found that the most motivated Year 8 learners of English exhibited consid-
erable levels of autonomy (as revealed through a large-scale survey in three
village junior high schools). Like their urban counterparts, they too lis-
tened to English language songs, watched English TV and used computers
 LEARNER AUTONOMY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES 11

in internet cafes, but their real enthusiasm was for the affordances of
mobile phone technology, which by now allowed for relatively easy and
cheap access to the internet. They put this facility to various uses: everyone
thereby had access to a good quality dictionary, and many also sought out
language learning websites to supplement school lessons. Pre-eminently,
though, the technology enabled them to set up Facebook pages and
establish their own social networks, which sometimes included foreign
contacts with whom they would communicate in English. Some were
even starting to use English words and phrases in their text messages to
Indonesian friends. Lamb (2013) suggests that ‘because of its capacity to
reach across national borders, [online] social networking appears to legiti-
mate the use of English when in more local domains it may be considered
pretentious’ (p. 25).
The concept of learner autonomy may, then, have a particular kind of
relevance in the developing world, partly because there is such a disso-
nance between what formal education offers, or can offer, and what many
learners want and actually attempt to gain for themselves. In rural parts of
Indonesia, as Lamb’s research has shown, globalization and its technolo-
gies are having the effect of increasing the desire for English among young
people and providing novel means of accessing it, while their school
English lessons remain largely unchanged, dependent on the textbooks,
assessments and the professionalism of their class teacher. This kind of
­dissonance is probably found in most developing world contexts right
now, and how it affects learners’ sense of autonomy and their autonomous
learning and use of English is worthy of much more study.

Use of ICT as a Possible Focal Point for Research

In connection with out-of-class learning, a particularly important focus for
research in developing country contexts would seem to be the use of tech-
nology to enhance learning in remote rural contexts. This was vividly
brought to the attention of the ELT profession by Sugata Mitra’s plenary
talk at the IATEFL conference in April 2014. He shared descriptions of
the famous ‘hole in the wall’ experiments, where children in Indian villages
apparently learned how to use computers by themselves, and without any
form of scaffolding by adults, and he also drew attention to his more
recent work which shows how groups of seven-year-olds can use the inter-
net to teach themselves physics to the level of first year undergraduates.
He showed a clip from inside a hut in a poor Indian village, where a
12 R. SMITH ET AL.

mother is heard saying about her infant son ‘we really want him to become
an educated person but it’s difficult because of the state of the school’.
Mitra’s big claim is that cloud technology is now allowing us to bypass the
school, which he regards as an anachronistic legacy of Victorian Britain’s
need for clerks to serve its expanding empire.
The talk provoked a storm of protest among some delegates who
believed he was demeaning the status of the teacher, but it raised the inter-
esting question of whether new technologies by themselves can engage
and develop learner autonomy in young people. It may be possible to see
this happening in rural Indonesia, where relatively cheap smart phones are
being used by learners to learn English, or, rather, they are using their
English resources to connect to the world via their smart phones and in
the process are expanding those resources, almost as a muscle is expanded
through regular exercise. How widespread is this phenomenon? Does it
occur only where mobile phone technology is relatively cheap? What are
young people actually doing in English? Is it only certain individuals, for
example those from better off homes, who are using mobile phones in this
way, or is it a more general phenomenon? And where does this leave the
school teacher, who is not going to lose her job any time soon but may feel
threatened by this wave of technical innovation which her pupils can mas-
ter much better than she can? It is quite possible that further research
elsewhere would uncover a similar spread of mobile technology as found
in rural Indonesia (see above), with a similar democratizing effect on
access to English (for relatively recent evidence, see Tyers, 2015).
The discussion in this section leads us to the first clear research need we
wish to highlight:

Research Priority 1 There is a need for more studies of learning and learner
autonomy in out-of-class settings in developing countries, with a particu-
lar focus on the affordances of mobile phone technology and other types
of access to the internet. Such research will have major implications for
grant-aided development initiatives, for teacher training and for teaching
in such contexts.

Engaging Autonomy as Appropriate Pedagogy

The picture we have so far been painting has been one of some—perhaps
many—learners engaging and maybe developing their autonomy in out-­
of-­class language learning in situations where schools and teachers are
 LEARNER AUTONOMY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES 13

struggling to cope. We now look at the frequently very challenging cir-

cumstances of classroom learning in developing country contexts, and at
how a pedagogy of autonomy has, in some cases, been found to emerge as
a kind of ‘rescue solution’ (Fonseka, 2003).

Difficult Circumstances for Classroom Learning and Teaching

The state of formal teaching and learning in developing countries is cer-
tainly not optimal from participants’ points of view, as revealed in a candid
account by Lie (2007). Like those in so many developing countries,
Indonesian educators face numerous structural problems:

• A rapidly expanding and increasingly diverse pupil population: Lie

(2007) compares the privileged students of high-quality schools in
metropolitan cities like Jakarta and Bandung to their counterparts in
‘the jungles of Kalimantan and Papua’ (p. 10) and asks how any cen-
tralized curriculum could be expected to meet needs in both set-
tings. Indonesian state school classes typically have around 40 pupils,
presenting a wide spectrum of proficiency levels and making it diffi-
cult for teachers to establish close relations with individual pupils.
• Pay and conditions for teachers have improved over recent years, but
this has followed decades of underinvestment in education, and in
teacher professional development in particular (Chang, Shaeffer, Al-­
Samarrai, Ragatz, de Ree and Stevenson, 2014). Language class-
room methodology remains largely traditional, with teacher-centred,
textbook-based lessons aimed at the staged learning of grammar,
vocabulary and reading comprehension, while oral practice is limited
to rote repetition of textbook dialogues and teacher-pupil question
and answer routines (Marcellino, 2008).
• A third major constraint that Lie (2007) identifies in the formal lan-
guage education system is a lack of resources, for example in terms
of available textbooks, audio/visual materials and ICT support.
Although other contexts in the developing world may be much
worse off, she argues that the EFL setting, where English is rarely
used in the social environment, makes the lack of attractive supple-
mentary learning resources relatively acute. In fact, this situation is
changing rapidly, as English is increasingly used in public advertising
and signage (Chern & Dooley, 2014) and mobile phone-based inter-
net services spread rapidly through the country (see above), but
14 R. SMITH ET AL.

teachers are not trained to exploit this material and may feel that
venturing into these unfamiliar domains could undermine their
authority as the fount of language knowledge.

