{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_14080/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_14080","id":"gutenberg_14080","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14080","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Archaeology & Anthropology","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Folklore","Manners and customs","Mythology","Religion"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1884 Longmans, Green and Co. edition by David Price,\nemail ccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\n\nCUSTOM AND MYTH\n\n\nTo E. B. Tylor, author of 'Primitive Culture,' these studies of the\noldest stories are dedicated.\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\n\nThough some of the essays in this volume have appeared in various\nserials, the majority of them were written expressly for their present\npurpose, and they are now arranged in a designed order.  During some\nyears of study of Greek, Indian, and savage mythologies, I have become\nmore and more impressed with a sense of the inadequacy of the prevalent\nmethod of comparative mythology.  That method is based on the belief that\nmyths are the result of a disease of language, as the pearl is the result\nof a disease of the oyster.  It is argued that men at some period, or\nperiods, spoke in a singular style of coloured and concrete language, and\nthat their children retained the phrases of this language after losing\nhold of the original meaning.  The consequence was the growth of myths\nabout supposed persons, whose names had originally been mere\n'appellations.'  In conformity with this hypothesis the method of\ncomparative mythology examines the proper names which occur in myths.  The\nnotion is that these names contain a key to the meaning of the story, and\nthat, in fact, of the story the names are the germs and the oldest\nsurviving part.\n\nThe objections to this method are so numerous that it is difficult to\nstate them briefly.  The attempt, however, must be made.  To desert the\npath opened by the most eminent scholars is in itself presumptuous; the\nleast that an innovator can do is to give his reasons for advancing in a\nnovel direction.  If this were a question of scholarship merely, it would\nbe simply foolhardy to differ from men like Max Muller, Adalbert Kuhn,\nBreal, and many others.  But a revolutionary mythologist is encouraged by\nfinding that these scholars usually differ from each other.  Examples\nwill be found chiefly in the essays styled 'The Myth of Cronus,' 'A Far-\ntravelled Tale,' and 'Cupid and Psyche.'  Why, then, do distinguished\nscholars and mythologists reach such different goals?  Clearly because\ntheir method is so precarious.  They all analyse the names in myths; but,\nwhere one scholar decides that the name is originally Sanskrit, another\nholds that it is purely Greek, and a third, perhaps, is all for an\nAccadian etymology, or a Semitic derivation.  Again, even when scholars\nagree as to the original root from which a name springs, they differ as\nmuch as ever as to the meaning of the name in its present place.  The\ninference is, that the analysis of names, on which the whole edifice of\nphilological 'comparative mythology' rests, is a foundation of shifting\nsand.  The method is called 'orthodox,' but, among those who practise it,\nthere is none of the beautiful unanimity of orthodoxy.\n\nThese objections are not made by the unscholarly anthropologist alone.\nCurtius has especially remarked the difficulties which beset the\n'etymological operation' in the case of proper names.  'Peculiarly\ndubious and perilous is mythological etymology.  Are we to seek the\nsources of the divine names in aspects of nature, or in moral\nconceptions; in special Greek geographical conditions, or in natural\ncircumstances which are everywhere the same: in dawn with her rays, or in\nclouds with their floods; are we to seek the origin of the names of\nheroes in things historical and human, or in physical phenomena?' {3a}\nProfessor Tiele, of Leyden, says much the same thing: 'The uncertainties\nare great, and there is a constant risk of taking mere jeux d'esprit for\nscientific results.' {3b}  Every name has, if we can discover or\nconjecture it, a meaning.  That meaning--be it 'large' or 'small,' 'loud'\nor 'bright,' 'wise' or 'dark,' 'swift' or 'slow'--is always capable of\nbeing explained as an epithet of the sun, or of the cloud, or of both.\nWhatever, then, a name may signify, some scholars will find that it\noriginally denoted the cloud, if they belong to one school, or the sun or\ndawn, if they belong to another faction.  Obviously this process is a\nmere jeu d'esprit.  This logic would be admitted in no other science,\nand, by similar arguments, any name whatever might be shown to be\nappropriate to a solar hero.\n\nThe scholarly method has now been applied for many years, and what are\nthe results?  The ideas attained by the method have been so popularised\nthat they are actually made to enter into the education of children, and\nare published in primers and catechisms of mythology.  But what has a\ndiscreet scholar to say to the whole business?  'The difficult task of\ninterpreting mythical names has, so far, produced few certain results'--so\nwrites Otto Schrader. {4} Though Schrader still has hopes of better\nthings, it is admitted that the present results are highly disputable.  In\nEngland, where one set of these results has become an article of faith,\nreaders chiefly accept the opinions of a single etymological school, and\nthus escape the difficulty of making up their minds when scholars differ.\nBut differ scholars do, so widely and so often, that scarcely any solid\nadvantages have been gained in mythology from the philological method.\n\nThe method of philological mythology is thus discredited by the disputes\nof its adherents.  The system may be called orthodox, but it is an\northodoxy which alters with every new scholar who enters the sacred\nenclosure.  Even were there more harmony, the analysis of names could\nthrow little light on myths.  In stories the names may well be, and often\ndemonstrably are, the latest, not the original, feature.  Tales, at first\ntold of 'Somebody,' get new names attached to them, and obtain a new\nlocal habitation, wherever they wander.  'One of the leading personages\nto be met in the traditions of the world is really no more than--Somebody.\nThere is nothing this wondrous creature cannot achieve; one only\nrestriction binds him at all--that the name he assumes shall have some\nsort of congruity with the office he undertakes, _and even from this he\noftentimes breaks loose_.' {5}  We may be pretty sure that the adventures\nof Jason, Perseus, OEdipous, were originally told only of 'Somebody.'  The\nnames are later additions, and vary in various lands.  A glance at the\nessay on 'Cupid and Psyche' will show that a history like theirs is\nknown, where neither they nor their counterparts in the Veda, Urvasi and\nPururavas, were ever heard of; while the incidents of the Jason legend\nare familiar where no Greek word was ever spoken.  Finally, the names in\ncommon use among savages are usually derived from natural phenomena,\noften from clouds, sky, sun, dawn.  If, then, a name in a myth can be\nproved to mean cloud, sky, sun, or what not (and usually one set of\nscholars find clouds, where others see the dawn), we must not instantly\ninfer that the myth is a nature-myth.  Though, doubtless, the heroes in\nit were never real people, the names are as much common names of real\npeople in the savage state, as Smith and Brown are names of civilised\nmen.\n\nFor all these reasons, but chiefly because of the fact that stories are\nusually anonymous at first, that names are added later, and that stories\nnaturally crystallise round any famous name, heroic, divine, or human,\nthe process of analysis of names is most precarious and untrustworthy.  A\nstory is told of Zeus: Zeus means sky, and the story is interpreted by\nscholars as a sky myth.  The modern interpreter forgets, first, that to\nthe myth-maker sky did not at all mean the same thing as it means to him.\nSky meant, not an airy, infinite, radiant vault, but a person, and, most\nlikely, a savage person.  Secondly, the interpreter forgets that the tale\n(say the tale of Zeus, Demeter, and the mutilated Ram) may have been\noriginally anonymous, and only later attributed to Zeus, as unclaimed\njests are attributed to Sheridan or Talleyrand.  Consequently no heavenly\nphenomena will be the basis and explanation of the story.  If one thing\nin mythology be certain, it is that myths are always changing masters,\nthat the old tales are always being told with new names.  Where, for\nexample, is the value of a philological analysis of the name of Jason?  As\nwill be seen in the essay 'A Far-travelled Tale,' the analysis of the\nname of Jason is fanciful, precarious, disputed, while the essence of his\nmyth is current in Samoa, Finland, North America, Madagascar, and other\nlands, where the name was never heard, and where the characters in the\nstory have other names or are anonymous.\n\nFor these reasons, and others too many to be adduced here, I have\nventured to differ from the current opinion that myths must be\ninterpreted chiefly by philological analysis of names.  The system\nadopted here is explained in the first essay, called 'The Method of\nFolklore.'  The name, Folklore, is not a good one, but 'comparative\nmythology' is usually claimed exclusively by the philological\ninterpreters.\n\nThe second essay, 'The Bull-Roarer,' is intended to show that certain\npeculiarities in the Greek mysteries occur also in the mysteries of\nsavages, and that on Greek soil they are survivals of savagery.\n\n'The Myth of Cronus' tries to prove that the first part of the legend is\na savage nature-myth, surviving in Greek religion, while the sequel is a\nset of ideas common to savages.\n\n'Cupid and Psyche' traces another Aryan myth among savage races, and\nattempts to show that the myth may have had its origin in a rule of\nbarbarous etiquette.\n\n'A Far-travelled Tale' examines a part of the Jason myth.  This myth\nappears neither to be an explanation of natural phenomena (like part of\nthe Myth of Cronus), nor based on a widespread custom (like Cupid and\nPsyche.)  The question is asked whether the story may have been diffused\nby slow filtration from race to race all over the globe, as there seems\nno reason why it should have been invented separately (as a myth\nexplanatory of natural phenomena or of customs might be) in many\ndifferent places.\n\n'Apollo and the Mouse' suggests hypothetically, as a possible explanation\nof the tie between the God and the Beast, that Apollo-worship superseded,\nbut did not eradicate, Totemism.  The suggestion is little more than a\nconjecture.\n\n'Star Myths' points out that Greek myths of stars are a survival from the\nsavage stage of fancy in which such stories are natural.\n\n'Moly and Mandragora' is a study of the Greek, the modern, and the\nHottentot folklore of magical herbs, with a criticism of a scholarly and\nphilological hypothesis, according to which Moly is the dog-star, and\nCirce the moon.\n\n'The Kalevala' is an account of the Finnish national poem; of all poems\nthat in which the popular, as opposed to the artistic, spirit is\nstrongest.  The Kalevala is thus a link between Marchen and Volkslieder\non one side, and epic poetry on the other.\n\n'The Divining Rod' is a study of a European and civilised superstition,\nwhich is singular in its comparative lack of copious savage analogues.\n\n'Hottentot Mythology' is a criticism of the philological method, applied\nto savage myth.\n\n'Fetichism and the Infinite,' is a review of Mr. Max Muller's theory that\na sense of the Infinite is the germ of religion, and that Fetichism is\nsecondary, and a corruption.  This essay also contains a defence of the\n_evidence_ on which the anthropological method relies.\n\nThe remaining essays are studies of the 'History of the Family,' and of\n'Savage Art.'\n\nThe essay on 'Savage Art' is reprinted, by the kind permission of Messrs.\nCassell & Co., from two numbers (April and May, 1882) of the Magazine of\nArt.  I have to thank the editors and publishers of the Contemporary\nReview, the Cornhill Magazine, and Fraser's Magazine, for leave to\nrepublish 'The Early History of the Family,' 'The Divining Rod,' and\n'Star Myths,' and 'The Kalevala.'  A few sentences in 'The Bull-Roarer,'\nand 'Hottentot Mythology,' appeared in essays in the Saturday Review, and\nsome lines of 'The Method of Folklore' in the Guardian.  To the editors\nof those journals also I owe thanks for their courteous permission to\nmake this use of my old articles.\n\nTo Mr. E. B. Tylor and Mr. W. R. S. Ralston I must express my gratitude\nfor the kindness with which they have always helped me in all\ndifficulties.\n\nI must apologise for the controversial matter in the volume.  Controversy\nis always a thing to be avoided, but, in this particular case, when a\nsystem opposed to the prevalent method has to be advocated, controversy\nis unavoidable.  My respect for the learning of my distinguished\nadversaries is none the less great because I am not convinced by their\nlogic, and because my doubts are excited by their differences.\n\nPerhaps, it should be added, that these essays are, so to speak, only\nflint-flakes from a neolithic workshop.  This little book merely\nskirmishes (to change the metaphor) in front of a much more methodical\nattempt to vindicate the anthropological interpretation of myths.  But\nlack of leisure and other causes make it probable that my 'Key to All\nMythologies' will go the way of Mr. Casaubon's treatise.\n\n\n\n\nTHE METHOD OF FOLKLORE.\n\n\nAfter the heavy rain of a thunderstorm has washed the soil, it sometimes\nhappens that a child, or a rustic, finds a wedge-shaped piece of metal or\na few triangular flints in a field or near a road.  There was no such\npiece of metal, there were no such flints, lying there yesterday, and the\nfinder is puzzled about the origin of the objects on which he has\nlighted.  He carries them home, and the village wisdom determines that\nthe wedge-shaped piece of metal is a 'thunderbolt,' or that the bits of\nflint are 'elf-shots,' the heads of fairy arrows.  Such things are still\ntreasured in remote nooks of England, and the 'thunderbolt' is applied to\ncure certain maladies by its touch.\n\nAs for the fairy arrows, we know that even in ancient Etruria they were\nlooked on as magical, for we sometimes see their points set, as amulets,\nin the gold of Etruscan necklaces.  In Perugia the arrowheads are still\nsold as charms.  All educated people, of course, have long been aware\nthat the metal wedge is a celt, or ancient bronze axe-head, and that it\nwas not fairies, but the forgotten peoples of this island who used the\narrows with the tips of flint.  Thunder is only so far connected with\nthem that the heavy rains loosen the surface soil, and lay bare its long\nhidden secrets.\n\nThere is a science, Archaeology, which collects and compares the material\nrelics of old races, the axes and arrow-heads.  There is a form of study,\nFolklore, which collects and compares the similar but immaterial relics\nof old races, the surviving superstitions and stories, the ideas which\nare in our time but not of it.  Properly speaking, folklore is only\nconcerned with the legends, customs, beliefs, of the Folk, of the people,\nof the classes which have least been altered by education, which have\nshared least in progress.  But the student of folklore soon finds that\nthese unprogressive classes retain many of the beliefs and ways of\nsavages, just as the Hebridean people use spindle-whorls of stone, and\nbake clay pots without the aid of the wheel, like modern South Sea\nIslanders, or like their own prehistoric ancestors. {11a}  The student of\nfolklore is thus led to examine the usages, myths, and ideas of savages,\nwhich are still retained, in rude enough shape, by the European\npeasantry.  Lastly, he observes that a few similar customs and ideas\nsurvive in the most conservative elements of the life of educated\npeoples, in ritual, ceremonial, and religious traditions and myths.\nThough such remains are rare in England, we may note the custom of\nleading the dead soldier's horse behind his master to the grave, a relic\nof days when the horse would have been sacrificed. {11b}  We may observe\nthe persistence of the ceremony by which the monarch, at his coronation,\ntakes his seat on the sacred stone of Scone, probably an ancient fetich\nstone.  Not to speak, here, of our own religious traditions, the old vein\nof savage rite and belief is found very near the surface of ancient Greek\nreligion.  It needs but some stress of circumstance, something answering\nto the storm shower that reveals the flint arrow-heads, to bring savage\nritual to the surface of classical religion.  In sore need, a human\nvictim was only too likely to be demanded; while a feast-day, or a\nmystery, set the Greeks dancing serpent-dances or bear-dances like Red\nIndians, or swimming with sacred pigs, or leaping about in imitation of\nwolves, or holding a dog-feast, and offering dog's flesh to the gods.\n{12}  Thus the student of folklore soon finds that he must enlarge his\nfield, and examine, not only popular European story and practice, but\nsavage ways and ideas, and the myths and usages of the educated classes\nin civilised races.  In this extended sense the term 'folklore' will\nfrequently be used in the following essays.  The idea of the writer is\nthat mythology cannot fruitfully be studied apart from folklore, while\nsome knowledge of anthropology is required in both sciences.\n\nThe science of Folklore, if we may call it a science, finds everywhere,\nclose to the surface of civilised life, the remains of ideas as old as\nthe stone elf-shots, older than the celt of bronze.  In proverbs and\nriddles, and nursery tales and superstitions, we detect the relics of a\nstage of thought, which is dying out in Europe, but which still exists in\nmany parts of the world.  Now, just as the flint arrow-heads are\nscattered everywhere, in all the continents and isles, and everywhere are\nmuch alike, and bear no very definite marks of the special influence of\nrace, so it is with the habits and legends investigated by the student of\nfolklore.  The stone arrow-head buried in a Scottish cairn is like those\nwhich were interred with Algonquin chiefs.  The flints found in Egyptian\nsoil, or beside the tumulus on the plain of Marathon, nearly resemble the\nstones which tip the reed arrow of the modern Samoyed.  Perhaps only a\nskilled experience could discern, in a heap of such arrow-heads, the\nspecimens which are found in America or Africa from those which are\nunearthed in Europe.  Even in the products of more advanced industry, we\nsee early pottery, for example, so closely alike everywhere that, in the\nBritish Museum, Mexican vases have, ere now, been mixed up on the same\nshelf with archaic vessels from Greece.  In the same way, if a\nsuperstition or a riddle were offered to a student of folklore, he would\nhave much difficulty in guessing its _provenance_, and naming the race\nfrom which it was brought.  Suppose you tell a folklorist that, in a\ncertain country, when anyone sneezes, people say 'Good luck to you,' the\nstudent cannot say a priori what country you refer to, what race you have\nin your thoughts.  It may be Florida, as Florida was when first\ndiscovered; it may be Zululand, or West Africa, or ancient Rome, or\nHomeric Greece, or Palestine.  In all these, and many other regions, the\nsneeze was welcomed as an auspicious omen.  The little superstition is as\nwidely distributed as the flint arrow-heads.  Just as the object and use\nof the arrow-heads became intelligible when we found similar weapons in\nactual use among savages, so the salutation to the sneezer becomes\nintelligible when we learn that the savage has a good reason for it.  He\nthinks the sneeze expels an evil spirit.  Proverbs, again, and riddles\nare as universally scattered, and the Wolufs puzzle over the same\ndevinettes as the Scotch schoolboy or the Breton peasant.  Thus, for\ninstance, the Wolufs of Senegal ask each other, 'What flies for ever, and\nrests never?'--Answer, 'The Wind.'  'Who are the comrades that always\nfight, and never hurt each other?'--'The Teeth.'  In France, as we read\nin the 'Recueil de Calembours,' the people ask, 'What runs faster than a\nhorse, crosses water, and is not wet?'--Answer, 'The Sun.'  The Samoans\nput the riddle, 'A man who stands between two ravenous fishes?'--Answer,\n'The tongue between the teeth.'  Again, 'There are twenty brothers, each\nwith a hat on his head?'--Answer, 'Fingers and toes, with nails for\nhats.'  This is like the French 'un pere a douze fils?'--'l'an.'  A\ncomparison of M. Rolland's 'Devinettes' with the Woluf conundrums of\nBoilat, the Samoan examples in Turner's' Samoa,' and the Scotch enigmas\ncollected by Chambers, will show the identity of peasant and savage\nhumour.\n\nA few examples, less generally known, may be given to prove that the\nbeliefs of folklore are not peculiar to any one race or stock of men.  The\nfirst case is remarkable: it occurs in Mexico and Ceylon--nor are we\naware that it is found elsewhere.  In Macmillan's Magazine {15} is\npublished a paper by Mrs. Edwards, called 'The Mystery of the Pezazi.'\nThe events described in this narrative occurred on August 28, 1876, in a\nbungalow some thirty miles from Badiella.  The narrator occupied a new\nhouse on an estate called Allagalla.  Her native servants soon asserted\nthat the place was haunted by a Pezazi.  The English visitors saw and\nheard nothing extraordinary till a certain night: an abridged account of\nwhat happened then may be given in the words of Mrs. Edwards:--\n\n   Wrapped in dreams, I lay on the night in question tranquilly sleeping,\n   but gradually roused to a perception that discordant sounds disturbed\n   the serenity of my slumber.  Loth to stir, I still dozed on, the\n   sounds, however, becoming, as it seemed, more determined to make\n   themselves heard; and I awoke to the consciousness that they proceeded\n   from a belt of adjacent jungle, and resembled the noise that would be\n   produced by some person felling timber.\n\n   Shutting my ears to the disturbance, I made no sign, until, with an\n   expression of impatience, E--- suddenly started up, when I laid a\n   detaining grasp upon his arm, murmuring that there was no need to\n   think of rising at present--it must be quite early, and the kitchen\n   cooly was doubtless cutting fire-wood in good time.  E--- responded,\n   in a tone of slight contempt, that no one could be cutting fire-wood\n   at that hour, and the sounds were more suggestive of felling jungle;\n   and he then inquired how long I had been listening to them.  Now\n   thoroughly aroused, I replied that I had heard the sounds for some\n   time, at first confusing them with my dreams, but soon sufficiently\n   awakening to the fact that they were no mere phantoms of my\n   imagination, but a reality.  During our conversation the noises became\n   more distinct and loud; blow after blow resounded, as of the axe\n   descending upon the tree, followed by the crash of the falling timber.\n   Renewed blows announced the repetition of the operations on another\n   tree, and continued till several were devastated.\n\nIt is unnecessary to tell more of the tale.  In spite of minute\nexaminations and close search, no solution of the mystery of the noises,\non this or any other occasion, was ever found.  The natives, of course,\nattributed the disturbance to the Pezazi, or goblin.  No one, perhaps,\nhas asserted that the Aztecs were connected by ties of race with the\npeople of Ceylon.  Yet, when the Spaniards conquered Mexico, and when\nSahagun (one of the earliest missionaries) collected the legends of the\npeople, he found them, like the Cingalese, strong believers in the mystic\ntree-felling.  We translate Sahagun's account of the 'midnight axe':--\n\n   When so any man heareth the sound of strokes in the night, as if one\n   were felling trees, he reckons it an evil boding.  And this sound they\n   call youaltepuztli (youalli, night; and tepuztli, copper), which\n   signifies 'the midnight hatchet.'  This noise cometh about the time of\n   the first sleep, when all men slumber soundly, and the night is still.\n   The sound of strokes smitten was first noted by the temple-servants,\n   called tlamacazque, at the hour when they go in the night to make\n   their offering of reeds or of boughs of pine, for so was their custom,\n   and this penance they did on the neighbouring hills, and that when the\n   night was far spent.  Whenever they heard such a sound as one makes\n   when he splits wood with an axe (a noise that may be heard afar off),\n   they drew thence an omen of evil, and were afraid, and said that the\n   sounds were part of the witchery of Tezeatlipoca, that often thus\n   dismayeth men who journey in the night.  Now, when tidings of these\n   things came to a certain brave man, one exercised in war, he drew\n   near, being guided by the sound, till he came to the very cause of the\n   hubbub.  And when he came upon it, with difficulty he caught it, for\n   the thing was hard to catch: natheless at last he overtook that which\n   ran before him; and behold, it was a man without a heart, and, on\n   either side of the chest, two holes that opened and shut, and so made\n   the noise.  Then the man put his hand within the breast of the figure\n   and grasped the breast and shook it hard, demanding some grace or\n   gift.\n\nAs a rule, the grace demanded was power to make captives in war.  The\ncurious coincidence of the 'midnight axe,' occurring in lands so remote\nas Ceylon and Mexico, and the singular attestation by an English lady of\nthe actual existence of the disturbance, makes this youaltepuztli one of\nthe quaintest things in the province of the folklorist.  But, whatever\nthe cause of the noise, or of the beliefs connected with the noise, may\nbe, no one would explain them as the result of community of _race_\nbetween Cingalese and Aztecs.  Nor would this explanation be offered to\naccount for the Aztec and English belief that the creaking of furniture\nis an omen of death in a house.  Obviously, these opinions are the\nexpression of a common state of superstitious fancy, not the signs of an\noriginal community of origin.\n\nLet us take another piece of folklore.  All North-country English folk\nknow the Kernababy.  The custom of the 'Kernababy' is commonly observed\nin England, or, at all events, in Scotland, where the writer has seen\nmany a kernababy.  The last gleanings of the last field are bound up in a\nrude imitation of the human shape, and dressed in some tag-rags of\nfinery.  The usage has fallen into the conservative hands of children,\nbut of old 'the Maiden' was a regular image of the harvest goddess,\nwhich, with a sickle and sheaves in her arms, attended by a crowd of\nreapers, and accompanied with music, followed the last carts home to the\nfarm. {18}  It is odd enough that the 'Maiden' should exactly translate\n[Greek], the old Sicilian name of the daughter of Demeter.  'The Maiden'\nhas dwindled, then, among us to the rudimentary kernababy; but ancient\nPeru had her own Maiden, her Harvest Goddess.  Here it is easy to trace\nthe natural idea at the basis of the superstitious practice which links\nthe shores of the Pacific with our own northern coast.  Just as a portion\nof the yule-log and of the Christmas bread were kept all the year\nthrough, a kind of nest-egg of plenteous food and fire, so the kernababy,\nEnglish or Peruvian, is an earnest that corn will not fail all through\nthe year, till next harvest comes.  For this reason the kernababy used to\nbe treasured from autumn's end to autumn's end, though now it commonly\ndisappears very soon after the harvest home.  It is thus that Acosta\ndescribes, in Grimston's old translation (1604), the Peruvian kernababy\nand the Peruvian harvest home:--\n\n   This feast is made comming from the chacra or farme unto the house,\n   saying certaine songs, and praying that the Mays (maize) may long\n   continue, the which they call Mama cora.\n\nWhat a chance this word offers to etymologists of the old school: how\npromptly they would recognise, in mama mother--[Greek], and in\ncora--[Greek], the Mother and the Maiden, the feast of Demeter and\nPersephone!  However, the days of that old school of antiquarianism are\nnumbered.  To return to the Peruvian harvest home:--\n\n   They take a certaine portion of the most fruitefull of the Mays that\n   growes in their farmes, the which they put in a certaine granary which\n   they do calle Pirua, with certaine ceremonies, watching three nightes;\n   they put this Mays in the richest garments they have, and, being thus\n   wrapped and dressed, they worship this Pirua, and hold it in great\n   veneration, saying it is the Mother of the Mays of their inheritances,\n   and that by this means the Mays augments and is preserved.  In this\n   moneth they make a particular sacrifice, and the witches demand of\n   this Pirua, 'if it hath strength sufficient to continue until the next\n   yeare,' and if it answers 'no,' then they carry this Mays to the farme\n   to burne, whence they brought it, according to every man's power, then\n   they make another Pirua, with the same ceremonies, saying that they\n   renue it, to the ende that the seede of the Mays may not perish.\n\nThe idea that the maize can speak need not surprise us; the Mexican held\nmuch the same belief, according to Sahagun:--\n\n   It was thought that if some grains of maize fell on the ground, he who\n   saw them lying there was bound to lift them, wherein, if he failed, he\n   harmed the maize, which plained itself of him to God, saying, 'Lord,\n   punish this man, who saw me fallen and raised me not again; punish him\n   with famine, that he may learn not to hold me in dishonour.'\n\nWell, in all this affair of the Scotch kernababy, and the Peruvian Mama\ncora, we need no explanation beyond the common simple ideas of human\nnature.  We are not obliged to hold, either that the Peruvians and Scotch\nare akin by blood, nor that, at some forgotten time, they met each other,\nand borrowed each other's superstitions.  Again, when we find Odysseus\nsacrificing a black sheep to the dead, {20} and when we read that the\nOvahereroes in South Africa also appease with a black sheep the spirits\nof the departed, we do not feel it necessary to hint that the Ovahereroes\nare of Greek descent, or have borrowed their ritual from the Greeks.  The\nconnection between the colour black, and mourning for the dead, is\nnatural and almost universal.\n\nExamples like these might be adduced in any number.  We might show how,\nin magic, negroes of Barbadoes make clay effigies of their enemies, and\npierce them, just as Greeks did in Plato's time, or the men of Accad in\nremotest antiquity.  We might remark the Australian black putting sharp\nbits of quartz in the tracks of an enemy who has gone by, that the enemy\nmay be lamed; and we might point to Boris Godunof forbidding the same\npractice among the Russians.  We might watch Scotch, and Australians, and\nJews, and French, and Aztecs spreading dust round the body of a dead man,\nthat the footprints of his ghost, or of other ghosts, may be detected\nnext morning.  We might point to a similar device in a modern novel,\nwhere the presence of a ghost is suspected, as proof of the similar\nworkings of the Australian mind and of the mind of Mrs. Riddell.  We\nshall later turn to ancient Greece, and show how the serpent-dances, the\nhabit of smearing the body with clay, and other odd rites of the\nmysteries, were common to Hellenic religion, and to the religion of\nAfrican, Australian, and American tribes.\n\nNow, with regard to all these strange usages, what is the method of\nfolklore?  The method is, when an apparently irrational and anomalous\ncustom is found in any country, to look for a country where a similar\npractice is found, and where the practice is no longer irrational and\nanomalous, but in harmony with the manners and ideas of the people among\nwhom it prevails.  That Greeks should dance about in their mysteries with\nharmless serpents in their hands looks quite unintelligible.  When a wild\ntribe of Red Indians does the same thing, as a trial of courage, with\nreal rattlesnakes, we understand the Red Man's motives, and may\nconjecture that similar motives once existed among the ancestors of the\nGreeks.  Our method, then, is to compare the seemingly meaningless\ncustoms or manners of civilised races with the similar customs and\nmanners which exist among the uncivilised and still retain their meaning.\nIt is not necessary for comparison of this sort that the uncivilised and\nthe civilised race should be of the same stock, nor need we prove that\nthey were ever in contact with each other.  Similar conditions of mind\nproduce similar practices, apart from identity of race, or borrowing of\nideas and manners.\n\nLet us return to the example of the flint arrowheads.  Everywhere\nneolithic arrow-heads are pretty much alike.  The cause of the\nresemblance is no more than this, that men, with the same needs, the same\nmaterials, and the same rude instruments, everywhere produced the same\nkind of arrow-head.  No hypothesis of interchange of ideas nor of\ncommunity of race is needed to explain the resemblance of form in the\nmissiles.  Very early pottery in any region is, for the same causes, like\nvery early pottery in any other region.  The same sort of similarity was\nexplained by the same resemblances in human nature, when we touched on\nthe identity of magical practices and of superstitious beliefs.  This\nmethod is fairly well established and orthodox when we deal with usages\nand superstitious beliefs; but may we apply the same method when we deal\nwith myths?\n\nHere a difficulty occurs.  Mythologists, as a rule, are averse to the\nmethod of folklore.  They think it scientific to compare only the myths\nof races which speak languages of the same family, and of races which\nhave, in historic times, been actually in proved contact with each other.\nThus, most mythologists hold it correct to compare Greek, Slavonic,\nCeltic, and Indian stories, because Greeks, Slavs, Celts, and Hindoos all\nspeak languages of the same family.  Again, they hold it correct to\ncompare Chaldaean and Greek myths, because the Greeks and the Chaldaeans\nwere brought into contact through the Phoenicians, and by other\nintermediaries, such as the Hittites.  But the same mythologists will vow\nthat it is unscientific to compare a Maori or a Hottentot or an Eskimo\nmyth with an Aryan story, because Maoris and Eskimo and Hottentots do not\nspeak languages akin to that of Greece, nor can we show that the\nancestors of Greeks, Maoris, Hottentots, and Eskimo were ever in contact\nwith each other in historical times.\n\nNow the peculiarity of the method of folklore is that it will venture to\ncompare (with due caution and due examination of evidence) the myths of\nthe most widely severed races.  Holding that myth is a product of the\nearly human fancy, working on the most rudimentary knowledge of the outer\nworld, the student of folklore thinks that differences of race do not\nmuch affect the early mythopoeic faculty.  He will not be surprised if\nGreeks and Australian blacks are in the same tale.\n\nIn each case, he holds, all the circumstances of the case must be\nexamined and considered.  For instance, when the Australians tell a myth\nabout the Pleiades very like the Greek myth of the Pleiades, we must ask\na number of questions.  Is the Australian version authentic?  Can the\npeople who told it have heard it from a European?  If these questions are\nanswered so as to make it apparent that the Australian Pleiad myth is of\ngenuine native origin, we need not fly to the conclusion that the\nAustralians are a lost and forlorn branch of the Aryan race.  Two other\nhypotheses present themselves.  First, the human species is of unknown\nantiquity.  In the moderate allowance of 250,000 years, there is time for\nstories to have wandered all round the world, as the Aggry beads of\nAshanti have probably crossed the continent from Egypt, as the Asiatic\njade (if Asiatic it be) has arrived in Swiss lake-dwellings, as an\nAfrican trade-cowry is said to have been found in a Cornish barrow, as an\nIndian Ocean shell has been discovered in a prehistoric bone-cave in\nPoland.  This slow filtration of tales is not absolutely out of the\nquestion.  Two causes would especially help to transmit myths.  The first\nis slavery and slave-stealing, the second is the habit of capturing\nbrides from alien stocks, and the law which forbids marriage with a woman\nof a man's own family.  Slaves and captured brides would bring their\nnative legends among alien peoples.\n\nBut there is another possible way of explaining the resemblance (granting\nthat it is proved) of the Greek and Australian Pleiad myth.  The object\nof both myths is to account for the grouping and other phenomena of the\nconstellations.  May not similar explanatory stories have occurred to the\nancestors of the Australians, and to the ancestors of the Greeks, however\nremote their home, while they were still in the savage condition?  The\nbest way to investigate this point is to collect all known savage and\ncivilised stellar myths, and see what points they have in common.  If\nthey all agree in character, though the Greek tales are full of grace,\nwhile those of the Australians or Brazilians are rude enough, we may\nplausibly account for the similarity of myths, as we accounted for the\nsimilarity of flint arrow-heads.  The myths, like the arrow-heads,\nresemble each other because they were originally framed to meet the same\nneeds out of the same material.  In the case of the arrow-heads, the need\nwas for something hard, heavy, and sharp--the material was flint.  In the\ncase of the myths, the need was to explain certain phenomena--the\nmaterial (so to speak) was an early state of the human mind, to which all\nobjects seemed equally endowed with human personality, and to which no\nmetamorphosis appeared impossible.\n\nIn the following essays, then, the myths and customs of various peoples\nwill be compared, even when these peoples talk languages of alien\nfamilies, and have never (as far as history shows us) been in actual\ncontact.  Our method throughout will be to place the usage, or myth,\nwhich is unintelligible when found among a civilised race, beside the\nsimilar myth which is intelligible enough when it is found among savages.\nA mean term will be found in the folklore preserved by the\nnon-progressive classes in a progressive people.  This folklore\nrepresents, in the midst of a civilised race, the savage ideas out of\nwhich civilisation has been evolved.  The conclusion will usually be that\nthe fact which puzzles us by its presence in civilisation is a relic\nsurviving from the time when the ancestors of a civilised race were in\nthe state of savagery.  By this method it is not necessary that 'some\nsort of genealogy should be established' between the Australian and the\nGreek narrators of a similar myth, nor between the Greek and Australian\npossessors of a similar usage.  The hypothesis will be that the myth, or\nusage, is common to both races, not because of original community of\nstock, not because of contact and borrowing, but because the ancestors of\nthe Greeks passed through the savage intellectual condition in which we\nfind the Australians.\n\nThe questions may be asked, Has race nothing, then, to do with myth?  Do\npeoples never consciously borrow myths from each other?  The answer is,\nthat race has a great deal to do with the development of myth, if it be\nrace which confers on a people its national genius, and its capacity of\nbecoming civilised.  If race does this, then race affects, in the most\npowerful manner, the ultimate development of myth.  No one is likely to\nconfound a Homeric myth with a myth from the Edda, nor either with a myth\nfrom a Brahmana, though in all three cases the substance, the original\nset of ideas, may be much the same.  In all three you have\nanthropomorphic gods, capable of assuming animal shapes, tricky,\ncapricious, limited in many undivine ways, yet endowed with magical\npowers.  So far the mythical gods of Homer, of the Edda, of any of the\nBrahmanas, are on a level with each other, and not much above the gods of\nsavage mythology.  This stuff of myth is quod semper, quod ubique, quod\nab omnibus, and is the original gift of the savage intellect.  But the\nfinal treatment, the ultimate literary form of the myth, varies in each\nrace.  Homeric gods, like Red Indian, Thlinkeet, or Australian gods, can\nassume the shapes of birds.  But when we read, in Homer, of the arming of\nAthene, the hunting of Artemis, the vision of golden Aphrodite, the\napparition of Hermes, like a young man when the flower of youth is\nloveliest, then we recognise the effect of race upon myth, the effect of\nthe Greek genius at work on rude material.  Between the Olympians and a\nThlinkeet god there is all the difference that exists between the Demeter\nof Cnidos and an image from Easter Island.  Again, the Scandinavian gods,\nwhen their tricks are laid aside, when Odin is neither assuming the shape\nof worm nor of raven, have a martial dignity, a noble enduring spirit of\ntheir own.  Race comes out in that, as it does in the endless sacrifices,\nsoma drinking, magical austerities, and puerile follies of Vedic and\nBrahmanic gods, the deities of a people fallen early into its sacerdotage\nand priestly second childhood.  Thus race declares itself in the ultimate\nliterary form and character of mythology, while the common savage basis\nand stuff of myths may be clearly discerned in the horned, and cannibal,\nand shape-shifting, and adulterous gods of Greece, of India, of the\nNorth.  They all show their common savage origin, when the poet neglects\nFreya's command and tells of what the gods did 'in the morning of Time.'\n\nAs to borrowing, we have already shown that in prehistoric times there\nmust have been much transmission of myth.  The migrations of peoples, the\ntraffic in slaves, the law of exogamy, which always keeps bringing alien\nwomen into the families--all these things favoured the migration of myth.\nBut the process lies behind history: we can only guess at it, we can\nseldom trace a popular legend on its travels.  