Retitled 'Medicine Men of Civilisation' in collected editions of the series.
Dickens had expressed exasperation with the resurgence of popular support for the concept of 'the noble savage' in an article in HW of the same name (see Vol. 3 of the Dent edition of Dickens's Journalism, Item 19) but the present article, and others, display a considerable interest in the customs and rituals of aboriginal peoples in Asia, Australasia, Africa and the Americas, together with a tendency—central to the present paper—to instigate comparisons with the forms and ceremonies of so-called 'civilised' societies (i.e. the European) that are flattering to neither category (see, for example, Vol. 2 of the Dent edition, Item 25).
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