The British educationalist Michael West (1960) coined the phrase

‘teaching in difficult circumstances’ in relation to settings like these, which
are prevalent across the developing world but which have tended to be
neglected by language teaching theorists and researchers. This neglect has,
indeed, been ‘dysfunctional’, if we consider that most teaching in the
world occurs in such circumstances, as argued by Smith (2011). Of course,
classrooms in the public sector in developing countries vary in many ways,
but they also tend to share sufficient similarities (relatively low resourcing,
large classes, etc.) to be comparable across contexts and to benefit, for
now, from their specificities being highlighted with the catch-all term ‘dif-
ficult circumstances’.
At first glance, the difficult circumstances of teaching and learning in
classrooms in the developing world such as those we have described do not
seem promising territory for the promotion of learner autonomy. With
regard to African contexts, it has been suggested (e.g. by Ampiah, 2008)
that because of resource challenges and a lack of appropriate and sufficient
training for most teachers in rural communities, transmission-­ oriented
‘chalk and talk’ pedagogies are the norm, rendering the notion of auton-
omy distant from local realities and, potentially, a culturally alienating one.
Indeed, for those who view the concept of learner autonomy as essen-
tially a European one, the very notion of promoting autonomy in develop-
ing countries might appear culturally imperialistic, or even neocolonialist,
in inspiration—akin, perhaps, to the kind of inappropriate, paternalistic
development initiatives described in Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo’s
(2009) Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is Another Way
for Africa. Such concerns may have been one reason why, in one of the
few articles to consider learner autonomy in relation to an African context,
Sonaiya (2002) described it as a form of individualism which was typically
western and incompatible with the community-oriented cultures of the
Yoruba people.
We now wish to show, though, how the above propositions can be
turned on their head. In fact, we shall argue, it is precisely because the
teaching and learning circumstances in developing countries tend to be so
challenging that engaging and developing learner autonomy can be a
pressing priority for participants concerned.
 LEARNER AUTONOMY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES 15

Practical Reasons for Engaging and Developing Autonomy

On a dark, chilly evening in November 1812, the Yorkshire mill owner
Joseph Rogerson recorded in his diary: ‘Mr Humphreys at my father’s
tonight talking on the best way of establishing a School on the Madras
System at Bramley’ (cited in Crump, 1931). Mr Humphreys, the pastor at
Bramley chapel, was, like many of his contemporaries, struggling to devise
a way to teach ever-increasing numbers of children, as the urban popula-
tion of England surged. The Madras system that he was thinking of
importing into his chapel school may have had its origins in a traditional
Tamil form of literacy teaching, where a master would instruct older chil-
dren in how to draw letters and words in sand, and they would then help
younger children to write and pronounce them, thereby enabling far more
children to learn to read and write than would be otherwise possible. By
1820 there were over 12,000 schools in England using the Madras sys-
tem, and the man who popularized it, Andrew Bell, has a tomb in
Westminster Abbey.
There are many aspects of this system which today we would find
oppressive—Bell’s primary aim after all was ‘instilling principles of reli-
gion and morality into the minds of the young’ (1797, p. 6)—but the
notion that children might learn more from active collaboration with
their (near-)peers than by listening in obedient silence to their teacher
was one that impressed early-nineteenth-century educators in Britain. In
a chapter in which we argue for the importance of learner autonomy in
developing country settings, it is worth remembering that the exchange
of educational ideas has a long history and is two-way; in fact, as Thompson
(2013) points out, in the globalized twenty-first century, it is ongoing
and multidirectional, whether it involves ‘a Nigerian educator recom-
mending presentational strategies to teachers in the UK or a Brazilian
practitioner explaining Freirean approaches in China’ (p. 48). Within
most global societies there exist diverse, competing agendas for educa-
tion, and we should not be any more surprised to find evidence of rela-
tively learner-centred pedagogy being practised in African settings, for
example, than we would be to hear a British minister of education advo-
cating the return of more teacher-centred whole-class learning
(Department for Education, 2013).
Indeed, as Smith (2002) has previously written, autonomy can take dif-
ferent shapes in different cultures and historical contexts, and ‘teaching
students to learn’ is not simply the latest language teaching fashion but
16 R. SMITH ET AL.

can be related to deeper, older educational conceptions and traditions. He

cites, for example, Quick (1890, p. 421):

The highest and best teaching is not that which makes the pupils passive
recipients of other peoples’ ideas (not to speak of the teaching which con-
veys mere words without any ideas at all), but that which guides and encour-
ages the pupils in working for themselves and thinking for themselves.

In the history of western education, then, a focus on developing learner

autonomy is not as new as is commonly supposed, nor should we be sur-
prised to find cases of teachers outside western countries engaging and/or
developing students’ autonomy without having been influenced by the
post-1970s ‘learner autonomy movement’.
As the early-nineteenth-century example at the head of this section also
shows, in developing country contexts where education is in a rapid state
of development and where teachers and physical resources are in short
supply (in these respects, England was at the time, after all, the epitome of
a ‘developing country’), teachers may actually need to tap into and engage
the existing autonomy of students to a greater extent than in better-­
resourced settings. Indeed, certain educationalists have previously high-
lighted the particular relevance to large classes in developing country
contexts of what we might nowadays recognize as an autonomy-oriented
approach. Michael West himself emphasized that:

the larger the class and the more difficult the circumstances, the more
important it is to stress learning as the objective. And the higher the elimina-
tion [i.e. ‘drop-out’], the more necessary it is to do so: if a pupil has learnt
how to learn he can go on learning afterwards. (1960, p. 15)

Thus, engagement of learner autonomy can be seen as an eminently appro-

priate approach in difficult circumstances, for example, large classes with
diverse student needs (see Smith, 2003) and/or few resources (see Fonseka,
2003). With regard specifically to problems posed by large classes, Zakia
Sarwar has emphasized the value of group work and project-­based learning
in Pakistan (see Sarwar, 2001; Smith, 2008). Latterly, she explicitly came
to ally this approach with the autonomy movement, as has Amritavalli
when describing a successful practice of ‘maximising learner autonomy’ by
enabling choice of extensive reading materials in the ‘deprived circum-
stances’ of an Indian primary school (Amritavalli, 2007). As what he calls
a ‘rescue solution’ in a situation of lack of printed materials, Sri Lankan
 LEARNER AUTONOMY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES 17

