(Introduction) In Ethnology, as in other sciences, nothing is too insignificant to receive attention.

(Chapter 1) In our childhood we have all doubtless enjoyed the fascination of the game of Cat's-Cradle, and experienced a sense of being hopelessly baffled, when, after completing the series of familiar movements, we were at the end of our knowledge, and all our attempts to go on further ended in a complete tangle of the string.