In the case of the\ncultivated ancient peoples, we know that they themselves believed they\nhad borrowed their religions from each other.  When the Greeks first\nfound the Egyptians practising mysteries like their own, they leaped to\nthe conclusion that their own rites had been imported from Egypt.  We,\nwho know that both Greek and Egyptian rites had many points in common\nwith those of Mandans, Zunis, Bushmen, Australians--people quite\nunconnected with Egypt--feel less confident about the hypothesis of\nborrowing.  We may, indeed, regard Adonis, and Zeus Bagaeus, and\nMelicertes, as importations from Phoenicia.  In later times, too, the\nGreeks, and still more the Romans, extended a free hospitality to alien\ngods and legends, to Serapis, Isis, the wilder Dionysiac revels, and so\nforth.  But this habit of borrowing was regarded with disfavour by pious\nconservatives, and was probably, in the width of its hospitality at\nleast, an innovation.  As Tiele remarks, we cannot derive Dionysus from\nthe Assyrian Daian nisi, 'judge of men,' a name of the solar god Samas,\nwithout ascertaining that the wine-god exercised judicial functions, and\nwas a god of the sun.  These derivations, 'shocking to common sense,' are\nto be distrusted as part of the intoxication of new learning.  Some\nAssyrian scholars actually derive Hades from Bit Edi or Bit Hadi--'though,\nunluckily,' says Tiele, 'there is no such word in the Assyrian text.'  On\nthe whole topic Tiele's essay {28} deserves to be consulted.  Granting,\nthen, that elements in the worship of Dionysus, Aphrodite, and other\ngods, may have been imported with the strange AEgypto-Assyrian vases and\njewels of the Sidonians, we still find the same basis of rude savage\nideas.  We may push back a god from Greece to Phoenicia, from Phoenicia\nto Accadia, but, at the end of the end, we reach a legend full of myths\nlike those which Bushmen tell by the camp-fire, Eskimo in their dark\nhuts, and Australians in the shade of the gunyeh--myths cruel, puerile,\nobscene, like the fancies of the savage myth-makers from which they\nsprang.\n\n\n\n\nTHE BULL-ROARER.\nA Study of the Mysteries.\n\n\nAs the belated traveller makes his way through the monotonous plains of\nAustralia, through the Bush, with its level expanses and clumps of grey-\nblue gum trees, he occasionally hears a singular sound.  Beginning low,\nwith a kind of sharp tone thrilling through a whirring noise, it grows\nlouder and louder, till it becomes a sort of fluttering windy roar.  If\nthe traveller be a new comer, he is probably puzzled to the last degree.\nIf he be an Englishman, country-bred, he says to himself, 'Why, that is\nthe bull-roarer.'  If he knows the colony and the ways of the natives, he\nknows that the blacks are celebrating their tribal mysteries.  The\nroaring noise is made to warn all women to keep out of the way.  Just as\nPentheus was killed (with the approval of Theocritus) because he profaned\nthe rites of the women-worshippers of Dionysus, so, among the Australian\nblacks, men must, at their peril, keep out of the way of female, and\nwomen out of the way of male, celebrations.\n\nThe instrument which produces the sounds that warn women to remain afar\nis a toy familiar to English country lads.  They call it the bull-roarer.\nThe common bull-roarer is an inexpensive toy which anyone can make.  I do\nnot, however, recommend it to families, for two reasons.  In the first\nplace, it produces a most horrible and unexampled din, which endears it\nto the very young, but renders it detested by persons of mature age.  In\nthe second place, the character of the toy is such that it will almost\ninfallibly break all that is fragile in the house where it is used, and\nwill probably put out the eyes of some of the inhabitants.  Having thus,\nI trust, said enough to prevent all good boys from inflicting\nbull-roarers on their parents, pastors, and masters, I proceed (in the\ninterests of science) to show how the toy is made.  Nothing can be less\nelaborate.  You take a piece of the commonest wooden board, say the lid\nof a packing-case, about a sixth of an inch in thickness, and about eight\ninches long and three broad, and you sharpen the ends.  When finished,\nthe toy may be about the shape of a large bay-leaf, or a 'fish' used as a\ncounter (that is how the New Zealanders make it), or the sides may be\nleft plain in the centre, and only sharpened towards the extremities, as\nin an Australian example lent me by Mr. Tylor.  Then tie a strong piece\nof string, about thirty inches long, to one end of the piece of wood and\nthe bull-roarer (the Australian natives call it turndun, and the Greeks\ncalled it [Greek]) is complete.  Now twist the end of the string tightly\nabout your finger, and whirl the bull-roarer rapidly round and round.  For\na few moments nothing will happen.  In a very interesting lecture\ndelivered at the Royal Institution, Mr. Tylor once exhibited a\nbull-roarer.  At first it did nothing particular when it was whirled\nround, and the audience began to fear that the experiment was like those\nchemical ones often exhibited at institutes in the country, which\ncontribute at most a disagreeable odour to the education of the populace.\nBut when the bull-roarer warmed to its work, it justified its name,\nproducing what may best be described as a mighty rushing noise, as if\nsome supernatural being 'fluttered and buzzed his wings with fearful\nroar.'  Grown-up people, of course, are satisfied with a very brief\nexperience of this din, but boys have always known the bull-roarer in\nEngland as one of the most efficient modes of making the hideous and\nunearthly noises in which it is the privilege of youth to delight.\n\nThe bull-roarer has, of all toys, the widest diffusion, and the most\nextraordinary history.  To study the bull-roarer is to take a lesson in\nfolklore.  The instrument is found among the most widely severed peoples,\nsavage and civilised, and is used in the celebration of savage and\ncivilised mysteries.  There are students who would found on this a\nhypothesis that the various races that use the bull-roarer all descend\nfrom the same stock.  But the bull roarer is introduced here for the very\npurpose of showing that similar minds, working with simple means towards\nsimilar ends, might evolve the bull-roarer and its mystic uses anywhere.\nThere is no need for a hypothesis of common origin, or of borrowing, to\naccount for this widely diffused sacred object.\n\nThe bull-roarer has been, and is, a sacred and magical instrument in many\nand widely separated lands.  It is found, always as a sacred instrument,\nemployed in religious mysteries, in New Mexico, in Australia, in New\nZealand, in ancient Greece, and in Africa; while, as we have seen, it is\na peasant-boy's plaything in England.  A number of questions are\nnaturally suggested by the bull-roarer.  Is it a thing invented once for\nall, and carried abroad over the world by wandering races, or handed on\nfrom one people and tribe to another?  Or is the bull-roarer a toy that\nmight be accidentally hit on in any country where men can sharpen wood\nand twist the sinews of animals into string?  Was the thing originally a\ntoy, and is its religious and mystical nature later; or was it originally\none of the properties of the priest, or medicine-man, which in England\nhas dwindled to a plaything?  Lastly, was this mystical instrument at\nfirst employed in the rites of a civilised people like the Greeks, and\nwas it in some way borrowed or inherited by South Africans, Australians,\nand New Mexicans?  Or is it a mere savage invention, surviving (like\ncertain other features of the Greek mysteries) from a distant stage of\nsavagery?  Our answer to all these questions is that in all probability\nthe presence of the [Greek], or bull-roarer, in Greek mysteries was a\nsurvival from the time when Greeks were in the social condition of\nAustralians.\n\nIn the first place, the bull-roarer is associated with mysteries and\ninitiations.  Now mysteries and initiations are things that tend to\ndwindle and to lose their characteristic features as civilisation\nadvances.  The rites of baptism and confirmation are not secret and\nhidden; they are common to both sexes, they are publicly performed, and\nreligion and morality of the purest sort blend in these ceremonies.  There\nare no other initiations or mysteries that civilised modern man is\nexpected necessarily to pass through.  On the other hand, looking widely\nat human history, we find mystic rites and initiations numerous,\nstringent, severe, and magical in character, in proportion to the lack of\ncivilisation in those who practise them.  The less the civilisation, the\nmore mysterious and the more cruel are the rites.  The more cruel the\nrites, the less is the civilisation.  The red-hot poker with which Mr.\nBouncer terrified Mr. Verdant Green at the sham masonic rites would have\nbeen quite in place, a natural instrument of probationary torture, in the\nFreemasonry of Australians, Mandans, or Hottentots.  In the mysteries of\nDemeter or Bacchus, in the mysteries of a civilised people, the red-hot\npoker, or any other instrument of torture, would have been out of place.\nBut in the Greek mysteries, just as in those of South Africans, Red\nIndians, and Australians, the disgusting practice of bedaubing the\nneophyte with dirt and clay was preserved.  We have nothing quite like\nthat in modern initiations.  Except at Sparta, Greeks dropped the\ntortures inflicted on boys and girls in the initiations superintended by\nthe cruel Artemis. {33}  But Greek mysteries retained the daubing with\nmud and the use of the bull-roarer.  On the whole, then, and on a general\nview of the subject, we prefer to think that the bull-roarer in Greece\nwas a survival from savage mysteries, not that the bull-roarer in New\nMexico, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa is a relic of\ncivilisation.\n\nLet us next observe a remarkable peculiarity of the turndun, or\nAustralian bull-roarer.  The bull-roarer in England is a toy.  In\nAustralia, according to Howitt and Fison, {34} the bull-roarer is\nregarded with religious awe.  'When, on lately meeting with two of the\nsurviving Kurnai, I spoke to them of the turndun, they first looked\ncautiously round them to see that no one else was looking, and then\nanswered me in undertones.'  The chief peculiarity in connection with the\nturndun is that women may never look upon it.  The Chepara tribe, who\ncall it bribbun, have a custom that, 'if seen by a woman, or shown by a\nman to a woman, the punishment to both is _death_.'\n\nAmong the Kurnai, the sacred mystery of the turndun is preserved by a\nlegend, which gives a supernatural sanction to secrecy.  When boys go\nthrough the mystic ceremony of initiation they are shown turnduns, or\nbull-roarers, and made to listen to their hideous din.  They are then\ntold that, if ever a woman is allowed to see a turndun, the earth will\nopen, and water will cover the globe.  The old men point spears at the\nboy's eyes, saying: 'If you tell this to any woman you will die, you will\nsee the ground broken up and like the sea; if you tell this to any woman,\nor to any child, you will be killed!'  As in Athens, in Syria, and among\nthe Mandans, the deluge-tradition of Australia is connected with the\nmysteries.  In Gippsland there is a tradition of the deluge.  'Some\nchildren of the Kurnai in playing about found a turndun, which they took\nhome to the camp and showed the women.  Immediately the earth crumbled\naway, and it was all water, and the Kurnai were drowned.'\n\nIn consequence of all this mummery the Australian women attach great\nsacredness to the very name of the turndun.  They are much less\ninstructed in their own theology than the men of the tribe.  One woman\nbelieved she had heard Pundjel, the chief supernatural being, descend in\na mighty rushing noise, that is, in the sound of the turndun, when boys\nwere being 'made men,' or initiated. {35}  On turnduns the Australian\nsorcerers can fly up to heaven.  Turnduns carved with imitations of water-\nflowers are used by medicine-men in rain-making.  New Zealand also has\nher bull-roarers; some of them, carved in relief, are in the Christy\nMuseum, and one is engraved here.  I have no direct evidence as to the\nuse of these Maori bull-roarers in the Maori mysteries.  Their\nemployment, however, may perhaps be provisionally inferred.\n\nOne can readily believe that the New Zealand bull-roarer may be whirled\nby any man who is repeating a Karakia, or 'charm to raise the wind':--\n\n   Loud wind,\n   Lasting wind,\n   Violent whistling wind,\n   Dig up the calm reposing sky,\n      Come, come.\n\nIn New Zealand {36a} 'the natives regarded the wind as an indication of\nthe presence of their god,' a superstition not peculiar to Maori\nreligion.  The 'cold wind' felt blowing over the hands at spiritualistic\nseances is also regarded (by psychical researchers) as an indication of\nthe presence of supernatural beings.  The windy roaring noise made by the\nbull-roarer might readily be considered by savages, either as an\ninvitation to a god who should present himself in storm, or as a proof of\nhis being at hand.  We have seen that this view was actually taken by an\nAustralian woman.  The hymn called 'breath,' or haha, a hymn to the\nmystic wind, is pronounced by Maori priests at the moment of the\ninitiation of young men in the tribal mysteries.  It is a mere\nconjecture, and possibly enough capable of disproof, but we have a\nsuspicion that the use of the mystica vannus Iacchi was a mode of raising\na sacred wind analogous to that employed by whirlers of the turndun.\n{36b}\n\nServius, the ancient commentator on Virgil, mentions, among other\nopinions, this--that the vannus was a sieve, and that it symbolised the\npurifying effect of the mysteries.  But it is clear that Servius was only\nguessing; and he offers other explanations, among them that the vannus\nwas a crate to hold offerings, primitias frugum.\n\nWe have studied the bull-roarer in Australia, we have caught a glimpse of\nit in England.  Its existence on the American continent is proved by\nletters from New Mexico, and by a passage in Mr. Frank Cushing's\n'Adventures in Zuni.' {37}  In Zuni, too, among a semi-civilised Indian\ntribe, or rather a tribe which has left the savage for the barbaric\ncondition, we find the bull-roarer.  Here, too, the instrument--a 'slat,'\nMr. Gushing calls it--is used as a call to the ceremonial observance of\nthe tribal ritual.  The Zunis have various 'orders of a more or less\nsacred and sacerdotal character.'  Mr. Cushing writes:--\n\n   These orders were engaged in their annual ceremonials, of which little\n   was told or shown me; but, at the end of four days, I heard one\n   morning a _deep whirring noise_.  Running out, I saw a procession of\n   three priests of the bow, in plumed helmets and closely-fitting\n   cuirasses, both of thick buckskin--gorgeous and solemn with sacred\n   embroideries and war-paint, begirt with bows, arrows, and war-clubs,\n   and each distinguished by his badge of degree--coming down one of the\n   narrow streets.  The principal priest carried in his arms a wooden\n   idol, ferocious in aspect, yet beautiful with its decorations of\n   shell, turquoise, and brilliant paint.  It was nearly hidden by\n   symbolic slats and prayer-sticks most elaborately plumed.  He was\n   preceded by a guardian with drawn bow and arrows, while another\n   followed, _twirling the sounding slat_, which had attracted alike my\n   attention and that of hundreds of the Indians, who hurriedly flocked\n   to the roofs of the adjacent houses, or lined the street, bowing their\n   heads in adoration, and scattering sacred prayer-meal on the god and\n   his attendant priests.  Slowly they wound their way down the hill,\n   across the river, and off toward the mountain of Thunder.  Soon an\n   identical procession followed and took its way toward the western\n   hills.  I watched them long until they disappeared, and a few hours\n   afterward there arose from the top of 'Thunder Mountain' a dense\n   column of smoke, simultaneously with another from the more distant\n   western mesa of 'U-ha-na-mi,' or 'Mount of the Beloved.'\n\n   Then they told me that for four days I must neither touch nor eat\n   flesh or oil of any kind, and for ten days neither throw any refuse\n   from my doors, nor permit a spark to leave my house, for 'This was the\n   season of the year when the \"grandmother of men\" (fire) was precious.'\n\nHere then, in Zuni, we have the bull-roarer again, and once more we find\nit employed as a summons to the mysteries.  We do not learn, however,\nthat women in Zuni are forbidden to look upon the bull-roarer.  Finally,\nthe South African evidence, which is supplied by letters from a\ncorrespondent of Mr. Tylor's, proves that in South Africa, too, the bull-\nroarer is employed to call the men to the celebration of secret\nfunctions.  A minute description of the instrument, and of its magical\npower to raise a wind, is given in Theal's 'Kaffir Folklore,' p. 209.  The\nbull-roarer has not been made a subject of particular research; very\nprobably later investigations will find it in other parts of the modern\nworld besides America, Africa, New Zealand, and Australia.  I have myself\nbeen fortunate enough to encounter the bull-roarer on the soil of ancient\nGreece and in connection with the Dionysiac mysteries.  Clemens of\nAlexandria, and Arnobius, an early Christian father who follows Clemens,\ndescribe certain toys of the child Dionysus which were used in the\nmysteries.  Among these are _turbines_, [Greek], and [Greek].  The\nordinary dictionaries interpret all these as whipping-tops, adding that\n[Greek] is sometimes 'a magic wheel.'  The ancient scholiast on Clemens,\nhowever, writes: 'The [Greek] is a little piece of wood, to which a\nstring is fastened, and in the mysteries it is whirled round to make a\nroaring noise.' {39}  Here, in short, we have a brief but complete\ndescription of the bull-roarer of the Australian turndun.  No single\npoint is omitted.  The [Greek], like the turndun, is a small object of\nwood, it is tied to a string, when whirled round it produces a roaring\nnoise, and it is used at initiations.  This is not the end of the matter.\n\nIn the part of the Dionysiac mysteries at which the toys of the child\nDionysus were exhibited, and during which (as it seems) the [Greek], or\nbull-roarer, was whirred, the performers daubed themselves all over with\nclay.  This we learn from a passage in which Demosthenes describes the\nyouth of his hated adversary, AEschines.  The mother of AEschines, he\nsays, was a kind of 'wise woman,' and dabbler in mysteries.  AEschines\nused to aid her by bedaubing the initiate over with clay and bran. {40a}\nThe word [Greek], here used by Demosthenes, is explained by Harpocration\nas the ritual term for daubing the initiated.  A story was told, as\nusual, to explain this rite.  It was said that, when the Titans attacked\nDionysus and tore him to pieces, they painted themselves first with clay,\nor gypsum, that they might not be recognised.  Nonnus shows, in several\nplaces, that down to his time the celebrants of the Bacchic mysteries\nretained this dirty trick.  Precisely the same trick prevails in the\nmysteries of savage peoples.  Mr. Winwood Reade {40b} reports the\nevidence of Mongilomba.  When initiated, Mongilomba was 'severely flogged\nin the Fetich House' (as young Spartans were flogged before the animated\nimage of Artemis), and then he was 'plastered over with goat-dung.'  Among\nthe natives of Victoria, {40c} the 'body of the initiated is bedaubed\nwith clay, mud, charcoal powder, and filth of every kind.'  The girls are\nplastered with charcoal powder and white clay, answering to the Greek\ngypsum.  Similar daubings were performed at the mysteries by the Mandans,\nas described by Catlin; and the Zunis made raids on Mr. Cushing's black\npaint and Chinese ink for like purposes.  On the Congo, Mr. Johnson found\nprecisely the same ritual in the initiations.  Here, then, not to\nmultiply examples, we discover two singular features in common between\nGreek and savage mysteries.  Both Greeks and savages employ the\nbull-roarer, both bedaub the initiated with dirt or with white paint or\nchalk.  As to the meaning of the latter very un-Aryan practice, one has\nno idea.  It is only certain that war parties of Australian blacks bedaub\nthemselves with white clay to alarm their enemies in night attacks.  The\nPhocians, according to Herodotus (viii. 27), adopted the same 'aisy\nstratagem,' as Captain Costigan has it.  Tellies, the medicine-man\n([Greek]), chalked some sixty Phocians, whom he sent to make a night\nattack on the Thessalians.  The sentinels of the latter were seized with\nsupernatural horror, and fled, 'and after the sentinels went the army.'\nIn the same way, in a night attack among the Australian Kurnai, {41a}\n'they all rapidly painted themselves with pipe-clay: red ochre is no use,\nit cannot frighten an enemy.'  If, then, Greeks in the historic period\nkept up Australian tactics, it is probable that the ancient mysteries of\nGreece might retain the habit of daubing the initiated which occurs in\nsavage rites.\n\n'Come now,' as Herodotus would say, 'I will show once more that the\nmysteries of the Greeks resemble those of Bushmen.'  In Lucian's Treatise\non Dancing, {41b} we read, 'I pass over the fact that you cannot find a\nsingle ancient mystery in which there is not dancing. . . . To prove this\nI will not mention the secret acts of worship, on account of the\nuninitiated.  But this much all men know, that most people say of those\nwho reveal the mysteries, that they \"dance them out.\"'  Here Liddell and\nScott write, rather weakly, 'to dance out, let out, betray, probably of\nsome dance which burlesqued these ceremonies.'  It is extremely\nimprobable that, in an age when it was still forbidden to reveal the\n[Greek], or secret rites, those rites would be mocked in popular\nburlesques.  Lucian obviously intends to say that the matter of the\nmysteries was set forth in ballets d'action.  Now this is exactly the\ncase in the surviving mysteries of the Bushmen.  Shortly after the\nrebellion of Langalibalele's tribe, Mr. Orpen, the chief magistrate in\nSt. John's Territory, made the acquaintance of Qing, one of the last of\nan all but exterminated tribe.  Qing 'had never seen a white man, except\nfighting,' when he became Mr. Orpen's guide.  He gave a good deal of\ninformation about the myths of his people, but refused to answer certain\nquestions.  'You are now asking the secrets that are not spoken of.'  Mr.\nOrpen asked, 'Do you know the secrets?'  Qing replied, 'No, only the\ninitiated men of that dance know these things.'  To 'dance' this or that\nmeans, 'to be acquainted with this or that mystery;' the dances were\noriginally taught by Cagn, the mantis, or grasshopper god.  In many\nmysteries, Qing, as a young man, was not initiated.  He could not 'dance\nthem out.' {42}\n\nThere are thus undeniably close resemblances between the Greek mysteries\nand those of the lowest contemporary races.\n\nAs to the bull-roarer, its recurrence among Greeks, Zunis, Kamilaroi,\nMaoris, and South African races, would be regarded, by some students, as\na proof that all these tribes had a common origin, or had borrowed the\ninstrument from each other.  But this theory is quite unnecessary.  The\nbull-roarer is a very simple invention.  Anyone might find out that a bit\nof sharpened wood, tied to a string, makes, when whirred, a roaring\nnoise.  Supposing that discovery made, it is soon turned to practical\nuse.  All tribes have their mysteries.  All want a signal to summon the\nright persons together and warn the wrong persons to keep out of the way.\nThe church bell does as much for us, so did the shaken seistron for the\nEgyptians.  People with neither bells nor seistra find the bull-roarer,\nwith its mysterious sound, serve their turn.  The hiding of the\ninstrument from women is natural enough.  It merely makes the alarm and\nabsence of the curious sex doubly sure.  The stories of supernatural\nconsequences to follow if a woman sees the turndun lend a sanction.  This\nis not a random theory, without basis.  In Brazil, the natives have no\nbull-roarer, but they have mysteries, and the presence of the women at\nthe mysteries of the men is a terrible impiety.  To warn away the women,\nthe Brazilians make loud 'devil-music' on what are called 'jurupari\npipes.'  Now, just as in Australia, _the women may not see the jurupari\npipes on pain of death_.  When the sound of the jurupari pipes is heard,\nas when the turndun is heard in Australia, every woman flees and hides\nherself.  The women are always executed if they see the pipes.  Mr.\nAlfred Wallace bought a pair of these pipes, but he had to embark them at\na distance from the village where they were procured.  The seller was\nafraid that some unknown misfortune would occur if the women of his\nvillage set eyes on the juruparis. {44}\n\nThe conclusion from all these facts seems obvious.  The bull-roarer is an\ninstrument easily invented by savages, and easily adopted into the ritual\nof savage mysteries.  If we find the bull-roarer used in the mysteries of\nthe most civilised of ancient peoples, the most probable explanation is,\nthat the Greeks retained both the mysteries, the bull-roarer, the habit\nof bedaubing the initiate, the torturing of boys, the sacred obscenities,\nthe antics with serpents, the dances, and the like, from the time when\ntheir ancestors were in the savage condition.  That more refined and\nreligious ideas were afterwards introduced into the mysteries seems\ncertain, but the rites were, in many cases, simply savage.  Unintelligible\n(except as survivals) when found among Hellenes, they become intelligible\nenough among savages, because they correspond to the intellectual\ncondition and magical fancies of the lower barbarism.  The same sort of\ncomparison, the same kind of explanation, will account, as we shall see,\nfor the savage myths as well as for the savage customs which survived\namong the Greeks.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MYTH OF CRONUS.\n\n\nIn a Maori pah, when a little boy behaves rudely to his parents, he is\nsometimes warned that he is 'as bad as cruel Tutenganahau.'  If he asks\nwho Tutenganahau was, he is told the following story:--\n\n'In the beginning, the Heaven, Rangi, and the Earth, Papa, were the\nfather and mother of all things.  \"In these days the Heaven lay upon the\nEarth, and all was darkness.  They had never been separated.\"  Heaven and\nEarth had children, who grew up and lived in this thick night, and they\nwere unhappy because they could not see.  Between the bodies of their\nparents they were imprisoned, and there was no light.  The names of the\nchildren were Tumatuenga, Tane Mahuta, Tutenganahau, and some others.  So\nthey all consulted as to what should be done with their parents, Rangi\nand Papa.  \"Shall we slay them, or shall we separate them?\"  \"Go to,\"\nsaid Tumatuenga, \"let us slay them.\"  \"No,\" cried Tane Mahuta, \"let us\nrather separate them.  Let one go upwards, and become a stranger to us;\nlet the other remain below, and be a parent to us.\"  Only Tawhiri Matea\n(the wind) had pity on his own father and mother.  Then the fruit-gods,\nand the war-god, and the sea-god (for all the children of Papa and Rangi\nwere gods) tried to rend their parents asunder.  Last rose the forest-\ngod, cruel Tutenganahau.  He severed the sinews which united Heaven and\nEarth, Rangi and Papa.  Then he pushed hard with his head and feet.  Then\nwailed Heaven and exclaimed Earth, \"Wherefore this murder?  Why this\ngreat sin?  Why destroy us?  Why separate us?\"  But Tane pushed and\npushed: Rangi was driven far away into the air.  \"_They became visible,\nwho had hitherto been concealed between the hollows of their parents'\nbreasts_.\"  Only the storm-god differed from his brethren: he arose and\nfollowed his father, Rangi, and abode with him in the open spaces of the\nsky.'\n\nThis is the Maori story of the severing of the wedded Heaven and Earth.\nThe cutting of them asunder was the work of Tutenganahau and his\nbrethren, and the conduct of Tutenganahau is still held up as an example\nof filial impiety. {46a}  The story is preserved in sacred hymns of very\ngreat antiquity, and many of the myths are common to the other peoples of\nthe Pacific. {46b}\n\nNow let us turn from New Zealand to Athens, as she was in the days of\nPericles.  Socrates is sitting in the porch of the King Archon, when\nEuthyphro comes up and enters into conversation with the philosopher.\nAfter some talk, Euthyphro says, 'You will think me mad when I tell you\nwhom I am prosecuting and pursuing!'  'Why, has the fugitive wings?' asks\nSocrates.  'Nay, he is not very volatile at his time of life!'  'Who is\nhe?'  'My father.'  'Good heavens! you don't mean that.  What is he\naccused of?'  'Murder, Socrates.'  Then Euthyphro explains the case,\nwhich quaintly illustrates Greek civilisation.  Euthyphro's father had an\nagricultural labourer at Naxos.  One day this man, in a drunken passion,\nkilled a slave.  Euthyphro's father seized the labourer, bound him, threw\nhim into a ditch, 'and then sent to Athens to ask a diviner what should\nbe done with him.'  Before the answer of the diviner arrived, the\nlabourer literally 'died in a ditch' of hunger and cold.  For this\noffence, Euthyphro was prosecuting his own father.  Socrates shows that\nhe disapproves, and Euthyphro thus defends the piety of his own conduct:\n'The impious, whoever he may be, ought not to go unpunished.  For do not\nmen regard Zeus as the best and most righteous of gods?  Yet even they\nadmit that Zeus bound his own father Cronus, because he wickedly devoured\nhis sons; and that Cronus, too, had punished his own father, Uranus, for\na similar reason, in a nameless manner.  And yet when _I_ proceed against\n_my_ father, people are angry with me.  This is their inconsistent way of\ntalking, when the gods are concerned, and when I am concerned.'\n\nHere Socrates breaks in.  He 'cannot away with these stories about the\ngods,' and so he has just been accused of impiety, the charge for which\nhe died.  Socrates cannot believe that a god, Cronus, mutilated his\nfather Uranus, but Euthyphro believes the whole affair: 'I can tell you\nmany other things about the gods which would quite amaze you.' {48}\n\n* * * * *\n\nWe have here a typical example of the way in which mythology puzzled the\nearly philosophers of Greece.  Socrates was anxious to be pious, and to\nrespect the most ancient traditions of the gods.  Yet at the very outset\nof sacred history he was met by tales of gods who mutilated and bound\ntheir own parents.  Not only were such tales hateful to him, but they\nwere of positively evil example to people like Euthyphro.  The problem\nremained, how did the fathers of the Athenians ever come to tell such\nmyths?\n\n* * * * *\n\nLet us now examine the myth of Cronus, and the explanations which have\nbeen given by scholars.  Near the beginning of things, according to\nHesiod (whose cosmogony was accepted in Greece), Earth gave birth to\nHeaven.  Later, Heaven, Uranus, became the husband of Gaea, Earth.  Just\nas Rangi and Papa, in New Zealand, had many children, so had Uranus and\nGaea.  As in New Zealand, some of these children were gods of the various\nelements.  Among them were Oceanus, the deep, and Hyperion, the sun--as\namong the children of Earth and Heaven, in New Zealand, were the Wind and\nthe Sea.  The youngest child of the Greek Heaven and Earth was 'Cronus of\ncrooked counsel, who ever hated his mighty sire.'  Now even as the\nchildren of the Maori Heaven and Earth were 'concealed between the\nhollows of their parents' breasts,' so the Greek Heaven used to 'hide his\nchildren from the light in the hollows of Earth.'  Both Earth and her\nchildren resented this, and, as in New Zealand, the children conspired\nagainst Heaven, taking Earth, however, into their counsels.  Thereupon\nEarth produced iron, and bade her children avenge their wrongs. {49a}  Now\nfear fell on all of them, except Cronus, who, like Tutenganahau, was all\nfor action.  Cronus determined to end the embraces of Heaven and Earth.\nBut, while the Maori myth conceives of Heaven and Earth as of two beings\nwhich have never been separated before, Hesiod makes Heaven amorously\napproach his wife from a distance.  Then Cronus stretched out his hand,\narmed with a sickle of iron, or steel, and mutilated Uranus.  Thus were\nHeaven and Earth practically divorced.  But as in the Maori myth one of\nthe children of Heaven clave to his sire, so, in Greek, Oceanus remained\nfaithful to his father. {49b}\n\nThis is the first portion of the Myth of Cronus.  Can it be denied that\nthe story is well illustrated and explained by the New Zealand parallel,\nthe myth of the cruelty of Tutenganahau?  By means of this comparison,\nthe meaning of the myth is made clear enough.  Just as the New Zealanders\nhad conceived of Heaven and Earth as at one time united, to the prejudice\nof their children, so the ancestors of the Greeks had believed in an\nancient union of Heaven and Earth.  Both by Greeks and Maoris, Heaven and\nEarth were thought of as living persons, with human parts and passions.\nTheir union was prejudicial to their children, and so the children\nviolently separated the parents.  This conduct is regarded as impious,\nand as an awful example to be avoided, in Maori pahs.  In Naxos, on the\nother hand, Euthyphro deemed that the conduct of Cronus deserved\nimitation.  If ever the Maoris had reached a high civilisation, they\nwould probably have been revolted, like Socrates, by the myth which\nsurvived from their period of savagery.  Mr. Tylor well says, {50a} 'Just\nas the adzes of polished jade, and the cloaks of tied flax-fibre, which\nthese New Zealanders were using but yesterday, are older in their place\nin history than the bronze battle-axes and linen mummy-cloths of ancient\nEgypt, so the Maori poet's shaping of nature into nature-myth belongs to\na stage of intellectual history which was passing away in Greece five-and-\ntwenty centuries ago.  The myth-maker's fancy of Heaven and Earth as\nfather and mother of all things naturally suggested the legend that they\nin old days abode together, but have since been torn asunder.'\n\n* * * * *\n\nThat this view of Heaven and Earth is natural to early minds, Mr. Tylor\nproves by the presence of the myth of the union and violent divorce of\nthe pair in China. {50b}  Puang-ku is the Chinese Cronus, or\nTutenganahau.  In India, {50c} Dyaus and Prithivi, Heaven and Earth, were\nonce united, and were severed by Indra, their own child.\n\nThis, then, is our interpretation of the exploit of Cronus.  It is an old\nsurviving nature-myth of the severance of Heaven and Earth, a myth found\nin China, India, New Zealand, as well as in Greece.  Of course it is not\npretended that Chinese and Maoris borrowed from Indians and Greeks, or\ncame originally of the same stock.  Similar phenomena, presenting\nthemselves to be explained by human minds in a similar stage of fancy and\nof ignorance, will account for the parallel myths.\n\nThe second part of the myth of Cronus was, like the first, a stumbling-\nblock to the orthodox in Greece.  Of the second part we offer no\nexplanation beyond the fact that the incidents in the myth are almost\nuniversally found among savages, and that, therefore, in Greece they are\nprobably survivals from savagery.  The sequel of the myth appears to\naccount for nothing, as the first part accounts for the severance of\nHeaven and Earth.  In the sequel a world-wide Marchen, or tale, seems to\nhave been attached to Cronus, or attracted into the cycle of which he is\ncentre, without any particular reason, beyond the law which makes\ndetached myths crystallise round any celebrated name.  To look further\nis, perhaps, chercher raison ou il n'y en a pas.\n\nThe conclusion of the story of Cronus runs thus:--He wedded his sister,\nRhea, and begat children--Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and, lastly,\nZeus.  'And mighty Cronus swallowed down each of them, each that came to\ntheir mother's knees from her holy womb, with this intent, that none\nother of the proud children of Uranus should hold kingly sway among the\nImmortals.'  Cronus showed a ruling father's usual jealousy of his heirs.\nIt was a case of Friedrich Wilhelm and Friedrich.  But Cronus (acting in\na way natural in a story perhaps first invented by cannibals) swallowed\nhis children instead of merely imprisoning them.  Heaven and Earth had\nwarned him to beware of his heirs, and he could think of no safer plan\nthan that which he adopted.  When Rhea was about to become the mother of\nZeus, she fled to Crete.  Here Zeus was born, and when Cronus (in pursuit\nof his usual policy) asked for the baby, he was presented with a stone\nwrapped up in swaddling bands.  After swallowing the stone, Cronus was\neasy in his mind; but Zeus grew up, administered a dose to his father,\nand compelled him to disgorge.  'The stone came forth first, as he had\nswallowed it last.' {52a}   The other children also emerged, all alive\nand well.  Zeus fixed the stone at Delphi, where, long after the\nChristian era, Pausanias saw it. {52b}  It was not a large stone,\nPausanias tells us, and the Delphians used to anoint it with oil and wrap\nit up in wool on feast-days.  All Greek temples had their fetich-stones,\nand each stone had its legend.  This was the story of the Delphian stone,\nand of the fetichism which survived the early years of Christianity.  A\nvery pretty story it is.  Savages more frequently smear their\nfetich-stones with red paint than daub them with oil, but the latter, as\nwe learn from Theophrastus's account of the 'superstitious man,' was the\nGreek ritual.\n\n* * * * *\n\nThis anecdote about Cronus was the stumbling-block of the orthodox Greek,\nthe jest of the sceptic, and the butt of the early Christian\ncontroversialists.  Found among Bushmen or Australians the narrative\nmight seem rather wild, but it astonishes us still more when it occurs in\nthe holy legends of Greece.  Our explanation of its presence there is\nsimple enough.  Like the erratic blocks in a modern plain, like the flint-\nheads in a meadow, the story is a relic of a very distant past.  The\nglacial age left the boulders on the plain, the savage tribes of long ago\nleft the arrowheads, the period of savage fancy left the story of Cronus\nand the rites of the fetich-stone.  Similar rites are still notoriously\npractised in the South Sea Islands, in Siberia, in India and Africa and\nMelanesia, by savages.  And by savages similar tales are still told.\n\n* * * * *\n\nWe cannot go much lower than the Bushmen, and among Bushman divine myths\nis room for the 'swallowing trick' attributed to Cronus by Hesiod.  The\nchief divine character in Bushman myth is the Mantis insect.  His adopted\ndaughter is the child of Kwai Hemm, a supernatural character, 'the all-\ndevourer.'  The Mantis gets his adopted daughter to call the swallower to\nhis aid; but Kwai Hemm swallows the Mantis, the god-insect.  As Zeus made\nhis own wife change herself into an insect, for the convenience of\nswallowing her, there is not much difference between Bushman and early\nGreek mythology.  Kwai Hemm is killed by a stratagem, and all the animals\nwhom he has got outside of, in a long and voracious career, troop forth\nfrom him alive and well, like the swallowed gods from the maw of Cronus.\n{54a}  Now, story for story, the Bushman version is much less offensive\nthan that of Hesiod.  But the Bushman story is just the sort of story we\nexpect from Bushmen, whereas the Hesiodic story is not at all the kind of\ntale we look for from Greeks.  The explanation is, that the Greeks had\nadvanced out of a savage state of mind and society, but had retained\ntheir old myths, myths evolved in the savage stage, and in harmony with\nthat condition of fancy.  Among the Kaffirs {54b} we find the same\n'swallow-myth.'  The Igongqongqo swallows all and sundry; a woman cuts\nthe swallower with a knife, and 'people came out, and cattle, and dogs.'\nIn Australia, a god is swallowed.  As in the myth preserved by\nAristophanes in the 'Birds,' the Australians believe that birds were the\noriginal gods, and the eagle, especially, is a great creative power.  The\nMoon was a mischievous being, who walked about the world, doing what evil\nhe could.  One day he swallowed the eagle-god.  The wives of the eagle\ncame up, and the Moon asked them where he might find a well.  They\npointed out a well, and, as he drank, they hit the Moon with a stone\ntomahawk, and out flew the eagle. {54c}  This is oddly like Grimm's tale\nof 'The Wolf and the Kids.'  The wolf swallowed the kids, their mother\ncut a hole in the wolf, let out the kids, stuffed the wolf with stones,\nand sewed him up again.  The wolf went to the well to drink, the weight\nof the stones pulled him in, and he was drowned.  Similar stories are\ncommon among the Red Indians, and Mr. Im Thurn has found them in Guiana.\nHow savages all over the world got the idea that men and beasts could be\nswallowed and disgorged alive, and why they fashioned the idea into a\ndivine myth, it is hard to say.  Mr. Tylor, in 'Primitive Culture,' {55a}\nadds many examples of the narrative.  The Basutos have it; it occurs some\nfive times in Callaway's 'Zulu Nursery Tales.'  In Greenland the Eskimo\nhave a shape of the incident, and we have all heard of the escape of\nJonah.\n\nIt has been suggested that night, covering up the world, gave the first\nidea of the swallowing myth.  Now in some of the stories the night is\nobviously conceived of as a big beast which swallows all things.  The\nnotion that night is an animal is entirely in harmony with savage\nmetaphysics.  In the opinion of the savage speculator, all things are men\nand animals.  'Ils se persuadent que non seulement les hommes et les\nautres animaux, mais aussi que toutes les autres choses sont animees,'\nsays one of the old Jesuit missionaries in Canada. {55b}  'The wind was\nformerly a person; he became a bird,' say the Bushmen.\n\nG' oo ka! Kui (a very respectable Bushman, whose name seems a little hard\nto pronounce), once saw the wind-person at Haarfontein.  Savages, then,\nare persuaded that night, sky, cloud, fire, and so forth, are only the\nschein, or sensuous appearance, of things that, in essence, are men or\nanimals.  