educator Gamini Fonseka (2003) also came to theorize from an autonomy

perspective his experience of getting children to memorize songs and work
with these as a source of language learning input.
As documented and discussed further in Kuchah and Smith (2011), the
practical worth of an autonomy-oriented approach is borne out by the
experience of one of the authors of this chapter—Kuchah Kuchah—in
Cameroon. Sonaiya’s (2002) argument about the incompatibility of
autonomy with an African ‘communal aspect of learning’ (cited above)
was disproved in this experience, since it was precisely via a collective effort
that Kuchah and his students were able to develop autonomous learning
as a rescue solution to the challenges they faced, namely, large classes of
more than 200 teenagers in temperatures above 46 °C and with almost no
textbooks to rely on. Students were enabled to work with learning materi-
als they had helped provide as well as with negotiated pedagogic practices
that helped them and their peers to attain learning objectives that were
both relevant to them and consistent with the syllabus requirements.
Thus, a number of educators familiar with the difficult circumstances of
classrooms in developing country contexts have, at different times, devel-
oped and advocated autonomy-oriented practices as a way to overcome
practical difficulties, even though they were not, in most cases, actually
inspired by learner autonomy theory. Thus, they were engaged in pedago-
gies of autonomy though not for autonomy, according to the distinction
made by Kuchah and Smith (2011).
It is probable that there are many other such cases, yet to be described
and identified, whose documentation would be of great use within the
kind of context-sensitive ‘enhancement approach’ to teacher development
described in Kuchah (2013), advocated by the Teaching English in Large
Classes research and development network (bit.ly/TELCnet-home) and
promoted in the current University of Warwick ‘Teacher-research for dif-
ficult circumstances’ impact initiative (warwick.ac.uk/trdc). Along with
Kuchah (ibid.), Smith, Padwad and Bullock (forthcoming) provide
examples of how stories of success can usefully be shared in a teacher
development workshop situation, while Lamb and Wedell (2013) have
highlighted the value of capturing and sharing the experiences of what
they term ‘inspiring teachers’ in China and Indonesia.
Taken together, these concrete examples constitute a firm argument
against the idea that autonomy-oriented pedagogy is inappropriate in devel-
oping country contexts or that it is necessarily an imposed western ideal—in
fact, we have seen the argument reversed: a pedagogy of autonomy can be
18 R. SMITH ET AL.

very appropriate indeed, precisely because it works with the ‘social auton-
omy’ (Holliday, 2003) that learners bring to the classroom. Thus, a peda-
gogy of autonomy can be viewed as a kind of ‘becoming-­ appropriate
methodology’ par excellence, as Smith (2003) has previously argued.
To be quite clear, we are not advocating any specific form of pedagogy.
Subscribing to the contextualist paradigm of educational reform (Elliott,
2014), which emphasizes the cultural situatedness of all educational prac-
tices, we are well aware of the difficulty in transferring teaching approaches
from one context to another, and indeed of the long history of failure in the
export from the west of ‘learner-centred’ educational approaches
(Schweisfurth, 2011). Rather, we are suggesting that autonomy—as the
ability to take control of one’s own learning—is an essential characteristic of
all successful learners and can be found everywhere if we know how to look.
A previous volume (Palfreyman & Smith, 2003) showed how learner
autonomy can and does take varied forms in different national, institutional
or sociocultural settings, and can be cultivated in diverse institutions and
classrooms. As Holliday (2003, 2005) points out, however, it is often missed
by educators, especially those looking with western eyes, because it may not
be displayed in forms that they recognize (e.g. assertive ­expression of per-
sonal ideas), or in the educational contexts that they expect (e.g. class-
rooms), nor articulated in the same terms by teachers. Sometimes it can be
seen outside the classroom as countering what goes on in the classroom (as
in the preceding section), but it can also be tapped into within the class-
room by certain educators, as we have illustrated in the present section.

Research Priority 2 There is a need for more research into and sharing of
success stories of teaching in low-resource classrooms, to assist in building
appropriate methodology from the bottom upwards. Cases of successful
teaching should be viewed and analysed on their own terms, but can also
provide fertile ground for understanding how ‘social autonomy’ can be
engaged in particular contexts.

Needs for Bottom-Up Research with and/or

by Teachers and Learners Themselves

We have argued that identifying and describing cases of autonomy outside

class and inside class is useful, our underlying assumption being that this
will not just help to fill a ‘theoretical’ gap but can have significant practical
implications, especially where teacher development—as touched on in the
 LEARNER AUTONOMY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES 19

last section—is concerned. However, the question arises of who should do

the research that is needed if learner autonomy is to be better understood,
engaged and enhanced in outside-class and classroom contexts in the
developing world.
The question is an important one partly because there is an ever-
present danger of inappropriate imposition of ideas onto educators in the
contexts concerned. For example, however well-intentioned he may
individually have been, and however experience-based his ideas, Michael
West was himself a colonial educator (in what is now Bangladesh), and
some of his suggestions come across as rather paternalistic for this reason
(Kuchah, Padwad and Smith, in process). There are needs for self-con-
scious decentring, indeed decolonizing of English language teaching
methodology and discourse, in particular (ibid.), and this is not neces-
sarily best served by academic studies emanating from northern/western
universities. Locating the control of research in the hands of academics
from the countries concerned is not by itself adequate as a solution
either, although it may be a step in the right direction, since there has
been a worldwide ‘­neocolonization’ of English language teacher devel-
opment by applied linguistics, even as former colonies have gained polit-
ical independence. Divorces between theory and practice are therefore
just as prevalent in developing countries as elsewhere (see, e.g. Clarke
1994), and overly academic studies, even if carried out by researchers in
the countries concerned, are unlikely to have much resonance with or
impact on people there.
Adopting a participant-centred approach to research and to associated
teacher development therefore appears necessary, indeed appropriately
autonomy-oriented, in developing country contexts. This might involve
two aspects, relating to participation and actual control by teachers and by
learners themselves, considered now in turn.

Research with and by Teachers

One possibly appropriate alternative to purely academic research is
‘Teacher Association (TA) Research’, as developed by Smith and Kuchah
(2016) with the Cameroon English Language and Literature Teachers
Association (CAMELTA). By analogy with ‘teacher-research’, TA research
is defined as ‘systematic inquiry which is derived from members’ expressed
priorities and officially endorsed by a TA, and which engages members as
active participants in what they see as a collective project to improve
20 R. SMITH ET AL.

