(M244) If this account of the existing or recent usage of the Pelew Islanders sheds little light on the motives for putting chiefs to death, it well illustrates the business-like precision with which such a custom may be carried out, and the public indifference, if not approval, with which it may be regarded as an ordinary incident of constitutional government. So far, therefore, the Pelew custom bears out the view that a systematic practice of regicide, however strange and revolting it may seem to us, is perfectly compatible with a state of society in which human conduct and human life are estimated by a standard very different from ours. If we would understand the early history of institutions, we must learn to detach ourselves from the prepossessions of our own time and country, and to place ourselves as far as possible at the standpoint of men in distant lands and distant ages. INDEX. Aban, a Persian month, ii. 68 Abd-Hadad, priestly king of Hierapolis, i. 163 _n._ 3 Aberdeenshire, All Souls’ Day in, ii. 79 _sq._ Abi-baal, i. 51 _n._ 4 Abi-el, i. 51 _n._ 4 Abi-jah, King, his family, i. 51 _n._ 2; “father of Jehovah,” 51 _n._ 4 Abi-melech, “father of a king,” i. 51 _n._ 4 Abi-milk (Abi-melech), king of Tyre, i. 16 _n._ 5 Abimelech massacres his seventy brothers, i. 51 _n._ 2 Abipones, of South America, their worship of the Pleiades, i. 258 _n._ 2 Abraham, his attempted sacrifice of Isaac, ii. 219 _n._ 1 Abruzzi, gossips of St. John in the, i. 245 _n._ 2; marvellous properties attributed to water on St. John’s Night in the, 246; Easter ceremonies in the, 256; the feast of All Souls in the, ii. 77 _sq._; rules as to sowing seed and cutting timber in the, 133 _n._ 3 Abu Rabah, resort of childless wives in Palestine, i. 78, 79 Abydos, head of Osiris at, ii. 11; the favourite burial-place of the Egyptians, 18 _sq._; specially associated with Osiris, 18, 197; tombs of the ancient Egyptian kings at, 19; the ritual of, 86; hall of the Osirian mysteries at, 108; representations of the Sed festival at, 151; inscriptions at, 153; temple of Osiris at, 198 Acacia, Osiris in the, ii. 111 Achaia, subject to earthquakes, i. 202 Acharaca, cave of Pluto at, i. 205 _sq._ Acilisena, temple of Anaitis at, i. 38 Adad, Syrian king, i. 15; Babylonian and Assyrian god of thunder and lightning, 163 Adana in Cilicia, i. 169 _n._ 3 Addison, Joseph, on the grotto _dei cani_ at Naples, i. 205 _n._ 1 Adhar, a Persian month, ii. 68 Adom-melech or Uri-melech, king of Byblus, i. 14, 17 _Adon_, a Semitic title, i. 6 _sq._, 16 _sq._, 20, 49 _n._ 7 Adonai, title of Jehovah, i. 6 _sq._ Adoni, “my lord,” Semitic title, i. 7; names compounded with, 17 Adoni-bezek, king of Jerusalem, i. 17 Adoni-jah, elder brother of King Solomon, i. 51 _n._ 2 Adoni-zedek, king of Jerusalem, i. 17