A good example is the bringing of Night to Vanua Lava, by Qat,\nthe 'culture-hero' of Melanesia.  At first it was always day, and people\ntired of it.  Qat heard that Night was at the Torres Islands, and he set\nforth to get some.  Qong (Night) received Qat well, blackened his\neyebrows, showed him Sleep, and sent him off with fowls to bring Dawn\nafter the arrival of Night should make Dawn a necessary.  Next day Qat's\nbrothers saw the sun crawl away west, and presently Night came creeping\nup from the sea.  'What is this?' cried the brothers.  'It is Night,'\nsaid Qat; 'sit down, and when you feel something in your eyes, lie down\nand keep quiet.'  So they went to sleep.  'When Night had lasted long\nenough, Qat took a piece of red obsidian, and cut the darkness, and the\nDawn came out.' {56}\n\nNight is more or less personal in this tale, and solid enough to be cut,\nso as to let the Dawn out.  This savage conception of night, as the\nswallower and disgorger, might start the notion of other swallowing and\ndisgorging beings.  Again the Bushmen, and other savage peoples, account\nfor certain celestial phenomena by saying that 'a big star has swallowed\nhis daughter, and spit her out again.'  While natural phenomena,\nexplained on savage principles, might give the data of the swallow-myth,\nwe must not conclude that all beings to whom the story is attached are,\ntherefore, the Night.  On this principle Cronus would be the Night, and\nso would the wolf in Grimm.  For our purposes it is enough that the feat\nof Cronus is a feat congenial to the savage fancy and repugnant to the\ncivilised Greeks who found themselves in possession of the myth.  Beyond\nthis, and beyond the inference that the Cronus myth was first evolved by\npeople to whom it seemed quite natural, that is, by savages, we do not\npretend to go in our interpretation.\n\n* * * * *\n\nTo end our examination of the Myth of Cronus, we may compare the\nsolutions offered by scholars.  As a rule, these solutions are based on\nthe philological analysis of the names in the story.  It will be seen\nthat very various and absolutely inconsistent etymologies and meanings of\nCronus are suggested by philologists of the highest authority.  These\ncontradictions are, unfortunately, rather the rule than the exception in\nthe etymological interpretation of myths.\n\n* * * * *\n\nThe opinion of Mr. Max Muller has always a right to the first hearing\nfrom English inquirers.  Mr. Muller, naturally, examines first the name\nof the god whose legend he is investigating.  He writes: 'There is no\nsuch being as Kronos in Sanskrit.  Kronos did not exist till long after\nZeus in Greece.  Zeus was called by the Greeks the son of Time ([Greek]).\nThis is a very simple and very common form of mythological expression.  It\nmeant originally, not that time was the origin or source of Zeus, but\n[Greek] or [Greek] was used in the sense of \"connected with time,\nrepresenting time, existing through all time.\"  Derivatives in -[Greek]\nand -[Greek] took, in later times, the more exclusive meaning of\npatronymics. . . .  When this (the meaning of [Greek] as equivalent to\nAncient of Days) ceased to be understood, . . . people asked themselves\nthe question, Why is Zeus called [Greek]?  And the natural and almost\ninevitable answer was, Because he is the son, the offspring of a more\nancient god, Kronos.  This may be a very old myth in Greece; but the\nmisunderstanding which gave rise to it could have happened in Greece\nonly.  We cannot expect, therefore, a god Kronos in the Veda.'  To expect\nGreek in the Veda would certainly be sanguine.  'When this myth of Kronos\nhad once been started, it would roll on irresistibly.  If Zeus had once a\nfather called Kronos, Kronos must have a wife.'  It is added, as\nconfirmation, that 'the name of [Greek] belongs originally to Zeus only,\nand not to his later' (in Hesiod elder) 'brothers, Poseidon and Hades.'\n{58a}\n\nMr. Muller says, in his famous essay on 'Comparative Mythology' {58b}:\n'How can we imagine that a few generations before that time' (the age of\nSolon) 'the highest notions of the Godhead among the Greeks were\nadequately expressed by the story of Uranos maimed by Kronos,--of Kronos\neating his children, swallowing a stone, and vomiting out alive his whole\nprogeny.  Among the lowest tribes of Africa and America, we hardly find\nanything more hideous and revolting.'  We have found a good deal of the\nsort in Africa and America, where it seems not out of place.\n\nOne objection to Mr. Muller's theory is, that it makes the mystery no\nclearer.  When Greeks were so advanced in Hellenism that their own early\nlanguage had become obsolete and obscure, they invented the god [Greek],\nto account for the patronymic (as they deemed it) [Greek], son of\n[Greek].  But why did they tell such savage and revolting stories about\nthe god they had invented?  Mr. Muller only says the myth 'would roll on\nirresistibly.'  But why did the rolling myth gather such very strange\nmoss?  That is the problem; and, while Mr. Muller's hypothesis accounts\nfor the existence of a god called [Greek], it does not even attempt to\nshow how full-blown Greeks came to believe such hideous stories about the\ngod.\n\n* * * * *\n\nThis theory, therefore, is of no practical service.  The theory of\nAdalbert Kuhn, one of the most famous of Sanskrit scholars, and author of\n'Die Herabkunft des Feuers,' is directly opposed to the ideas of Mr.\nMuller.  In Cronus, Mr. Muller recognises a god who could only have come\ninto being among Greeks, when the Greeks had begun to forget the original\nmeaning of 'derivatives in -[Greek] and -[Greek].'  Kuhn, on the other\nhand, derives [Greek] from the same root as the Sanskrit Krana. {59}\nKrana means, it appears, der fur sich schaffende, he who creates for\nhimself, and Cronus is compared to the Indian Pragapati, about whom even\nmore abominable stories are told than the myths which circulate to the\nprejudice of Cronus.  According to Kuhn, the 'swallow-myth' means that\nCronus, the lord of light and dark powers, swallows the divinities of\nlight.  But in place of Zeus (that is, according to Kuhn, of the daylight\nsky) he swallows a stone, that is, the sun.  When he disgorges the stone\n(the sun), he also disgorges the gods of light whom he had swallowed.\n\nI confess that I cannot understand these distinctions between the father\nand lord of light and dark (Cronus) and the beings he swallowed.  Nor do\nI find it easy to believe that myth-making man took all those\ndistinctions, or held those views of the Creator.  However, the chief\nthing to note is that Mr. Muller's etymology and Kuhn's etymology of\nCronus can hardly both be true, which, as their systems both depend on\netymological analysis, is somewhat discomfiting.\n\nThe next etymological theory is the daring speculation of Mr. Brown.  In\n'The Great Dionysiak Myth' {60a} Mr. Brown writes: 'I regard Kronos as\nthe equivalent of Karnos, Karnaios, Karnaivis, the Horned God; Assyrian,\nKaRNu; Hebrew, KeReN, horn; Hellenic, KRoNos, or KaRNos.'  Mr. Brown\nseems to think that Cronus is 'the ripening power of harvest,' and also\n'a wily savage god,' in which opinion one quite agrees with him.  Why the\nname of Cronus should mean 'horned,' when he is never represented with\nhorns, it is hard to say.  But among the various foreign gods in whom the\nGreeks recognised their own Cronus, one Hea, 'regarded by Berosos as\nKronos,' seems to have been 'horn-wearing.' {60b}  Horns are lacking in\nSeb and Il, if not in Baal Hamon, though Mr. Brown would like to behorn\nthem.\n\nLet us now turn to Preller. {61a}  According to Preller, Kronos is\nconnected with [Greek], to fulfil, to bring to completion.  The harvest\nmonth, the month of ripening and fulfilment, was called [Greek] in some\nparts of Greece, and the jolly harvest-feast, with its memory of Saturn's\ngolden days, was named [Greek].  The sickle of Cronus, the sickle of\nharvest-time, works in well with this explanation, and we have a kind of\npun in Homer which points in the direction of Preller's derivation from\n[Greek]:--\n\n   [Greek]\n\nand in Sophocles ('Tr.' 126)--\n\n   [Greek].\n\nPreller illustrates the mutilation of Uranus by the Maori tale of\nTutenganahau.  The child-swallowing he connects with Punic and Phoenician\ninfluence, and Semitic sacrifices of men and children.  Porphyry {61b}\nspeaks of human sacrifices to Cronus in Rhodes, and the Greeks recognised\nCronus in the Carthaginian god to whom children were offered up.\n\nHartung {61c} takes Cronus, when he mutilates Uranus, to be the fire of\nthe sun, scorching the sky of spring.  This, again, is somewhat out of\naccord with Schwartz's idea, that Cronus is the storm-god, the\ncloud-swallowing deity, his sickle the rainbow, and the blood of Uranus\nthe lightning. {61d}  According to Prof. Sayce, again, {62a} the blood-\ndrops of Uranus are rain-drops.  Cronus is the sun-god, piercing the dark\ncloud, which is just the reverse of Schwartz's idea.  Prof. Sayce sees\npoints in common between the legend of Moloch, or of Baal under the name\nof Moloch, and the myth of Cronus.  But Moloch, he thinks, is not a god\nof Phoenician origin, but a deity borrowed from 'the primitive Accadian\npopulation of Babylonia.'  Mr. Isaac Taylor, again, explains Cronus as\nthe sky which swallows and reproduces the stars.  The story of the sickle\nmay be derived from the crescent moon, the 'silver sickle,' or from a\ncrescent-shaped piece of meteoric iron--for, in this theory, the fetich-\nstone of Delphi is a piece of that substance.\n\n* * * * *\n\nIt will be observed that any one of these theories, if accepted, is much\nmore 'minute in detail' than our humble suggestion.  He who adopts any\none of them, knows all about it.  He knows that Cronus is a purely Greek\ngod, or that he is connected with the Sanskrit Krana, which Tiele, {62b}\nunhappily, says is 'a very dubious word.'  Or the mythologist may be\nquite confident that Cronus is neither Greek nor, in any sense, Sanskrit,\nbut Phoenician.  A not less adequate interpretation assigns him\nultimately to Accadia.  While the inquirer who can choose a system and\nstick to it knows the exact nationality of Cronus, he is also well\nacquainted with his character as a nature-god.  He may be Time, or\nperhaps he is the Summer Heat, and a horned god; or he is the harvest-\ngod, or the god of storm and darkness, or the midnight sky,--the choice\nis wide; or he is the lord of dark and light, and his children are the\nstars, the clouds, the summer months, the light-powers, or what you will.\nThe mythologist has only to make his selection.\n\nThe system according to which we tried to interpret the myth is less\nondoyant et divers.  We do not even pretend to explain everything.  We do\nnot guess at the meaning and root of the word Cronus.  We only find\nparallels to the myth among savages, whose mental condition is fertile in\nsuch legends.  And we only infer that the myth of Cronus was originally\nevolved by persons also in the savage intellectual condition.  The\nsurvival we explain as, in a previous essay, we explained the survival of\nthe bull-roarer by the conservatism of the religious instinct.\n\n\n\n\nCUPID, PSYCHE, AND THE 'SUN-FROG.'\n\n\n'Once upon a time there lived a king and a queen,' says the old woman in\nApuleius, beginning the tale of Cupid and Psyche with that ancient\nformula which has been dear to so many generations of children.  In one\nshape or other the tale of Cupid and Psyche, of the woman who is\nforbidden to see or to name her husband, of the man with the vanished\nfairy bride, is known in most lands, 'even among barbarians.'  According\nto the story the mystic prohibition is always broken: the hidden face is\nbeheld; light is brought into the darkness; the forbidden name is\nuttered; the bride is touched with the tabooed metal, iron, and the union\nis ended.  Sometimes the pair are re-united, after long searchings and\nwanderings; sometimes they are severed for ever.  Such are the central\nsituations in tales like that of Cupid and Psyche.\n\nIn the attempt to discover how the ideas on which this myth is based came\ninto existence, we may choose one of two methods.  We may confine our\ninvestigations to the Aryan peoples, among whom the story occurs both in\nthe form of myth and of household tale.  Again, we may look for the\nshapes of the legend which hide, like Peau d'Ane in disguise, among the\nrude kraals and wigwams, and in the strange and scanty garb of savages.\nIf among savages we find both narratives like Cupid and Psyche, and also\ncustoms and laws out of which the myth might have arisen, we may\nprovisionally conclude that similar customs once existed among the\ncivilised races who possess the tale, and that from these sprang the\nearly forms of the myth.\n\nIn accordance with the method hitherto adopted, we shall prefer the\nsecond plan, and pursue our quest beyond the limits of the Aryan peoples.\n\nThe oldest literary shape of the tale of Psyche and her lover is found in\nthe Rig Veda (x. 95).  The characters of a singular and cynical dialogue\nin that poem are named Urvasi and Pururavas.  The former is an Apsaras, a\nkind of fairy or sylph, the mistress (and a folle maitresse, too) of\nPururavas, a mortal man. {65}  In the poem Urvasi remarks that when she\ndwelt among men she 'ate once a day a small piece of butter, and\ntherewith well satisfied went away.'  This slightly reminds one of the\ncommon idea that the living may not eat in the land of the dead, and of\nPersephone's tasting the pomegranate in Hades.\n\nOf the dialogue in the Rig Veda it may be said, in the words of Mr.\nToots, that 'the language is coarse and the meaning is obscure.'  We only\ngather that Urvasi, though she admits her sensual content in the society\nof Pururavas, is leaving him 'like the first of the dawns'; that she\n'goes home again, hard to be caught, like the winds.'  She gives her\nlover some hope, however--that the gods promise immortality even to him,\n'the kinsman of Death' as he is.  'Let thine offspring worship the gods\nwith an oblation; in Heaven shalt thou too have joy of the festival.'\n\nIn the Rig Veda, then, we dimly discern a parting between a mortal man\nand an immortal bride, and a promise of reconciliation.\n\nThe story, of which this Vedic poem is a partial dramatisation, is given\nin the Brahmana of the Yajur Veda.  Mr. Max Muller has translated the\npassage. {66a}  According to the Brahmana, 'Urvasi, a kind of fairy, fell\nin love with Pururavas, and when she met him she said: Embrace me three\ntimes a day, but never against my will, and let me never see you without\nyour royal garments, _for this is the manner of women_.' {66b}  The\nGandharvas, a spiritual race, kinsmen of Urvasi, thought she had lingered\ntoo long among men.  They therefore plotted some way of parting her from\nPururavas.  Her covenant with her lord declared that she was never to see\nhim naked.  If that compact were broken she would be compelled to leave\nhim.  To make Pururavas break this compact the Gandharvas stole a lamb\nfrom beside Urvasi's bed: Pururavas sprang up to rescue the lamb, and, in\na flash of lightning, Urvasi saw him naked, contrary to the _manner of\nwomen_.  She vanished.  He sought her long, and at last came to a lake\nwhere she and her fairy friends were playing _in the shape of birds_.\nUrvasi saw Pururavas, revealed herself to him, and, according to the\nBrahmana, part of the strange Vedic dialogue was now spoken.  Urvasi\npromised to meet him on the last night of the year: a son was to be the\nresult of the interview.  Next day, her kinsfolk, the Gandharvas, offered\nPururavas the wish of his heart.  He wished to be one of them.  They then\ninitiated him into the mode of kindling a certain sacred fire, after\nwhich he became immortal and dwelt among the Gandharvas.\n\nIt is highly characteristic of the Indian mind that the story should be\nthus worked into connection with ritual.  In the same way the Bhagavata\nPurana has a long, silly, and rather obscene narrative about the\nsacrifice offered by Pururavas, and the new kind of sacred fire.  Much\nthe same ritual tale is found in the Vishnu Purana (iv. 6, 19).\n\nBefore attempting to offer our own theory of the legend, we must examine\nthe explanations presented by scholars.  The philological method of\ndealing with myths is well known.  The hypothesis is that the names in a\nmyth are 'stubborn things,' and that, as the whole narrative has probably\narisen from forgetfulness of the meaning of language, the secret of a\nmyth must be sought in analysis of the proper names of the persons.  On\nthis principle Mr. Max Muller interprets the myth of Urvasi and\nPururavas, their loves, separation, and reunion.  Mr. Muller says that\nthe story 'expresses the identity of the morning dawn and the evening\ntwilight.' {68}  To prove this, the names are analysed.  It is Mr.\nMuller's object to show that though, even in the Veda, Urvasi and\nPururavas are names of persons, they were originally 'appellations'; and\nthat Urvasi meant 'dawn,' and Pururavas 'sun.'  Mr. Muller's opinion as\nto the etymological sense of the names would be thought decisive,\nnaturally, by lay readers, if an opposite opinion were not held by that\nother great philologist and comparative mythologist, Adalbert Kuhn.\nAdmitting that 'the etymology of Urvasi is difficult,' Mr. Muller derives\nit from 'uru, wide ([Greek]), and a root as = to pervade.'  Now the dawn\nis 'widely pervading,' and has, in Sanskrit, the epithet uruki,\n'far-going.'  Mr. Muller next assumes that 'Eurykyde,' 'Eurynome,'\n'Eurydike,' and other heroic Greek female names, are 'names of the dawn';\nbut this, it must be said, is merely an assumption of his school.  The\nmain point of the argument is that Urvasi means 'far-going,' and that\n'the far and wide splendour of dawn' is often spoken of in the Veda.\n'However, the best proof that Urvasi was the dawn is the legend told of\nher and of her love to Pururavas, a story that is true only of the sun\nand the dawn' (i. 407).\n\nWe shall presently see that a similar story is told of persons in whom\nthe dawn can scarcely be recognised, so that 'the best proof' is not very\ngood.\n\nThe name of Pururavas, again, is 'an appropriate name for a solar hero.'\n. . .  Pururavas meant the same as [Greek], 'endowed with much light,'\nfor, though rava is generally used of sound, yet the root ru, which means\noriginally 'to cry,' is also applied to colour, in the sense of a loud or\ncrying colour, that is, red. {69a}  Violet also, according to Sir G. W.\nCox, {69b} is a loud or crying colour.  'The word ([Greek]), as applied\nto colour, is traced by Professor Max Muller to the root i, as denoting a\n\"crying hue,\" that is, a loud colour.'  It is interesting to learn that\nour Aryan fathers spoke of 'loud colours,' and were so sensitive as to\nthink violet 'loud.'  Besides, Pururavas calls himself Vasistha, which,\nas we know, is a name of the sun; and if he is called Aido, the son of\nIda, the same name is elsewhere given {69c} to Agni, the fire.  'The\nconclusion of the argument is that antiquity spoke of the naked sun, and\nof the chaste dawn hiding her face when she had seen her husband.  Yet\nshe says she will come again.  And after the sun has travelled through\nthe world in search of his beloved, when he comes to the threshold of\nDeath and is going to end his solitary life, she appears again, in the\ngloaming, the same as the dawn, as Eos in Homer, begins and ends the day,\nand she carries him away to the golden seats of the Immortals.' {69d}\n\nKuhn objects to all this explanation, partly on what we think the\ninadequate ground that there is no necessary connection between the story\nof Urvasi (thus interpreted) and the ritual of sacred fire-lighting.\nConnections of that sort were easily invented at random by the compilers\nof the Brahmanas in their existing form.  Coming to the analysis of\nnames, Kuhn finds in Urvasi 'a weakening of Urvanki (uru + anc), like\nyuvaca from yuvanka, Latin juvencus . . . the accent is of no decisive\nweight.'  Kuhn will not be convinced that Pururavas is the sun, and is\nunmoved by the ingenious theory of 'a crying colour,' denoted by his\nname, and the inference, supported by such words as rufus, that crying\ncolours are red, and therefore appropriate names of the red sun.  The\nconnection between Pururavas and Agni, fire, is what appeals to Kuhn--and,\nin short, where Mr. Muller sees a myth of sun and dawn, Kuhn recognises a\nfire-myth.  Roth, again (whose own name means _red_), far from thinking\nthat Urvasi is 'the chaste dawn,' interprets her name as die geile, that\nis, 'lecherous, lascivious, lewd, wanton, obscene'; while Pururavas, as\n'the Roarer,' suggests 'the Bull in rut.'  In accordance with these views\nRoth explains the myth in a fashion of his own. {70a}\n\nHere, then, as Kuhn says, 'we have three essentially different modes of\ninterpreting the myth,' {70b} all three founded on philological analysis\nof the names in the story.  No better example could be given to\nillustrate the weakness of the philological method.  In the first place,\nthat method relies on names as the primitive relics and germs of the\ntale, although the tale may occur where the names have never been heard,\nand though the names are, presumably, late additions to a story in which\nthe characters were originally anonymous.  Again, the most illustrious\netymologists differ absolutely about the true sense of the names.  Kuhn\nsees fire everywhere, and fire-myths; Mr. Muller sees dawn and\ndawn-myths; Schwartz sees storm and storm-myths, and so on.  As the\northodox teachers are thus at variance, so that there is no safety in\northodoxy, we may attempt to use our heterodox method.\n\nNone of the three scholars whose views we have glanced at--neither Roth,\nKuhn, nor Mr. Muller--lays stress on the saying of Urvasi, 'never let me\nsee you without your royal garments, _for this is the custom of women_.'\n{71}  To our mind, these words contain the gist of the myth.  There must\nhave been, at some time, a custom which forbade women to see their\nhusbands without their garments, or the words have no meaning.  If any\ncustom of this kind existed, a story might well be evolved to give a\nsanction to the law.  'You must never see your husband naked: think what\nhappened to Urvasi--she vanished clean away!'  This is the kind of\nwarning which might be given.  If the customary prohibition had grown\nobsolete, the punishment might well be assigned to a being of another, a\nspiritual, race, in which old human ideas lingered, as the neolithic\ndread of iron lingers in the Welsh fairies.\n\nOur method will be, to prove the existence of singular rules of\netiquette, corresponding to the etiquette accidentally infringed by\nPururavas.  We shall then investigate stories of the same character as\nthat of Urvasi and Pururavas, in which the infringement of the etiquette\nis chastised.  It will be seen that, in most cases, the bride is of a\npeculiar and perhaps supernatural race.  Finally, the tale of Urvasi will\nbe taken up again, will be shown to conform in character to the other\nstories examined, and will be explained as a myth told to illustrate, or\nsanction, a nuptial etiquette.\n\nThe lives of savages are bound by the most closely-woven fetters of\ncustom.  The simplest acts are 'tabooed,' a strict code regulates all\nintercourse.  Married life, especially, moves in the strangest fetters.\nThere will be nothing remarkable in the wide distribution of a myth\nturning on nuptial etiquette, if this law of nuptial etiquette proves to\nbe also widely distributed.  That it is widely distributed we now propose\nto demonstrate by examples.\n\nThe custom of the African people of the kingdom of Futa is, or was, even\nstricter than the Vedic _custom of women_--'wives never permit their\nhusbands to see them unveiled for three years after their marriage.' {72}\n\nIn his 'Travels to Timbuctoo' (i. 94), Caillie says that the bridegroom\n'is not allowed to see his intended during the day.'  He has a tabooed\nhut apart, and 'if he is obliged to come out he covers his face.'  He\n'remains with his wife only till daybreak'--like Cupid--and flees, like\nCupid, before the light.  Among the Australians the chief deity, if deity\nsuch a being can be called, Pundjel, 'has a wife whose face he has never\nseen,' probably in compliance with some primaeval etiquette or taboo.\n{73a}\n\nAmong the Yorubas 'conventional modesty forbids a woman to speak to her\nhusband, or even to see him, if it can be avoided.' {73b}  Of the\nIroquois Lafitau says: 'Ils n'osent aller dans les cabanes particulieres\nou habitent leurs epouses que durant l'obscurite de la nuit.' {73c}  The\nCircassian women live on distant terms with their lords till they become\nmothers. {73d}  Similar examples of reserve are reported to be customary\namong the Fijians.\n\nIn backward parts of Europe a strange custom forbids the bride to speak\nto her lord, as if in memory of a time when husband and wife were always\nof alien tribes, and, as among the Caribs, spoke different languages.\n\nIn the Bulgarian 'Volkslied,' the Sun marries Grozdanka, a mortal girl.\nHer mother addresses her thus:--\n\n   Grozdanka, mother's treasure mine,\n   For nine long years I nourished thee,\n   For nine months see thou do not speak\n   To thy first love that marries thee.\n\nM. Dozon, who has collected the Bulgarian songs, says that this custom of\nprolonged silence on the part of the bride is very common in Bulgaria,\nthough it is beginning to yield to a sense of the ludicrous. {74a}  In\nSparta and in Crete, as is well known, the bridegroom was long the victim\nof a somewhat similar taboo, and was only permitted to seek the company\nof his wife secretly, and in the dark, like the Iroquois described by\nLafitau.\n\nHerodotus tells us (i. 146) that some of the old Ionian colonists\n'brought no women with them, but took wives of the women of the Carians,\nwhose fathers they had slain.  Therefore the women made a law for\nthemselves, and handed it down to their daughters, that they should never\nsit at meat with their husbands, and _that none should ever call her\nhusband by his name_.'  In precisely the same way, in Zululand the wife\nmay not mention her husband's name, just as in the Welsh fairy tale the\nhusband may not even know the name of his fairy bride, on pain of losing\nher for ever.  These ideas about names, and freakish ways of avoiding the\nuse of names, mark the childhood of languages, according to Mr. Max\nMuller, {74b} and, therefore, the childhood of Society.  The Kaffirs call\nthis etiquette 'Hlonipa.'  It applies to women as well as men.  A Kaffir\nbride is not called by her own name in her husband's village, but is\nspoken of as 'mother of so and so,' even before she has borne a child.\nThe universal superstition about names is at the bottom of this custom.\nThe Aleutian Islanders, according to Dall, are quite distressed when\nobliged to speak to their wives in the presence of others.  The Fijians\ndid not know where to look when missionaries hinted that a man might live\nunder the same roof as his wife. {75a}  Among the Turkomans, for six\nmonths, a year, or two years, a husband is only allowed to visit his wife\nby stealth.\n\nThe number of these instances could probably be increased by a little\nresearch.  Our argument is that the widely distributed myths in which a\nhusband or a wife transgresses some 'custom'--sees the other's face or\nbody, or utters the forbidden name--might well have arisen as tales\nillustrating the punishment of breaking the rule.  By a very curious\ncoincidence, a Breton sailor's tale of the 'Cupid and Psyche' class is\nconfessedly founded on the existence of the rule of nuptial etiquette.\n{75b}\n\nIn this story the son of a Boulogne pilot marries the daughter of the\nKing of Naz--wherever that may be.  In Naz a man is never allowed to see\nthe face of his wife till she has borne him a child--a modification of\nthe Futa rule.  The inquisitive French husband unveils his wife, and,\nlike Psyche in Apuleius, drops wax from a candle on her cheek.  When the\npair return to Naz, the king of that country discovers the offence of the\nhusband, and, by the aid of his magicians, transforms the Frenchman into\na monster.  Here we have the old formula--the infringement of a 'taboo,'\nand the magical punishment--adapted to the ideas of Breton peasantry.  The\nessential point of the story, for our purpose, is that the veiling of the\nbride is 'the custom of women,' in the mysterious land of Naz.  'C'est\nl'usage du pays: les maris ne voient leurs femmes sans voile que\nlorsqu'elles sont devenues meres.'  Now our theory of the myth of Urvasi\nis simply this: 'the custom of women,' which Pururavas transgresses, is\nprobably a traditional Aryan law of nuptial etiquette, l'usage du pays,\nonce prevalent among the people of India.\n\nIf our view be correct, then several rules of etiquette, and not one\nalone, will be illustrated in the stories which we suppose the rules to\nhave suggested.  In the case of Urvasi and Pururavas, the rule was, not\nto see the husband naked.  In 'Cupid and Psyche,' the husband was not to\nbe looked upon at all.  In the well-known myth of Melusine, the bride is\nnot to be seen naked.  Melusine tells her lover that she will only abide\nwith him dum ipsam nudam non viderit. {76a}  The same taboo occurs in a\nDutch Marchen. {76b}\n\nWe have now to examine a singular form of the myth, in which the strange\nbride is not a fairy, or spiritual being, but an animal.  In this class\nof story the husband is usually forbidden to perform some act which will\nrecall to the bride the associations of her old animal existence.  The\nconverse of the tale is the well-known legend of the Forsaken Merman.  The\nking of the sea permits his human wife to go to church.  The ancient\nsacred associations are revived, and the woman returns no more.\n\n   She will not come though you call all day\n   Come away, come away.\n\nNow, in the tales of the animal bride, it is her associations with her\nformer life among the beasts that are not to be revived, and when they\nare reawakened by the commission of some act which she has forbidden, or\nthe neglect of some precaution which she has enjoined, she, like Urvasi,\ndisappears.\n\n* * * * *\n\nThe best known example of this variant of the tale is the story of Bheki,\nin Sanskrit.  Mr. Max Muller has interpreted the myth in accordance with\nhis own method. {77}  His difficulty is to account for the belief that a\nking might marry a frog.  Our ancestors, he remarks, 'were not idiots,'\nhow then could they tell such a story?  We might reply that our\nancestors, if we go far enough back, were savages, and that such stories\nare the staple of savage myth.  Mr. Muller, however, holds that an\naccidental corruption of language reduced Aryan fancy to the savage\nlevel.  He explains the corruption thus: 'We find, in Sanskrit, that\nBheki, the frog, was a beautiful girl, and that one day, when sitting\nnear a well, she was discovered by a king, who asked her to be his wife.\nShe consented, _on condition that he should never show her a drop of\nwater_.  One day, being tired, she asked the king for water; the king\nforgot his promise, brought water, and Bheki disappeared.'  This myth,\nMr. Muller holds, 'began with a short saying, such as that \"Bheki, the\nsun, will die at the sight of water,\" as we should say that the sun will\nset, when it approaches the water from which it rose in the morning.'  But\nhow did the sun come to be called Bheki, 'the frog'?  Mr. Muller supposes\nthat this name was given to the sun by some poet or fisherman.  He gives\nno evidence for the following statement: 'It can be shown that \"frog\" was\nused as a name for the sun.  Now at sunrise and sunset, when the sun was\nsquatting on the water, it was called the \"frog.\"'  At what historical\nperiod the Sanskrit-speaking race was settled in seats where the sun rose\nand set in water, we do not know, and 'chapter and verse' are needed for\nthe statement that 'frog' was actually a name of the sun.  Mr. Muller's\nargument, however, is that the sun was called 'the frog,' that people\nforgot that the frog and sun were identical, and that Frog, or Bheki, was\nmistaken for the name of a girl to whom was applied the old saw about\ndying at sight of water.  'And so,' says Mr. Muller, 'the change from sun\nto frog, and from frog to man, which was at first due to the mere spell\nof language, would in our nursery tales be ascribed to miraculous charms\nmore familiar to a later age.'  As a matter of fact, magical\nmetamorphoses are infinitely more familiar to the lowest savages than to\npeople in a 'later age.'  Magic, as Castren observes, 'belongs to the\nlowest known stages of civilisation.'  Mr. Muller's theory, however, is\nthis--that a Sanskrit-speaking people, living where the sun rose out of\nand set in some ocean, called the sun, as he touched the water, Bheki,\nthe frog, and said he would die at the sight of water.  They ceased to\ncall the sun the frog, or Bheki, but kept the saying, 'Bheki will die at\nsight of water.'  Not knowing who or what Bheki might be, they took her\nfor a frog, who also was a pretty wench.  Lastly, they made the story of\nBheki's distinguished wedding and mysterious disappearance.  For this\ninterpretation, historical and linguistic evidence is not offered.  When\ndid a Sanskrit-speaking race live beside a great sea?  How do we know\nthat 'frog' was used as a name for 'sun'?\n\n* * * * *\n\nWe have already given our explanation.  To the savage intellect, man and\nbeast are on a level, and all savage myth makes men descended from\nbeasts; while stories of the loves of gods in bestial shape, or the\nunions of men and animals, incessantly occur.  'Unnatural' as these\nnotions seem to us, no ideas are more familiar to savages, and none recur\nmore frequently in Indo-Aryan, Scandinavian, and Greek mythology.  An\nextant tribe in North-West America still claims descent from a frog.  The\nwedding of Bheki and the king is a survival, in Sanskrit, of a tale of\nthis kind.  Lastly, Bheki disappears, when her associations with her old\namphibious life are revived in the manner she had expressly forbidden.\n\n* * * * *\n\nOur interpretation may be supported by an Ojibway parallel.  A hunter\nnamed Otter-heart, camping near a beaver lodge, found a pretty girl\nloitering round his fire.  She keeps his wigwam in order, and 'lays his\nblanket near the deerskin she had laid for herself.  \"Good,\" he muttered,\n\"this is my wife.\"'  She refuses to eat the beavers he has shot, but at\nnight he hears a noise, 'krch, krch, as if beavers were gnawing wood.'  He\nsees, by the glimmer of the fire, his wife nibbling birch twigs.  In\nfact, the good little wife is a beaver, as the pretty Indian girl was a\nfrog.  The pair lived happily till spring came and the snow melted and\nthe streams ran full.  Then his wife implored the hunter to build her a\nbridge over every stream and river, that she might cross dry-footed.\n'For,' she said, 'if my feet touch water, this would at once cause thee\ngreat sorrow.'  The hunter did as she bade him, but left unbridged one\ntiny runnel.  The wife stumbled into the water, and, as soon as her foot\nwas wet, she immediately resumed her old shape as a beaver, her son\nbecame a beaverling, and the brooklet, changing to a roaring river, bore\nthem to the lake.  Once the hunter saw his wife again among her beast\nkin.  'To thee I sacrificed all,' she said, 'and I only asked thee to\nhelp me dry-footed over the waters.  Thou didst cruelly neglect this.  Now\nI must remain for ever with my people.'\n\n* * * * *\n\nThis tale was told to Kohl by 'an old insignificant squaw among the\nOjibways.' {80a}  Here we have a precise parallel to the tale of Bheki,\nthe frog-bride, and here the reason of the prohibition to touch water is\nmade perfectly unmistakable.  The touch magically revived the bride's old\nanimal life with the beavers.  Or was the Indian name for beaver\n(temakse) once a name for the sun? {80b}\n\nA curious variant of this widely distributed Marchen of the animal bride\nis found in the mythical genealogy of the Raja of Chutia Nagpur, a chief\nof the Naga, or snake race.  It is said that Raja Janameja prepared a\nyajnya, or great malevolently magical incantation, to destroy all the\npeople of the serpent race.  To prevent this annihilation, the\nsupernatural being, Pundarika Nag, took a human form, and became the\nhusband of the beautiful Parvati, daughter of a Brahman.  But Pundarika\nNag, being a serpent by nature, could not divest himself, even in human\nshape, of his forked tongue and venomed breath.  And, just as Urvasi\ncould not abide with her mortal lover, after he transgressed the\nprohibition to appear before her naked, so Pundarika Nag was compelled by\nfate to leave his bride, if she asked him any questions about his\ndisagreeable peculiarities.  She did, at last, ask questions, in\ncircumstances which made Pundarika believe that he was bound to answer\nher.  Now the curse came upon him, he plunged into a pool, like the\nbeaver, and vanished.  His wife became the mother of the serpent Rajas of\nChutia Nagpur.  Pundarika Nag, in his proper form as a great hooded\nsnake, guarded his first-born child.  The crest of the house is a hooded\nsnake with human face. {81a}\n\nHere, then, we have many examples of the disappearance of the bride or\nbridegroom in consequence of infringement of various mystic rules.\nSometimes the beloved one is seen when he or she should not be seen.\nSometimes, as in a Maori story, the bride vanishes, merely because she is\nin a bad temper. {81b}  Among the Red Men, as in Sanskrit, the taboo on\nwater is broken, with the usual results.  Now for an example in which the\nrule against using _names_ is infringed. {82a}\n\nThis formula constantly occurs in the Welsh fairy tales published by\nProfessor Rhys. {82b}  Thus the heir of Corwrion fell in love with a\nfairy: 'They were married on the distinct understanding that the husband\nwas not to know her name, . . . and was not to strike her with iron, on\npain of her leaving him at once.'  Unluckily the man once tossed her a\nbridle, the iron bit touched the wife, and 'she at once flew through the\nair, and plunged headlong into Corwrion Lake.'\n\nA number of tales turning on the same incident are published in\n'Cymmrodor,' v. I.  In these we have either the taboo on the name, or the\ntaboo on the touch of iron.  In a widely diffused superstition iron\n'drives away devils and ghosts,' according to the Scholiast on the\neleventh book of the 'Odyssey,' and the Oriental Djinn also flee from\niron. {82c}  Just as water is fatal to the Aryan frog-bride and to the\nRed Indian beaver-wife, restoring them to their old animal forms, so the\nmagic touch of iron breaks love between the Welshman and his fairy\nmistress, the representative of the stone age.\n\nIn many tales of fairy-brides, they are won by a kind of force.  The\nlover in the familiar Welsh and German Marchen sees the swan-maidens\nthrow off their swan plumage and dance naked..  He steals the feather-\ngarb of one of them, and so compels her to his love.  Finally, she leaves\nhim, in anger, or because he has broken some taboo.  Far from being\npeculiar to Aryan mythology, this legend occurs, as Mr. Farrer has shown,\n{83a} in Algonquin and Bornoese tradition.  The Red Indian story told by\nSchoolcraft in his 'Algic Researches' is most like the Aryan version, but\nhas some native peculiarities.  Wampee was a great hunter, who, on the\nlonely prairie, once heard strains of music.  Looking up he saw a speck\nin the sky: the speck drew nearer and nearer, and proved to be a basket\ncontaining twelve heavenly maidens.  They reached the earth and began to\ndance, inflaming the heart of Wampee with love.  But Wampee could not\ndraw near the fairy girls in his proper form without alarming them.  Like\nZeus in his love adventures, Wampee exercised the medicine-man's power of\nmetamorphosing himself.  He assumed the form of a mouse, approached\nunobserved, and caught one of the dancing maidens.  After living with\nWampee for some time she wearied of earth, and, by virtue of a 'mystic\nchain of verse,' she ascended again to her heavenly home.\n\nNow is there any reason to believe that this incident was once part of\nthe myth of Pururavas and Urvasi?  Was the fairy-love, Urvasi, originally\ncaught and held by Pururavas among her naked and struggling companions?\nThough this does not appear to have been much noticed, it seems to follow\nfrom a speech of Pururavas in the Vedic dialogue {83b} (x. 95, 8, 9).  Mr.\nMax Muller translates thus: 'When I, the mortal, threw my arms round\nthose flighty immortals, they trembled away from me like a trembling doe,\nlike horses that kick against the cart.' {84a}  Ludwig's rendering suits\nour view--that Pururavas is telling how he first caught Urvasi--still\nbetter: 'When I, the mortal, held converse with the immortals who had\nlaid aside their raiment, like slippery serpents they glided from me,\nlike horses yoked to the car.'  These words would well express the\nadventure of a lover among the naked flying swan-maidens, an adventure\nfamiliar to the Red Men as to Persian legends of the Peris.\n\nTo end our comparison of myths like the tale of 'Cupid and Psyche,' we\nfind an example among the Zulus.  Here {84b} the mystic lover came in\nwhen all was dark, and felt the damsel's face.  After certain rites, 'in\nthe morning he went away, he speaking continually, the girl not seeing\nhim.  During all those days he would not allow the girl (sic), when she\nsaid she would light a fire.  Finally, after a magical ceremony, he said,\n\"Light the fire!\" and stood before her revealed, a shining shape.'  This\nhas a curious resemblance to the myth of Cupid and Psyche; but a more\ncurious detail remains.  In the Zulu story of Ukcombekcansini, the\nfriends of a bride break a taboo and kill a tabooed animal.  Instantly,\nlike Urvasi and her companions in the Yajur Veda, the bride and her\nmaidens disappear _and are turned into birds_! {84c}  They are afterwards\nsurprised in human shape, and the bride is restored to her lover.\n\nHere we conclude, having traced parallels to Cupid and Psyche in many non-\nAryan lands.  Our theory of the myth does not rest on etymology.  We have\nseen that the most renowned scholars, Max Muller, Kuhn, Roth, all analyse\nthe names Urvasi and Pururavas in different ways, and extract different\ninterpretations.  