understanding and practice’ (Smith & Kuchah, 2016, p. 215). Academic

expertise can be enlisted in the service of such a project, as has occurred in
the Cameroonian case, but control of the ongoing research remains in the
hands of the TA itself, assuring relevance to the lives of members. So far,
in line with research priority 2 (above), CAMELTA research has uncov-
ered a large number of success stories and solutions to common classroom
problems which, shared across the membership, provide useful starting
points for members’ continuing professional development. The idea
emphasized above, that successful practice in difficult circumstances is
often relatable to engagement of learner autonomy, appears to find strong
support in the data gathered so far (see the CAMELTA website, http://
camelta-cameroon.weebly.com/resources--useful-links.html). TA mem-
bers have given some quite clear indications, additionally, that they feel
their own autonomy has been enhanced via engagement in the project
(see, for example, Smith and Kuchah, 2016).
The engagement and enhancement of teachers’ own autonomy in
relation to their professional development can, of course, be seen as a
major aim of practitioner research generally (cf. Dikilitaş & Griffiths,
2017; Smith & Course, 2014). A major issue, though, is whether teacher-­
research is actually feasible, in particular in the kinds of difficult circum-
stance we have been describing (one aspect of such circumstances often
being the high number of hours teachers have to devote to teaching and
marking, and the fact that they may need to engage in private tutoring
and/or work at more than one institution in order to make ends meet).
While collective, open-ended questionnaire-based TA research was devel-
oped in the Cameroon case as an alternative to more individualistic, pos-
sibly unfeasible teacher-research, a happy medium appears to have been
struck in another recent Teacher Association project, this time one orga-
nized by the All-India Network of English Teachers (AINET) in
2015–16. Here, the difficulties of lack of time and support for individual
teacher-research in difficult circumstances appear to have been success-
fully addressed via volunteering and much collaborative activity within
the association.
Other approaches to making teacher-research appropriate in relatively
difficult circumstances have included the discussion-based practice
described by Naidu, Neeraja, Ramani, Sivakumar and Viswanatha (1992)
(again, a collective, collaborative approach); Exploratory Practice, as
developed in Rio de Janeiro (see Allwright & Lenzuen, 1997; Allwright,
Lenzuen, Mazzillo & Miller, 1994); and Exploratory Action Research, as
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Marks of taboo to protect property, 25 sqq., 38 sq., 41 sqq.
Marquesas Islands, taboo in the, 23 sq.
Marrah, in Darfur, 39
Marriage, superstition in relation to, 44 sqq.
—— of cousins, different customs as to the, 88 sq., 91; forbidden,
89, 90, 91, 92, supposed to be unfruitful, 92; expiation for the,
92 sq.
—— laws, their origin unknown, 102
Marriages, consanguineous, question as to the results of, 95 sq.
Masai, the, of British East Africa, 81; of German East Africa, 105
Medicine-man, respect for, 14
Melanesia, taboo as a preserver of property in, 26 sq.
Melanesians, authority of chiefs among the, 6 sq.; rules of
ceremonial avoidance amongst the, 86 sq.; of the Bismarck
Archipelago, 131
Men Aziottenos, 37
Men naturally unequal, 166 sq.
Mental evolution, a scale of, 172
Meteors, superstition as to, 141
Milky Way, 141
Mimic warfare, 129
Mimicry in magic, 100
Minority, mankind dominated by an enlightened, 167 sq.
Montenegrin peasantry, their strict views of sexual immorality, 97
Moral theory, hypothetical development of, 102
Morality, sexual, enforced by superstition, 44 sqq.; change in the
theoretical basis of, 101 sq.; basis of, shifted from supernatural
to natural, 153
Morocco, superstitions concerning granaries in, 56 sq.
Mosaic law, punishments for sexual offences under the, 64
Mother, incest with a, 51, 61; and son, ceremonial avoidance
between, 85, 86, 87
Mother-in-law, ceremonial avoidance of, 75 sqq., 86 sq., 90 sq.
Mount Elgon, 123
Mourning customs of widows and widowers, 142 sqq.
Moxos Indians of Bolivia, 106
Mukjarawaint tribe of Victoria, 74
Murderer, rules observed by pardoned, 126
Murderers, their precautions against the ghosts of their victims, 117
sqq.
Mutilation of corpses in order to disable the ghosts, 132 sq., 134,
136, 137; of the dying or dead, 141

Nails used to prevent ghosts from walking, 133

Names of kings sacred, 10
Nandi, the, of British East Africa, 14, 56, 66, 118; curses among the,
40 sq.
Natchez Indians of North America, 124
Natural inequality of men, 166 sq.
Nature, why illicit relations between the sexes are thought to disturb
the balance of, 99 sqq.
—— the Sphinx, 102
Nebuchadnezzar, the king, quoted, 37 sq.
Nepal, 138
Nets to catch ghosts, 139
New Britain, 109; taboo in, 26 sq.
—— Guinea, British, 125, 147; Dutch, 131; German, 82, 124, 127,
131
—— Hebrides, 86
—— Ireland, 89, 90
—— Mecklenburg, 89
—— South Wales, 74
—— Zealand, authority of chiefs in, 7 sqq. Nias, the island of, 46 sq.;
curses in, 34
Niece, incest with, 51, 53
Niger, tribes of the Lower, 119
Nile, the Upper, 57
Ninib, Babylonian god, 38
Nuru, the spirit of the slain, 121
Nusku, Babylonian god, 38

Oaths and imprecations as preservers of property, 24 sqq. See also

Curses
Obeah man, magician, 42
Obi, magic, 42
Oedipus, the incest of, 61
Ojèbways, their modes of keeping off ghosts, 139 sq.
Omaha Indians, 132 sq.; their customs as to pardoned murderers,
126
Opinion and action, their relative values for society, 155
Orang Glai, the, savages of Annam, 46
Oraons of Bengal, their fear of the ghosts of women dying in
childbed or pregnancy, 134
Oregon, Chinook Indians of, 126
Orestes, the matricide, 114, 115, 117, 118, 119, 126
Orinoco, the, 112
Ottawa Indians, 131
Ovakumbi, a tribe of Angola, 108
Ovambo, a Bantu people of South-West Africa, 80 sq.

Pacific, first exploration of the, 173

Paestum, the temples at, 170
Paint-house, the, 55
Pamali, taboo, 27
Papuans of New Guinea, 131; of Issoudun, 147
Parents-in-law, ceremonial avoidance by man of his future, 81, 83
Parricide, Roman punishment of, 52; guilt of, 61
Pasemhers, a tribe of Sumatra, 69
Pasir, a district of Borneo, 51
Patagonians, their fear of the dead, 111 sqq.
Peasantry of Europe, their intellectual savagery, 170
Pemali, taboo, 27
Pepper put in eyes of corpse to blind ghost, 133
Perham, J., 47
Persephone, 36
Peru, the Yncas of, 15 sq., 173
Petara, Dyak name for deity, 47
Pig’s blood used in ceremonies of purification, 116 sq.
Pigs used in expiatory ceremonies, 44 sqq.
Physical causation, false notions of, 100
—— infection supposed to be spread by unchaste persons, 109
—— relationship supposed to exist between adulterer and injured
husband, 104 sq.
Plato on sanctity of landmarks, 37
Pollution, ceremonial, 93, 105; incurred by homicide, 115 sqq., 128
——, dangerous, supposed to be incurred by unchastity, 109
Polynesia, authority of chiefs in, 7 sqq.; taboo in, 20 sqq.
Pomali, taboo, 27
Pontianak, ghost of woman who died in childbed, 137 n.
Precautions taken by homicides against the ghosts of their victims,
117 sqq., 123 sqq.; against the ghosts of bad people, 132 sq.;
against ghosts of women dying in pregnancy or childbed, 133
sqq.; taken by widows and widowers against the ghosts of their
spouses, 142 sqq.
Prehistoric ages, imperfections in the records of, 171 sq.
Primæval man unknown, 163 sq.
Primitive, relative sense in which the word is applied to existing
savages, 163 sq.
Private property, superstition as a prop of, 20 sqq.
Propagation of animals and plants supposed to be affected by the
relations of the human sexes, 99 sqq.
Property, superstition as a support of private, 20 sqq.; of the dead
destroyed, 111 sq., 135
Psanyi, 122
Punans, the, of Borneo, 50
Punishments, severe, for sexual offences, 63 sqq., 96 sqq.
Punjaub, the, 133
Purification for unchastity by means of blood, 44 sqq.; for unchastity
by means of water, 109; for homicide, 114, 115 sqq., 120 sqq.,
123 sqq.; and capital punishment, 151 sq.

