[Rarebooks] FS: Dorman, THE ORIGIN OF PRIMITIVE SUPERSTITIONS, 1881

[Michael John Thompson]

DORMAN, Rushton H.   THE ORIGIN OF PRIMITIVE SUPERSTITIONS And Their 
Development Into the Worship of Spirits and the Doctrine of Spiritual 
Agency Among the Aborigines of America. (with) Twenty-Six Illustration. 
Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co. / London: 6 Southampton Street, Covent 
Garden. 1881.

First edition. Tall octavo, original black cloth over beveled boards, front 
panel bordered in red and with a gilt design of a native emblem on the 
front panel, spine panel with three rules in red, gilt titles and the same 
emblematic design in gilt. 398 pp., Illustrated, Index. Twenty-Six 
Illustrations throughout the text, which include four full-page Colour 
Lithographs and one full-page black & white plates.

A monumental and major early work on Native American Mythology and 
Spiritual Beliefs. Chapters include The Doctrine of Spirits - How Spirits 
Pervade all Animate and Inanimate Nature - Respect and fear of these 
spirits - The land of souls - Demonology - Dreams - Ancestral worship - 
Grave-posts - Fetishistic Superstitions - Cannibalism and Fetichism - 
Tatooing - Amulets -Rites and Ceremonies Connected with the Dead - Human 
Sacrifice - Animal-Worship - Immortality of the Spirits of Animals - 
Transmigration of Souls - Totemism - Animal Dress - Fabulous Animals - The 
Worship of Tree s and Plants - Medical Properties of Plants Supposed to be 
Endowed with Supernatural Powers - The Worship of Remarkable Natural 
Objects - Worship of Mountains and Dangerous Places - Worship of Islands 
Worship of Rivers and Lakes - Places of Refuge - Sabaism - Worship of the 
Heavenly Bodies - Astrology - Animistic Theories of Meteorology - Tempests 
produced by Hostile Spirits - Priestcraft - Medicine-Men - Exorcism - 
Sorcerers, Rain-Doctors, Witches - Priesthoods of Peru, Mexico and the 
Yucatan , Etc, Etc, Etc, Etc.

A very bright clean copy, very good or better. The text is clean, bright 
and unmarked throughout, complete, no damage or missing leaves. There is a 
small sticker removed from the recto of the front free endpaper, leaving a 
small scar. The front free endpaper has the ownership stamp of a man from 
Pittsburgh, presumably contemporary with the books publication, the front 
paste-down bears the old bookseller's ticket from Samuel Weiser Book in NYC 
and the small ownership stamp of C.A. Muses, from whose collection we 
acquired the book. Faint cracking to inner front hinge. The covers are 
bright, clean, unscarred and unstained, with very slight rubbing / wear to 
the cloth at the spine tips and at the fore-edge corners. Overall, a 
beautiful copy in many ways. Particularly scarce.

US $400.00. Terms: As Usual.


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Michael John Thompson
Member, Member, Antiquarian Booksellers Association of Canada
5275 Jerow Road
Hornby Island, BC
Canada V0R 1Z0
250-335-1182

http://www.ThompsonRareBooks.com
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