We have found the story where these names were probably\nnever heard of.  We interpret it as a tale of the intercourse between\nmortal men and immortal maids, or between men and metamorphosed animals,\nas in India and North America.  We explain the separation of the lovers\nas the result of breaking a taboo, or law of etiquette, binding among men\nand women, as well as between men and fairies.\n\n* * * * *\n\nThe taboos are, to see the beloved unveiled, to utter his or her name, to\ntouch her with a metal 'terrible to ghosts and spirits,' or to do some\naction which will revive the associations of a former life.  We have\nshown that rules of nuptial etiquette resembling these in character do\nexist, and have existed, even among Greeks--as where the Milesian, like\nthe Zulu, women made a law not to utter their husbands' names.  Finally,\nwe think it a reasonable hypothesis that tales on the pattern of 'Cupid\nand Psyche' might have been evolved wherever a curious nuptial taboo\nrequired to be sanctioned, or explained, by a myth.  On this hypothesis,\nthe stories may have been separately invented in different lands; but\nthere is also a chance that they have been transmitted from people to\npeople in the unknown past of our scattered and wandering race.  This\ntheory seems at least as probable as the hypothesis that the meaning of\nan Aryan proverbial statement about sun and dawn was forgotten, and was\naltered unconsciously into a tale which is found among various non-Aryan\ntribes.  That hypothesis again, learned and ingenious as it is, has the\nmisfortune to be opposed by other scholarly hypotheses not less ingenious\nand learned.\n\n* * * * *\n\nAs for the sun-frog, we may hope that he has sunk for ever beneath the\nwestern wave.\n\n\n\n\nA FAR-TRAVELLED TALE.\n\n\nA modern novelist has boasted that her books are read 'from Tobolsk to\nTangiers.'  This is a wide circulation, but the widest circulation in the\nworld has probably been achieved by a story whose author, unlike Ouida,\nwill never be known to fame.  The tale which we are about to examine is,\nperhaps, of all myths the most widely diffused, yet there is no ready way\nof accounting for its extraordinary popularity.  Any true 'nature-myth,'\nany myth which accounts for the processes of nature or the aspects of\nnatural phenomena, may conceivably have been invented separately,\nwherever men in an early state of thought observed the same facts, and\nattempted to explain them by telling a story.  Thus we have seen that the\nearlier part of the Myth of Cronus is a nature-myth, setting forth the\ncause of the separation of Heaven and Earth.  Star-myths again, are\neverywhere similar, because men who believed all nature to be animated\nand personal, accounted for the grouping of constellations in accordance\nwith these crude beliefs. {87}  Once more, if a story like that of 'Cupid\nand Psyche' be found among the most diverse races, the distribution\nbecomes intelligible if the myth was invented to illustrate or enforce a\nwidely prevalent custom.  But in the following story no such explanation\nis even provisionally acceptable.\n\nThe gist of the tale (which has many different 'openings,' and\nconclusions in different places) may be stated thus: A young man is\nbrought to the home of a hostile animal, a giant, cannibal, wizard, or a\nmalevolent king.  He is put by his unfriendly host to various severe\ntrials, in which it is hoped that he will perish.  In each trial he is\nassisted by the daughter of his host.  After achieving the adventures, he\nelopes with the girl, and is pursued by her father.  The runaway pair\nthrow various common objects behind them, which are changed into magical\nobstacles and check the pursuit of the father.  The myth has various\nendings, usually happy, in various places.  Another form of the narrative\nis known, in which the visitors to the home of the hostile being are, not\nwooers of his daughter, but brothers of his wife. {88}  The incidents of\nthe flight, in this variant, are still of the same character.  Finally,\nwhen the flight is that of a brother from his sister's malevolent ghost,\nin Hades (Japan), or of two sisters from a cannibal mother or step-mother\n(Zulu and Samoyed), the events of the flight and the magical aids to\nescape remain little altered.  We shall afterwards see that attempts have\nbeen made to interpret one of these narratives as a nature-myth; but the\nattempts seem unsuccessful.  We are therefore at a loss to account for\nthe wide diffusion of this tale, unless it has been transmitted slowly\nfrom people to people, in the immense unknown prehistoric past of the\nhuman race.\n\n* * * * *\n\nBefore comparing the various forms of the myth in its first shape--that\nwhich tells of the mortal lover and the giant's or wizard's daughter--let\nus give the Scottish version of the story.  This version was written down\nfor me, many years ago, by an aged lady in Morayshire.  I published it in\nthe 'Revue Celtique'; but it is probably new to story-comparers, in its\nbroad Scotch variant.\n\n\n\nNICHT NOUGHT NOTHING.\n\n\n   There once lived a king and a queen.  They were long married and had\n   no bairns; but at last the queen had a bairn, when the king was away\n   in far countries.  The queen would not christen the bairn till the\n   king came back, and she said, 'We will just call him Nicht Nought\n   Nothing until his father comes home.'  But it was long before he came\n   home, and the boy had grown a nice little laddie.  At length the king\n   was on his way back; but he had a big river to cross, and there was a\n   spate, and he could not get over the water.  But a giant came up to\n   him, and said, 'If you will give me Nicht Nought Nothing, I will carry\n   you over the water on my back.'  The king had never heard that his son\n   was called Nicht Nought Nothing, and so he promised him.  When the\n   king got home again, he was very happy to see his wife again, and his\n   young son.  She told him that she had not given the child any name but\n   Nicht Nought Nothing, until he should come home again himself.  The\n   poor king was in a terrible case.  He said, 'What have I done?  I\n   promised to give the giant who carried me over the river on his back,\n   Nicht Nought Nothing.'  The king and the queen were sad and sorry, but\n   they said, 'When the giant comes we will give him the hen-wife's\n   bairn; he will never know the difference.'  The next day the giant\n   came to claim the king's promise, and he sent for the hen-wife's\n   bairn; and the giant went away with the bairn on his back.  He\n   travelled till he came to a big stone, and there he sat down to rest.\n   He said,\n\n   'Hidge, Hodge, on my back, what time of day is it?'  The poor little\n   bairn said, 'It is the time that my mother, the hen-wife, takes up the\n   eggs for the queen's breakfast.'\n\n   The giant was very angry, and dashed the bairn on the stone and killed\n   it.\n\n   . . . . .\n\n   The same adventure is repeated with the gardener's son.\n\n   . . . . .\n\n   Then the giant went back to the king's house, and said he would\n   destroy them all if they did not give him Nicht Nought Nothing this\n   time.  They had to do it; and when he came to the big stone, the giant\n   said, 'What time of day is it?'  Nicht Nought Nothing said, 'It is the\n   time that my father the king will be sitting down to supper.'  The\n   giant said, 'I've got the richt ane noo;' and took Nicht Nought\n   Nothing to his own house and brought him up till he was a man.\n\n   The giant had a bonny dochter, and she and the lad grew very fond of\n   each other.  The giant said one day to Nicht Nought Nothing, 'I've\n   work for you to-morrow.  There is a stable seven miles long and seven\n   miles broad, and it has not been cleaned for seven years, and you must\n   clean it to-morrow, or I will have you for my supper.'\n\n   The giant's dochter went out next morning with the lad's breakfast,\n   and found him in a terrible state, for aye as he cleaned out a bit, it\n   aye fell in again.  The giant's dochter said she would help him, and\n   she cried a' the beasts of the field, and a' the fowls o' the air, and\n   in a minute they a' came, and carried awa' everything that was in the\n   stable and made a' clean before the giant came home.  He said, 'Shame\n   for the wit that helped you; but I have a worse job for you\n   to-morrow.'  Then he told Nicht Nought Nothing that there was a loch\n   seven miles long, and seven miles deep, and seven miles broad, and he\n   must drain it the next day, or else he would have him for his supper.\n   Nicht Nought Nothing began early next morning and tried to lave the\n   water with his pail, but the loch was never getting any less, and he\n   did no ken what to do; but the giant's dochter called on all the fish\n   in the sea to come and drink the water, and very soon they drank it\n   dry.  When the giant saw the work done he was in a rage, and said,\n   'I've a worse job for you to-morrow; there is a tree seven miles high,\n   and no branch on it, till you get to the top, and there is a nest, and\n   you must bring down the eggs without breaking one, or else I will have\n   you for my supper.'  At first the giant's dochter did not know how to\n   help Nicht Nought Nothing; but she cut off first her fingers and then\n   her toes, and made steps of them, and he clomb the tree, and got all\n   the eggs safe till he came to the bottom, and then one was broken.  The\n   giant's dochter advised him to run away, and she would follow him.  So\n   he travelled till he came to a king's palace, and the king and queen\n   took him in and were very kind to him.  The giant's dochter left her\n   father's house, and he pursued her and was drowned.  Then she came to\n   the king's palace where Nicht Nought Nothing was.  And she went up\n   into a tree to watch for him.  The gardener's dochter, going to draw\n   water in the well, saw the shadow of the lady in the water, and\n   thought it was herself, and said, 'If I'm so bonny, if I'm so brave,\n   do you send me to draw water?'  The gardener's wife went out, and she\n   said the same thing.  Then the gardener went himself, and brought the\n   lady from the tree, and led her in.  And he told her that a stranger\n   was to marry the king's dochter, and showed her the man: and it was\n   Nicht Nought Nothing asleep in a chair.  And she saw him, and cried to\n   him, 'Waken, waken, and speak to me!'  But he would not waken, and\n   syne she cried,\n\n   'I cleaned the stable, I laved the loch, and I clamb the tree,\n         And all for the love of thee,\n         And thou wilt not waken and speak to me.'\n\n   The king and the queen heard this, and came to the bonny young lady,\n   and she said,\n\n   'I canna get Nicht Nought Nothing to speak to me for all that I can\n   do.'\n\n   Then were they greatly astonished when she spoke of Nicht Nought\n   Nothing, and asked where he was, and she said, 'He that sits there in\n   the chair.'  Then they ran to him and kissed him and called him their\n   own dear son, and he wakened, and told them all that the giant's\n   dochter had done for him, and of all her kindness.  Then they took her\n   in their arms and kissed her, and said she should now be their\n   dochter, for their son should marry her.\n\n   And they lived happy all their days.\n\nIn this variant of the story, which we may use as our text, it is to be\nnoticed that a lacuna exists.  The narrative of the flight omits to\nmention that the runaways threw things behind them which became obstacles\nin the giant's way.  One of these objects probably turned into a lake, in\nwhich the giant was drowned. {92}  A common incident is the throwing\nbehind of a comb, which changes into a thicket.  The formula of leaving\nobstacles behind occurs in the Indian collection, the 'Kathasarit sagara'\n(vii. xxxix.).  The 'Battle of the Birds,' in Campbell's 'Tales of the\nWest Highlands,' is a very copious Gaelic variant.  Russian parallels are\n'Vasilissa the Wise and the Water King,' and 'The King Bear.' {93a}  The\nincident of the flight and the magical obstacles is found in Japanese\nmythology. {93b}  The 'ugly woman of Hades' is sent to pursue the hero.\nHe casts down his black head-dress, and it is instantly turned into\ngrapes; he fled while she was eating them.  Again, 'he cast down his\nmultitudinous and close-toothed comb, and it instantly turned into bamboo\nsprouts.'  In the Gaelic version, the pursuer is detained by talkative\nobjects which the pursued leave at home, and this marvel recurs in\nZululand, and is found among the Bushmen.  The Zulu versions are\nnumerous. {93c}  Oddly enough, in the last variant, the girl performs no\nmagic feat, but merely throws sesamum on the ground to delay the\ncannibals, for cannibals are very fond of sesamum. {93d}\n\n* * * * *\n\nHere, then, we have the remarkable details of the flight, in Zulu,\nGaelic, Norse, Malagasy, {93e} Russian, Italian, Japanese.  Of all\nincidents in the myth, the incidents of the flight are most widely known.\nBut the whole connected series of events--the coming of the wooer; the\nlove of the hostile being's daughter; the tasks imposed on the wooer; the\naid rendered by the daughter; the flight of the pair; the defeat or\ndestruction of the hostile being--all these, or most of these, are\nextant, in due sequence, among the following races.  The Greeks have the\ntale, the people of Madagascar have it, the Lowland Scotch, the Celts,\nthe Russians, the Italians, the Algonquins, the Finns, and the Samoans\nhave it.  Now if the story were confined to the Aryan race, we might\naccount for its diffusion, by supposing it to be the common heritage of\nthe Indo-European peoples, carried everywhere with them in their\nwanderings.  But when the tale is found in Madagascar, North America,\nSamoa, and among the Finns, while many scattered incidents occur in even\nmore widely severed races, such as Zulus, Bushmen, Japanese, Eskimo,\nSamoyeds, the Aryan hypothesis becomes inadequate.\n\nTo show how closely, all things considered, the Aryan and non-Aryan\npossessors of the tale agree, let us first examine the myth of Jason.\n\n* * * * *\n\nThe earliest literary reference to the myth of Jason is in the 'Iliad'\n(vii. 467, xxiii. 747).  Here we read of Euneos, a son whom Hypsipyle\nbore to Jason in Lemnos.  Already, even in the 'Iliad,' the legend of\nArgo's voyage has been fitted into certain well-known geographical\nlocalities.  A reference in the 'Odyssey' (xii. 72) has a more antique\nring: we are told that of all barques Argo alone escaped the jaws of the\nRocks Wandering, which clashed together and destroyed ships.  Argo\nescaped, it is said, 'because Jason was dear to Hera.'  It is plain, from\nvarious fragmentary notices, that Hesiod was familiar with several of the\nadventures in the legend of Jason.  In the 'Theogony' (993-998) Hesiod\nmentions the essential facts of the legend: how Jason carried off from\nAEetes his daughter, 'after achieving the adventures, many and grievous,'\nwhich were laid upon him.  At what period the home of AEetes was placed\nin Colchis, it is not easy to determine.  Mimnermus, a contemporary of\nSolon, makes the home of AEetes lie 'on the brink of ocean,' a very vague\ndescription. {95}  Pindar, on the other hand, in the splendid Fourth\nPythian Ode, already knows Colchis as the scene of the loves and flight\nof Jason and Medea.\n\n* * * *\n\n'Long were it for me to go by the beaten track,' says Pindar, 'and I know\na certain short path.'  Like Pindar, we may abridge the tale of Jason.  He\nseeks the golden fleece in Colchis: AEetes offers it to him as a prize\nfor success in certain labours.  By the aid of Medea, the daughter of\nAEetes, the wizard-king, Jason tames the fire-breathing oxen, yokes them\nto the plough, and drives a furrow.  By Medea's help he conquers the\nchildren of the teeth of the dragon, subdues the snake that guards the\nfleece of gold, and escapes, but is pursued by AEetes.  To detain AEetes,\nMedea throws behind the mangled remains of her own brother, Apsyrtos, and\nthe Colchians pursue no further than the scene of this bloody deed.  The\nsavagery of this act survives even in the work of a poet so late as\nApollonius Rhodius (iv. 477), where we read how Jason performed a rite of\nsavage magic, mutilating the body of Apsyrtos in a manner which was\nbelieved to appease the avenging ghost of the slain.  'Thrice he tasted\nthe blood, thrice spat it out between his teeth,' a passage which the\nScholiast says contains the description of an archaic custom popular\namong murderers.\n\nBeyond Tomi, where a popular etymology fixed the 'cutting up' of\nApsyrtos, we need not follow the fortunes of Jason and Medea.  We have\nalready seen the wooer come to the hostile being, win his daughter's\nlove, achieve the adventures by her aid, and flee in her company,\ndelaying, by a horrible device, the advance of the pursuers.  To these\nincidents in the tale we confine our attention.\n\nMany explanations of the Jason myth have been given by Scholars who\nthought they recognised elemental phenomena in the characters.  As usual\nthese explanations differ widely.  Whenever a myth has to be interpreted,\nit is certain that one set of Scholars will discover the sun and the\ndawn, where another set will see the thunder-cloud and lightning.  The\nmoon is thrown in at pleasure.  Sir G. W. Cox determines {96} 'that the\nname Jason (Iason) must be classed with the many others, Iasion, Iamus,\nIolaus, Iaso, belonging to the same root.'  Well, what is the root?\nApparently the root is 'the root i, as denoting a crying colour, that is,\na loud colour' (ii. 81).  Seemingly (i. 229) violet is a loud colour,\nand, wherever you have the root i, you have 'the violet-tinted morning\nfrom which the sun is born.'  Medea is 'the daughter of the sun,' and\nmost likely, in her 'beneficent aspect,' is the dawn.  But (ii. 81, note)\nios has another meaning, 'which, as a spear, represents the far-darting\nray of the sun'; so that, in one way or another, Jason is connected with\nthe violet-tinted morning or with the sun's rays.  This is the gist of\nthe theory of Sir George Cox.\n\nPreller {97a} is another Scholar, with another set of etymologies.  Jason\nis derived, he thinks, from [Greek], to heal, because Jason studied\nmedicine under the Centaur Chiron.  This is the view of the Scholiast on\nApollonius Rhodius (i. 554).  Jason, to Preller's mind, is a form of\nAsclepius, 'a spirit of the spring with its soft suns and fertile rains.'\nMedea is the moon.  Medea, on the other hand, is a lightning goddess, in\nthe opinion of Schwartz. {97b}  No philological reason is offered.\nMeanwhile, in Sir George Cox's system, the equivalent of Medea, 'in her\nbeneficent aspect,' is the dawn.\n\nWe must suppose, it seems, that either the soft spring rains and the\nmoon, or the dawn and the sun, or the lightning and the thunder-cloud, in\none arrangement or another, irresistibly suggested, to early Aryan minds,\nthe picture of a wooer, arriving in a hostile home, winning a maiden's\nlove, achieving adventures by her aid, fleeing with her from her angry\nfather and delaying his pursuit by various devices.  Why the spring, the\nmoon, the lightning, the dawn--any of them or all of them--should have\nsuggested such a tale, let Scholars determine when they have reconciled\ntheir own differences.  It is more to our purpose to follow the myth\namong Samoans, Algonquins, and Finns.  None of these races speak an Aryan\nlanguage, and none can have been beguiled into telling the same sort of\ntale by a disease of Aryan speech.\n\nSamoa, where we find our story, is the name of a group of volcanic\nislands in Central Polynesia.  They are about 3,000 miles from Sidney,\nwere first observed by Europeans in 1722, and are as far removed as most\nspots from direct Aryan influences.  Our position is, however, that in\nthe shiftings and migrations of peoples, the Jason tale has somehow been\nswept, like a piece of drift-wood, on to the coasts of Samoa.  In the\nislands, the tale has an epical form, and is chanted in a poem of twenty-\nsix stanzas.  There is something Greek in the free and happy life of the\nSamoans--something Greek, too, in this myth of theirs.  There was once a\nyouth, Siati, famous for his singing, a young Thamyris of Samoa.  But as,\naccording to Homer, 'the Muses met Thamyris the Thracian, and made an end\nof his singing, for he boasted and said that he would vanquish even the\nMuses if he sang against them,' so did the Samoan god of song envy Siati.\nThe god and the mortal sang a match: the daughter of the god was to be\nthe mortal's prize if he proved victorious.  Siati won, and he set off,\nriding on a shark, as Arion rode the dolphin, to seek the home of the\ndefeated deity.  At length he reached the shores divine, and thither\nstrayed Puapae, daughter of the god, looking for her comb which she had\nlost.  'Siati,' said she, 'how camest thou hither?'  'I am come to seek\nthe song-god, and to wed his daughter.'  'My father,' said the maiden,\n'is more a god than a man; eat nothing he hands you, never sit on a high\nseat, lest death follow.'  So they were united in marriage.  But the god,\nlike AEetes, was wroth, and began to set Siati upon perilous tasks:\n'Build me a house, and let it be finished this very day, else death and\nthe oven await thee.' {99a}\n\nSiati wept, but the god's daughter had the house built by the evening.\nThe other adventures were to fight a fierce dog, and to find a ring lost\nat sea.  Just as the Scotch giant's daughter cut off her fingers to help\nher lover, so the Samoan god's daughter bade Siati cut her body into\npieces and cast her into the sea.  There she became a fish, and recovered\nthe ring.  They set off to the god's house, but met him pursuing them,\nwith the help of his other daughter.  'Puapae and Siati threw down the\ncomb, and it became a bush of thorns in the way to intercept the god and\nPuanli,' the other daughter.  Next they threw down a bottle of earth\nwhich became a mountain; 'and then followed their bottle of water, and\nthat became a sea, and drowned the god and Puanli.' {99b}\n\nThis old Samoan song contains nearly the closest savage parallel to the\nvarious household tales which find their heroic and artistic shape in the\nJason saga.  Still more surprising in its resemblances is the Malagasy\nversion of the narrative.  In the Malagasy story, the conclusion is\nalmost identical with the winding up of the Scotch fairy tale.  The girl\nhides in a tree; her face, seen reflected in a well, is mistaken by women\nfor their own faces, and the recognition follows in due course. {99c}\n\nLike most Red Indian versions of popular tales, the Algonquin form of the\nJason saga is strongly marked with the peculiarities of the race.  The\nstory is recognisable, and that is all.\n\nThe opening, as usual, differs from other openings.  Two children are\ndeserted in the wilderness, and grow up to manhood.  One of them loses an\narrow in the water; the elder brother, Panigwun, wades after it.  A\nmagical canoe flies past: an old magician, who is alone in the canoe,\nseizes Panigwun and carries him off.  The canoe fleets along, like the\nbarques of the Phaeacians, at the will of the magician, and reaches the\nisle where, like the Samoan god of song, he dwells with his two\ndaughters.  'Here, my daughter,' said he, 'is a young man for your\nhusband.'  But the daughter knew that the proposed husband was but\nanother victim of the old man's magic arts.  By the daughter's advice,\nPanigwun escaped in the magic barque, consoled his brother, and returned\nto the island.  Next day the magician, Mishosha, set the young man to\nhard tasks and perilous adventures.  He was to gather gulls' eggs; but\nthe gulls attacked him in dense crowds.  By an incantation he subdued the\nbirds, and made them carry him home to the island.  Next day he was sent\nto gather pebbles, that he might be attacked and eaten by the king of the\nfishes.  Once more the young man, like the Finnish Ilmarinen in Pohjola,\nsubdued the mighty fish, and went back triumphant.  The third adventure,\nas in 'Nicht Nought Nothing,' was to climb a tree of extraordinary height\nin search of a bird's nest.  Here, again, the youth succeeded, and\nfinally conspired with the daughters to slay the old magician.  Lastly\nthe boy turned the magician into a sycamore tree, and won his daughter.\nThe other daughter was given to the brother who had no share in the\nperils. {101}  Here we miss the incident of the flight; and the\nmagician's daughter, though in love with the hero, does not aid him to\nperform the feats.  Perhaps an Algonquin brave would scorn the assistance\nof a girl.  In the 'Kalevala,' the old hero, Wainamoinen, and his friend\nIlmarinen, set off to the mysterious and hostile land of Pohjola to win a\nbride.  The maiden of Pohjola loses her heart to Ilmarinen, and, by her\naid, he bridles the wolf and bear, ploughs a field of adders with a\nplough of gold, and conquers the gigantic pike that swims in the Styx of\nFinnish mythology.  After this point the story is interrupted by a long\nsequel of popular bridal songs, and, in the wandering course of the\nrather aimless epic, the flight and its incidents have been forgotten, or\nare neglected.  These incidents recur, however, in the thread of somewhat\ndifferent plots.  We have seen that they are found in Japan, among the\nEskimo, among the Bushmen, the Samoyeds, and the Zulus, as well as in\nHungarian, Magyar, Celtic, and other European household tales.\n\nThe conclusion appears to be that the central part of the Jason myth is\nincapable of being explained, either as a nature-myth, or as a myth\nfounded on a disease of language.  So many languages could not take the\nsame malady in the same way; nor can we imagine any series of natural\nphenomena that would inevitably suggest this tale to so many diverse\nraces.\n\nWe must suppose, therefore, either that all wits jumped and invented the\nsame romantic series of situations by accident, or that all men spread\nfrom one centre, where the story was known, or that the story, once\ninvented, has drifted all round the world.  If the last theory be\napproved of, the tale will be like the Indian Ocean shell found lately in\nthe Polish bone-cave, {102a} or like the Egyptian beads discovered in the\nsoil of Dahomey.  The story will have been carried hither and thither, in\nthe remotest times, to the remotest shores, by traders, by slaves, by\ncaptives in war, or by women torn from their own tribe and forcibly\nsettled as wives among alien peoples.\n\nStories of this kind are everywhere the natural property of mothers and\ngrandmothers.  When we remember how widely diffused is the law of\nexogamy, which forbids marriage between a man and woman of the same\nstock, we are impressed by the number of alien elements which must have\nbeen introduced with alien wives.  Where husband and wife, as often\nhappened, spoke different languages, the woman would inevitably bring the\nhearthside tales of her childhood among a people of strange speech.  By\nall these agencies, working through dateless time, we may account for the\ndiffusion, if we cannot explain the origin, of tales like the central\narrangement of incidents in the career of Jason. {102b}\n\n\n\n\nAPOLLO AND THE MOUSE.\n\n\nWhy is Apollo, especially the Apollo of the Troad, he who showered the\ndarts of pestilence among the Greeks, so constantly associated with a\nmouse?  The very name, Smintheus, by which his favourite priest calls on\nhim in the 'Iliad' (i. 39), might be rendered 'Mouse Apollo,' or 'Apollo,\nLord of Mice.'  As we shall see later, mice lived beneath the altar, and\nwere fed in the holy of holies of the god, and an image of a mouse was\nplaced beside or upon his sacred tripod.  The ancients were puzzled by\nthese things, and, as will be shown, accounted for them by\n'mouse-stories,' [Greek], so styled by Eustathius, the mediaeval\ninterpreter of Homer.  Following our usual method, let us ask whether\nsimilar phenomena occur elsewhere, in countries where they are\nintelligible.  Did insignificant animals elsewhere receive worship: were\ntheir effigies elsewhere placed in the temples of a purer creed?  We find\nanswers in the history of Peruvian religion.\n\nAfter the Spanish conquest of Peru, one of the European adventurers, Don\nGarcilasso de la Vega, married an Inca princess.  Their son, also named\nGarcilasso, was born about 1540.  His famous book, 'Commentarias Reales,'\ncontains the most authentic account of the old Peruvian beliefs.\nGarcilasso was learned in all the learning of the Europeans, and, as an\nInca on the mother's side, had claims on the loyalty of the defeated\nrace.  He set himself diligently to collect both their priestly and\npopular traditions, and his account of them is the more trustworthy as it\ncoincides with what we know to have been true in lands with which\nGarcilasso had little acquaintance.\n\n* * * * *\n\nTo Garcilasso's mind, Peruvian religion seems to be divided into two\nperiods--the age before, and the age which followed the accession of the\nIncas, and their establishment of sun-worship as the creed of the State.\nIn the earlier period, the pre-Inca period, he tells us 'an Indian was\nnot accounted honourable unless he was descended from a fountain, river,\nor lake, or even from the sea, or from a wild animal, such as a bear,\nlion, tiger, eagle, or the bird they call cuntur (condor), or some other\nbird of prey.' {104a}  To these worshipful creatures 'men offered what\nthey usually saw them eat' (i. 53).  But men were not content to adore\nlarge and dangerous animals.  'There was not an animal, how vile and\nfilthy soever, that they did not worship as a god,' including 'lizards,\ntoads, and frogs.'  In the midst of these superstitions the Incas\nappeared.  Just as the tribes claimed descent from animals, great or\nsmall, so the Incas drew _their_ pedigree from the sun, which they adored\nlike the gens of the Aurelii in Rome. {104b}  Thus every Indian had his\npacarissa, or, as the North American Indians say, totem, {105a} a natural\nobject from which he claimed descent, and which, in a certain degree, he\nworshipped.  Though sun-worship became the established religion, worship\nof the animal pacarissas was still tolerated.  The sun-temples also\ncontained huacas, or images, of the beasts which the Indians had\nvenerated. {105b}  In the great temple of Pachacamac, the most spiritual\nand abstract god of Peruvian faith, 'they worshipped a she-fox and an\nemerald.  The devil also appeared to them, and spoke in the form of a\ntiger, very fierce.' {105c}  This toleration of an older and cruder, in\nsubordination to a purer, faith is a very common feature in religious\nevolution.  In Catholic countries, to this day, we may watch, in Holy\nWeek, the Adonis feast described by Theocritus, {105d} and the procession\nand entombment of the old god of spring.\n\n'The Incas had the good policy to collect all the tribal animal gods into\ntheir temples in and round Cuzco, in which the two leading gods were the\nMaster of Life, and the Sun.'  Did a process of this sort ever occur in\nGreek religion, and were older animal gods ever collected into the\ntemples of such deities as Apollo?\n\n* * * * *\n\nWhile a great deal of scattered evidence about many animals consecrated\nto Greek gods points in this direction, it will be enough, for the\npresent, to examine the case of the Sacred Mice.  Among races which are\nstill in the totemistic stage, which still claim descent from animals and\nfrom other objects, a peculiar marriage law generally exists, or can be\nshown to have existed.  No man may marry a woman who is descended from\nthe same ancestral animal, and who bears the same totem-name, and carries\nthe same badge or family crest, as himself.  A man descended from the\nCrane, and whose family name is Crane, cannot marry a woman whose family\nname is Crane.  He must marry a woman of the Wolf, or Turtle, or Swan, or\nother name, and her children keep her family title, not his.  Thus, if a\nCrane man marries a Swan woman, the children are Swans, and none of them\nmay marry a Swan; they must marry Turtles, Wolves, or what not, and\n_their_ children, again, are Turtles, or Wolves.  Thus there is\nnecessarily an eternal come and go of all the animal names known in a\ndistrict.  As civilisation advances these rules grow obsolete.  People\ntake their names from the father, as among ourselves.  Finally the\ndwellers in a given district, having become united into a local tribe,\nare apt to drop the various animal titles and to adopt, as the name of\nthe whole tribe, the name of the chief, or of the predominating family.\nLet us imagine a district of some twenty miles in which there are Crane,\nWolf, Turtle, and Swan families.  Long residence together, and common\ninterests, have welded them into a local tribe.  The chief is of the Wolf\nfamily, and the tribe, sinking family differences and family names, calls\nitself 'the Wolves.'  Such tribes were probably, in the beginning, the\ninhabitants of the various Egyptian towns which severally worshipped the\nwolf, or the sheep, or the crocodile, and abstained religiously (except\non certain sacrificial occasions) from the flesh of the animal that gave\nthem its name. {107}\n\n* * * * *\n\nIt has taken us long to reach the Sacred Mice of Greek religion, but we\nare now in a position to approach their august divinity.  We have seen\nthat the sun-worship superseded, without abolishing, the tribal\npacarissas in Peru, and that the huacas, or images, of the sacred animals\nwere admitted under the roof of the temple of the Sun.  Now it is\nrecognised that the temples of the Sminthian Apollo contained images of\nsacred mice among other animals, and our argument is that here, perhaps,\nwe have another example of the Peruvian religious evolution.  Just as, in\nPeru, the tribes adored 'vile and filthy' animals, just as the solar\nworship of the Incas subordinated these, just as the huacas of the beasts\nremained in the temples of the Peruvian Sun; so, we believe, the tribes\nalong the Mediterranean coasts had, at some very remote prehistoric\nperiod, their animal pacarissas; these were subordinated to the religion\n(to some extent solar) of Apollo; and the huacas, or animal idols,\nsurvived in Apollo's temples.\n\n* * * * *\n\nIf this theory be correct, we shall probably find the mouse, for example,\nrevered as a sacred animal in many places.  This would necessarily\nfollow, if the marriage customs which we have described ever prevailed on\nGreek soil, and scattered the mouse-name far and wide. {108a}  Traces of\nthe Mouse families, and of adoration, if adoration there was of the\nmouse, would linger on in the following shapes:--(1) Places would be\nnamed from mice, and mice would be actually held sacred in themselves.\n(2) The mouse-name would be given locally to the god who superseded the\nmouse.  (3) The figure of the mouse would be associated with the god, and\nused as a badge, or a kind of crest, or local mark, in places where the\nmouse has been a venerated animal.  (4) Finally, myths would be told to\naccount for the sacredness of a creature so undignified.\n\nLet us take these considerations in their order:--\n\n(1) If there were local mice tribes, deriving their name from the\nworshipful mouse, certain towns settled by these tribes would retain a\nreverence for mice.\n\nIn Chrysa, a town of the Troad, according to Heraclides Ponticus, mice\nwere held sacred, the local name for mouse being [Greek].  Many places\nbore this mouse-name, according to Strabo. {108b}  This is precisely what\nwould have occurred had the Mouse totem, and the Mouse stock, been widely\ndistributed. {108c}  The Scholiast {109a} mentions Sminthus as a place in\nthe Troad.  Strabo speaks of two places deriving their name from\nSminthus, or mouse, near the Sminthian temple, and others near Larissa.\nIn Rhodes and Lindus, the mouse place-name recurs, 'and in many other\ndistricts' ([Greek]).  Strabo (x. 486) names Caressus, and Poeessa, in\nCeos, among the other places which had Sminthian temples, and,\npresumably, were once centres of tribes named after the mouse.\n\nHere, then, are a number of localities in which the Mouse Apollo was\nadored, and where the old mouse-name lingered.  That the mice were\nactually held sacred in their proper persons we learn from AElian.  'The\ndwellers in Hamaxitus of the Troad worship mice,' says AElian.  'In the\ntemple of Apollo Smintheus, mice are nourished, and food is offered to\nthem, at the public expense, and white mice dwell beneath the altar.'\n{109b}  In the same way we found that the Peruvians fed their sacred\nbeasts on what they usually saw them eat.\n\n(2) The second point in our argument has already been sufficiently\ndemonstrated.  The mouse-name 'Smintheus' was given to Apollo in all the\nplaces mentioned by Strabo, 'and many others.'\n\n(3) The figure of the mouse will be associated with the god, and used as\na badge, or crest, or local mark, in places where the mouse has been a\nvenerated animal.\n\nThe passage already quoted from AElian informs us that there stood 'an\neffigy of the mouse beside the tripod of Apollo.'  In Chrysa, according\nto Strabo (xiii. 604), the statue of Apollo Smintheus had a mouse beneath\nhis foot.  The mouse on the tripod of Apollo is represented on a\nbas-relief illustrating the plague, and the offerings of the Greeks to\nApollo Smintheus, as described in the first book of the 'Iliad.' {110a}\n\n* * * * *\n\nThe mouse is a not uncommon local badge or crest in Greece.  The animals\nwhose figures are stamped on coins, like the Athenian owl, are the most\nancient marks of cities.  It is a plausible conjecture that, just as the\nIroquois when they signed treaties with the Europeans used their\ntotems--bear, wolf, and turtle--as seals, {110b} so the animals on\narchaic Greek city coins represented crests or badges which, at some far\nmore remote period, had been totems.\n\nThe Argives, according to Pollux, {110c} stamped the mouse on their\ncoins. {110d}  As there was a temple of Apollo Smintheus in Tenedos, we\nnaturally hear of a mouse on the coins of the island. {111a}  Golzio has\npublished one of these mouse coins.  The people of Metapontum stamped\ntheir money with a mouse gnawing an ear of corn.  The people of Cumae\nemployed a mouse dormant.  Paoli fancied that certain mice on Roman\nmedals might be connected with the family of Mus, but this is rather\nguesswork. {111b}\n\nWe have now shown traces, at least, of various ways in which an early\ntribal religion of the mouse--the mouse pacarissa, as the Peruvians\nsaid--may have been perpetuated.  When we consider that the superseding\nof the mouse by Apollo must have occurred, if it did occur, long before\nHomer, we may rather wonder that the mouse left his mark on Greek\nreligion so long.  We have seen mice revered, a god with a mouse-name,\nthe mouse-name recurring in many places, the huaca, or idol, of the mouse\npreserved in the temples of the god, and the mouse-badge used in several\nwidely severed localities.  It remains (4) to examine the myths about\nmice.  These, in our opinion, were probably told to account for the\npresence of the huaca of the mouse in temples, and for the occurrence of\nthe animal in religion, and his connection with Apollo.\n\nA singular mouse-myth, narrated by Herodotus, is worth examining for\nreasons which will appear later, though the events are said to have\nhappened on Egyptian soil. {111c}  According to Herodotus, one Sethos, a\npriest of Hephaestus (Ptah), was king of Egypt.  He had disgraced the\nmilitary class, and he found himself without an army when Sennacherib\ninvaded his country.  Sethos fell asleep in the temple, and the god,\nappearing to him in a vision, told him that divine succour would come to\nthe Egyptians. {112a}  In the night before the battle, field-mice gnawed\nthe quivers and shield-handles of the foe, who fled on finding themselves\nthus disarmed.  'And now,' says Herodotus, 'there standeth a stone image\nof this king in the temple of Hephaestus, and in the hand of the image a\nmouse, and there is this inscription, \"Let whoso looketh on me be\npious.\"'\n\nProf. Sayce {112b} holds that there was no such person as Sethos, but\nthat the legend 'is evidently Egyptian, not Greek, and the name of\nSennacherib, as well as the fact of the Assyrian attack, is correct.'  The\nlegend also, though Egyptian, is 'an echo of the biblical account of the\ndestruction of the Assyrian army,' an account which omits the mice.  'As\nto the mice, here,' says Prof. Sayce, 'we have to do again with the Greek\ndragomen (sic).  The story of Sethos was attached to the statue of some\ndeity which was supposed to hold a mouse in its hand.'  It must have been\neasy to verify this supposition; but Mr. Sayce adds, 'mice were not\nsacred in Egypt, nor were they used as symbols, or found on the\nmonuments.'  To this remark we may suggest some exceptions.  Apparently\nthis one mouse _was_ found on the monuments.  Wilkinson (iii. 264) says\nmice do occur in the sculptures, but they were not sacred.  Rats,\nhowever, were certainly sacred, and as little distinction is taken, in\nmyth, between rats and mice as between rabbits and hares.  The rat was\nsacred to Ra, the Sun-god, and (like all totems) was not to be eaten.\n{113a}  This association of the rat and the Sun cannot but remind us of\nApollo and his mouse.  According to Strabo, a certain city of Egypt did\nworship the shrew-mouse.  The Athribitae, or dwellers in Crocodilopolis,\nare the people to whom he attributes this cult, which he mentions (xvii.\n813) among the other local animal-worships of Egypt. {113b}  Several\nporcelain examples of the field-mouse sacred to Horus (commonly called\nApollo by the Greeks) may be seen in the British Museum.\n\nThat rats and field-mice were sacred in Egypt, then, we may believe on\nthe evidence of the Ritual, of Strabo, and of many relics of Egyptian\nart.  Herodotus, moreover, is credited when he says that the statue 'had\na mouse on its hand.'  Elsewhere, it is certain that the story of mice\ngnawing the bowstrings occurs frequently as an explanation of\nmouse-worship.  One of the Trojan 'mouse-stories' ran--That emigrants had\nset out in prehistoric times from Crete.  The oracle advised them to\nsettle 'wherever they were attacked by the children of the soil.'  At\nHamaxitus in the Troad, they were assailed in the night by mice, which\nate all that was edible of their armour and bowstrings.  