Queen Anne, 18
Queen Charlotte Islands, 107
Queen Draga of Servia, 97
Queensland, native tribes of, 72 sqq.; their mutilation of the dead,
137
Rain, kings expected to give, 13 sq.; failure or excess of, supposed
to be caused by sexual immorality, 44, 46, 47, 48, 54, 55, 56
Rajah Brooke, 12
Rajamahal in Bengal, 45
Ramanandroany, a Malagasy deity, 31
Rape, punishment of, 66
Red paint put on homicides, 118, 124, 127
Regalia, sanctity of, 11
Relations by marriage, ceremonial avoidance of, 75 sqq.
Religion supplies the new theoretical basis of sexual morality, 101; of
one generation the superstition of the next, 170 sq.
—— and magic, their relations, 100
Renan, Ernest, on the menace to civilization, 170
Reproduction of men, animals, and plants, analogy between the, 99
sq.
Rhodesia, Northern, 66, 79, 103, 120
Rhys, Sir John, quoted, 54 n. 2, 62 sq.
Rio de Janeiro, 96
Risley, Sir Herbert H., quoted, 138
Road from the grave barred against the ghost, 138 sq.
Robert the Pious, 18
Roman custom as to incest, 61 sq.
—— punishment of parricide, 52
Roscoe, Rev. J., quoted, 64 sq., 90 sq., 102 sq.
Ruanda, a district of Central Africa, 96

Sacred chiefs, 7 sqq.

—— fig-tree among the Akikuyu, 128 sq.
—— fish, 36
Sacredness of chiefs in Polynesia, 7 sqq.
Sahagun on the natives of Mexico, 173
St. Patrick, canon of, 17
Samoa, superstition as a preserver of property in, 24 sqq.
Samoan taboos, 25 sq.
Sarah and Abraham, 60 sq.
Sarawak, Hill Dyaks of, 11 sq., 48
Savage, the, a human document, 172 sq.; the passing of the, 174
sq.
Savage horror of sexual irregularities, suggested reason for, 101
Savagery, civilization evolved out of, 162; importance of the study of,
162 sq., 172 sqq.; intellectual, of European peasantry, 170
Savages of to-day primitive only in a relative sense, 163 sq.
Saxons, their punishment of sexual offences, 97
Scapegoat for ghosts, 141 sq.
Scarecrows for ghosts, 139
Scepticism, religious, undermines foundations of society, 7
Science of man, 159 sq.
——, the temple of, 161
Scrofula, touching for, 17 sq.
Scythians drank the blood of friends and foes, 118
Sea-pike taboo, 25
Seclusion of homicides, 114 sq., 120, 121 sq., 124, 125 sqq.
Semendo, a district of Sumatra, 68
Servius Tullius, King, 61
Sexual communism, era of, 164 sq.
—— immorality supposed to be injurious to the culprits themselves
and to their relations, 102 sqq.; superstitions as to, 110
—— morality enforced by superstition, 44 sqq.; change in the
theoretical basis of, 101
—— offences punished severely, 63 sqq., 96 sqq.; reason why
savages punish these offences severely, 99 sqq.
“Shaking tubercule,” 32
Shans, the, of Burma, 119, 134
Sheep, expiatory sacrifice of, 92, 93
Shushwap Indians of British Columbia, mourning customs of the,
142 sq.
Siam, 32
Sibuyaus, the, of Sarawak, 48
Sibylline Books, 173
Sickness caused by evil spirits or sorcerers, 141
“Sickness of relationship,” 76 sq.
Sierra Leone, 42
Similarity of the human mind in all races, 172
Sister, incest with a, 51, 54, 59, 60 n. 1, 62, 67, 68, 105
Sisters and brothers, mutual avoidance of, 77
Slave Coast, the, 41
Slavery in England, 169
Slavs, punishment of sexual offences among the Southern, 97 sq.
Slayers fear the ghosts of their victims, 113 sqq.
Sle, pollution incurred by unchastity, 109
Smyrna, 36
Social anthropology, the scope of, 157 sqq.
Society, concerned with conduct, not opinion, 155; ultimately
controlled by knowledge, 167; sapped by superstition, 170; its
surface in perpetual motion, 171
Sociology, 160
Sofala, the king of, 13, 14
Son-in-law, ceremonial avoidance of, 79 sq.
Sophocles on Oedipus, 61
Sphinx, riddles of the, 102
State, duty of the, in regard to anthropology, 175 sq.
Stinks to keep off ghosts, 139
Stoning as a punishment of sexual offences, 64, 97 sq.
Sulka, the, of New Britain, 109
Sumatra, 46, 67, 68, 69, 82, 109
Sun, Yncas descended from the, 15
Supernatural powers attributed to chiefs, 6 sqq.
Superstition, baneful effects of, 3; a plea for, 3 sq., 154 sq.; as a prop
of government, 6 sqq.; as a prop of private property, 20 sqq.; as
a prop of marriage, 44 sqq.; as a prop to the security of human
life, 111 sqq.; heavy toll paid to, 113; services which superstition
has rendered to humanity, 154 sq.; at the bar, 155 sq.; the creed
of the laggards in the march of intellect, 168 sq.; a danger to
society, 170; the religion of a past generation, 170 sq.
Superstitions either public or private, 169; the crudest, survive
longest, 170 sq.
Superstitious fear of contact with Maori chiefs, 9 sq.
Surface of society in perpetual motion, 171
Survivals of savagery in civilization, 166
Swedes, the ancient, 16
Taboo as a support of chiefs, 7 sqq.; as a prop of private property, 20
sqq.; (tambu) in Melanesia, 26 sq.
Tabooed, homicides, 121
Tahiti, sacredness of kings of, 10 sq.
Tamanaques, the, of the Orinoco, 112
Tambu (taboo) in Melanesia, 26 sq.
Tapu (taboo) among the Maoris, 20 sqq.
Tattooing of homicides, 121
Taylor, Rev. Richard, 8
Ternate, 54
Thahu, ceremonial pollution, 93, 105, 115, 128
Theal, G. McCall, quoted, 91
Theoretical basis of sexual morality, 101
Thieves cursed, 34 sqq.
Thompson Indians of British Columbia, mourning customs of the,
144 sq.
Thomson, Basil, quoted, 7
Thomson, J. Arthur, quoted, 95 sq.
Thonga tribe of South-East Africa, 57, 80, 92, 104; their purification
of homicides, 121 sq.
Thorn bushes to keep off ghosts, 142 sq., 144, 145
Thunder taboo, 26
Tigers, plague of, a punishment for sexual offences, 45, 46
Timor, taboo in, 27
Togoland, 142
Tololaki, the, of Central Celebes, 53
Tomori, the, of Central Celebes, 52
Tonga, sacredness of chiefs in, 10; taboo in, 26
Tonquin, 33
Toradjas of Central Celebes, 12, 29, 30, 122; their fear of the ghosts
of the slain, 129
Torture to extract confession, 64 sq.
Touched, chiefs and kings not to be, 9, 11
Touching for scrofula, 17 sq.
Traitors disembowelled in England, 169
Travail pangs supposed to be aggravated by adultery, 104
Travancore, 132
Trembling thought to be caused by contact with certain relations, 77,
90
Troezen, purification of Orestes at, 115
Tsetsaut Indians of British Columbia, mourning customs of the, 143
Tubercule, the shaking, 32
Tunguses, their burial customs, 137, 138
Turner, Dr. George, quoted, 24 sq., 26
Tylor, Sir E. B., 159