The colonists\nmade up their mind that these mice were 'the children of the soil,'\nsettled there, and adored the mouse Apollo. {114a}  A myth of this sort\nmay either be a story invented to explain the mouse-name; or a Mouse\ntribe, like the Red Indian Wolves, or Crows, may actually have been\nsettled on the spot, and may even have resisted invasion. {114b}  Another\nmyth of the Troad accounted for the worship of the mouse Apollo on the\nhypothesis that he had once freed the land from mice, like the Pied Piper\nof Hamelin, whose pipe (still serviceable) is said to have been found in\nhis grave by men who were digging a mine. {114c}\n\nStories like these, stories attributing some great deliverance to the\nmouse, or some deliverance from mice to the god, would naturally spring\nup among people puzzled by their own worship of the mouse-god or of the\nmouse.  We have explained the religious character of mice as the relics\nof a past age in which the mouse had been a totem and mouse family names\nhad been widely diffused.  That there are, and have been, mice totems and\nmouse family names among Semitic stocks round the Mediterranean is proved\nby Prof. Robertson Smith: {115a} 'Achbor, the mouse, is an Edomite name,\napparently a stock name, as the jerboa and another mouse-name are among\nthe Arabs.  The same name occurs in Judah.'  Where totemism exists, the\nmembers of each stock either do not eat the ancestral animal at all, or\nonly eat him on rare sacrificial occasions.  The totem of a hostile stock\nmay be eaten by way of insult.  In the case of the mouse, Isaiah seems to\nrefer to one or other of these practices (lxvi.): 'They that sanctify\nthemselves, and purify themselves in the gardens behind one tree in the\nmidst, eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the _mouse_, shall\nbe consumed together, saith the Lord.'  This is like the Egyptian\nprohibition to eat 'the abominable' (that is, tabooed or forbidden) 'Rat\nof Ra.'  If the unclean animals of Israel were originally the totems of\neach clan, then the mouse was a totem, {115b} for the chosen people were\nforbidden to eat 'the weasel, and the mouse, and the tortoise after his\nkind.'  That unclean beasts, beasts not to be eaten, were originally\ntotems, Prof. Robertson Smith infers from Ezekiel (viii. 10, 11), where\n'we find seventy of the elders of Israel--that is, the heads of\nhouses--worshipping in a chamber which had on its walls the figures of\nall manner of unclean' (tabooed) 'creeping things, and quadrupeds, _even\nall the idols of the House of Israel_.'  Some have too hastily concluded\nthat the mouse was a sacred animal among the neighbouring Philistines.\nAfter the Philistines had captured the Ark and set it in the house of\nDagon, the people were smitten with disease.  They therefore, in\naccordance with a well-known savage magical practice, made five golden\nrepresentations of the diseased part, and five golden mice, as 'a\ntrespass offering to the Lord of Israel,' and so restored the Ark. {116}\nSuch votive offerings are common still in Catholic countries, and the\nmice of gold by no means prove that the Philistines had ever worshipped\nmice.\n\n* * * * *\n\nTurning to India from the Mediterranean basin, and the Aryan, Semitic,\nand Egyptian tribes on its coasts, we find that the mouse was the sacred\nanimal of Rudra.  'The mouse, Rudra, is thy beast,' says the Yajur Veda,\nas rendered by Grohmann in his 'Apollo Smintheus.'  Grohmann recognises\nin Rudra a deity with most of the characteristics of Apollo.  In later\nIndian mythology, the mouse is an attribute of Ganeca, who, like Apollo\nSmintheus, is represented in art with his foot upon a mouse.\n\nSuch are the chief appearances of the mouse in ancient religion.  If he\nreally was a Semitic totem, it may, perhaps, be argued that his\nprevalence in connection with Apollo is the result of a Semitic leaven in\nHellenism.  Hellenic invaders may have found Semitic mouse-tribes at\nhome, and incorporated the alien stock deity with their own\nApollo-worship.  In that case the mouse, while still originally a totem,\nwould not be an Aryan totem.  But probably the myths and rites of the\nmouse, and their diffusion, are more plausibly explained on our theory\nthan on that of De Gubernatis: 'The Pagan sun-god crushes under his foot\nthe Mouse of Night.  When the cat's away, the mice may play; the shadows\nof night dance when the moon is absent.' {117a}  This is one of the\nquaintest pieces of mythological logic.  Obviously, when the cat (the\nmoon) is away, the mice (the shadows) _cannot_ play: there is no light to\nproduce a shadow.  As usually chances, the scholars who try to resolve\nall the features of myth into physical phenomena do not agree among\nthemselves about the mouse.  While the mouse is the night, according to\nM. de Gubernatis, in Grohmann's opinion the mouse is the lightning.  He\nargues that the lightning was originally regarded by the Aryan race as\nthe 'flashing tooth of a beast,' especially of a mouse.  Afterwards men\ncame to identify the beast with his teeth, and, behold, the lightning and\nthe mouse are convertible mythical terms!  Now it is perfectly true that\nsavages regard many elemental phenomena, from eclipses to the rainbow, as\nthe result of the action of animals.  The rainbow is a serpent; {117b}\nthunder is caused by the thunder-bird, who has actually been shot in\nDacotah, and who is familiar to the Zulus; while rain is the milk of a\nheavenly cow--an idea recurring in the 'Zend Avesta.'  But it does not\nfollow because savages believe in these meteorological beasts that all\nthe beasts in myth were originally meteorological.  Man raised a serpent\nto the skies, perhaps, but his interest in the animal began on earth, not\nin the clouds.  It is excessively improbable, and quite unproved, that\nany race ever regarded lightning as the flashes of a mouse's teeth.  The\nhypothesis is a jeu d'esprit, like the opposite hypothesis about the\nmouse of Night.  In these, and all the other current theories of the\nSminthian Apollo, the widely diffused worship of ordinary mice, and such\nsmall deer, has been either wholly neglected, or explained by the first\ntheory of symbolism that occurred to the conjecture of a civilised\nobserver.  The facts of savage animal-worship, and their relations to\ntotemism, seem still unknown to or unappreciated by scholars, with the\nexception of Mr. Sayce, who recognises totemism as the origin of the\nzoomorphic element in Egyptian religion.\n\nOur explanation, whether adequate or not, is not founded on an isolated\ncase.  If Apollo superseded and absorbed the worship of the mouse, he did\nno less for the wolf, the ram, the dolphin, and several other animals\nwhose images were associated with his own.  The Greek religion was more\nrefined and anthropomorphic than that of Egypt.  In Egypt the animals\nwere still adored, and the images of the gods had bestial heads.  In\nGreece only a few gods, and chiefly in very archaic statues, had bestial\nheads; but beside the other deities the sculptor set the owl, eagle,\nwolf, serpent, tortoise, mouse, or whatever creature was the local\nfavourite of the deity. {118a}  Probably the deity had, in the majority\nof cases, superseded the animal and succeeded to his honours.  But the\nconservative religious sentiment retained the beast within the courts and\nin the suit and service of the anthropomorphic god. {118b}\n\nThe process by which the god ousted the beasts may perhaps be observed in\nSamoa.  There (as Dr. Turner tells us in his 'Samoa') each family has its\nown sacred animal, which it may not eat.  If this law be transgressed,\nthe malefactor is supernaturally punished in a variety of ways.  But,\nwhile each family has thus its totem, four or five different families\nrecognise, in owl, crab, lizard, and so on, incarnations of the same god,\nsay of Tongo.  If Tongo had a temple among these families, we can readily\nbelieve that images of the various beasts in which he was incarnate would\nbe kept within the consecrated walls.  Savage ideas like these, if they\nwere ever entertained in Greece, would account for the holy animals of\nthe different deities.  But it is obvious that the phenomena which we\nhave been studying may be otherwise explained.  It may be said that the\nSminthian Apollo was only revered as the enemy and opponent of mice.  St.\nGertrude (whose heart was eaten by mice) has the same role in France.\n{119}  The worship of Apollo, and the badge of the mouse, would, on this\nprinciple, be diffused by colonies from some centre of the faith.  The\nimages of mice in Apollo's temples would be nothing more than votive\nofferings.  Thus, in the church of a Saxon town, the verger shows a\nsilver mouse dedicated to Our Lady.  'This is the greatest of our\ntreasures,' says the verger.  'Our town was overrun with mice till the\nladies of the city offered this mouse of silver.  Instantly all the mice\ndisappeared.'  'And are you such fools as to believe that the creatures\nwent away because a silver mouse was dedicated?' asked a Prussian\nofficer.  'No,' replied the verger, rather neatly; 'or long ago we should\nhave offered a silver Prussian.'\n\n\n\n\nSTAR MYTHS.\n\n\nArtemus Ward used to say that, while there were many things in the\nscience of astronomy hard to be understood, there was one fact which\nentirely puzzled him.  He could partly perceive how we 'weigh the sun,'\nand ascertain the component elements of the heavenly bodies, by the aid\nof spectrum analysis.  'But what beats me about the stars,' he observed\nplaintively, 'is how we come to know their names.'  This question, or\nrather the somewhat similar question, 'How did the constellations come by\ntheir very peculiar names?' has puzzled Professor Pritchard and other\nastronomers more serious than Artemus Ward.  Why is a group of stars\ncalled the Bear, or the Swan, or the Twins, or named after the Pleiades,\nthe fair daughters of the Giant Atlas? {121}  These are difficulties that\nmeet even children when they examine a 'celestial globe.'  There they\nfind the figure of a bear, traced out with lines in the intervals between\nthe stars of the constellations, while a very imposing giant is so drawn\nthat Orion's belt just fits his waist.  But when he comes to look at the\nheavens, the infant speculator sees no sort of likeness to a bear in the\nstars, nor anything at all resembling a giant in the neighbourhood of\nOrion.  The most eccentric modern fancy which can detect what shapes it\nwill in clouds, is unable to find any likeness to human or animal forms\nin the stars, and yet we call a great many of the stars by the names of\nmen and beasts and gods.  Some resemblance to terrestrial things, it is\ntrue, everyone can behold in the heavens.  Corona, for example, is like a\ncrown, or, as the Australian black fellows know, it is like a boomerang,\nand we can understand why they give it the name of that curious curved\nmissile.  The Milky Way, again, does resemble a path in the sky; our\nEnglish ancestors called it Watling Street--the path of the Watlings,\nmythical giants--and Bushmen in Africa and Red Men in North America name\nit the 'ashen path,' or 'the path of souls.'  The ashes of the path, of\ncourse, are supposed to be hot and glowing, not dead and black like the\nash-paths of modern running-grounds.  Other and more recent names for\ncertain constellations are also intelligible.  In Homer's time the Greeks\nhad two names for the Great Bear; they called it the Bear, or the Wain:\nand a certain fanciful likeness to a wain may be made out, though no\nresemblance to a bear is manifest.  In the United States the same\nconstellation is popularly styled the Dipper, and every one may observe\nthe likeness to a dipper or toddy-ladle.\n\nBut these resemblances take us only a little way towards appellations.  We\nknow that we derive many of the names straight from the Greek; but whence\ndid the Greeks get them?  Some, it is said, from the Chaldaeans; but\nwhence did they reach the Chaldaeans?  To this we shall return later,\nbut, as to early Greek star-lore, Goguet, the author of 'L'Origine des\nLois,' a rather learned but too speculative work of the last century,\nmakes the following characteristic remarks: 'The Greeks received their\nastronomy from Prometheus.  This prince, as far as history teaches us,\nmade his observations on Mount Caucasus.'  That was the eighteenth\ncentury's method of interpreting mythology.  The myth preserved in the\n'Prometheus Bound' of AEschylus tells us that Zeus crucified the Titan on\nMount Caucasus.  The French philosopher, rejecting the supernatural\nelements of the tale, makes up his mind that Prometheus was a prince of a\nscientific bent, and that he established his observatory on the frosty\nCaucasus.  But, even admitting this, why did Prometheus give the stars\nanimal names?  Goguet easily explains this by a hypothetical account of\nthe manners of primitive men.  'The earliest peoples,' he says, 'must\nhave used writing for purposes of astronomical science.  They would be\ncontent to design the constellations of which they wished to speak by the\nhieroglyphical symbols of their names; hence the constellations have\ninsensibly taken the names of the chief symbols.'  Thus, a drawing of a\nbear or a swan was the hieroglyphic of the name of a star, or group of\nstars.  But whence came the name which was represented by the\nhieroglyphic?  That is precisely what our author forgets to tell us.  But\nhe remarks that the meaning of the hieroglyphic came to be forgotten, and\n'the symbols gave rise to all the ridiculous tales about the heavenly\nsigns.'  This explanation is attained by the process of reasoning in a\nvicious circle from hypothetical premises ascertained to be false.  All\nthe known savages of the world, even those which have scarcely the\nelements of picture-writing, call the constellations by the names of men\nand animals, and all tell 'ridiculous tales' to account for the names.\n\nAs the star-stories told by the Greeks, the ancient Egyptians, and other\ncivilised people of the old world, exactly correspond in character, and\nsometimes even in incident, with the star-stories of modern savages, we\nhave the choice of three hypotheses to explain this curious coincidence.\nPerhaps the star-stories, about nymphs changed into bears, and bears\nchanged into stars, were invented by the civilised races of old, and\ngradually found their way amongst people like the Eskimo, and the\nAustralians, and Bushmen.  Or it may be insisted that the ancestors of\nAustralians, Eskimo, and Bushmen were once civilised, like the Greeks and\nEgyptians, and invented star-stories, still remembered by their\ndegenerate descendants.  These are the two forms of the explanation which\nwill be advanced by persons who believe that the star-stories were\noriginally the fruit of the civilised imagination.  The third theory\nwould be, that the 'ridiculous tales' about the stars were originally the\nwork of the savage imagination, and that the Greeks, Chaldaeans, and\nEgyptians, when they became civilised, retained the old myths that their\nancestors had invented when they were savages.  In favour of this theory\nit may be said, briefly, that there is no proof that the fathers of\nAustralians, Eskimo, and Bushmen had ever been civilised, while there is\na great deal of evidence to suggest that the fathers of the Greeks had\nonce been savages. {125}  And, if we incline to the theory that the star-\nmyths are the creation of savage fancy, we at once learn why they are, in\nall parts of the world, so much alike.  Just as the flint and bone\nweapons of rude races resemble each other much more than they resemble\nthe metal weapons and the artillery of advanced peoples, so the mental\nproducts, the fairy tales, and myths of rude races have everywhere a\nstrong family resemblance.  They are produced by men in similar mental\nconditions of ignorance, curiosity, and credulous fancy, and they are\nintended to supply the same needs, partly of amusing narrative, partly of\ncrude explanation of familiar phenomena.\n\nNow it is time to prove the truth of our assertion that the star-stories\nof savage and of civilised races closely resemble each other.  Let us\nbegin with that well-known group the Pleiades.  The peculiarity of the\nPleiades is that the group consists of seven stars, of which one is so\ndim that it seems entirely to disappear, and many persons can only detect\nits presence through a telescope.  The Greeks had a myth to account for\nthe vanishing of the lost Pleiad.  The tale is given in the\n'Catasterismoi' (stories of metamorphoses into stars) attributed to\nEratosthenes.  This work was probably written after our era; but the\nauthor derived his information from older treatises now lost.  According\nto the Greek myth, then, the seven stars of the Pleiad were seven\nmaidens, daughters of the Giant Atlas.  Six of them had gods for lovers;\nPoseidon admired two of them, Zeus three, and Ares one; but the seventh\nhad only an earthly wooer, and when all of them were changed into stars,\nthe maiden with the mortal lover hid her light for shame.\n\nNow let us compare the Australian story.  According to Mr. Dawson\n('Australian Aborigines'), a writer who understands the natives well,\n'their knowledge of the heavenly bodies greatly exceeds that of most\nwhite people,' and 'is taught by men selected for their intelligence and\ninformation.  The knowledge is important to the aborigines on their night\njourneys;' so we may be sure that the natives are careful observers of\nthe heavens, and are likely to be conservative of their astronomical\nmyths.  The 'Lost Pleiad' has not escaped them, and this is how they\naccount for her disappearance.  The Pirt Kopan noot tribe have a\ntradition that the Pleiades were a queen and her six attendants.  Long\nago the Crow (our Canopus) fell in love with the queen, who refused to be\nhis wife.  The Crow found that the queen and her six maidens, like other\nAustralian gins, were in the habit of hunting for white edible grubs in\nthe bark of trees.  The Crow at once changed himself into a grub (just as\nJupiter and Indra used to change into swans, horses, ants, or what not)\nand hid in the bark of a tree.  The six maidens sought to pick him out\nwith their wooden hooks, but he broke the points of all the hooks.  Then\ncame the queen, with her pretty bone hook; he let himself be drawn out,\ntook the shape of a giant, and ran away with her.  Ever since there have\nonly been six stars, the six maidens, in the Pleiad.  This story is well\nknown, by the strictest inquiry, to be current among the blacks of the\nWest District and in South Australia.\n\nMr. Tylor, whose opinion is entitled to the highest respect, thinks that\nthis may be a European myth, told by some settler to a black in the Greek\nform, and then spread about among the natives.  He complains that the\nstory of the loss of the _brightest_ star does not fit the facts of the\ncase.\n\nWe do not know, and how can the Australians know, that the lost star was\nonce the brightest?  It appears to me that the Australians, remarking the\ndisappearances of a star, might very naturally suppose that the _Crow_\nhad selected for his wife that one which had been the most brilliant of\nthe cluster.  Besides, the wide distribution of the tale among the\nnatives, and the very great change in the nature of the incidents, seem\nto point to a native origin.  Though the main conception--the loss of one\nout of seven maidens--is identical in Greek and in Murri, the manner of\nthe disappearance is eminently Hellenic in the one case, eminently savage\nin the other.  However this may be, nothing of course is proved by a\nsingle example.  Let us next examine the stars Castor and Pollux.  Both\nin Greece and in Australia these are said once to have been two young\nmen.  In the 'Catasterismoi,' already spoken of, we read: 'The Twins, or\nDioscouroi.--They were nurtured in Lacedaemon, and were famous for their\nbrotherly love, wherefore, Zeus, desiring to make their memory immortal,\nplaced them both among the stars.'  In Australia, according to Mr. Brough\nSmyth ('Aborigines of Victoria'), Turree (Castor) and Wanjel (Pollux) are\ntwo young men who pursue Purra and kill him at the commencement of the\ngreat heat.  Coonar toorung (the mirage) is the smoke of the fire by\nwhich they roast him.  In Greece it was not Castor and Pollux, but Orion\nwho was the great hunter placed among the stars.  Among the Bushmen of\nSouth Africa, Castor and Pollux are not young men, but young women, the\nwives of the Eland, the great native antelope.  In Greek star-stories the\nGreat Bear keeps watch, Homer says, on the hunter Orion for fear of a\nsudden attack.  But how did the Bear get its name in Greece?  According\nto Hesiod, the oldest Greek poet after Homer, the Bear was once a lady,\ndaughter of Lycaon, King of Arcadia.  She was a nymph of the train of\nchaste Artemis, but yielded to the love of Zeus, and became the\nancestress of all the Arcadians (that is, Bear-folk).  In her bestial\nform she was just about to be slain by her own son when Zeus rescued her\nby raising her to the stars.  Here we must notice first, that the\nArcadians, like Australians, Red Indians, Bushmen, and many other wild\nraces, and like the Bedouins, believed themselves to be descended from an\nanimal.  That the early Egyptians did the same is not improbable; for\nnames of animals are found among the ancestors in the very oldest\ngenealogical papyrus, {128} as in the genealogies of the old English\nkings.  Next the Arcadians transferred the ancestral bear to the heavens,\nand, in doing this, they resembled the Peruvians, of whom Acosta says:\n'They adored the star Urchuchilly, feigning it to be a Ram, and\nworshipped two others, and say that one of them is a _sheep_, and the\nother a lamb . . . others worshipped the star called the Tiger.  _They\nwere of opinion that there was not any beast or bird upon the earth,\nwhose shape or image did not shine in the heavens_.'\n\nBut to return to our bears.  The Australians have, properly speaking, no\nbears, though the animal called the native bear is looked up to by the\naborigines with superstitious regard.  But among the North American\nIndians, as the old missionaries Lafitau and Charlevoix observed, 'the\nfour stars in front of our constellation are a bear; those in the tail\nare hunters who pursue him; the small star apart is the pot in which they\nmean to cook him.'\n\nIt may be held that the Red Men derived their bear from the European\nsettlers.  But, as we have seen, an exact knowledge of the stars has\nalways been useful if not essential to savages; and we venture to doubt\nwhether they would confuse their nomenclature and sacred traditions by\nborrowing terms from trappers and squatters.  But, if this is improbable,\nit seems almost impossible that all savage races should have borrowed\ntheir whole conception of the heavenly bodies from the myths of Greece.\nIt is thus that Egede, a missionary of the last century, describes the\nEskimo philosophy of the stars: 'The notions that the Greenlanders have\nas to the origin of the heavenly lights--as sun, moon, and stars--are\nvery nonsensical; in that they pretend they have formerly been as many of\ntheir own ancestors, who, on different accounts, were lifted up to\nheaven, and became such glorious celestial bodies.'  Again, he writes:\n'Their notions about the stars are that some of them have been men, and\nothers different sorts, of animals and fishes.'  But every reader of Ovid\nknows that this was the very mythical theory of the Greeks and Romans.\nThe Egyptians, again, worshipped Osiris, Isis, and the rest as\n_ancestors_, and there are even modern scholars, like Mr. Loftie in his\n'Essay of Scarabs,' who hold Osiris to have been originally a real\nhistorical person.  But the Egyptian priests who showed Plutarch the\ngrave of Osiris, showed him, too, the stars into which Osiris, Isis, and\nHorus had been metamorphosed.  Here, then, we have Greeks, Egyptians, and\nEskimo, all agreed about the origin of the heavenly lights, all of\nopinion that 'they have formerly been as many of their own ancestors.'\n\nThe Australian general theory is: 'Of the good men and women, after the\ndeluge, Pundjel (a kind of Zeus, or rather a sort of Prometheus of\nAustralian mythology) made stars.  Sorcerers (Biraark) can tell which\nstars were once good men and women.'  Here the sorcerers have the same\nknowledge as the Egyptian priests.  Again, just as among the Arcadians,\n'the progenitors of the existing tribes, whether birds, or beasts, or\nmen, were set in the sky, and made to shine as stars.' {130}\n\nWe have already given some Australian examples in the stories of the\nPleiades, and of Castor and Pollux.  We may add the case of the Eagle.  In\nGreece the Eagle was the bird of Zeus, who carried off Ganymede to be the\ncup-bearer of Olympus.  Among the Australians this same constellation is\ncalled Totyarguil; he was a man who, when bathing, was killed by a\nfabulous animal, a kind of kelpie; as Orion, in Greece, was killed by the\nScorpion.  Like Orion, he was placed among the stars.  The Australians\nhave a constellation named Eagle, but he is our Sinus, or Dog-star.\n\nThe Indians of the Amazon are in one tale with the Australians and\nEskimo.  'Dr. Silva de Coutinho informs me,' says Professor Hartt, {131}\n'that the Indians of the Amazonas not only give names to many of the\nheavenly bodies, but also tell stories about them.  The two stars that\nform the shoulders of Orion are said to be an old man and a boy in a\ncanoe, chasing a peixe boi, by which name is designated a dark spot in\nthe sky near the above constellation.'  The Indians also know\nmonkey-stars, crane-stars, and palm-tree stars.\n\nThe Bushmen, almost the lowest tribe of South Africa, have the same star-\nlore and much the same myths as the Greeks, Australians, Egyptians, and\nEskimo.  According to Dr. Bleek, 'stars, and even the sun and moon, were\nonce mortals on earth, or even animals or inorganic substances, which\nhappened to get translated to the skies.  The sun was once a man, whose\narm-pit radiated a limited amount of light round his house.  Some\nchildren threw him into the sky, and there he shines.'  The Homeric hymn\nto Helios, in the same way, as Mr. Max Muller observes, 'looks on the sun\nas a half-god, almost a hero, who had once lived on earth.'  The pointers\nof the Southern Cross were 'two men who were lions,' just as Callisto, in\nArcadia, was a woman who was a bear.  It is not at all rare in those\nqueer philosophies, as in that of the Scandinavians, to find that the sun\nor moon has been a man or woman.  In Australian fable the moon was a man,\nthe sun a woman of indifferent character, who appears at dawn in a coat\nof red kangaroo skins, the present of an admirer.  In an old Mexican text\nthe moon was a man, across whose face a god threw a rabbit, thus making\nthe marks in the moon. {132a}\n\nMany separate races seem to recognise the figure of a hare, where we see\n'the Man in the Moon.'  In a Buddhist legend, an exemplary and altruistic\nhare was translated to the moon.  'To the common people in India the\nspots on the moon look like a hare, and Chandras, the god of the moon,\ncarries a hare: hence the moon is called sasin or sasanka, hare-mark.  The\nMongolians also see in these shadows the figure of a hare.' {132b}  Among\nthe Eskimo, the moon is a girl, who always flees from her cruel brother,\nthe sun, because he disfigured her face.  Elsewhere the sun is the girl,\nbeloved by her own brother, the moon; she blackens her face to avert his\naffection.  On the Rio Branco, and among the Tomunda, the moon is a girl\nwho loved her brother and visited him in the dark.  He detected her\nwicked passion by drawing his blackened hand over her face.  The marks\nbetrayed her, and, as the spots on the moon, remain to this day. {133}\n\nAmong the New Zealanders and North American Indians the sun is a great\nbeast, whom the hunters trapped and thrashed with cudgels.  His blood is\nused in some New Zealand incantations; and, according to an Egyptian\nmyth, was kneaded into clay at the making of man.  But there is no end to\nsimilar sun-myths, in all of which the sun is regarded as a man, or even\nas a beast.\n\nTo return to the stars--\n\nThe Red Indians, as Schoolcraft says, 'hold many of the planets to be\ntransformed adventurers.'  The Iowas 'believed stars to be a sort of\nliving creatures.'  One of them came down and talked to a hunter, and\nshowed him where to find game.  The Gallinomeros of Central California,\naccording to Mr. Bancroft, believe that the sun and moon were made and\nlighted up by the Hawk and the Coyote, who one day flew into each other's\nfaces in the dark, and were determined to prevent such accidents in the\nfuture.  But the very oddest example of the survival of the notion that\nthe stars are men or women is found in the 'Pax' of Aristophanes.  Trygaeus\nin that comedy has just made an expedition to heaven.  A slave meets him,\nand asks him, 'Is not the story true, then, that we become stars when we\ndie?'  The answer is 'Certainly;' and Trygaeus points out the star into\nwhich Ios of Chios has just been metamorphosed.  Aristophanes is making\nfun of some popular Greek superstition.  But that very superstition meets\nus in New Zealand.  'Heroes,' says Mr. Taylor, 'were thought to become\nstars of greater or less brightness, according to the number of their\nvictims slain in fight.'  The Aryan race is seldom far behind, when there\nare ludicrous notions to be credited or savage tales to be told.  We have\nseen that Aristophanes, in Greece, knew the Eskimo doctrine that stars\nare souls of the dead.  The Persians had the same belief, {134a} 'all the\nunnumbered stars were reckoned ghosts of men.' {134b}  The German\nfolklore clings to the same belief, 'Stars are souls; when a child dies\nGod makes a new star.'  Kaegi quotes {134c} the same idea from the Veda,\nand from the Satapatha Brahmana the thoroughly Australian notion that\n'good men become stars.'  For a truly savage conception, it would be\ndifficult, in South Africa or on the Amazons, to beat the following story\nfrom the 'Aitareya Brahmana' (iii. 33.) Pragapati, the Master of Life,\nconceived an incestuous passion for his own daughter.  Like Zeus, and\nIndra, and the Australian wooer in the Pleiad tale, he concealed himself\nunder the shape of a beast, a roebuck, and approached his own daughter,\nwho had assumed the form of a doe.  The gods, in anger at the awful\ncrime, made a monster to punish Pragapati.  The monster sent an arrow\nthrough the god's body; he sprang into heaven, and, like the Arcadian\nbear, this Aryan roebuck became a constellation.  He is among the stars\nof Orion, and his punisher, also now a star, is, like the Greek Orion, a\nhunter.  The daughter of Pragapati, the doe, became another\nconstellation, and the avenging arrow is also a set of stars in the sky.\nWhat follows, about the origin of the gods called Adityas, is really too\nsavage to be quoted by a chaste mythologist.\n\nIt would be easy to multiply examples of this stage of thought among\nAryans and savages.  But we have probably brought forward enough for our\npurpose, and have expressly chosen instances from the most widely\nseparated peoples.  These instances, it will perhaps be admitted,\nsuggest, if they do not prove, that the Greeks had received from\ntradition precisely the same sort of legends about the heavenly bodies as\nare current among Eskimo and Bushmen, New Zealanders and Iowas.  As much,\nindeed, might be inferred from our own astronomical nomenclature.  We now\ngive to newly discovered stars names derived from distinguished people,\nas Georgium Sidus, or Herschel; or, again, merely technical appellatives,\nas Alpha, Beta, and the rest.  We should never think when 'some new\nplanet swims into our ken' of calling it Kangaroo, or Rabbit, or after\nthe name of some hero of romance, as Rob Roy, or Count Fosco.  But the\nnames of stars which we inherit from Greek mythology--the Bear, the\nPleiads, Castor and Pollux, and so forth--are such as no people in our\nmental condition would originally think of bestowing.  When Callimachus\nand the courtly astronomers of Alexandria pretended that the golden locks\nof Berenice were raised to the heavens, that was a mere piece of flattery\nconstructed on the inherited model of legends about the crown (Corona) of\nAriadne.  It seems evident enough that the older Greek names of stars are\nderived from a time when the ancestors of the Greeks were in the mental\nand imaginative condition of Iowas, Kanekas, Bushmen, Murri, and New\nZealanders.  All these, and all other savage peoples, believe in a kind\nof equality and intercommunion among all things animate and inanimate.\nStones are supposed in the Pacific Islands to be male and female and to\npropagate their species.  Animals are believed to have human or\nsuperhuman intelligence, and speech, if they choose to exercise the gift.\nStars are just on the same footing, and their movements are explained by\nthe same ready system of universal anthropomorphism.  Stars, fishes,\ngods, heroes, men, trees, clouds, and animals, all play their equal part\nin the confused dramas of savage thought and savage mythology.  Even in\npractical life the change of a sorcerer into an animal is accepted as a\nfamiliar phenomenon, and the power of soaring among the stars is one on\nwhich the Australian Biraark, or the Eskimo Shaman, most plumes himself.\nIt is not wonderful that things which are held possible in daily practice\nshould be frequent features of mythology.  Hence the ready invention and\nbelief of star-legends, which in their turn fix the names of the heavenly\nbodies.  Nothing more, except the extreme tenacity of tradition and the\ninconvenience of changing a widely accepted name, is needed to account\nfor the human and animal names of the stars.  The Greeks received from\nthe dateless past of savage intellect the myths, and the names of the\nconstellations, and we have taken them, without inquiry, from the Greeks.\nThus it happens that our celestial globes are just as queer menageries as\nany globes could be that were illustrated by Australians or American\nIndians, by Bushmen or Peruvian aborigines, or Eskimo.  It was savages,\nwe may be tolerably certain, who first handed to science the names of the\nconstellations, and provided Greece with the raw material of her\nastronomical myths--as Bacon prettily says, that we listen to the harsh\nideas of earlier peoples 'blown softly through the flutes of the\nGrecians.'\n\nThis position has been disputed by Mr. Brown, in a work rather komically\ncalled 'The Law of Kosmic Order.'  Mr. Brown's theory is that the early\nAccadians named the zodiacal signs after certain myths and festivals\nconnected with the months.  Thus the crab is a figure of 'the darkness\npower' which seized the Akkadian solar hero, Dumuzi, and 'which is\nconstantly represented in monstrous and drakontic form.'  The bull,\nagain, is connected with night and darkness, 'in relation to the horned\nmoon,' and is, for other reasons, 'a nocturnal potency.'  Few stars, to\ntell the truth, are diurnal potencies.  Mr. Brown's explanations appear\nto me far-fetched and unconvincing.  But, granting that the zodiacal\nsigns reached Greece from Chaldaea, Mr. Brown will hardly maintain that\nAustralians, Melanesians, Iowas, Amazon Indians, Eskimo, and the rest,\nborrowed their human and animal stars from 'Akkadia.'  The belief in\nanimal and human stars is practically universal among savages who have\nnot attained the 'Akkadian' degree of culture.  The belief, as Mr. Tylor\nhas shown, {137} is a natural result of savage ideas.  We therefore infer\nthat the 'Akkadians,' too, probably fell back for star-names on what they\ninherited from the savage past.  If the Greeks borrowed certain\nstar-names from the Akkadians, they also, like the Aryans of India,\nretained plenty of savage star-myths of their own, fables derived from\nthe earliest astronomical guesses of early thought.\n\nThe first moment in astronomical science arrives when the savage, looking\nat a star, says, like the child in the nursery poem, 'How I wonder what\nyou are!'  The next moment comes when the savage has made his first rough\npractical observations of the movements of the heavenly body.  His third\nstep is to explain these to himself.  Now science cannot offer any but a\nfanciful explanation beyond the sphere of experience.  The experience of\nthe savage is limited to the narrow world of his tribe, and of the\nbeasts, birds, and fishes of his district.  His philosophy, therefore,\naccounts for all phenomena on the supposition that the laws of the\nanimate nature he observes are working everywhere.  But his observations,\nmisguided by his crude magical superstitions, have led him to believe in\na state of equality and kinship between men and animals, and even\ninorganic things.  He often worships the very beasts he slays; he\naddresses them as if they understood him; he believes himself to be\ndescended from the animals, and of their kindred.  These confused ideas\nhe applies to the stars, and recognises in them men like himself, or\nbeasts like those with which he conceives himself to be in such close\nhuman relations.  There is scarcely a bird or beast but the Red Indian or\nthe Australian will explain its peculiarities by a myth, like a page from\nOvid's 'Metamorphoses.'  It was once a man or a woman, and has been\nchanged to bird or beast by a god or a magician.  Men, again, have\noriginally been beasts, in his philosophy, and are descended from wolves,\nfrogs or serpents, or monkeys.  The heavenly bodies are traced to\nprecisely the same sort of origin; and hence, we conclude, come their\nstrange animal names, and the strange myths about them which appear in\nall ancient poetry.  These names, in turn, have curiously affected human\nbeliefs.  Astrology is based on the opinion that a man's character and\nfate are determined by the stars under which he is born.  And the nature\nof these stars is deduced from their names, so that the bear should have\nbeen found in the horoscope of Dr. Johnson.  When Giordano Bruno wrote\nhis satire against religion, the famous 'Spaccio della bestia\ntrionfante,' he proposed to banish not only the gods but the beasts from\nheaven.  He would call the stars, not the Bear, or the Swan, or the\nPleiads, but Truth, Mercy, Justice, and so forth, that men might be born,\nnot under bestial, but moral influences.  But the beasts have had too\nlong possession of the stars to be easily dislodged, and the tenure of\nthe Bear and the Swan will probably last as long as there is a science of\nAstronomy.  Their names are not likely again to delude a philosopher into\nthe opinion of Aristotle that the stars are animated.\n\nThis argument had been worked out to the writer's satisfaction when he\nchanced to light on Mr. Max Muller's explanation of the name of the Great\nBear.  We have explained that name as only one out of countless similar\nappellations which men of every race give to the stars.  These names,\nagain, we have accounted for as the result of savage philosophy, which\ntakes no great distinction between man and the things in the world, and\nlooks on stars, beasts, birds, fishes, flowers, and trees as men and\nwomen in disguise.  Mr. Muller's theory is based on philological\nconsiderations.  He thinks that the name of the Great Bear is the result\nof a mistake as to the meaning of words.  There was in Sanskrit, he says,\n{140} a root ark, or arch, meaning 'to be bright.'  The stars are called\nriksha, that is, bright ones, in the Veda.  'The constellations here\ncalled the Rikshas, in the sense of the \"bright ones,\" would be\nhomonymous in Sanskrit with the Bears.  Remember also that, apparently\nwithout rhyme or reason, the same constellation is called by Greeks and\nRomans the Bear. . . .  There is not the shadow of a likeness with a\nbear.  You will now perceive the influence of words on thought, or the\nspontaneous growth of mythology.  The name Riksha was applied to the bear\nin the sense of the bright fuscous animal, and in that sense it became\nmost popular in the later Sanskrit, and in Greek and Latin.  The same\nname, \"in the sense of the bright ones,\" had been applied by the Vedic\npoets to the stars in general, and more particularly to that\nconstellation which in the northern parts of India was the most\nprominent.  The etymological meaning, \"the bright stars,\" was forgotten;\nthe popular meaning of Riksha (bear) was known to everyone.  And thus it\nhappened that, when the Greeks had left their central home and settled in\nEurope, they retained the name of Arktos for the same unchanging stars;\nbut, not knowing why those stars had originally received that name, they\nceased to speak of them as arktoi, or many bears, and spoke of them as\nthe Bear.'\n\nThis is a very good example of the philological way of explaining a myth.\nIf once we admit that ark, or arch, in the sense of 'bright' and of\n'bear,' existed, not only in Sanskrit, but in the undivided Aryan tongue,\nand that the name Riksha, bear, 'became in that sense most popular in\nGreek and Latin,' this theory seems more than plausible.  But the\nexplanation does not look so well if we examine, not only the Aryan, but\nall the known myths and names of the Bear and the other stars.  Professor\nSayce, a distinguished philologist, says we may not compare non-Aryan\nwith Aryan myths.  We have ventured to do so, however, in this paper, and\nhave shown that the most widely severed races give the stars animal\nnames, of which the Bear is one example.  Now, if the philologists wish\nto persuade us that it was decaying and half-forgotten language which\ncaused men to give the names of animals to the stars, they must prove\ntheir case on an immense collection of instances--on Iowa, Kaneka, Murri,\nMaori, Brazilian, Peruvian, Mexican, Egyptian, Eskimo, instances.  It\nwould be the most amazing coincidence in the world if forgetfulness of\nthe meaning of their own speech compelled tribes of every tongue and race\nto recognise men and beasts, cranes, cockatoos, serpents, monkeys, bears,\nand so forth, in the heavens.  How came the misunderstood words always to\nbe misunderstood in the same way?  Does the philological explanation\naccount for the enormous majority of the phenomena?  If it fails, we may\nat least doubt whether it solves the one isolated case of the Great Bear\namong the Greeks and Romans.  It must be observed that the philological\nexplanation of Mr. Muller does not clear up the Arcadian story of their\nown descent from a she-bear who is now a star.  Yet similar stories of\nthe descent of tribes from animals are so widespread that it would be\ndifficult to name the race or the quarter of the globe where they are not\nfound.  Are they all derived from misunderstood words meaning 'bright'?\nThese considerations appear to be a strong argument for comparing not\nonly Aryan, but all attainable myths.  We shall often find, if we take a\nwide view, that the philological explanation which seemed plausible in a\nsingle case is hopelessly narrow when applied to a large collection of\nparallel cases in languages of various families.\n\nFinally, in dealing with star myths, we adhere to the hypothesis of Mr.\nTylor: 'From savagery up to civilisation,' Akkadian, Greek, or English,\n'there may be traced in the mythology of the stars a course of thought,\nchanged, indeed, in application, yet never broken in its evident\nconnection from first to last.  The savage sees individual stars as\nanimate beings, or combines star-groups into living celestial creatures,\nor limbs of them, or objects connected with them; while at the other\nextremity of the scale of civilisation the modern astronomer keeps up\njust such ancient fancies, turning them to account in useful survival, as\na means of mapping out the celestial globe.'\n\n\n\n\nMOLY AND MANDRAGORA.\n\n\n'I have found out a new cure for rheumatism,' said the lady beside whom\nit was my privilege to sit at dinner.  'You carry a potato about in your\npocket!'\n\nSome one has written an amusing account of the behaviour of a man who is\nfinishing a book.  He takes his ideas everywhere with him and broods over\nthem, even at dinner, in the pauses of conversation.  But here was a lady\nwho kindly contributed to my studies and offered me folklore and\nsurvivals in cultivated Kensington.\n\nMy mind had strayed from the potato cure to the New Zealand habit of\ncarrying a baked yam at night to frighten away ghosts, and to the old\nEnglish belief that a bit of bread kept in the pocket was sovereign\nagainst evil spirits.  Why should ghosts dread the food of mortals when\nit is the custom of most races of mortals to feed ancestral ghosts?  The\nhuman mind works pretty rapidly, and all this had passed through my brain\nwhile I replied, in tones of curiosity: 'A potato!'\n\n'Yes; but it is not every potato that will do.  I heard of the cure in\nthe country, and when we came up to town, and my husband was complaining\nof rheumatism, I told one of the servants to get me a potato for Mr.\nJohnson's rheumatism.  \"Yes, ma'am,\" said the man; \"but it must be a\n_stolen_ potato.\"  I had forgotten that.  Well, one can't ask one's\nservants to steal potatoes.  It is easy in the country, where you can\npick one out of anybody's field.'  'And what did you do?'  I asked.  'Oh,\nI drove to Covent Garden and ordered a lot of fruit and flowers.  While\nthe man was not looking, I stole a potato--a very little one.  I don't\nthink there was any harm in it.'  'And did Mr. Johnson try the potato\ncure?'  'Yes, he carried it in his pocket, and now he is quite well.  I\ntold the doctor, and he says he knows of the cure, but he dares not\nrecommend it.'\n\nHow oddly superstitions survive!  The central idea of this modern folly\nabout the potato is that you must pilfer the root.  Let us work the idea\nof the healing or magical herb backwards, from Kensington to European\nfolklore, and thence to classical times, to Homer, and to the Hottentots.\nTurning first to Germany, we note the beliefs, not about the potato, but\nabout another vegetable, the mandrake.  Of all roots, in German\nsuperstition, the Alraun, or mandrake, is the most famous.  The herb was\nconceived of, in the savage fashion, as a living human person, a kind of\nold witch-wife. {144}\n\nAgain, the root has a human shape.  'If a hereditary thief who has\npreserved his chastity gets hung,' the broad-leafed, yellow-flowered\nmandrake grows up, in his likeness, beneath the gallows from which he is\nsuspended.  The mandrake, like the moly, the magical herb of the Odyssey,\nis 'hard for men to dig.'  He who desires to possess a mandrake must stop\nhis ears with wax, so that he may not hear the deathly yells which the\nplant utters as it is being dragged out of the earth.  Then before\nsunrise, on a Friday, the amateur goes out with a dog, 'all black,' makes\nthree crosses round the mandrake, loosens the soil about the root, ties\nthe root to the dog's tail, and offers the beast a piece of bread.  The\ndog runs at the bread, drags out the mandrake root, and falls dead,\nkilled by the horrible yell of the plant.  The root is now taken up,\nwashed with wine, wrapped in silk, laid in a casket, bathed every Friday,\n'and clothed in a little new white smock every new moon.'  The mandrake\nacts, if thus considerately treated, as a kind of familiar spirit.  'Every\npiece of coin put to her over night is found doubled in the morning.'\nGipsy folklore, and the folklore of American children, keep this belief\nin doubling deposits.  The gipsies use the notion in what they call 'The\nGreat Trick.'  Some foolish rustic makes up his money in a parcel which\nhe gives to the gipsy.  The latter, after various ceremonies performed,\nreturns the parcel, which is to be buried.  The money will be found\ndoubled by a certain date.  Of course when the owner unburies the parcel\nhe finds nothing in it but brass buttons.  In the same way, and with\npious confidence, the American boy buries a marble in a hollow log,\nuttering the formula, 'What hasn't come here, _come_! what's here, _stay_\nhere!' and expects to find all the marbles he has ever lost. {145}  Let\nus follow the belief in magical roots into the old Pagan world.\n\nThe ancients knew mandragora and the superstitions connected with it very\nwell.  Dioscorides mentions mandragorus, or antimelon, or dircaea, or\nCircaea, and says the Egyptians call it apemoum, and Pythagoras\n'anthropomorphon.'  In digging the root, Pliny says, 'there are some\nceremonies observed, first they that goe about this worke, look\nespecially to this that the wind be not in their face, but blow upon\ntheir backs.  Then with the point of a sword they draw three circles\nround about the plant, which don, they dig it up afterwards with their\nface unto the west.'  Pliny says nothing of the fetich qualities of the\nplant, as credited in modern and mediaeval Germany, but mentions\n'sufficient it is with some bodies to cast them into sleep with the smel\nof mandrago.'  This is like Shakespeare's 'poppy and mandragora, and all\nthe drowsy syrups of the world.'  Plato and Demosthenes {146a} also speak\nof mandragora as a soporific.  It is more to the purpose of magic that\nColumella mentions 'the _half-human_ mandragora.'  Here we touch the\norigin of the mandrake superstitions.  The roots have a kind of fantastic\nresemblance to the human shape; Pliny describes them as being 'of a\nfleshy substance and tender.'  Now it is one of the recognised principles\nin magic, that things like each other, however superficially, affect each\nother in a mystic way, and possess identical properties.  Thus, in\nMelanesia, according to Mr. Codrington, {146b} 'a stone in the shape of a\npig, of a bread-fruit, of a yam, was a most valuable find,' because it\nmade pigs prolific, and fertilised bread-fruit trees and yam-plots.  In\nScotland, too, 'stones were called by the names of the limbs they\nresembled, as \"eye-stane,\" \"head-stane.\"  A patient washed the affected\npart of his body, and rubbed it well with the stone corresponding.'\n{147a}  In precisely the same way, the mandrake root, being thought to\nresemble the human body, was credited with human and superhuman powers.\nJosephus mentions {147b} a plant 'not easily caught, which slips away\nfrom them that wish to gather it, and never stands still' till certain\nrepulsive rites are performed.  These rites cannot well be reported here,\nbut they are quite familiar to Red Indian and to Bushman magic.  Another\nway to dig the plant spoken of by Josephus is by aid of the dog, as in\nthe German superstition quoted from Grimm.  AElian also recommends the\nuse of the dog to pluck the herb aglaophotis, which shines at night.\n{147c}  When the dog has dragged up the root, and died of terror, his\nbody is to be buried on the spot with religious honours and secret sacred\nrites.\n\nSo much for mandragora, which, like the healing potato, has to be\nacquired stealthily and with peril.  Now let us examine the Homeric herb\nmoly.  The plant is thus introduced by Homer: In the tenth book of the\n'Odyssey,' Circe has turned Odysseus's men into swine.  He sets forth to\nrescue them, trusting only to his sword.  The god Hermes meets him, and\noffers him 'a charmed herb,' 'this herb of grace' ([Greek]) whereby he\nmay subdue the magic wiles of Circe.\n\nThe plant is described by Homer with some minuteness.  'It was black at\nthe root, but the flower was like to milk.  \"Moly,\" the gods call it, but\nit is hard for mortal men to dig, howbeit with the gods all things are\npossible.'  The etymologies given of 'moly' are almost as numerous as the\netymologists.  One derivation, from the old 'Turanian' tongue of Accadia,\nwill be examined later.  The Scholiast offers the derivation '[Greek], to\nmake charms of no avail'; but this is exactly like Professor Blackie's\netymological discovery that Erinys is derived from [Greek]: 'he might as\nwell derive critic from criticise.' {148}  The Scholiast adds that moly\ncaused death to the person who dragged it out of the ground.  This\nidentification of moly with mandrake is probably based on Homer's remark\nthat moly is 'hard to dig.'  The black root and white flower of moly are\nquite unlike the yellow flower and white fleshy root ascribed by Pliny to\nmandrake.  Only confusion is caused by regarding the two magical herbs as\nidentical.\n\nBut why are any herbs or roots magical?  While some scholars, like De\nGubernatis, seek an explanation in supposed myths about clouds and stars,\nit is enough for our purpose to observe that herbs really have medicinal\nproperties, and that untutored people invariably confound medicine with\nmagic.  A plant or root is thought to possess virtue, not only when\nswallowed in powder or decoction, but when carried in the hand.  St.\nJohn's wort and rowan berries, like the Homeric moly, still 'make evil\ncharms of none avail;'\n\n   Rowan, ash, and red threed\n   Keep the devils from their speed,\n\nsays the Scotch rhyme.  Any fanciful resemblance of leaf or flower or\nroot to a portion of the human body, any analogy based on colour, will\ngive a plant reputation for magical virtues.  This habit of mind survives\nfrom the savage condition.  The Hottentots are great herbalists.  Like\nthe Greeks, like the Germans, they expect supernatural aid from plants\nand roots.  Mr. Hahn, in his 'Tsui Goam, the Supreme Being of the Khoi\nKhoi' (p. 82), gives the following examples:--\n\n   Dapper, in his description of Africa, p. 621, tells us:--'Some of them\n   wear round the neck roots, which they find far inland, in rivers, and\n   being on a journey they light them in a fire or chew them, if they\n   must sleep the night out in the field.  They believe that these roots\n   keep off the wild animals.  The roots they chew are spit out around\n   the spot where they encamp for the night; and in a similar way if they\n   set the roots alight, they blow the smoke and ashes about, believing\n   that the smell will keep the wild animals off.\n\n   I had often occasion to observe the practice of these superstitious\n   ceremonies, especially when we were in a part of the country where we\n   heard the roaring of the lions, or had the day previously met with the\n   footprints of the king of the beasts.\n\n   The Korannas also have these roots as safeguards with them.  If a\n   Commando (a warlike expedition) goes out, every man will put such\n   roots in his pockets and in the pouch where he keeps his bullets,\n   believing that the arrows or bullets of the enemy have no effect, but\n   that his own bullets will surely kill the enemy.  And also before they\n   lie down to sleep, they set these roots alight, and murmur, 'My\n   grandfather's root, bring sleep on the eyes of the lion and leopard\n   and the hyena.  Make them blind, that they cannot find us, and cover\n   their noses, that they cannot smell us out.'  Also, if they have\n   carried off large booty, or stolen cattle of the enemy, they light\n   these roots and say: 'We thank thee, our grandfather's root, that thou\n   hast given us cattle to eat.  Let the enemy sleep, and lead him on the\n   wrong track, that he may not follow us until we have safely escaped.'\n\n   Another sort of shrub is called abib.  Herdsmen, especially, carry\n   pieces of its wood as charms, and if cattle or sheep have gone astray,\n   they burn a piece of it in the fire, that the wild animals may not\n   destroy them.  And they believe that the cattle remain safe until they\n   can be found the next morning.\n\nSchweinfurth found the same belief in magic herbs and roots among the\nBongoes and Niam Niams in 'The Heart of Africa.'  The Bongoes believe,\nlike the Homeric Greeks, that 'certain roots ward off the evil influences\nof spirits.'  Like the German amateurs of the mandrake, they assert that\n'there is no other resource for obtaining communication with spirits,\nexcept by means of certain roots' (i. 306).\n\nOur position is that the English magical potato, the German mandrake, the\nGreek moly, are all survivals from a condition of mind like that in which\nthe Hottentots still pray to roots.\n\nNow that we have brought mandragora and moly into connection with the\nordinary magical superstitions of savage peoples, let us see what is made\nof the subject by another method.  Mr. R. Brown, the learned and\nindustrious author of 'The Great Dionysiak Myth,' has investigated the\ntraditions about the Homeric moly.  He first {151} 'turns to Aryan\nphilology.'  Many guesses at the etymology of 'moly' have been made.\nCurtius suggests [Greek], akin to [Greek], 'soft.'  This does not suit\nMr. Brown, who, to begin with, is persuaded that the herb is not a\nmagical herb, sans phrase, like those which the Hottentots use, but that\nthe basis of the myth 'is simply the effect of night upon the world of\nday.'  Now, as moly is a name in use among the gods, Mr. Brown thinks 'we\nmay fairly examine the hypothesis of a foreign origin of the term.'\nAnyone who holds that certain Greek gods were borrowed from abroad, may\nbe allowed to believe that the gods used foreign words, and, as Mr. Brown\npoints out, there are foreign elements in various Homeric names of\nimported articles, peoples, persons, and so forth.  Where, then, is a\nforeign word like moly, which might have reached Homer?  By a long\nprocess of research, Mr. Brown finds his word in ancient 'Akkadian.'  From\nProfessor Sayce he borrows a reference to Apuleius Barbarus, about whose\nlife nothing is known, and whose date is vague.  Apuleius Barbarus may\nhave lived about four centuries after our era, and _he_ says that 'wild\nrue was called moly by the Cappadocians.'  Rue, like rosemary, and indeed\nlike most herbs, has its magical repute, and if we supposed that Homer's\nmoly was rue, there would be some interest in the knowledge.  Rue was\ncalled 'herb of grace' in English, holy water was sprinkled with it, and\nthe name is a translation of Homer's [Greek].  Perhaps rue was used in\nsprinkling, because in pre-Christian times rue had, by itself, power\nagainst sprites and powers of evil.  Our ancestors may have thought it as\nwell to combine the old charm of rue and the new Christian potency of\nholy water.  Thus there would be a distinct analogy between Homeric moly\nand English 'herb of grace.'\n\n'Euphrasy and rue' were employed to purge and purify mortal eyes.  Pliny\nis very learned about the magical virtues of rue.  Just as the stolen\npotato is sovran for rheumatism, so 'rue stolen thriveth the best.'  The\nSamoans think that their most valued vegetables were stolen from heaven\nby a Samoan visitor. {152a}  It is remarkable that rue, according to\nPliny, is killed by the touch of a woman in the same way as, according to\nJosephus, the mandrake is tamed. {152b}  These passages prove that the\nclassical peoples had the same extraordinary superstitions about women as\nthe Bushmen and Red Indians.  Indeed Pliny {152c} describes a magical\nmanner of defending the crops from blight, by aid of women, which is\nactually practised in America by the Red Men. {152d}\n\nHere, then, are proofs enough that rue was magical outside of Cappadocia.\nBut this is not an argument on Mr. Brown's lines.  The Cappadocians\ncalled rue 'moly'; what language, he asks, was spoken by the\nCappadocians?  Prof. Sayce (who knows so many tongues) says that 'we know\nnext to nothing of the language of the Cappadocians, or of the Moschi who\nlived in the same locality.'  But where Prof. Sayce is, the Hittites, if\nwe may say so respectfully, are not very far off.  In this case he thinks\nthe Moschi (though he admits we know next to nothing about it) 'seem to\nhave spoken a language allied to that of the Cappadocians and Hittites.'\nThat is to say, it is not impossible that the language of the Moschi,\nabout which next to nothing is known, may have been allied to that of the\nCappadocians, about which we know next to nothing.  All that we do know\nin this case is, that four hundred years after Christ the dwellers in\nCappadocia employed a word 'moly,' which had been Greek for at least\ntwelve hundred years.  But Mr. Brown goes on to quote that one of the\nlanguages of which we know next to nothing, Hittite, was 'probably allied\nto Proto-Armenian, and perhaps Lykian, and was above all not Semitic.'  In\nany case 'the cuneiform mode of writing was used in Cappadocia at an\nearly period.'  As even Professor Sayce declines to give more than a\ntentative reading of a Cappadocian cuneiform inscription, it seems highly\nrash to seek in this direction for an interpretation of a Homeric word\n'moly,' used in Cappadocia very many centuries after the tablets were\nscratched.  But, on the evidence of the Babylonian character of the\ncuneiform writing on Cappadocian tablets, Mr. Brown establishes a\nconnection between the people of Accadia (who probably introduced the\ncuneiform style) and the people of Cappadocia.  The connection amounts to\nthis.  Twelve hundred years after Homer, the inhabitants of Cappadocia\nare said to have called rue 'moly.'  At some unknown period, the\nAccadians appear to have influenced the art of writing in Cappadocia.\nApparently Mr. Brown thinks it not too rash to infer that the Cappadocian\nuse of the word 'moly' is not derived from the Greeks, but from the\nAccadians.  Now in Accadian, according to Mr. Brown, mul means 'star.'\n'Hence ulu or mulu = [Greek], the mysterious Homerik counter-charm to the\ncharms of Kirke' (p. 60).  Mr. Brown's theory, therefore, is that moly\noriginally meant 'star.'  Circe is the moon, Odysseus is the sun, and\n'what _watches over_ the solar hero at night when exposed to the hostile\nlunar power, but the stars?' especially the dog-star.\n\nThe truth is, that Homer's moly, whatever plant he meant by the name, is\nonly one of the magical herbs in which most peoples believe or have\nbelieved.  Like the Scottish rowan, or like St. John's wort, it is potent\nagainst evil influences.  People have their own simple reasons for\nbelieving in these plants, and have not needed to bring down their\nhumble, early botany from the clouds and stars.  We have to imagine, on\nthe other hand (if we follow Mr. Brown), that in some unknown past the\nCappadocians turned the Accadian word for a star into a local name of a\nplant, that this word reached Homer, that the supposed old Accadian myth\nof the star which watches over the solar hero retained its vitality in\nGreek, and leaving the star clung to the herb, that Homer used an 'Akkado-\nKappadokian' myth, and that, many ages after, the Accadian star-name in\nits perverted sense of 'rue' survived in Cappadocia.  This structure of\nargument is based on tablets which even Prof. Sayce cannot read, and on\npossibilities about the alliances of tongues concerning which we 'know\nnext to nothing.'  A method which leaves on one side the common, natural,\nwidely-diffused beliefs about the magic virtue of herbs (beliefs which we\nhave seen at work in Kensington and in Central Africa), to hunt for moly\namong stars and undeciphered Kappadokian inscriptions, seems a dubious\nmethod.  We have examined it at full length because it is a specimen of\nan erudite, but, as we think, a mistaken way in folklore.  M. Halevy's\nwarnings against the shifting mythical theories based on sciences so new\nas the lore of Assyria and 'Akkadia' are by no means superfluous.\n'Akkadian' is rapidly become as ready a key to all locks as 'Aryan' was a\nfew years ago.\n\n\n\n\n'KALEVALA'; OR, THE FINNISH NATIONAL EPIC.\n\n\nIt is difficult to account for the fact that the scientific curiosity\nwhich is just now so busy in examining all the monuments of the primitive\ncondition of our race, should, in England at least, have almost totally\nneglected to popularise the 'Kalevala,' or national poem of the Finns.\nBesides its fresh and simple beauty of style, its worth as a storehouse\nof every kind of primitive folklore, being as it is the production of an\nUrvolk, a nation that has undergone no violent revolution in language or\ninstitutions--the 'Kalevala' has the peculiar interest of occupying a\nposition between the two kinds of primitive poetry, the ballad and the\nepic.  So much difficulty has been introduced into the study of the first\ndevelopments of song, by confusing these distinct sorts of composition\nunder the name of popular poetry, that it may be well, in writing of a\npoem which occupies a middle place between epic and ballad, to define\nwhat we mean by each.\n\nThe author of our old English 'Art of Poesie' begins his work with a\nstatement which may serve as a text: 'Poesie,' says Puttenham, writing in\n1589, 'is more ancient than the artificiall of the Greeks and Latines,\ncoming by instinct of nature, and used by the savage and uncivill, who\nwere before all science and civilitie.  This is proved by certificate of\nmerchants and travellers, who by late navigations have surveyed the whole\nworld, and discovered large countries, and strange people, wild and\nsavage, affirming that the American, the Perusine, and the very\ncanniball, do sing, and also say, their highest and holiest matters in\ncertain riming versicles.'  Puttenham is here referring to that instinct\nof primitive men, which compels them in all moments of high-wrought\nfeeling, and on all solemn occasions, to give utterance to a kind of\nchant. {157a}  Such a chant is the song of Lamech, when he had 'slain a\nman to his wounding.'  So in the Norse sagas, Grettir and Gunnar _sing_\nwhen they have anything particular to say; and so in the Marchen--the\nprimitive fairy tales of all nations--scraps of verse are introduced\nwhere emphasis is wanted.  This craving for passionate expression takes a\nmore formal shape in the lays which, among all primitive peoples, as\namong the modern Greeks to-day, {157b} are sung at betrothals, funerals,\nand departures for distant lands.  These songs have been collected in\nScotland by Scott and Motherwell; their Danish counterparts have been\ntranslated by Mr. Prior.  In Greece, M. Fauriel and Dr. Ulrichs; in\nProvence, Damase Arbaud; in Italy, M. Nigra; in Servia, Talvj; in France,\nGerard de Nerval--have done for their separate countries what Scott did\nfor the Border.  Professor Child, of Harvard, is publishing a beautiful\ncritical collection of English Volkslieder, with all known variants from\nevery country.\n\nA comparison of the collections proves that among all European lands the\nprimitive 'versicles' of the people are identical in tone, form, and\nincident.  It is this kind of early expression of a people's\nlife--careless, abrupt, brief, as was necessitated by the fact that they\nwere sung to the accompaniment of the dance--that we call ballads.  These\nare distinctly, and in every sense, popular poems, and nothing can cause\ngreater confusion than to apply the same title, 'popular,' to early epic\npoetry.  Ballads are short; a long ballad, as Mr. Matthew Arnold has\nsaid, creeps and halts.  A true epic, on the other hand, is long, and its\ntone is grand, noble, and sustained.  Ballads are not artistic; while the\nform of the epic, whether we take the hexameter or the rougher laisse of\nthe French chansons de geste, is full of conscious and admirable art.\nLastly, popular ballads deal with vague characters, acting and living in\nvague places; while the characters of an epic are heroes of definite\nstation, _whose descendants are still in the land_, whose home is a\nrecognisable place, Ithaca, or Argos.  Now, though these two kinds of\nearly poetry--the ballad, the song of the people; the epic, the song of\nthe chiefs of the people, of the ruling race--are distinct in kind, it\ndoes not follow that they have no connection, that the nobler may not\nhave been developed out of the materials of the lower form of expression.\nAnd the value of the 'Kalevala' is partly this, that it combines the\ncontinuity and unison of the epic with the simplicity and popularity of\nthe ballad, and so forms a kind of link in the history of the development\nof poetry.  This may become clearer as we proceed to explain the literary\nhistory of the Finnish national poem.\n\nSixty years ago, it may be said, no one was aware that Finland possessed\na national poem at all.  Her people--who claim affinity with the Magyars\nof Hungary, but are possibly a back-wave of an earlier tide of\npopulation--had remained untouched by foreign influences since their\nconquest by Sweden, and their somewhat lax and wholesale conversion to\nChristianity: events which took place gradually between the middle of the\ntwelfth and the end of the thirteenth centuries.  Under the rule of\nSweden, the Finns were left to their quiet life and undisturbed\nimaginings, among the forests and lakes of the region which they aptly\ncalled Pohja, 'the end of things'; while their educated classes took no\nvery keen interest in the native poetry and mythology of their race.  At\nlength the annexation of Finland by Russia, in 1809, awakened national\nfeeling, and stimulated research into the songs and customs which were\nthe heirlooms of the people.\n\nIt was the policy of Russia to encourage, rather than to check, this\nreturn on a distant past; and from the north of Norway to the slopes of\nthe Altai, ardent explorers sought out the fragments of unwritten early\npoetry.  These runes, or Runots, were chiefly sung by old men called\nRunoias, to beguile the weariness of the long dark winters.  The custom\nwas for two champions to engage in a contest of memory, clasping each\nother's hands, and reciting in turn till he whose memory first gave in\nslackened his hold.  The 'Kalevala' contains an instance of this\npractice, where it is said that no one was so hardy as to clasp hands\nwith Wainamoinen, who is at once the Orpheus and the Prometheus of\nFinnish mythology.  These Runoias, or rhapsodists, complain, of course,\nof the degeneracy of human memory; they notice how any foreign influence,\nin religion or politics, is destructive to the native songs of a race.\n{160}  'As for the lays of old time, a thousand have been scattered to\nthe wind, a thousand buried in the snow; . . . as for those which the\nMunks (the Teutonic knights) swept away, and the prayer of the priest\noverwhelmed, a thousand tongues were not able to recount them.'  In spite\nof the losses thus caused, and in spite of the suspicious character of\nthe Finns, which often made the task of collection a dangerous one,\nenough materials remained to furnish Dr. Lonnrot, the most noted\nexplorer, with thirty-five Runots, or cantos.  These were published in\n1835, but later research produced the fifteen cantos which make up the\nsymmetrical fifty of the 'Kalevala.'  In the task of arranging and\nuniting these, Dr. Lonnrot played the part traditionally ascribed to the\ncommission of Pisistratus in relation to the 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey.'  Dr.\nLonnrot is said to have handled with singular fidelity the materials\nwhich now come before us as one poem, not absolutely without a certain\nunity and continuous thread of narrative.  It is this unity (so faint\ncompared with that of the 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey') which gives the\n'Kalevala' a claim to the title of epic.\n\nIt cannot be doubted that, at whatever period the Homeric poems took\nshape in Greece, they were believed to record the feats of the supposed\nancestors of existing families.  Thus, for example, Pisistratus, as a\ndescendant of the Nelidae, had an interest in securing certain parts, at\nleast, of the 'Iliad' and the 'Odyssey' from oblivion.  The same family\npride embellished and preserved the epic poetry of early France.  There\nwere in France but three heroic houses, or gestes; and three\ncorresponding cycles of epopees.  Now, in the 'Kalevala,' there is no\ntrace of the influence of family feeling; it was no one's peculiar care\nand pride to watch over the records of the fame of this or that hero.  The\npoem begins with a cosmogony as wild as any Indian dream of creation; and\nthe human characters who move in the story are shadowy inhabitants of no\nvery definite lands, whom no family claim as their forefathers.  The very\nwant of this idea of family and aristocratic pride gives the 'Kalevala' a\nunique place among epics.  It is emphatically an epic of the people, of\nthat class whose life contains no element of progress, no break in\ncontinuity; which from age to age preserves, in solitude and close\ncommunion with nature, the earliest beliefs of grey antiquity.  The Greek\nepic, on the other hand, has, as M. Preller {161} points out, 'nothing to\ndo with natural man, but with an ideal world of heroes, with sons of the\ngods, with consecrated kings, heroes, elders, _a kind of specific race of\nmen_.  The people exist only as subsidiary to the great houses, as a mere\nbackground against which stand out the shining figures of heroes; as a\nrace of beings fresh and rough from the hands of nature, with whom, and\nwith whose concerns, the great houses and their bards have little\nconcern.'  This feeling--so universal in Greece, and in the feudal\ncountries of mediaeval Europe, that there are two kinds of men, the\ngolden and the brazen race, as Plato would have called them--is absent,\nwith all its results, in the 'Kalevala.'\n\nAmong the Finns we find no trace of an aristocracy; there is scarcely a\nmention of kings, or priests; the heroes of the poem are really popular\nheroes, fishers, smiths, husbandmen, 'medicine-men,' or wizards;\nexaggerated shadows of the people, pursuing on a heroic scale, not war,\nbut the common daily business of primitive and peaceful men.  In\nrecording their adventures, the 'Kalevala,' like the shield of Achilles,\nreflects all the life of a race, the feasts, the funerals, the rites of\nseed-time and harvest of marriage and death, the hymn, and the magical\nincantation.  Were this all, the epic would only have the value of an\nexhaustive collection of the popular ballads which, as we have seen, are\na poetical record of the intenser moments in the existence of\nunsophisticated tribes.  But the 'Kalevala' is distinguished from such a\ncollection, by presenting the ballads as they are produced by the events\nof a continuous narrative, and thus it takes a distinct place between the\naristocratic epics of Greece, or of the Franks, and the scattered songs\nwhich have been collected in Scotland, Sweden, Denmark, Greece, and\nItaly.\n\nBesides the interest of its unique position as a popular epic, the\n'Kalevala' is very valuable, both for its literary beauties and for the\nconfused mass of folklore which it contains.\n\nHere old cosmogonies, attempts of man to represent to himself the\nbeginning of things, are mingled with the same wild imaginings as are\nfound everywhere in the shape of fairy-tales.  We are hurried from an\naccount of the mystic egg of creation, to a hymn like that of the\nAmbarval Brothers, to a strangely familiar scrap of a nursery story, to\nan incident which we remember as occurring in almost identical words in a\nScotch ballad.  We are among a people which endows everything with human\ncharacters and life, which is in familiar relations with birds, and\nbeasts, and even with rocks and plants.  Ravens and wolves and fishes of\nthe sea, sun, moon, and stars, are kindly or churlish; drops of blood\nfind speech, man and maid change to snake or swan and resume their forms,\nships have magic powers, like the ships of the Phaeacians.\n\nThen there is the oddest confusion of every stage of religious\ndevelopment: we find a supreme God, delighting in righteousness; Ukko,\nthe lord of the vault of air, who stands apart from men, and sends his\nson, Wainamoinen, to be their teacher in music and agriculture.\n\nAcross this faith comes a religion of petrified abstractions like those\nof the Roman Pantheon.  There are gods of colour, a goddess of weaving, a\ngoddess of man's blood, besides elemental spirits of woods and waters,\nand the manes of the dead.  Meanwhile, the working faith of the people is\nthe belief in magic--generally a sign of the lower culture.  It is\nsupposed that the knowledge of certain magic words gives power over the\nelemental bodies which obey them; it is held that the will of a distant\nsorcerer can cross the lakes and plains like the breath of a fantastic\nfrost, with power to change an enemy to ice or stone.  Traces remain of\nthe worship of animals: there is a hymn to the bear; a dance like the\nbear-dance of the American Indians; and another hymn tells of the birth\nand power of the serpent.  Across all, and closing all, comes a hostile\naccount of the origin of Christianity--the end of joy and music.\n\nHow primitive was the condition of the authors of this medley of beliefs\nis best proved by the survival of the custom called exogamy. {164a}  This\ncustom, which is not peculiar to the Finns, but is probably a universal\nnote of early society, prohibits marriage between members of the same\ntribe.  Consequently, the main action, such as it is, of the 'Kalevala'\nturns on the efforts made by the men of Kaleva to obtain brides from the\nhostile tribe of Pohja. {164b}\n\nFurther proof of ancient origin is to be found in what is the great\nliterary beauty of the poem--its pure spontaneity and simplicity.  It is\nthe production of an intensely imaginative race, to which song came as\nthe most natural expression of joy and sorrow, terror or triumph--a class\nwhich lay near to nature's secret, and was not out of sympathy with the\nwild kin of woods and waters.\n\n   'These songs,' says the prelude, 'were found by the wayside, and\n   gathered in the depths of the copses; blown from the branches of the\n   forest, and culled among the plumes of the pine-trees.  These lays\n   came to me as I followed the flocks, in a land of meadows honey-sweet,\n   and of golden hills. . . .  The cold has spoken to me, and the rain\n   has told me her runes; the winds of heaven, the waves of the sea, have\n   spoken and sung to me; the wild birds have taught me, the music of\n   many waters has been my master.'\n\nThe metre in which the epic is chanted resembles, to an English ear, that\nof Mr. Longfellow's 'Hiawatha'--there is assonance rather than rhyme; and\na very musical effect is produced by the liquid character of the\nlanguage, and by the frequent alliterations.\n\nThis rough outline of the main characteristics of the 'Kalevala' we shall\nnow try to fill up with an abstract of its contents.  The poem is longer\nthan the 'Iliad,' and much of interest must necessarily be omitted; but\nit is only through such an abstract that any idea can be given of the\nsort of unity which does prevail amid the most utter discrepancy.\n\nIn the first place, what is to be understood by the word 'Kalevala'?  The\naffix la signifies 'abode.'  Thus, 'Tuonela' is 'the abode of Tuoni,' the\ngod of the lower world; and as 'kaleva' means 'heroic,' 'magnificent,'\n'Kalevala' is 'The Home of Heroes.'  The poem is the record of the\nadventures of the people of Kalevala--of their strife with the men of\nPohjola, the place of the world's end.  We may fancy two old Runoias, or\nsingers, clasping hands on one of the first nights of the Finnish winter,\nand beginning (what probably has never been accomplished) the attempt to\nwork through the 'Kalevala' before the return of summer.  They commence\nab ovo, or, rather, before the egg.  First is chanted the birth of\nWainamoinen, the benefactor and teacher of men.  He is the son of\nLuonnotar, the daughter of Nature, who answers to the first woman of the\nIroquois cosmogony.  Beneath the breath and touch of wind and tide, she\nconceived a child; but nine ages of man passed before his birth, while\nthe mother floated on 'the formless and the multiform waters.'  Then\nUkko, the supreme God, sent an eagle, which laid her eggs in the maiden's\nbosom, and from these eggs grew earth and sky, sun and moon, star and\ncloud.  Then was Wainamoinen born on the waters, and reached a barren\nland, and gazed on the new heavens and the new earth.  There he sowed the\ngrain that is the bread of man, chanting the hymn used at seed-time,\ncalling on the mother earth to make the green herb spring, and on Ukko to\nsend clouds and rain.  So the corn sprang, and the golden cuckoo--which\nin Finland plays the part of the popinjay in Scotch ballads, or of the\nthree golden birds in Greek folksongs--came with his congratulations.  In\nregard to the epithet 'golden,' it may be observed that gold and silver,\nin the Finnish epic, are lavished on the commonest objects of daily life.\n\nThis is a universal note of primitive poetry, and is not a peculiar\nFinnish idiom, as M. Leouzon le Duc supposes; nor, as Mr. Tozer seems to\nthink, in his account of Romaic ballads, a trace of Oriental influence\namong the modern Greeks.  It is common to all the ballads of Europe, as\nM. Ampere has pointed out, and may be observed in the 'Chanson de\nRoland,' and in Homer.\n\nWhile the corn ripened, Wainamoinen rested from his labours, and took the\ntask of Orpheus.  'He sang,' says the 'Kalevala,' of the origin of\nthings, of the mysteries hidden from babes, that none may attain to in\nthis sad life, in the hours of these perishable days.  The fame of the\nRunoia's singing excited jealousy in the breast of one of the men around\nhim, of whose origin the 'Kalevala' gives no account.  This man,\nJoukahainen, provoked him to a trial of song, boasting, like Empedocles,\nor like one of the old Celtic bards, that he had been all things.  'When\nthe earth was made I was there; when space was unrolled I launched the\nsun on his way.'  Then was Wainamoinen wroth, and by the force of his\nenchantment he rooted Joukahainen to the ground, and suffered him not to\ngo free without promising him the hand of his sister Aino.  The mother\nwas delighted; but the girl wept that she must now cover her long locks,\nher curls, her glory, and be the wife of 'the old imperturbable\nWainamoinen.'  It is in vain that her mother offers her dainty food and\nrich dresses; she flees from home, and wanders till she meets three\nmaidens bathing, and joins them, and is drowned, singing a sad song: 'Ah,\nnever may my sister come to bathe in the sea-water, for the drops of the\nsea are the drops of my blood.'  This wild idea occurs in the Romaic\nballad, [Greek], where a drop of blood on the lips of the drowned girl\ntinges all the waters of the world.  To return to the fate of Aino.  A\nswift hare runs (as in the Zulu legend of the Origin of Death) with the\ntale of sorrow to the maiden's mother, and from the mother's tears flow\nrivers of water, and therein are isles with golden hills where golden\nbirds make melody.  As for the old, the imperturbable Runoia, he loses\nhis claim to the latter title, he is filled with sorrow, and searches\nthrough all the elements for his lost bride.  At length he catches a fish\nwhich is unknown to him, who, like Atlas, 'knew the depths of all the\nseas.'  The strange fish slips from his hands, a 'tress of hair, of\ndrowned maiden's hair,' floats for a moment on the foam, and too late he\nrecognises that 'there was never salmon yet that shone so fair, above the\nnets at sea.'  His lost bride has been within his reach, and now is\ndoubly lost to him.  Suddenly the waves are cloven asunder, and the\nmother of Nature and of Wainamoinen appears, to comfort her son, like\nThetis from the deep.  She bids him go and seek, in the land of Pohjola,\na bride alien to his race.  After many a wild adventure, Wainamoinen\nreaches Pohjola and is kindly entreated by Loutri, the mother of the\nmaiden of the land.  But he grows homesick, and complains, almost in\nDante's words, of the bitter bread of exile.  Loutri will only grant him\nher daughter's hand on condition that he gives her a sampo.  A sampo is a\nmysterious engine that grinds meal, salt, and money.  In fact, it is the\nmill in the well-known fairy tale, 'Why the Sea is Salt.' {169}\n\nWainamoinen cannot fashion this mill himself, he must seek aid at home\nfrom Ilmarinen, the smith who forged 'the iron vault of hollow heaven.'\nAs the hero returns to Kalevala, he meets the Lady of the Rainbow, seated\non the arch of the sky, weaving the golden thread.  She promises to be\nhis, if he will accomplish certain tasks, and in the course of those he\nwounds himself with an axe.  The wound can only be healed by one who\nknows the mystic words that hold the secret of the birth of iron.  The\nlegend of this evil birth, how iron grew from the milk of a maiden, and\nwas forged by the primeval smith, Ilmarinen, to be the bane of warlike\nmen, is communicated by Wainamoinen to an old magician.  The wizard then\nsolemnly curses the iron, _as a living thing_, and invokes the aid of the\nsupreme God Ukko, thus bringing together in one prayer the extremes of\nearly religion.  Then the hero is healed, and gives thanks to the\nCreator, 'in whose hands is the end of a matter.'\n\nReturning to Kalevala, Wainamoinen sends Ilmarinen to Pohjola to make the\nsampo, 'a mill for corn one day, for salt the next, for money the next.'