Ulcer taboo, 25 sq.

Unchastity, supposed physical infection of, 109
United States of America, their Bureau of Ethnology, 175
Universities, the function of the, 175
Unmarried persons, disastrous effects supposed to flow from sexual
intercourse between, 44, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 55, 57, 63, 65, 96

Vancouver Island, 143

Victoria, aborigines of, 71 sq.
—— Nyanza, Lake, 78
Voyages to the South Seas, 173

Wagogo, the, of German East Africa, 92, 106

Wakelbura tribe of Queensland, 72
Wallace, A. R., quoted, 27, 70
Wanigela River, 125
Wanika, the, of East Africa, 38
War, a sacred duty, 129; wives expected to be faithful during their
husbands’ absence at the, 106 sq.
Warfare, mimic, conducted by women and children at home, 129
Washamba, the, of German East Africa, 106
Water ordeal, 107
Wawanga, the, of British East Africa, 123
Weeks, Rev. John H., 85 n. 1; quoted, 75 sq., 128
Welsh saying as to rain, 54 n. 2
West Indies, charms to protect property in the, 42 sq.
Westermarck, Dr. Edward, 32, 56
White-shark taboo, 25
Widows and widowers, precautions taken by them against the
ghosts of their spouses, 142 sqq.
Wife of wife’s brother, ceremonial avoidance of, 80
Wife’s mother, ceremonial avoidance of, 75 sqq., 86 sq., 90 sq.
Witches burned in England, 169
Women dying in pregnancy or childbed, fear of their ghosts, 133 sqq.
Wotjobaluk tribe of Victoria, 74

Yabim, the, of German New Guinea, 127, 131

Yncas of Peru, superstitious veneration for the, 15 sq.
Yucatan, Indians of, 83
Yuin tribe of New South Wales, 74

Zanzibar, 78
Zeus as guardian of landmarks, 37
Zulus, their ideas as to injurious effects of adultery, 107 sq.
 ENDNOTES

Chapter I Notes
6.1 R. H. Codrington, D.D., The Melanesians (Oxford, 1891), p. 46.
 Chapter II Notes
7.1 R. H. Codrington, op. cit. p. 52.
7.2 Basil Thomson, The Fijians, a Study of the Decay of Custom
(London, 1908), pp. 57-59, 64, 158.
8.1 Rev. Richard Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, or New Zealand and its
Inhabitants, Second Edition (London, 1870), pp. 352 sq.; as to the
atuas or gods, see ib. pp. 134 sqq.
9.1 A. S. Thomson, M.D., The Story of New Zealand (London,

1859), i. 95 sq.
9.2 Rev. W. Yate, An Account of New Zealand (London, 1835), pp.

104 sq., note.

9.3 W. Brown, New Zealand and its Aborigines (London, 1845), p.

76. Compare Old New Zealand, by a Pakeha Maori (London, 1884),

pp. 96 sq.
10.1 Rev. R. Taylor, op. cit. p. 164.
10.2 Rev. R. Taylor, op. cit. pp. 164, 165.
10.3 W. Mariner, Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands,
Second Edition (London, 1818), i. 141 sq. note, 434, note, ii. 82 sq.,
222 sq.
10.4 W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, Second Edition (London,
1832-1836), iii. 108.
11.1 W. Ellis, op. cit. iii. 101 sq.; J. Wilson, Missionary Voyage to
the Southern Pacific Ocean (London, 1799), pp. 329 sq.
11.2 Zeitschrift für allgemeine Erdkunde (Berlin), vi. (1856) pp. 398
sq.; F. T. Valdez, Six Years of a Traveller’s Life in Western Africa
(London, 1861), ii. 251 sq.
11.3 W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic (London, 1900), pp. 23 sq.
11.4 W. W. Skeat, op. cit. p. 36.
12.1 Hugh Low, Sarawak (London, 1848), pp. 259 sq.
12.2 N. Adriani en Alb. C. Kruijt, De Bare’e-sprekende Toradja’s van
Midden-Celebes, i. (Batavia, 1912) pp. 130 sq.
 12.3 For evidence see The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, i.
342 sqq., 392 sqq.
13.1 Proyart’s “History of Loango, Kakongo, and other Kingdoms in

Africa,” in John Pinkerton’s Voyages and Travels (London, 1808-

1814), xvi. 577. Compare O. Dapper, Description de l’Afrique
(Amsterdam, 1686), pp. 335 sq.
13.2 “The Strange Adventures of Andrew Battel,” in J. Pinkerton’s
Voyages and Travels, xvi. 330.
14.1 J. Dos Santos, “Eastern Ethiopia,” chapters v. and ix., in G.

McCall Theal’s Records of South-Eastern Africa, vii. (1901) pp. 190

sq., 199.
14.2 J. Dos Santos, op. cit. pp. 194 sq.
14.3 A. C. Hollis, The Nandi, their Language and Folk-lore (Oxford,

1909), pp. 49 sq.

15.1 C. P. Tiele, History of the Egyptian Religion (London, 1882),

pp. 103 sq. For fuller details see A. Moret, Du caractère religieux de
la royauté pharaonique (Paris, 1902); The Magic Art and the
Evolution of Kings, i. 418 sq.
15.2 Ammianus Marcellinus, xxviii. 5. 14.
16.1 Garcilasso de la Vega, First Part of the Royal Commentaries
of the Yncas, translated by C. R. Markham (London, 1869-1871), i.
154 sq.
16.2 The Laws of Manu, vii. 5-8, translated by G. Bühler (Oxford,

1886), p. 217 (Sacred Books of the East, vol. xxv.).