\nThe fatal treasure is concealed by Loutri, and is obviously to play the\npart of the fairy hoard in the 'Nibelungen Lied.'\n\nWith the eleventh canto a new hero, Ahti, or Lemminkainen, and a new\ncycle of adventures, is abruptly introduced.  Lemminkainen is a\nprofligate wanderer, with as many loves as Hercules.  The fact that he is\nregarded as a form of the sea-god makes it strange that his most noted\nachievement, the seduction of the whole female population of his island,\nshould correspond with a like feat of Krishna's.  'Sixteen thousand and\none hundred,' says the Vishnu Purana, 'was the number of the maidens; and\ninto so many forms did the son of Madhu multiply himself, so that every\none of the damsels thought that he had wedded her in her single person.'\nKrishna is the sun, of course, and the maidens are the dew-drops; {170}\nit is to be hoped that Lemminkainen's connection with sea-water may save\nhim from the solar hypothesis.  His first regular marriage is unhappy,\nand he is slain in trying to capture a bride from the people of Pohjola.\nThe black waters of the river of forgetfulness sweep him away, and his\ncomb, which he left with his mother, bursts out bleeding--a frequent\nincident in Russian and other fairy tales.  In many household tales, the\nhero, before setting out on a journey, erects a stick which will fall\ndown when he is in distress, or death.  The natives of Australia use this\nform of divination in actual practice, tying round the stick some of the\nhair of the person whose fate is to be ascertained.  Then, like Demeter\nseeking Persephone, the mother questions all the beings of the world, and\ntheir answers show a wonderful poetic sympathy with the silent life of\nNature.  'The moon said, I have sorrows enough of my own, without\nthinking of thy child.  My lot is hard, my days are evil.  I am born to\nwander companionless in the night, to shine in the season of frost, to\nwatch through the endless winter, to fade when summer comes as king.'  The\nsun is kinder, and reveals the place of the hero's body.  The mother\ncollects the scattered limbs, the birds bring healing balm from the\nheights of heaven, and after a hymn to the goddess of man's blood,\nLemminkainen is made sound and well, as the scattered 'fragments of no\nmore a man' were united by the spell of Medea, like those of Osiris by\nIsis, or of the fair countess by the demon blacksmith in the Russian\nMarchen, or of the Carib hero mentioned by Mr. McLennan, {171} or of the\nox in the South African household tale.\n\nWith the sixteenth canto we return to Wainamoinen, who, like all epic\nheroes, visits the place of the dead, Tuonela.  The maidens who play the\npart of Charon are with difficulty induced to ferry over a man bearing no\nmark of death by fire or sword or water.  Once among the dead,\nWainamoinen refuses--being wiser than Psyche or Persephone--to taste of\ndrink.  This 'taboo' is found in Japanese, Melanesian, and Red Indian\naccounts of the homes of the dead.  Thus the hero is able to return and\nbehold the stars.  Arrived in the upper world, he warns men to 'beware of\nperverting innocence, of leading astray the pure of heart; they that do\nthese things shall be punished eternally in the depths of Tuoni.  There\nis a place prepared for evil-doers, a bed of stones burning, rocks of\nfire, worms and serpents.'  This speech throws but little light on the\nquestion of how far a doctrine of rewards and punishments enters into\nprimitive ideas of a future state.  The 'Kalevala,' as we possess it, is\nnecessarily, though faintly, tinged with Christianity; and the peculiar\nvices which are here threatened with punishment are not those which would\nhave been most likely to occur to the early heathen singers of this\nrunot.\n\nWainamoinen and Ilmarinen now go together to Pohjola, but the fickle\nmaiden of the land prefers the young forger of the sampo to his elder and\nimperturbable companion.  Like a northern Medea, or like the Master-maid\nin Dr. Dasent's 'Tales from the Norse,' or like the hero of the Algonquin\ntale and the Samoan ballad, she aids her alien lover to accomplish the\ntasks assigned to him.  He ploughs with a plough of gold the adder-close,\nor field of serpents; he bridles the wolf and the bear of the lower\nworld, and catches the pike that swim in the waters of forgetfulness.\nAfter this, the parents cannot refuse their consent, the wedding-feast is\nprepared, and all the world, except the seduisant Lemminkainen, is bidden\nto the banquet.  The narrative now brings in the ballads that are sung at\na Finnish marriage.\n\nFirst, the son-in-law enters the house of the parents of the bride,\nsaying, 'Peace abide with you in this illustrious hall.'  The mother\nanswers, 'Peace be with you even in this lowly hut.'  Then Wainamoinen\nbegan to sing, and no man was so hardy as to clasp hands and contend with\nhim in song.  Next follow the songs of farewell, the mother telling the\ndaughter of what she will have to endure in a strange home: 'Thy life was\nsoft and delicate in thy father's house.  Milk and butter were ready to\nthy hand; thou wert as a flower of the field, as a strawberry of the\nwood; all care was left to the pines of the forest, all wailing to the\nwind in the woods of barren lands.  But now thou goest to another home,\nto an alien mother, to doors that grate strangely on their hinges.'  'My\nthoughts,' the maiden replies, 'are as a dark night of autumn, as a\ncloudy day of winter; my heart is sadder than the autumn night, more\nweary than the winter day.'  The maid and the bridegroom are then\nlyrically instructed in their duties: the girl is to be long-suffering,\nthe husband to try five years' gentle treatment before he cuts a willow\nwand for his wife's correction.  The bridal party sets out for home, a\nnew feast is spread, and the bridegroom congratulated on the courage he\nmust have shown in stealing a girl from a hostile tribe.\n\nWhile all is merry, the mischievous Lemminkainen sets out, an unbidden\nguest, for Pohjola.  On his way he encounters a serpent, which he slays\nby the song of serpent-charming.  In this 'mystic chain of verse' the\nserpent is not addressed as the gentle reptile, god of southern peoples,\nbut is spoken of with all hatred and loathing: 'Black creeping thing of\nthe low lands, monster flecked with the colours of death, thou that hast\non thy skin the stain of the sterile soil, get thee forth from the path\nof a hero.'  After slaying the serpent, Lemminkainen reaches Pohjola,\nkills one of his hosts, and fixes his head on one of a thousand stakes\nfor human skulls that stood about the house, as they might round the hut\nof a Dyak in Borneo.  He then flees to the isle of Saari, whence he is\ndriven for his heroic profligacy, and by the hatred of the only girl whom\nhe has _not_ wronged.  This is a very pretty touch of human nature.\n\nHe now meditates a new incursion into Pohjola.  The mother of Pohjola (it\nis just worth noticing that the leadership assumed by this woman points\nto a state of society when the family was scarcely formed) calls to her\naid 'her child the Frost;' but the frost is put to shame by a hymn of the\ninvader's, a song against the Cold: 'The serpent was his foster-mother,\nthe serpent with her barren breasts; the wind of the north rocked his\ncradle, and the ice-wind sang him to sleep, in the midst of the wild\nmarsh-land, where the wells of the waters begin.'  It is a curious\ninstance of the animism, the vivid power of personifying all the beings\nand forces of nature, which marks the 'Kalevala,' that the Cold speaks to\nLemminkainen in human voice, and seeks a reconciliation.\n\nAt this part of the epic there is an obvious lacuna.  The story goes to\nKullervo, a luckless man, who serves as shepherd to Ilmarinen.  Thinking\nhimself ill-treated by the heroic smith's wife, the shepherd changes his\nflock into bears and wolves, which devour their mistress.  Then he\nreturns to his own home, where he learns that his sister has been lost\nfor many days, and is believed to be dead.  Travelling in search of her\nhe meets a girl, loves her, and all unwittingly commits an inexpiable\noffence.  'Then,' says the 'Kalevala,' 'came up the new dawn, and the\nmaiden spoke, saying, \"What is thy race, bold young man, and who is thy\nfather?\"  Kullervo said, \"I am the wretched son of Kalerva; but tell me,\nwhat is thy race, and who is thy father?\"  Then said the maiden, \"I am\nthe wretched daughter of Kalerva.  Ah! would God that I had died, then\nmight I have grown with the green grass, and blossomed with the flowers,\nand never known this sorrow.\"  With this she sprang into the midst of the\nfoaming waves, and found peace in Tuoni, and rest in the waters of\nforgetfulness.'  Then there was no word for Kullervo, but the bitter moan\nof the brother in the terrible Scotch ballad of the Bonny Hind, and no\nrest but in death by his own sword, where grass grows never on his\nsister's tomb.\n\nThe epic now draws to a close.  Ilmarinen seeks a new wife in Pohja, and\nendeavours with Wainamoinen's help to recover the mystic sampo.  On the\nvoyage, the Runoia makes a harp out of the bones of a monstrous fish, so\nstrange a harp that none may play it but himself.  When he played, all\nfour-footed things came about him, and the white birds dropped down 'like\na storm of snow.'  The maidens of the sun and the moon paused in their\nweaving, and the golden thread fell from their hands.  The Ancient One of\nthe sea-water listened, and the nymphs of the wells forgot to comb their\nloose locks with the golden combs.  All men and maidens and little\nchildren wept, amid the silent joy of nature; nay, the great harper wept,\nand _of his tears were pearls made_.\n\nIn the war with Pohjola the heroes were victorious, but the sampo was\nbroken in the fight, and lost in the sea, and that, perhaps, is 'why the\nsea is salt.'  Fragments were collected, however, and Loutri, furious at\nthe success of the heroes of Kalevala, sent against them a bear,\ndestructive as the boar of Calydon.  But Wainamoinen despatched the\nmonster, and the body was brought home with the bear-dance, and the hymn\nof the bear.  'Oh, Otso,' cry the singers, 'be not angry that we come\nnear thee.  The bear, the honey-footed bear, was born in lands between\nsun and moon, and he died not by men's hands, but of his own will.'  The\nFinnish savants are probably right, who find here a trace of the beast-\nworship which in many lands has placed the bear among the number of the\nstars.  Propitiation of the bear is practised by Red Indians, by the\nAinos of Japan, and (in the case of the 'native bear') by Australians.\nThe Red Indians have a myth to prove that the bear is immortal, does not\ndie, but, after his apparent death, rises again in another body.  There\nis no trace, however, that the Finns claimed, like the Danes, descent\nfrom the bear.  The Lapps, a people of confused belief, worshipped him\nalong with Thor, Christ, the sun, and the serpent. {176}\n\nBut another cult, an alien creed, is approaching Kalevala.  There is no\npart of the epic more strange than the closing canto, which tells in the\nwildest language, and through the most exaggerated forms of savage\nimagination, the tale of the introduction of Christianity.  Marjatta was\na maiden, 'as pure as the dew is, as holy as stars are that live without\nstain.'  As she fed her flocks, and listened to the singing of the golden\ncuckoo, a berry fell into her bosom.  After many days she bore a child,\nand the people despised and rejected her, and she was thrust forth, and\nher babe was born in a stable, and cradled in the manger.  Who should\nbaptize the babe?  The god of the wilderness refused, and Wainamoinen\nwould have had the young child slain.  Then the infant rebuked the\nancient Demigod, who fled in anger to the sea, and with his magic song he\nbuilt a magic barque, and he sat therein, and took the helm in his hand.\nThe tide bore him out to sea, and he lifted his voice and sang: 'Times go\nby, and suns shall rise and set, and then shall men have need of me, and\nshall look for the promise of my coming that I may make a new sampo, and\na new harp, and bring back sunlight and moonshine, and the joy that is\nbanished from the world.'  Then he crossed the waters, and gained the\nlimits of the sea, and the lower spaces of the sky.\n\nHere the strange poem ends at its strangest moment, with the cry, which\nmust have been uttered so often, but is heard here alone, of a people\nreluctantly deserting the gods that it has fashioned in its own likeness,\nfor a faith that has not sprung from its needs or fears.  Yet it\ncherishes the hope that this tyranny shall pass over: 'they are gods, and\nbehold they shall die, and the waves be upon them at last.'\n\nAs the 'Kalevala,' and as all relics of folklore, all Marchen and ballads\nprove, the lower mythology--the elemental beliefs of the people--do\nsurvive beneath a thin covering of Christian conformity.  There are, in\nfact, in religion, as in society, two worlds, of which the one does not\nknow how the other lives.  The class whose literature we inherit, under\nwhose institutions we live, at whose shrines we worship, has changed as\noutworn raiment its manners, its gods, its laws; has looked before and\nafter, has hoped and forgotten, has advanced from the wilder and grosser\nto the purest faith.  Beneath the progressive class, and beneath the\nwaves of this troublesome world, there exists an order whose primitive\nform of human life has been far less changeful, a class which has put on\na mere semblance of new faiths, while half-consciously retaining the\nremains of immemorial cults.\n\nObviously, as M. Fauriel has pointed out in the case of the modern\nGreeks, the life of such folk contains no element of progress, admits no\nbreak in continuity.  Conquering armies pass and leave them still reaping\nthe harvest of field and river; religions appear, and they are baptized\nby thousands, but the lower beliefs and dreads that the progressive class\nhas outgrown remain unchanged.\n\nThus, to take the instance of modern Greece, the high gods of the divine\nrace of Achilles and Agamemnon are forgotten, but the descendants of the\nPenestae, the villeins of Thessaly, still dread the beings of the popular\ncreed, the Nereids, the Cyclopes, and the Lamia. {178}\n\nThe last lesson we would attempt to gather from the 'Kalevala' is this:\nthat a comparison of the _thoroughly popular_ beliefs of all countries,\nthe beliefs cherished by the non-literary classes whose ballads and fairy\ntales have only recently been collected, would probably reveal a general\nidentity, concealed by diversity of name, among the 'lesser people of the\nskies,' the elves, fairies, Cyclopes, giants, nereids, brownies, lamiae.\nIt could then be shown that some of these spirits survive among the lower\nbeings of the mythology of what the Germans call a cultur-volk like the\nGreeks or Romans.  It could also be proved that much of the narrative\nelement in the classic epics is to be found in a popular or childish form\nin primitive fairy tales.  The question would then come to be, Have the\nhigher mythologies been developed, by artistic poets, out of the\nmaterials of a race which remained comparatively untouched by culture; or\nare the lower spirits, and the more simple and puerile forms of myth,\ndegradations of the inventions of a cultivated class?\n\n\n\n\nTHE DIVINING ROD.\n\n\nThere is something remarkable, and not flattering to human sagacity, in\nthe periodical resurrection of superstitions.  Houses, for example, go on\nbeing 'haunted' in country districts, and no educated man notices the\ncircumstance.  Then comes a case like that of the Drummer of Tedworth, or\nthe Cock Lane Ghost, and society is deeply moved, philosophers plunge\ninto controversy, and he who grubs among the dusty tracts of the past\nfinds a world of fugitive literature on forgotten bogies.  Chairs move\nuntouched by human hands, and tables walk about in lonely castles of\nSavoy, and no one marks them, till a day comes when the furniture of some\nAmerican cottage is similarly afflicted, and then a shoddy new religion\nis based on the phenomenon.  The latest revival among old beliefs is\nfaith in the divining rod.  'Our liberal shepherds give it a _shorter_\nname,' and so do our conservative peasants, calling the 'rod of Jacob'\nthe 'twig.'  To 'work the twig' is rural English for the craft of\nDousterswivel in the 'Antiquary,' and perhaps from this comes our slang\nexpression to 'twig,' or divine, the hidden meaning of another.  Recent\ncorrespondence in the newspapers has proved that, whatever may be the\ntruth about the 'twig,' belief in its powers is still very prevalent.\nRespectable people are not ashamed to bear signed witness of its\nmiraculous powers of detecting springs of water and secret mines.  It is\nhabitually used by the miners in the Mendips, as Mr. Woodward found ten\nyears ago; and forked hazel divining rods from the Mendips are a\nrecognised part of ethnological collections.  There are two ways of\ninvestigating the facts or fancies about the rod.  One is to examine it\nin its actual operation--a task of considerable labour, which will\ndoubtless be undertaken by the Society for Psychical Research; the other,\nand easier, way is to study the appearances of the divining wand in\nhistory, and that is what we propose to do in this article.\n\nWhen a superstition or belief is widely spread in Europe, as the faith in\nthe divining rod certainly is (in Germany rods are hidden under babies'\nclothes when they are baptized), we naturally expect to find traces of it\nin ancient times and among savages all over the modern world.  We have\nalready examined, in 'The Bull-Roarer,' a very similar example.  We saw\nthat there is a magical instrument--a small fish-shaped piece of thin\nflat wood tied to a thong--which, when whirled in the air, produces a\nstrange noise, a compound of roar and buzz.  This instrument is sacred\namong the natives of Australia, where it is used to call together the\nmen, and to frighten away the women from the religious mysteries of the\nmales.  The same instrument is employed for similar purposes in New\nMexico, and in South Africa and New Zealand--parts of the world very\nwidely distant from each other, and inhabited by very diverse races.  It\nhas also been lately discovered that the Greeks used this toy, which they\ncalled [Greek], in the Mysteries of Dionysus, and possibly it may be\nidentical with the mystica vannus Iacchi (Virgil, 'Georgics,' i. 166).\nThe conclusion drawn by the ethnologist is that this object, called\nturndun by the Australians, is a very early savage invention, probably\ndiscovered and applied to religious purposes in various separate centres,\nand retained from the age of savagery in the mystic rites of Greeks and\nperhaps of Romans.  Well, do we find anything analogous in the case of\nthe divining rod?\n\nFuture researches may increase our knowledge, but at present little or\nnothing is known of the divining rod in classical ages, and not very much\n(though that little is significant) among uncivilised races.  It is true\nthat in all countries rods or wands, the Latin virga, have a magical\npower.  Virgil obtained his mediaeval repute as a wizard because his name\nwas erroneously connected with virgula, the magic wand.  But we do not\nactually know that the ancient wand of the enchantress Circe, in Homer,\nor the wand of Hermes, was used, like the divining rod, to indicate the\nwhereabouts of hidden wealth or water.  In the Homeric hymn to Hermes\n(line 529), Apollo thus describes the caduceus, or wand of Hermes:\n'Thereafter will I give thee a lovely wand of wealth and riches, a golden\nwand with three leaves, which shall keep thee ever unharmed.'  In later\nart this wand, or caduceus, is usually entwined with serpents; but on one\nvase, at least, the wand of Hermes is simply the forked twig of our\nrustic miners and water-finders.  The same form is found on an engraved\nEtruscan mirror. {183}\n\nNow, was a wand of this form used in classical times to discover hidden\nobjects of value?  That wands were used by Scythians and Germans in\nvarious methods of casting lots is certain; but that is not the same\nthing as the working of the twig.  Cicero speaks of a fabled wand by\nwhich wealth can be procured; but he says nothing of the method of its\nuse, and possibly was only thinking of the rod of Hermes, as described in\nthe Homeric hymn already quoted.  There was a Roman play, by Varro,\ncalled 'Virgula Divina'; but it is lost, and throws no light on the\nsubject.  A passage usually quoted from Seneca has no more to do with the\ndivining rod than with the telephone.  Pliny is a writer extremely fond\nof marvels; yet when he describes the various modes of finding wells of\nwater, he says nothing about the divining wand.  The isolated texts from\nScripture which are usually referred to clearly indicate wands of a\ndifferent sort, if we except Hosea iv. 12, the passage used as motto by\nthe author of 'Lettres qui decouvrent l'illusion des Philosophes sur la\nBaguette' (1696).  This text is translated in our Bible, 'My people ask\ncounsel at their stocks, _and their staff declareth unto them_!  Now, we\nhave here no reference to the search for wells and minerals, but to a\nform of divination for which the modern twig has ceased to be applied.  In\nrural England people use the wand to find water, but not to give advice,\nor to detect thieves or murderers; but, as we shall see, the rod has been\nvery much used for these purposes within the last three centuries.\n\nThis brings us to the moral powers of the twig; and here we find some\nassistance in our inquiry from the practices of uncivilised races.  In\n1719 John Bell was travelling across Asia; he fell in with a Russian\nmerchant, who told him of a custom common among the Mongols.  The Russian\nhad lost certain pieces of cloth, which were stolen out of his tent.  The\nKutuchtu Lama ordered the proper steps to be taken to find out the thief.\n'One of the Lamas took a bench with four feet, and after turning it in\nseveral directions, at last it pointed directly to the tent where the\nstolen goods were concealed.  The Lama now mounted across the bench, and\nsoon carried it, or, as was commonly believed, it carried him, to the\nvery tent, where he ordered the damask to be produced.  The demand was\ndirectly complied with; for it is vain in such cases to offer any\nexcuse.' {184a}  Here we have not a wand, indeed, but a wooden object\nwhich turned in the direction, not of water or minerals, but of human\nguilt.  A better instance is given by the Rev. H. Rowley, in his account\nof the Mauganja. {184b}  A thief had stolen some corn.  The medicine-man,\nor sorcerer, produced two sticks, which he gave to four young men, two\nholding each stick.  The medicine-man danced and sang a magical\nincantation, while a zebra-tail and a rattle were shaken over the holders\nof the sticks.  'After a while, the men with the sticks had spasmodic\ntwitchings of the arms and legs; these increased nearly to convulsions. .\n. .  According to the native idea, _it was the sticks which were\npossessed primarily_, and through them the men, _who could hardly hold\nthem_.  The sticks whirled and dragged the men round and round like mad,\nthrough bush and thorny shrub, and over every obstacle; nothing stopped\nthem; their bodies were torn and bleeding.  At last they came back to the\nassembly, whirled round again, and rushed down the path to fall panting\nand exhausted in the hut of one of a chief's wives.  The sticks, rolling\nto her very feet, denounced her as a thief.  She denied it; but the\nmedicine-man answered, \"The spirit has declared her guilty; the spirit\nnever lies.\"'  The woman, however, was acquitted, after a proxy trial by\nordeal: a cock, used as her proxy, threw up the muavi, or ordeal-poison.\n\nHere the points to be noted are, first, the violent movement of the\nsticks, which the men could hardly hold; next, the physical agitation of\nthe men.  The former point is illustrated by the confession of a civil\nengineer writing in the 'Times.'  This gentleman had seen the rod\nsuccessfully used for water; he was asked to try it himself, and he\ndetermined that it should not twist in his hands 'if an ocean rolled\nunder his feet.'  Twist it did, however, in spite of all his efforts to\nhold it, when he came above a concealed spring.  Another example is\nquoted in the 'Quarterly Review,' vol. xxii. p. 374.  A narrator, in whom\nthe editor had 'implicit confidence,' mentions how, when a lady held the\ntwig just over a hidden well, 'the twig turned so quick as to snap,\nbreaking near her fingers.'  There seems to be no indiscretion in saying,\nas the statement has often been printed before, that the lady spoken of\nin the 'Quarterly Review' was Lady Milbanke, mother of the wife of Byron.\nDr. Hutton, the geologist, is quoted as a witness of her success in the\nsearch for water with the divining rod.  He says that, in an experiment\nat Woolwich, 'the twigs twisted themselves off below her fingers, which\nwere considerably indented by so forcibly holding the rods between them.'\n{186}  Next, the violent excitement of the four young men of the Mauganja\nis paralleled by the physical experience of the lady quoted in the\n'Quarterly Review.'  'A degree of agitation was visible in her face when\nshe first made the experiment; she says this agitation was great' when\nshe began to practise the art, or whatever we are to call it.  Again, in\n'Lettres qui decouvrent l'illusion' (p. 93), we read that Jacques Aymar\n(who discovered the Lyons murderer in 1692) se sent tout emu--feels\ngreatly agitated--when he comes on that of which he is in search.  On\npage 97 of the same volume, the body of the man who holds the divining\nrod is described as 'violently agitated.'  When Aymar entered the room\nwhere the murder, to be described later, was committed, 'his pulse rose\nas if he were in a burning fever, and the wand turned rapidly in his\nhands' ('Lettres,' p. 107).  But the most singular parallel to the\nperformance of the African wizard must be quoted from a curious pamphlet\nalready referred to, a translation of the old French 'Verge de Jacob,'\nwritten, annotated, and published by a Mr. Thomas Welton.  Mr. Welton\nseems to have been a believer in mesmerism, animal magnetism, and similar\ndoctrines, but the coincidence of his story with that of the African\nsorcerer is none the less remarkable.  It is a coincidence which must\nalmost certainly be 'undesigned.'  Mr. Welton's wife was what modern\noccult philosophers call a 'Sensitive.'  In 1851, he wished her to try an\nexperiment with the rod in a garden, and sent a maid-servant to bring 'a\ncertain stick that stood behind the parlour door.  In great terror she\nbrought it to the garden, her hand firmly clutched on the stick, nor\ncould she let it go . . . '  The stick was given to Mrs. Welton, 'and it\ndrew her with very considerable force to nearly the centre of the garden,\nto a bed of poppies, where she stopped.'  Here water was found, and the\ngardener, who had given up his lease as there was no well in the garden,\nhad the lease renewed.\n\nWe have thus evidence to show (and much more might be adduced) that the\nbelief in the divining rod, or in analogous instruments, is not confined\nto the European races.  The superstition, or whatever we are to call it,\nproduces the same effects of physical agitation, and the use of the rod\nis accompanied with similar phenomena among Mongols, English people,\nFrenchmen, and the natives of Central Africa.  The same coincidences are\nfound in almost all superstitious practices, and in the effects of these\npractices on believers.  The Chinese use a form of planchette, which is\nhalf a divining rod--a branch of the peach tree; and 'spiritualism' is\nmore than three-quarters of the religion of most savage tribes, a Maori\nseance being more impressive than anything the civilised Sludge can offer\nhis credulous patrons.  From these facts different people draw different\ninferences.  Believers say that the wide distribution of their favourite\nmysteries is a proof that 'there is something in them.'  The incredulous\nlook on our modern 'twigs' and turning-tables and ghost stories as mere\n'survivals' from the stage of savage culture, or want of culture, when\nthe fancy of half-starved man was active and his reason uncritical.\n\nThe great authority for the modern history of the divining rod is a work\npublished by M. Chevreuil, in Paris, in 1854.  M. Chevreuil, probably\nwith truth, regarded the wand as much on a par with the turning-tables,\nwhich, in 1854, attracted a good deal of attention.  He studied the topic\nhistorically, and his book, with a few accessible French tracts and\nletters of the seventeenth century, must here be our guide.  A good deal\nof M. Chevreuil's learning, it should be said, is reproduced in Mr.\nBaring Gould's 'Curious Myths of the Middle Ages,' but the French author\nis much more exhaustive in his treatment of the topic.  M. Chevreuil\ncould find no earlier book on the twig than the 'Testament du Frere Basil\nValentin,' a holy man who flourished (the twig) about 1413; but whose\ntreatise is possibly apocryphal.  According to Basil Valentin, the twig\nwas regarded with awe by ignorant labouring men, which is still true.\nParacelsus, though he has a reputation for magical daring, thought the\nuse of the twig 'uncertain and unlawful'; and Agricola, in his 'De Re\nMetallica' (1546) expresses a good deal of scepticism about the use of\nthe rod in mining.  A traveller of 1554 found that the wand was _not_\nused--and this seems to have surprised him--in the mines of Macedonia.\nMost of the writers of the sixteenth century accounted for the turning of\nthe rod by 'sympathy,' which was then as favourite an explanation of\neverything as evolution is to-day.  In 1630 the Baron de Beau Soleil of\nBohemia (his name sounds rather Bohemian) came to France with his wife,\nand made much use of the rod in the search for water and minerals.  The\nBaroness wrote a little volume on the subject, afterwards reprinted in a\ngreat storehouse of this lore, 'La Physique Occulte,' of Vallemont.\nKircher, a Jesuit, made experiments which came to nothing; but Gaspard\nSchott, a learned writer, cautiously declined to say that the Devil was\nalways 'at the bottom of it' when the rod turned successfully.  The\nproblem of the rod was placed before our own Royal Society by Boyle, in\n1666, but the Society was not more successful here than in dealing with\nthe philosophical difficulty proposed by Charles II.  In 1679 De Saint\nRemain, deserting the old hypothesis of secret 'sympathies,' explained\nthe motion of the rod (supposing it to move) by the action of\ncorpuscules.  From this time the question became the playing ground of\nthe Cartesian and other philosophers.  The struggle was between theories\nof 'atoms,' magnetism, 'corpuscules,' electric effluvia, and so forth, on\none side, and the immediate action of devils or of conscious imposture,\non the other.  The controversy, comparatively simple as long as the rod\nonly indicated hidden water or minerals, was complicated by the revival\nof the savage belief that the wand could 'smell out' moral offences.  As\nlong as the twig turned over material objects, you could imagine\nsympathies and 'effluvia' at pleasure.  But when the wand twirled over\nthe scene of a murder, or dragged the expert after the traces of the\nculprit, fresh explanations were wanted.  Le Brun wrote to Malebranche on\nJuly 8, 1689, to tell him that the wand only turned over what the holder\nhad the _intention_ of discovering. {190}  If he were following a\nmurderer, the wand good-naturedly refused to distract him by turning over\nhidden water.  On the other hand, Vallemont says that when a peasant was\nusing the wand to find water, it turned over a spot in a wood where a\nmurdered woman was buried, and it conducted the peasant to the murderer's\nhouse.  These events seem inconsistent with Le Brun's theory of\n_intention_.  Malebranche replied, in effect, that he had only heard of\nthe turning of the wand over water and minerals; that it then turned (if\nturn it did) by virtue of some such force as electricity; that, if such\nforce existed, the wand would turn over open water.  But it does not so\nturn; and, as physical causes are constant, it follows that the turning\nof the rod cannot be the result of a physical cause.  The only other\nexplanation is an intelligent cause--either the will of an impostor, or\nthe action of a spirit.  Good spirits would not meddle with such matters;\ntherefore either the Devil or an impostor causes the motion of the rod,\nif it _does_ move at all.  This logic of Malebranche's is not agreeable\nto believers in the twig; but there the controversy stood, till, in 1692,\nJacques Aymar, a peasant of Dauphine, by the use of the twig discovered\none of the Lyons murderers.\n\nThough the story of this singular event is pretty well known, it must\nhere be briefly repeated.  No affair can be better authenticated, and our\nversion is abridged from the 'Relations' of 'Monsieur le Procureur du\nRoi, Monsieur l'Abbe de la Garde, Monsieur Panthot, Doyen des Medecins de\nLyon, et Monsieur Aubert, Avocat celebre.'\n\nOn July 5, 1692, a vintner and his wife were found dead in the cellar of\ntheir shop at Lyons.  They had been killed by blows from a hedging-knife,\nand their money had been stolen.  The culprits could not be discovered,\nand a neighbour took upon him to bring to Lyons a peasant out of\nDauphine, named Jacques Aymar, a man noted for his skill with the\ndivining rod.  The Lieutenant-Criminel and the Procureur du Roi took\nAymar into the cellar, furnishing him with a rod of the first wood that\ncame to hand.  According to the Procureur du Roi, the rod did not move\ntill Aymar reached the very spot where the crime had been committed.  His\npulse then rose, and the wand twisted rapidly.  'Guided by the wand or by\nsome internal sensation,' Aymar now pursued the track of the assassins,\nentered the court of the Archbishop's palace, left the town by the bridge\nover the Rhone, and followed the right bank of the river.  He reached a\ngardener's house, which he declared the men had entered, and some\nchildren confessed that three men (_whom they described_) had come into\nthe house one Sunday morning.  Aymar followed the track up the river,\npointed out all the places where the men had landed, and, to make a long\nstory short, stopped at last at the door of the prison of Beaucaire.  He\nwas admitted, looked at the prisoners, and picked out as the murderer a\nlittle hunchback (had the children described a hunchback?) who had just\nbeen brought in for a small theft.  The hunchback was taken to Lyons, and\nhe was recognised, on the way, by the people at all the stages where he\nhad stopped.  At Lyons he was examined in the usual manner, and confessed\nthat he had been an accomplice in the crime, and had guarded the door.\nAymar pursued the other culprits to the coast, followed them by sea,\nlanded where they had landed, and only desisted from his search when they\ncrossed the frontier.  As for the hunchback, he was broken on the wheel,\nbeing condemned on his own confession.  It does not appear that he was\nput to the torture to make him confess.  If this had been done his\nadmissions would, of course, have been as valueless as those of the\nvictims in trials for witchcraft.\n\nThis is, in brief, the history of the famous Lyons murders.  It must be\nadded that many experiments were made with Aymar in Paris, and that they\nwere all failures.  He fell into every trap that was set for him;\ndetected thieves who were innocent, failed to detect the guilty, and\ninvented absurd excuses; alleging, for example, that the rod would not\nindicate a murderer who had confessed, or who was drunk when he committed\nhis crime.  These excuses seem to annihilate the wild contemporary theory\nof Chauvin and others, that the body of a murderer naturally exhales an\ninvisible matiere meurtriere--peculiar indestructible atoms, which may be\ndetected by the expert with the rod.  Something like the same theory, we\nbelieve, has been used to explain the pretended phenomena of haunted\nhouses.  But the wildest philosophical credulity is staggered by a\nmatiere meurtriere which is disengaged by the body of a sober, but not by\nthat of an intoxicated, murderer, which survives tempests in the air, and\nendures for many years, but is dissipated the moment the murderer\nconfesses.  Believers in Aymar have conjectured that his real powers were\ndestroyed by the excitements of Paris, and that he took to imposture; but\nthis is an effort of too easy good-nature.  When Vallemont defended Aymar\n(1693) in the book called 'La Physique Occulte,' he declared that Aymar\nwas physically affected to an unpleasant extent by matiere meurtriere,\nbut was not thus agitated when he used the rod to discover minerals.  We\nhave seen that, if modern evidence can be trusted, holders of the rod are\noccasionally much agitated even when they are only in search of wells.\nThe story gave rise to a prolonged controversy, and the case remains a\njudicial puzzle, but little elucidated by the confession of the\nhunchback, who may have been insane, or morbid, or vexed by constant\nquestioning till he was weary of his life.  He was only nineteen years of\nage.\n\nThe next use of the rod was very much like that of 'tipping' and turning\ntables.  Experts held it (as did Le Pere Menestrier, 1694), questions\nwere asked, and the wand answered by turning in various directions.  By\nway of showing the inconsistency of all philosophies of the wand, it may\nbe said that one girl found that it turned over concealed gold if she\nheld gold in her hand, while another found that it indicated the metal so\nlong as she did _not_ carry gold with her in the quest.  In the search\nfor water, ecclesiastics were particularly fond of using the rod.  The\nMarechal de Boufflers dug many wells, and found no water, on the\nindications of a rod in the hands of the Prieur de Dorenic, near Guise.\nIn 1700 a cure, near Toulouse, used the wand to answer questions, which,\nlike planchette, it often answered wrong.  The great sourcier, or water-\nfinder, of the eighteenth century was one Bleton.  He declared that the\nrod was a mere index, and that physical sensations of the searcher\ncommunicated themselves to the wand.  This is the reverse of the African\ntheory, that the stick is inspired, while the men who hold it are only\ninfluenced by the stick.  On the whole, Bleton's idea seems the less\nabsurd, but Bleton himself often failed when watched with scientific care\nby the incredulous.  Paramelle, who wrote on methods of discovering\nwells, in 1856, came to the conclusion that the wand turns in the hands\nof certain individuals of peculiar temperament, and that it is very much\na matter of chance whether there are, or are not, wells in the places\nwhere it turns.\n\nOn the whole, the evidence for the turning of the wand is a shade better\nthan that for the magical turning of tables.  If there are no phenomena\nof this sort at all, it is remarkable that the belief in them is so\nwidely diffused.  But if the phenomena are purely subjective, owing to\nthe conscious or unconscious action of nervous patients, then they are\nprecisely of the sort which the cunning medicine-man observes, and makes\nhis profit out of, even in the earliest stages of society.  Once\nintroduced, these practices never die out among the conservative and\nunprogressive class of peasants; and, every now and then, they attract\nthe curiosity of philosophers, or win the belief of the credulous among\nthe educated classes.  Then comes, as we have lately seen, a revival of\nancient superstition.  For it were as easy to pluck the comet out of the\nsky by the tail, as to eradicate superstition from the mind of man.\n\nPerhaps one good word may be said for the divining rod.  Considering the\nchances it has enjoyed, the rod has done less mischief than might have\nbeen expected.  It might very well have become, in Europe, as in Asia and\nAfrica, a kind of ordeal, or method of searching for and trying\nmalefactors.  Men like Jacques Aymar might have played, on a larger\nscale, the part of Hopkins, the witch-finder.  Aymar was, indeed,\nemployed by some young men to point out, by help of the wand, the houses\nof ladies who had been more frail than faithful.  But at the end of the\nseventeenth century in France, this research was not regarded with\nfavour, and put the final touch on the discomfiture of Aymar.  So far as\nwe know, the hunchback of Lyons was the only victim of the 'twig' who\never suffered in civilised society.  It is true that, in rural England,\nthe movements of a Bible, suspended like a pendulum, have been thought to\npoint out the guilty.  But even that evidence is not held good enough to\ngo to a jury.\n\n\n\n\nHOTTENTOT MYTHOLOGY.\n\n\n'What makes mythology mythological, in the true sense of the word, is\nwhat is utterly unintelligible, absurd, strange, or miraculous.'  So says\nMr. Max Muller in the January number of the Nineteenth Century for 1882.\nMen's attention would never have been surprised into the perpetual study\nand questioning of mythology if it had been intelligible and dignified,\nand if its report had been in accordance with the reason of civilised and\ncultivated races.  What mythologists wish to discover is the origin of\nthe countless disgusting, amazing, and incongruous legends which occur in\nthe myths of all known peoples.  According to Mr. Muller--\n\n   There are only two systems possible in which the irrational element in\n   mythology can be accounted for.  One school takes the irrational as a\n   matter of fact; and if we read that Daphne fled before Phoebus, and\n   was changed into a laurel tree, that school would say that there\n   probably was a young lady called Aurora, like, for instance, Aurora\n   Konigsmark; that a young man called Robin, or possibly a man with red\n   hair, pursued her, and that she hid behind a laurel tree that happened\n   to be there.  This was the theory of Euhemeros, re-established by the\n   famous Abbe Bernier [Mr. Muller doubtless means Banier], and not quite\n   extinct even now.  According to another school, the irrational element\n   in mythology is inevitable, and due to the influence of language on\n   thought, so that many of the legends of gods and heroes may be\n   rendered intelligible if only we can discover the original meaning of\n   their proper names.  