16.3 The Laws of Manu, ix. 246 sq., translated by G. Bühler, p. 385.
16.4 Homer, Odyssey, ii. 409, iv. 43, 691, vii. 167, viii. 2, xviii. 405;
Iliad, ii. 335, xvii. 464, etc.
16.5 Homer, Odyssey, xix. 109-114.
16.6 Ammianus Marcellinus, xxviii. 5. 14.
17.1 Snorro Sturleson, The Heimskringla, or Chronicle of the Kings

of Norway, translated by S. Laing (London, 1844), saga i. chapters

18 and 47, vol. i. pp. 230, 256.
17.2 P. W. Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland (London, 1903),
i. 56 sq.; J. O’Donovan, The Book of Rights (Dublin, 1847), p. 8,
note.
 17.3 S. Johnson, Journey to the Western Islands, pp. 65 sq. (The
Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., London, 1825, vol. vi.).
17.4 J. G. Campbell, Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of
Scotland (Glasgow, 1900), p. 5.
17.5 W. G. Black, Folk-Medicine (London, 1883), pp. 140 sqq. See
further The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, i. 368 sqq.; and
especially Raymond Crawfurd, The King’s Evil (Oxford, 1911), which
contains a full history of the superstition from the eleventh century
onwards, authenticated by documentary evidence.
18.1 W. Mariner, An Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands,
Second Edition (London, 1818), i. 434, note.
18.2 Proyart’s “History of Loango, Kakongo, and other Kingdoms in
Africa,” in J. Pinkerton’s Voyages and Travels, xvi. 573.
18.3 Raymond Crawfurd, The King’s Evil, pp. 11 sqq., 18 sqq.
18.4 J. Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, Ninth Edition (London,
1822), i. 18 sq.
18.5 Raymond Crawfurd, The King’s Evil, pp. 144 sqq., 159 sqq.
 Chapter III Notes
21.1 Old New Zealand, by a Pakeha Maori (London, 1884), pp. 94-
97, compare id. p. 83.
21.2 A. S. Thomson, The Story of New Zealand (London, 1859), i.
103. Compare E. Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand (London,
1843), ii. 105: “The breaking of the tapu, if the crime does not
become known, is, they believe, punished by the atua, who inflicts
disease upon the criminal; if discovered, it is punished by him whom
it regards, and often becomes the cause of war.”
22.1 W. Brown, New Zealand and its Aborigines (London, 1845).
pp. 12 sq.
22.2 Old New Zealand, by a Pakeha Maori (London, 1884), p. 97.
23.1 Rev. R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, or New Zealand and its

Inhabitants, Second Edition (London, 1870), pp. 167, 171.

23.2 A. S. Thomson, The Story of New Zealand (London, 1859), i.

105.
23.3 Rev. R. Taylor, op. cit. pp. 172 sq.
24.1 Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, Iles Marquises ou Nouk-
hiva (Paris, 1843), pp. 258-260. For details of the taboo system in
the Marquesas Islands, see G. H. von Langsdorff, Reise um die Welt
(Francfort, 1812), i. 114-119; Le P. Matthias G * * * Lettres sur les
Isles Marquises (Paris, 1843), pp. 47 sqq. This last writer, who was a
missionary to the Marquesas, observes that while taboo was both a
political and a religious institution, he preferred to class it under the
head of religion because it rested on the authority of the gods and
formed the highest sanction of the whole religious system.
25.1 G. Turner, Samoa (London, 1884), pp. 183-184.
26.1 G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 185-188.
26.2 W. Mariner, An Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands,
Second Edition (London, 1818), ii. 221.
26.3 R. H. Codrington, D.D., The Melanesians (Oxford, 1891), pp.

215 sq.
 27.1 R. Parkinson, Im Bismarck-Archipel (Leipsic, 1887), p. 144; id.,
Dreissig Jahre in der Südsee (Stuttgart, 1907), pp. 193 sq.
27.2 Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, Second Edition (London,
1860), i. 234.
27.3 G. A. Wilken, Handleiding voor de vergelijkende Volkenkunde
van Nederlandsch Indië (Leyden, 1893), pp. 596-603; G. W. W. C.
Baron van Hoëvell, Ambon en meer bepaaldelijk de Oeliasers
(Dordrecht, 1875), pp. 148-152.
27.4 A. R. Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, Sixth Edition (London,
1877), p. 196.
28.1 J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen
Selebes en Papua (The Hague, 1886), pp. 61 sq.
28.2 J. G. F. Riedel, op. cit. pp. 114 sq.
28.3 Van Schmidt, “Aanteekeningen nopens de zeden, gewoonten
en gebruiken, benevens de vooroordeelen en bijgeloovigheden der
bevolking van de eilanden Saparoea, Haroekoe, Noessa Laut, en
van een gedeelte van de zuidkust van Ceram, in vroegeren en
lateren tijd,” Tijdschrift voor Neêrlands Indie, v. Tweede deel
(Batavia, 1843), pp. 499-502.
29.1 J. G. F. Riedel, op. cit. pp. 167 sq.
31.1 N. Adriani en Alb. C. Kruijt, De Bare’e-sprekende Toradja’s van
Midden-Celebes, i. (Batavia, 1912) pp. 399-401.
31.2 H. F. Standing, “Malagasy fady,” The Antananarivo Annual and
Madagascar Magazine, vol. ii. (Antananarivo, 1896) pp. 252-265
(Reprint of the second Four Numbers).
31.3 A. van Gennep, Tabou et Totémisme à Madagascar (Paris,
1904).
31.4 A. van Gennep, op. cit. pp. 183 sqq.
31.5 A. van Gennep, Tabou et Totémisme à Madagascar, p. 184.
The writer has devoted a chapter (xi. pp. 183-193) to taboos of
property.
31.6 H. F. Standing, “Malagasy fady,” Antananarivo Annual and
Madagascar Magazine, vol. ii. (Antananarivo, 1896) p. 256.
32.1 W. Ellis, History of Madagascar (London, preface dated 1838),
i. 414.
 32.2 E. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral
Ideas, ii. (London, 1908) pp. 59-69. In an article on taboo published
many years ago (Encyclopaedia Britannica, Ninth Edition, xxiii.
(1888) pp. 15 sqq.) I briefly pointed out the part which the system of
taboo has played in the evolution of law and morality. I may be
allowed to quote a passage from the article: “The original character
of the taboo must be looked for not in its civil but in its religious
element. It was not the creation of a legislator, but the gradual
outgrowth of animistic beliefs, to which the ambition and avarice of
chiefs and priests afterwards gave an artificial extension. But in
serving the cause of avarice and ambition it subserved the progress
of civilization, by fostering conceptions of the rights of property and
the sanctity of the marriage tie,—conceptions which in time grew
strong enough to stand by themselves and to fling away the crutch of
superstition which in earlier days had been their sole support. For we
shall scarcely err in believing that even in advanced societies the
moral sentiments, in so far as they are merely sentiments and are
not based on an induction from experience, derive much of their
force from an original system of taboo. Thus on the taboo were
grafted the golden fruits of law and morality, while the parent stem
dwindled slowly into the sour crabs and empty husks of popular
superstition on which the swine of modern society are still content to
feed.”
33.1 É. Aymonier, Notes sur le Laos (Saigon, 1885), p. 233.
33.2 Central Provinces, Ethnographic Survey, vii., Draft Articles on
Forest Tribes, Third Series (Allahabad, 1911), p. 45.
33.3 R. Percival, Account of the Island of Ceylon (London, 1803), p.
198.
33.4 C. F. Ph. v. Martius, Zur Ethnographie Amerikas, zumal
Brasiliens (Leipsic, 1867), p. 86.
33.5 P. Giran, Magie et Religion Annamites (Paris, 1912), p. 186.
34.1 P. Giran, op. cit., pp. 190 sq.
34.2 H. Sundermann, Die Insel Nias und die Mission daselbst

(Barmen, 1905), p. 34.

36.1 Edwin H. Gomes, Seventeen Years among the Sea Dyaks of

Borneo (London, 1911), pp. 64-66.

 36.2 (Sir) Charles Thomas Newton, Essays on Art and Archaeology
(London, 1880), pp. 193 sq.
36.3 G. Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum2 (Leipsic,
1898-1901), vol. ii. pp. 284 sq., No. 584; Ch. Michel, Recueil
d’Inscriptions Grecques (Brussels, 1900), p. 624, No. 728. The
goddess was probably the Syrian Atargatis or Derceto, to whom fish
were sacred (Xenophon, Anabasis, i. 4. 9). For more examples of
these ancient Greek curses, see Ch. Michel, op. cit., pp. 877-880,
Nos. 1318-1329. Compare W. H. D. Rouse, Greek Votive Offerings
(Cambridge, 1902), pp. 337 sqq.
37.1 (Sir) C. T. Newton, Essays on Art and Archaeology, p. 195.
37.2 Demosthenes, De Halonneso, 40.
37.3 Plato, Laws, viii. 9, pp. 842 sq.
37.4 Festus, s.v. “Termino,” p. 368, ed. C. O. Müller (Leipsic, 1839);
Varro, De lingua latina, v. 74; Dionysius Halicarnasensis, Antiquitates
Romanae, ii. 74. As to Terminus, the Roman god of boundaries, and
his annual festival the Terminalia, see L. Preller, Römische
Mythologie3 (Berlin, 1881-1883), i. 254 sqq.; G. Wissowa, Religion
und Kultus der Römer2 (Munich, 1912), pp. 136 sq.
37.5 Deuteronomy, xxviii. 17.
37.6 C. H. W. Johns, Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and
Letters (Edinburgh, 1904), p. 191.
38.1 R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament
(Oxford, preface dated 1911), pp. 390-392.
38.2 David Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Researches in
South Africa (London, 1857), p. 285.
39.1 Charles New, Life, Wanderings, and Labours in Eastern Africa
(London, 1873), p. 106.
39.2 John H. Weeks, Among Congo Cannibals (London, 1913), pp.
310 sq.
39.3 P. Amaury Talbot, In the Shadow of the Bush (London, 1912),
p. 296.
40.1 Travels of an Arab Merchant [Mohammed Ibn-Omar El Tounsy]
in Soudan, abridged from the French by Bayle St. John (London,
1854), pp. 69-73.
 41.1 A. C. Hollis, The Nandi, their Language and Folk-lore (Oxford,
1909), pp. 36, 37.
41.2 Proyart’s “History of Loango, Kakongo, and other Kingdoms in
Africa,” in J. Pinkerton’s Voyages and Travels (London, 1808-1814),
xvi. 595.
41.3 Rev. J. Leighton Wilson, Western Africa (London, 1856), pp.
275 sq.
42.1 A. B. Ellis, The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of
West Africa (London, 1890), pp. 91 sq. Compare id., The Yoruba-
speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa (London, 1894),
p. 118.
42.2 Thomas Winterbottom, An Account of the Native Africans in
the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone (London, 1803), pp. 261 sq.
43.1 Bryan Edwards, History, Civil and Commercial, of the British
West Indies, Fifth Edition (London, 1819), ii. 107-111.
 Chapter IV Notes
45.1 Rev. F. Mason, D.D., “On Dwellings, Works of Art, Laws, etc.,
of the Karens,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, New Series,
xxxvii. (1868) part ii. No. 3, pp. 147 sq. Compare A. R. McMahon,
The Karens of the Golden Chersonese (London, 1876), pp. 334 sq.
45.2 T. C. Hodson, “The Genna amongst the Tribes of Assam,”
Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxvi. (1906) p. 94.
45.3 Lieutenant Thomas Shaw, “On the Inhabitants of the Hills near
Rajamahall,” Asiatic Researches, Fourth Edition, iv. (1807) pp. 60-
62.
46.1 Major P. R. T. Gurdon, The Khasis (London, 1907), pp. 94,
123.
46.2 É. Aymonier, “Notes sur l’Annam,” Excursions et
Reconnaissances, x. No. 24 (Saigon, 1885), pp. 308 sq.
46.3 J. B. Neumann, “Het Pane en Bilastroomgebied op het eiland
Sumatra,” Tijdschrift van het Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig
Genootschap, Tweede Serie, dl. iii., afdeeling, meer uitgebreide
artikelen, No. 3 (Amsterdam, 1886), pp. 514 sq.; M. Joustra, “Het
leven, de zeden en gewoonten der Bataks,” Mededeelingen van
wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap, xlvi. (1902) p. 411.
47.1 H. Sundermann, Die Insel Nias und die Mission daselbst
(Barmen, 1905), pp. 34 sq., 37, 84. Compare A. Fehr, Der Niasser
im Leben und Sterben (Barmen, 1901), pp. 34-36; Th. C. Rappard,
“Het eiland Nias en zijne bewoners,” Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en
Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, lxii. (1909) pp. 594, 596. The
death penalty for these offences has been abolished by the Dutch
Government, so far as it can make its arm felt in the island.
47.2 Rev. J. Perham, “Petara, or Sea Dyak Gods,” Journal of the
Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, No. 8, December 1881,
p. 150; H. Ling Roth, The Natives of Sarawak and British North
Borneo (London, 1896), i. 180. Petara is the general Dyak name for
deity. The common idea is that there are many petaras, indeed that