The followers of this school try to show that\n   Daphne, the laurel tree, was an old name for the dawn, and that\n   Phoibos was one of the many names of the sun, who pursued the dawn\n   till she vanished before his rays.  Of these two schools, the former\n   has always appealed to the mythologies of savage nations, as showing\n   that gods and heroes were originally human beings, worshipped after\n   their death as ancestors and as gods, while the latter has confined\n   itself chiefly to an etymological analysis of mythological names in\n   Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit, and other languages, such as had been\n   sufficiently studied to admit of a scientific, grammatical, and\n   etymological treatment.\n\nThis is a long text for our remarks on Hottentot mythology; but it is\nnecessary to prove that there are not two schools only of mythologists:\nthat there are inquirers who neither follow the path of the Abbe Banier,\nnor of the philologists, but a third way, unknown to, or ignored by Mr.\nMuller.  We certainly were quite unaware that Banier and Euhemeros were\nvery specially concerned, as Mr. Muller thinks, with savage mythology;\nbut it is by aid of savage myths that the school unknown to Mr. Muller\nexamines the myths of civilised peoples like the Greeks.  The disciples\nof Mr. Muller interpret all the absurdities of Greek myth, the gods who\nare beasts on occasion, the stars who were men, the men who become\nserpents or deer, the deities who are cannibals and parricides and\nadulterers, as the result of the influence of Aryan speech upon Aryan\nthought.  Men, in Mr. Muller's opinion, had originally pure ideas about\nthe gods, and expressed them in language which we should call figurative.\nThe figures remained, when their meaning was lost; the names were then\nsupposed to be gods, the nomina became numina, and out of the\ninextricable confusion of thought which followed, the belief in cannibal,\nbestial, adulterous, and incestuous gods was evolved.  That is Mr.\nMuller's hypothesis; with him the evolution, a result of a disease of\nlanguage, has been from early comparative purity to later religious\nabominations.  Opposed to him is what may be called the school of Mr.\nHerbert Spencer: the modern Euhemerism, which recognises an element of\nhistorical truth in myths, as if the characters had been real characters,\nand which, in most gods, beholds ancestral ghosts raised to a higher\npower.\n\nThere remains a third system of mythical interpretation, though Mr.\nMuller says only two methods are possible.  The method, in this third\ncase, is to see whether the irrational features and elements of civilised\nGreek myth occur also in the myths of savages who speak languages quite\nunlike those from whose diseases Mr. Muller derives the corruption of\nreligion.  If the same features recur, are they as much in harmony with\nthe mental habits of savages, such as Bushmen and Hottentots, as they are\nout of accord with the mental habits of civilised Greeks?  If this\nquestion can be answered in the affirmative, then it may be provisionally\nassumed that the irrational elements of savage myth are the legacy of\nsavage modes of thought, and have survived in the religion of Greece from\na time when the ancestors of the Greeks were savages.  But inquirers who\nuse this method do not in the least believe that either Greek or savage\ngods were, for the more part, originally real men.  Both Greeks and\nsavages have worshipped the ghosts of the dead.  Both Greeks and savages\nassign to their gods the miraculous powers of transformation and magic,\nwhich savages also attribute to their conjurers or shamans.  The mantle\n(if he had a mantle) of the medicine-man has fallen on the god; but Zeus,\nor Indra, was not once a real medicine-man.  A number of factors combine\nin the conception of Indra, or Zeus, as either god appears in Sanskrit or\nGreek literature, of earlier or later date.  Our school does not hold\nanything so absurd as that Daphne was a real girl pursued by a young man.\nBut it has been observed that, among most savage races, metamorphoses\nlike that of Daphne not only exist in mythology, but are believed to\noccur very frequently in actual life.  Men and women are supposed to be\ncapable of turning into plants (as the bamboo in Sarawak), into animals,\nand stones, and stars, and those metamorphoses happen as contemporary\nevents--for example, in Samoa. {200}\n\nWhen Mr. Lane was living at Cairo, and translating the 'Arabian Nights,'\nhe found that the people still believed in metamorphosis.  Any day, just\nas in the 'Arabian Nights,' a man might find himself turned by an\nenchanter into a pig or a horse.  Similar beliefs, not derived from\nlanguage, supply the matter of the senseless incidents in Greek myths.\n\nSavage mythology is also full of metamorphoses.  Therefore the\nmythologists whose case we are stating, when they find identical\nmetamorphoses in the classical mythologies, conjecture that these were\nfirst invented when the ancestors of the Aryans were in the imaginative\ncondition in which a score of rude races are to-day.  This explanation\nthey apply to many other irrational elements in mythology.  They do not\nsay, 'Something like the events narrated in these stories once occurred,'\nnor 'A disease of language caused the belief in such events,' but 'These\nstories were invented when men were capable of believing in their\noccurrence as a not unusual sort of incident'\n\nPhilologists attempt to explain the metamorphoses as the result of some\noblivion and confusion of language.  Apollo, they say, was called the\n'wolf-god' (Lukeios) by accident: his name really meant the 'god of\nlight.'  A similar confusion made the 'seven shiners' into the 'seven\nbears.' {201}  These explanations are distrusted, partly because the area\nto be covered by them is so vast.  There is scarcely a star, tree, or\nbeast, but it has been a man or woman once, if we believe civilised and\nsavage myth.  Two or three possible examples of myths originating in\nforgetfulness of the meaning of words, even if admitted, do not explain\nthe incalculable crowd of metamorphoses.  We account for these by saying\nthat, to the savage mind, which draws no hard and fast line between man\nand nature, all such things are possible; possible enough, at least, to\nbe used as incidents in story.  Again, as has elsewhere been shown, the\nlaxity of philological reasoning is often quite extraordinary; while,\nlastly, philologists of the highest repute flatly contradict each other\nabout the meaning of the names and roots on which they agree in founding\ntheir theory. {202a}\n\nBy way of an example of the philological method as applied to savage\nmythology, we choose a book in many ways admirable, Dr. Hahn's 'Tsuni\nGoam, the Supreme Being of the Khoi Khoi.' {202b}  This book is sometimes\nappealed to as a crushing argument against the mythologists who adopt the\nmethod we have just explained.  Let us see if the blow be so very\ncrushing.  To put the case in a nutshell, the Hottentots have commonly\nbeen described as a race which worshipped a dead chief, or conjurer--Tsui\nGoab his name is, meaning Wounded Knee, a not unlikely name for a savage.\nDr. Hahn, on the other hand, labours to show that the Hottentots\noriginally worshipped no dead chief, but (as a symbol of the Infinite)\nthe Red Dawn.  The meaning of the name Red Dawn, he says, was lost; the\nwords which meant Red Dawn were erroneously supposed to mean Wounded\nKnee, and thus arose the adoration and the myths of a dead chief, or\nwizard, Tsui Goab, Wounded Knee.  Clearly, if this can be proved, it is\nan excellent case for the philological school, an admirable example of a\nmyth produced by forgetfulness of the meaning of words.  Our own opinion\nis that, even if Tsui Goab originally meant Red Dawn, the being, as now\nconceived of by his adorers, is bedizened in the trappings of the dead\nmedicine-man, and is worshipped just as ghosts of the dead are\nworshipped.  Thus, whatever his origin, his myth is freely coloured by\nthe savage fancy and by savage ideas, and we ask no more than this\ncolouring to explain the wildest Greek myths.  What truly 'primitive'\nreligion was, we make no pretence to know.  We only say that, whether\nGreek religion arose from a pure fountain or not, its stream had flowed\nthrough and been tinged by the soil of savage thought, before it widens\ninto our view in historical times.  But it will be shown that the logic\nwhich connects Tsui Goab with the Red Dawn is far indeed from being\ncogent.\n\nTsui Goab is thought by the Hottentots themselves to be a dead man, and\nit is admitted that among the Hottentots dead men are adored.  'Cairns\nare still objects of worship,' {203a} and Tsui Goab lies beneath several\ncairns.  Again, soothsayers are believed in (p. 24), and Tsui Goab is\nregarded as a deceased soothsayer.  As early as 1655, a witness quoted by\nHahn saw women worshipping at one of the cairns of Heitsi Eibib, another\nsupposed ancestral being.  Kolb, the old Dutch traveller, found that the\nHottentots, like the Bushmen, revered the mantis insect.  This creature\nthey called Gaunab.  They also had some moon myths, practised adoration\nof the moon, and danced at dawn.  Thunberg (1792) saw the cairn-worship,\nand, on asking its meaning, was told that a Hottentot lay buried there.\n{203b}  Thunberg also heard of the worship of the mantis, or grey\ngrasshopper.  In 1803 Liechtenstein noted the cairn-worship, and was told\nthat a renowned Hottentot doctor of old times rested under the cairn.\nAppleyard's account of 'the name God in Khoi Khoi, or Hottentot,'\ndeserves quoting in full:--\n\n   Hottentot: Tsoei'koap.\n   Namaqua: Tsoei'koap.\n   Koranna: Tshu'koab, and the author adds: 'This is the word from which\n   the Kafirs have probably derived their u-Tixo, a term which they have\n   universally applied, like the Hottentots, to designate the Divine\n   Being, since the introduction of Christianity.  Its derivation is\n   curious.  It consists of two words, which together mean the \"wounded\n   knee.\"  It is said to have been originally applied to a doctor or\n   sorcerer of considerable notoriety and skill amongst the Hottentots or\n   Namaquas some generations back, in consequence of his having received\n   some injury in his knee.  Having been held in high repute for\n   extraordinary powers during life, he appeared to be invoked even after\n   death, as one who could still relieve and protect; and hence, in\n   process of time, he became nearest in idea to their first conceptions\n   of God.'\n\nOther missionaries make old Wounded Knee a good sort of being on the\nwhole, who fights Gaunab, a bad being.  Dr. Moffat heard that 'Tsui Kuap'\nwas 'a notable warrior,' who once received a wound in the knee.  Sir\nJames Alexander {204} found that the Namaquas believed their 'great\nfather' lay below the cairns on which they flung boughs.  This great\nfather was Heitsi Eibib, and, like other medicine-men, 'he could take\nmany forms.'  Like Tsui Goab, he died several times and rose again.  Hahn\ngives (p. 61) a long account of the Wounded Knee from an old chief, and a\nstory of the battle between Tsui Goab, who 'lives in a beautiful heaven,'\nand Gaunab, who 'lives in a dark heaven.'  As this chief had dwelt among\nmissionaries very long, we may perhaps discount his remarks on 'heaven'\nas borrowed.  Hahn thinks they refer to the red sky in which Tsui Goab\nlived, and to the black sky which was the home of Gaunab.  The two\ncharacters in this crude religious dualism thus inhabit light and\ndarkness respectively.\n\n* * * * *\n\nAs far as we have gone, Tsui Goab, like Heitsi Eibib among the Namas, is\na dead sorcerer, whose graves are worshipped, while, with a common\ninconsistency, he is also thought of as dwelling in the sky.  Even\nChristians often speak of the dead with similar inconsistency.  Tsui\nGoab's worship is intelligible enough among a people so credulous that\nthey took Hahn himself for a conjurer (p. 81), and so given to ancestor-\nworship that Hahn has seen them worship their own fathers' graves, and\nexpect help from men recently dead (pp. 112, 113).  But, while the Khoi\nKhoi think that Tsui Goab was once a real man, we need not share their\nEuhemerism.  More probably, like Unkulunkulu among the Zulus, Tsui Goab\nis an ideal, imaginary ancestral sorcerer and god.  No one man requires\nmany graves, and Tsui Goab has more than Osiris possessed in Egypt. {205}\n\nIf the Egyptians in some immeasurably distant past were once on the level\nof Namas and Hottentots, they would worship Osiris at as many barrows as\nHeitsi Eibib and Tsui Goab are adored.  In later times the numerous\ngraves of one being would require explanation, and explanations would be\nfurnished by the myth that the body of Osiris was torn to pieces and each\nfragment buried in a separate tomb.\n\nAgain, lame gods occur in Greek, Australian, and Brazilian creeds, and\nthe very coincidence of Tsui Goab's lameness makes us sceptical about his\nclaims to be a real dead man.  On the other hand, when Hahn tells us that\nepical myths are now sung in the dances in honour of warriors lately\nslain (p. 103), and that similar dances and songs were performed in the\npast to honour Tsui Goab, this looks more as if Tsui Goab had been an\nactual person.  Against this we must set (p. 105) the belief that Tsui\nGoab made the first man and woman, and was the Prometheus of the\nHottentots.\n\n* * * * *\n\nSo far Dr. Hahn has given us facts which entirely fit in with our theory\nthat an ancestor-worshipping people, believing in metamorphosis and\nsorcery, adores a god who is supposed to be a deceased ancestral sorcerer\nwith the power of magic and metamorphosis.  But now Dr. Hahn offers his\nown explanation.  According to the philological method, he will 'study\nthe names of the persons, until we arrive at the naked root and original\nmeanings of the words.'  Starting then with Tsui Goab, whom all evidence\ndeclares to be a dead lame conjurer and warrior, Dr. Hahn avers that\n'Tsui Goab, originally Tsuni Goam, was the name by which the Red Men\ncalled the Infinite.'  As the Frenchman said of the derivation of jour\nfrom _dies_, we may hint that the Infinite thus transformed into a lame\nHottentot 'bush-doctor' is diablement change en route.  To a dead lame\nsorcerer from the Infinite is a fall indeed.  The process of the decline\nis thus described.  Tsui Goab is composed of two roots, tsu and goa.  Goa\nmeans 'to go on,' 'to come on.'  In Khoi Khoi goa-b means 'the coming on\none,' the dawn, and goa-b also means 'the knee.'  Dr. Hahn next writes\n(making a logical leap of extraordinary width), 'it is now obvious that,\n//goab in Tsui Goab cannot be translated with knee,'--why not?--'but we\nhave to adopt the other metaphorical meaning, the _approaching_ day, i.e.\nthe dawn.'  Where is the necessity?  In ordinary philology, we should\nhere demand a number of attested examples of goab, in the sense of dawn,\nbut in Khoi Khoi we cannot expect such evidence, as there are probably no\ntexts.  Next, after arbitrarily deciding that all Khoi Khois\nmisunderstand their own tongue (for that is what the rendering here of\ngoab by 'dawn' comes to), Dr. Hahn examines tsu, in Tsui.  Tsu means\n'sore,' 'wounded,' 'painful,' as in 'wounded knee'--Tsui Goab.  This does\nnot help Dr Hahn, for 'wounded dawn' means nothing.  But he reflects that\na wound is red, tsu means wounded: therefore tsu means red, therefore\nTsui Goab is the Red Dawn.  Q.E.D.\n\nThis kind of reasoning is obviously fallacious.  Dr. Hahn's point could\nonly be made by bringing forward examples in which tsu is employed to\nmean red in Khoi Khoi.  Of this use of the word tsu he does not give one\nsingle instance, though on this point his argument depends.  His\netymology is not strengthened by the fact that Tsui Goab has once been\nsaid to live in the red sky.  A red house is not necessarily tenanted by\na red man.  Still less is the theory supported by the hymn which says\nTsui Goab paints himself with red ochre.  Most idols, from those of the\nSamoyeds to the Greek images of Dionysus, are and have been daubed with\nred.  By such reasoning is Tsui Goab proved to be the Red Dawn, while his\ngifts of prophecy (which he shares with all soothsayers) are accounted\nfor as attributes of dawn, of the Vedic Saranyu.\n\nTurning from Tsui Goab to his old enemy Gaunab, we learn that his name is\nderived from //gau, 'to destroy,' and, according to old Hottentot ideas,\n'no one was the destroyer but the night' (p. 126).  There is no apparent\nreason why the destroyer should be the night, and the night alone, any\nmore than why 'a lame broken knee' should be 'red' (p. 126).  Besides (p.\n85), Gaunab is elsewhere explained, not as the night, but as the\nmalevolent ghost which is thought to kill people who die what we call a\n'natural' death.  Unburied men change into this sort of vampire, just as\nElpenor, in the Odyssey, threatens, if unburied, to become mischievous.\nThere is another Gaunab, the mantis insect, which is worshipped by\nHottentots and Bushmen (p. 92).  It appears that the two Gaunabs are\ndifferently pronounced.  However that may be, a race which worships an\ninsect might well worship a dead medicine-man.\n\n* * * * *\n\nThe conclusion, then, to be drawn from an examination of Hottentot\nmythology is merely this, that the ideas of a people will be reflected in\ntheir myths.  A people which worships the dead, believes in sorcerers and\nin prophets, and in metamorphosis, will have for its god (if he can be\ncalled a god) a being who is looked on as a dead prophet and sorcerer.  He\nwill be worshipped with such rites as dead men receive; he will be mixed\nup in such battles as living men wage, and will be credited with the\nskill which living sorcerers claim.  All these things meet in the legend\nof Tsui Goab, the so-called 'supreme being' of the Hottentots.  His\nconnection with the dawn is not supported by convincing argument or\nevidence.  The relation of the dawn to the Infinite again rests on\nnothing but a theory of Mr. Max Muller's. {209}  His adversary, though\nrecognised as the night, is elsewhere admitted to have been, originally,\na common vampire.  Finally, the Hottentots, a people not much removed\nfrom savagery, have a mythology full of savage and even disgusting\nelements.  And this is just what we expect from Hottentots.  The puzzle\nis when we find myths as low as the story of the incest of Heitsi Eibib\namong the Greeks.  The reason for this coincidence is that, in Dr. Hahn's\nwords, 'the same objects and the same phenomena in nature will give rise\nto the same ideas, whether social or mythical, among different races of\nmankind,' especially when these races are in the same well-defined state\nof savage fancy and savage credulity.\n\nDr. Hahn's book has been regarded as a kind of triumph over inquirers who\nbelieve that ancestor-worship enters into myth, and that the purer\nelement in myth is the later.  But where is the triumph?  Even on Dr.\nHahn's own showing, ancestor-worship among the Hottentots has swamped the\nadoration of the Infinite.  It may be said that Dr. Hahn has at least\nproved the adoration of the Infinite to be earlier than ancestor-worship.\nBut it has been shown that his attempt to establish a middle stage, to\ndemonstrate that the worshipped ancestor was really the Red Dawn, is not\nlogical nor convincing.  Even if that middle stage were established, it\nis a far cry from the worship of Dawn (supposed by the Australians to be\na woman of bad character in a cloak of red' possum-skin) to the adoration\nof the Infinite.  Our own argument has been successful if we have shown\nthat there are not only two possible schools of mythological\ninterpretation--the Euhemeristic, led by Mr. Spencer, and the\nPhilological, led by Mr. Max Muller.  We have seen that it is possible to\nexplain the legend of Tsui Goab without either believing him to have been\na real historical person (as Mr. Spencer may perhaps believe), or his\nmyth to have been the result of a 'disease of language' as Mr. Muller\nsupposes.  We have explained the legend and worship of a supposed dead\nconjurer as natural to a race which believes in conjurers and worships\ndead men.  Whether he was merely an ideal ancestor and warrior, or\nwhether an actual man has been invested with what divine qualities Tsui\nGoab enjoys, it is impossible to say; but, if he ever lived, he has long\nbeen adorned with ideal qualities and virtues which he never possessed.\nThe conception of the powerful ancestral ghost has been heightened and\nadorned with some novel attributes of power: the conception of the\nInfinite has not been degraded, by forgetfulness of language, to the\nestate of an ancestral ghost with a game leg.\n\n* * * * *\n\nIf this view be correct, myth is the result of thought, far more than of\na disease of language.  The comparative importance of language and\nthought was settled long ago, in our sense, by no less a person than\nPragapati, the Sanskrit Master of Life.\n\n'Now a dispute once took place between Mind and Speech, as to which was\nthe better of the two.  Both Mind and Speech said, \"I am excellent!\"  Mind\nsaid, \"Surely I am better than thou, for thou dost not speak anything\nthat is not understood by me; and since thou art only an imitator of what\nis done by me and a follower in my wake, I am surely better than thou!\"\nSpeech said, \"Surely I am better than thou, for what thou knowest I make\nknown, I communicate.\"  They went to appeal to Pragapati for his\ndecision.  He (Pragapati) decided in favour of Mind, saying (to Speech),\n\"Mind is indeed better than thou, for thou art an imitator of its deeds,\nand a follower in its wake; and inferior, surely, is he who imitates his\nbetter's deeds, and follows in his wake.\"'\n\nSo saith the 'Satapatha Brahmana.' {211}\n\n\n\n\nFETICHISM AND THE INFINITE.\n\n\nWhat is the true place of Fetichism, to use a common but unscientific\nterm, in the history of religious evolution?  Some theorists have made\nfetichism, that is to say, the adoration of odds and ends (with which\nthey have confused the worship of animals, of mountains, and even of the\nearth), the first moment in the development of worship.  Others, again,\nthink that fetichism is 'a corruption of religion, in Africa, as\nelsewhere.'  The latter is the opinion of Mr Max Muller, who has stated\nit in his 'Hibbert Lectures,' on 'The Origin and Growth of Religion,\nespecially as illustrated by the Religions of India.'  It seems probable\nthat there is a middle position between these two extremes.  Students may\nhold that we hardly know enough to justify us in talking about the\n_origin_ of religion, while at the same time they may believe that\nFetichism is one of the earliest traceable steps by which men climbed to\nhigher conceptions of the supernatural.  Meanwhile Mr. Max Muller\nsupports his own theory, that fetichism is a 'parasitical growth,' a\n'corruption' of religion, by arguments mainly drawn from historical study\nof savage creeds, and from the ancient religious documents of India.\n\nThese documents are to English investigators ignorant of Sanskrit 'a book\nsealed with seven seals.'  The Vedas are interpreted in very different\nways by different Oriental scholars.  It does not yet appear to be known\nwhether a certain word in the Vedic funeral service means 'goat' or\n'soul'!  Mr. Max Muller's rendering is certain to have the first claim on\nEnglish readers, and therefore it is desirable to investigate the\nconclusions which he draws from his Vedic studies.  The ordinary\nanthropologist must first, however, lodge a protest against the tendency\nto look for _primitive_ matter in the Vedas.  They are the elaborate\nhymns of a specially trained set of poets and philosophers, living in an\nage almost of civilisation.  They can therefore contain little testimony\nas to what man, while still 'primitive,' thought about God, the world,\nand the soul.  One might as well look for the first germs of religion,\nfor _primitive_ religion strictly so called, in 'Hymns Ancient and\nModern' as in the Vedas.  It is chiefly, however, by way of deductions\nfrom the Vedas, that Mr. Max Muller arrives at ideas which may be briefly\nand broadly stated thus: he inclines to derive religion from man's sense\nof the Infinite, as awakened by natural objects calculated to stir that\nsense.  Our position is, on the other hand, that the germs of the\nreligious sense in early man are developed, not so much by the vision of\nthe Infinite, as by the idea of Power.  Early religions, in short, are\nselfish, not disinterested.  The worshipper is not contemplative, so much\nas eager to gain something to his advantage.  In fetiches, he ignorantly\nrecognises something that possesses power of an abnormal sort, and the\ntrain of ideas which leads him to believe in and to treasure fetiches is\none among the earliest springs of religious belief.\n\nMr. Muller's opinion is the very reverse: he believes that a\ncontemplative and disinterested emotion in the presence of the Infinite,\nor of anything that suggests infinitude or is mistaken for the Infinite,\nbegets human religion, while of this religion fetichism is a later\ncorruption.\n\n* * * * *\n\nIn treating of fetichism Mr. Muller is obliged to criticise the system of\nDe Brosses, who introduced this rather unfortunate term to science, in an\nadmirable work, 'Le Culte des Dieux Fetiches' (1760).  We call the work\n'admirable,' because, considering the contemporary state of knowledge and\nspeculation, De Brosses's book is brilliant, original, and only now and\nthen rash or confused.  Mr. Muller says that De Brosses 'holds that all\nnations had to begin with fetichism, to be followed afterwards by\npolytheism and monotheism.'  This sentence would lead some readers to\nsuppose that De Brosses, in his speculations, was looking for the origin\nof religion; but, in reality, his work is a mere attempt to explain a\ncertain element in ancient religion and mythology.  De Brosses was well\naware that heathen religions were a complex mass, a concretion of many\nmaterials.  He admits the existence of regard for the spirits of the dead\nas one factor, he gives Sabaeism a place as another.  But what chiefly\npuzzles him, and what he chiefly tries to explain, is the worship of odds\nand ends of rubbish, and the adoration of animals, mountains, trees, the\nsun, and so forth.  When he masses all these worships together, and\nproposes to call them all Fetichism (a term derived from the Portuguese\nword for a talisman), De Brosses is distinctly unscientific.  But De\nBrosses is distinctly scientific when he attempts to explain the animal-\nworship of Egypt, and the respect paid by Greeks and Romans to shapeless\nstones, as survivals of older savage practices.\n\nThe position of De Brosses is this: Old mythology and religion are a\ntissue of many threads.  Sabaeism, adoration of the dead, mythopoeic\nfancy, have their part in the fabric.  Among many African tribes, a form\nof theism, Islamite or Christian, or self-developed, is superimposed on a\nmass of earlier superstitions.  Among these superstitions, is the worship\nof animals and plants, and the cult of rough stones and of odds and ends\nof matter.  What is the origin of this element, so prominent in the\nreligion of Egypt, and present, if less conspicuous, in the most ancient\ntemples of Greece?  It is the survival, answers De Brosses, of ancient\npractices like those of untutored peoples, as Brazilians, Samoyeds,\nNegroes, whom the Egyptians and Pelasgians once resembled in lack of\nculture.\n\nThis, briefly stated, is the hypothesis of De Brosses.  If he had\npossessed our wider information, he would have known that, among savage\nraces, the worships of the stars, of the dead, and of plants and animals,\nare interlaced by the strange metaphysical processes of wild men.  He\nwould, perhaps, have kept the supernatural element in magical stones,\nfeathers, shells, and so on, apart from the triple thread of Sabaeism,\nghost-worship, and totemism, with its later development into the regular\nworship of plants and animals.  It must be recognised, however, that De\nBrosses was perfectly well aware of the confused and manifold character\nof early religion.  He had a clear view of the truth that what the\nreligious instinct has once grasped, it does not, as a rule, abandon, but\nsubordinates or disguises, when it reaches higher ideas.  And he avers,\nagain and again, that men laid hold of the coarser and more material\nobjects of worship, while they themselves were coarse and dull, and that,\nas civilisation advanced, they, as a rule, subordinated and disguised the\nruder factors in their system.  Here it is that Mr. Max Muller differs\nfrom De Brosses.  He holds that the adoration of stones, feathers,\nshells, and (as I understand him) the worship of animals are, even among\nthe races of Africa, a corruption of an earlier and purer religion, a\n'parasitical development' of religion.\n\nHowever, Mr. Max Muller himself held 'for a long time' what he calls 'De\nBrosses's theory of fetichism.'  What made him throw the theory\noverboard?  It was 'the fact that, while in the earliest accessible\ndocuments of religious thought we look in vain for any very clear traces\nof fetichism, they become more and more frequent everywhere in the later\nstages of religious development, and are certainly more visible in the\nlater corruptions of the Indian religion, beginning with the Atharvana,\nthan in the earliest hymns of the Rig Veda.'  Now, by the earliest\naccessible documents of religious thought, Professor Max Muller means the\nhymns of the Rig Veda.  These hymns are composed in the most elaborate\nmetre, by sages of old repute, who, I presume, occupied a position not\nunlike that of the singers and seers of Israel.  They lived in an age of\ntolerably advanced cultivation.  They had wide geographical knowledge.\nThey had settled government.  They dwelt in States.  They had wealth of\ngold, of grain, and of domesticated animals.  Among the metals, they were\nacquainted with that which, in most countries, has been the latest\nworked--they used iron poles in their chariots.  How then can the hymns\nof the most enlightened singers of a race thus far developed be called\n'the earliest religious documents'?  Oldest they may be, the oldest that\nare accessible, but that is a very different thing.  How can we possibly\nargue that what is absent in these hymns, is absent because it had not\nyet come into existence?  Is it not the very office of pii vates et Phoebo\ndigna locuti to purify religion, to cover up decently its rude shapes, as\nthe unhewn stone was concealed in the fane of Apollo of Delos?  If the\nrace whose noblest and oldest extant hymns were pure, exhibits traces of\nfetichism in its later documents, may not that as easily result from a\nrecrudescence as from a corruption?  Professor Max Muller has still,\nmoreover, to explain how the process of corruption which introduced the\nsame fetichistic practices among Samoyeds, Brazilians, Kaffirs, and the\npeople of the Atharvana Veda came to be everywhere identical in its\nresults.\n\nHere an argument often urged against the anthropological method may be\nshortly disposed of.  'You examine savages,' people say, 'but how do you\nknow that these savages were not once much more cultivated; that their\nwhole mode of life, religion and all, is not debased and decadent from an\nearlier standard?'  Mr. Muller glances at this argument, which, however,\ncannot serve his purpose.  Mr. Muller has recognised that savage, or\n'nomadic,' languages represent a much earlier state of language than\nanything that we find, for example, in the oldest Hebrew or Sanskrit\ntexts.  'For this reason,' he says, {218} 'the study of what I call\n_nomad_ languages, as distinguished from _State_ languages, becomes so\ninstructive.  We see in them what we can no longer expect to see even in\nthe most ancient Sanskrit or Hebrew.  We watch the childhood of language\nwith all its childish freaks.'  Yes, adds the anthropologist, and for\nthis reason the study of savage religions, as distinguished from State\nreligions, becomes so instructive.  We see in them what we can no longer\nexpect to see even in the most ancient Sanskrit or Hebrew faiths.  We\nwatch the childhood of religion with all its childish freaks.  If this\nreasoning be sound when the Kaffir tongue is contrasted with ancient\nSanskrit, it should be sound when the Kaffir faith is compared with the\nVedic faith.  By parity of reasoning, the religious beliefs of peoples as\nmuch less advanced than the Kaffirs as the Kaffirs are less advanced than\nthe Vedic peoples, should be still nearer the infancy of faith, still\n'nearer the beginning.'\n\nWe have been occupied, perhaps, too long with De Brosses and our apology\nfor De Brosses.  Let us now examine, as shortly as possible, Mr. Max\nMuller's reasons for denying that fetichism is 'a primitive form of\nreligion.'  The negative side of his argument being thus disposed of, it\nwill then be our business to consider (1) his psychological theory of the\nsubjective element in religion, and (2) his account of the growth of\nIndian religion.  The conclusion of the essay will be concerned with\ndemonstrating that Mr. Max Muller's system assigns little or no place to\nthe superstitious beliefs without which, in other countries than India,\nsociety could not have come into organised existence.\n\n* * * * *\n\nIn his polemic against Fetichism, it is not always very easy to see\nagainst whom Mr. Muller is contending.  It is one thing to say that\nfetichism is a 'primitive form of religion,' and quite another to say\nthat it is 'the very beginning of all religion.'  Occasionally he attacks\nthe 'Comtian theory,' which, I think, is not now held by many people who\nstudy the history of man, and which I am not concerned to defend.  He\nsays that the Portuguese navigators who discovered among the negroes 'no\nother trace of any religious worship' except what they called the worship\nof feiticos, concluded that this was the whole of the religion of the\nnegroes (p. 61).  Mr. Muller then goes on to prove that 'no religion\nconsists of fetichism only,' choosing his examples of higher elements in\nnegro religion from the collections of Waitz.  It is difficult to see\nwhat bearing this has on his argument.  De Brosses (p. 20) shows that\n_he_, at least, was well aware that many negro tribes have higher\nconceptions of the Deity than any which are implied in fetich-worship.\nEven if no tribe in the world is exclusively devoted to fetiches, the\nargument makes no progress.  Perhaps no extant tribe is in the way of\nusing unpolished stone weapons and no others, but it does not follow that\nunpolished stone weapons are not primitive.  It is just as easy to\nmaintain that the purer ideas have, by this time, been reached by aid of\nthe stepping-stones of the grosser, as that the grosser are the\ncorruption of the purer.  Mr. Max Muller constantly asserts that the\n'human mind advanced by small and timid steps from what is intelligible,\nto what is at first sight almost beyond comprehension' (p. 126).  Among\nthe objects which aided man to take these small and timid steps, he\nreckons rivers and trees, which excited, he says, religious awe.  What he\nwill not suppose is that the earliest small and timid steps were not\nunaided by such objects as the fetichist treasures--stones, shells, and\nso forth, which suggest no idea of infinity.  Stocks he will admit, but\nnot, if he can help it, stones, of the sort that negroes and Kanekas and\nother tribes use as fetiches.  His reason is, that he does not see how\nthe scraps of the fetichist can appeal to the feeling of the Infinite,\nwhich feeling is, in his theory, the basis of religion.\n\nAfter maintaining (what is readily granted) that negroes have a religion\ncomposed of many elements, Mr. Muller tries to discredit the evidence\nabout the creeds of savages, and discourses on the many minute shades of\nprogress which exist among tribes too often lumped together as if they\nwere all in the same condition.  Here he will have all scientific\nstudents of savage life on his side.  It remains true, however, that\ncertain elements of savage practice, fetichism being one of them, are\npractically ubiquitous.  Thus, when Mr. Muller speaks of 'the influence\nof public opinion' in biassing the narrative of travellers, we must not\nforget that the strongest evidence about savage practice is derived from\nthe 'undesigned coincidence' of the testimonies of all sorts of men, in\nall ages, and all conditions of public opinion.  'Illiterate men,\nignorant of the writings of each other, bring the same reports from\nvarious quarters of the globe,' wrote Millar of Glasgow.  When sailors,\nmerchants, missionaries, describe, as matters unprecedented and unheard\nof, such institutions as polyandry, totemism, and so forth, the evidence\nis so strong, because the witnesses are so astonished.  They do not know\nthat anyone but themselves has ever noticed the curious facts before\ntheir eyes.  And when Mr. Muller tries to make the testimony about savage\nfaith still more untrustworthy, by talking of the 'absence of recognised\nauthority among savages,' do not let us forget that custom ([Greek]) is a\nrecognised authority, and that the punishment of death is inflicted for\ntransgression of certain rules.  These rules, generally speaking, are of\na religious nature, and the religion to which they testify is of the sort\nknown (too vaguely) as 'fetichistic.'  Let us keep steadily before our\nminds, when people talk of lack of evidence, that we have two of the\nstrongest sorts of evidence in the world for the kind of religion which\nleast suits Mr. Muller's argument--(1) the undesigned coincidences of\ntestimony, (2) the irrefutable witness and sanction of elementary\ncriminal law.  Mr. Muller's own evidence is that much-disputed work,\nwhere 'all men see what they want to see, as in the clouds,' and where\nmany see systematised fetichism--the Veda. {222}\n\nThe first step in Mr. Max Muller's polemic was the assertion that\nFetichism is nowhere unmixed.  We have seen that the fact is capable of\nan interpretation that will suit either side.  Stages of culture overlap\neach other.  The second step in his polemic was the effort to damage the\nevidence.  We have seen that we have as good evidence as can be desired.\nIn the third place he asks, What are the antecedents of fetich-worship?\nHe appears to conceive himself to be arguing with persons (p. 127) who\n'have taken for granted that every human being was miraculously endowed\nwith the concept of what forms the predicate of every fetich, call it\npower, spirit, or god.'  If there are reasoners so feeble, they must be\nleft to the punishment inflicted by Mr. Muller.  On the other hand,\nstudents who regard the growth of the idea of power, which is the\npredicate of every fetish, as a slow process, as the result of various\nimpressions and trains of early half-conscious reasoning, cannot be\ndisposed of by the charge that they think that 'every human being was\nmiraculously endowed' with any concept whatever.  They, at least, will\nagree with Mr. Max Muller that there are fetiches and fetiches, that to\none reverence is assigned for one reason, to another for another.\nUnfortunately, it is less easy to admit that Mr. Max Muller has been\nhappy in his choice of ancient instances.  He writes (p. 99): 'Sometimes\na stock or a stone was worshipped because it was a forsaken altar or an\nancient place of judgment, sometimes because it marked the place of a\ngreat battle or a murder, or the burial of a king.'  Here he refers to\nPausanias, book i. 28, 5, and viii. 13, 3. {223}  In both of these\npassages, Pausanias, it is true, mentions stones--in the first passage\nstones on which men stood [Greek], in the second, barrows heaped up in\nhonour of men who fell in battle.  In neither case, however, do I find\nanything to show that the stones were worshipped.  These stones, then,\nhave no more to do with the argument than the milestones which certainly\nexist on the Dover road, but which are not the objects of superstitious\nreverence.  No! the fetich-stones of Greece were those which occupied the\nholy of holies of the most ancient temples, the mysterious fanes within\ndark cedar or cypress groves, to which men were hardly admitted.  They\nwere the stones and blocks which bore the names of gods, Hera, or Apollo,\nnames perhaps given, as De Brosses says, to the old fetichistic objects\nof worship, _after_ the anthropomorphic gods entered Hellas.  This, at\nleast is the natural conclusion from the fact that the Apollo and Hera of\nuntouched wood or stone were confessedly the _oldest_.  Religion,\npossessing an old fetich did not run the risk of breaking the run of luck\nby discarding it, but wisely retained and renamed it.  Mr. Max Muller\nsays that the unhewn lump may indicate a higher power of abstraction than\nthe worship paid to the work of Phidias; but in that case all the savage\nadorers of rough stones _may_ be in a stage of more abstract thought than\nthese contemporaries of Phidias who had such very hard work to make Greek\nthought abstract.\n\nMr Muller founds a very curious argument on what he calls 'the ubiquity\nof fetichism.'  Like De Brosses, he compiles (from Pausanias) a list of\nthe rude stones worshipped by the early Greeks.  He mentions various\nexamples of fetichistic superstitions in Rome.  He detects the fetichism\nof popular Catholicism, and of Russian orthodoxy among the peasants.\nHere, he cries, in religions the history of which is known to us,\nfetichism is secondary, 'and why should fetiches in Africa, where we do\nnot know the earlier development of religion, be considered as primary?'\nWhat a singular argument!  According to Pausanias, this fetichism (if\nfetichism it is) _was_ primary, in Greece.  The _oldest_ temples, in\ntheir holiest place, held the oldest fetich.  In Rome, it is at least\nprobable that fetichism, as in Greece, was partly a survival, partly a\nnew growth from the primal root of human superstitions.  As to\nCatholicism, the records of Councils, the invectives of the Church, show\nus that, from the beginning, the secondary religion in point of time, the\nreligion of the Church, laboured vainly to suppress, and had in part to\ntolerate, the primary religion of childish superstitions.  The documents\nare before the world.  As to the Russians, the history of their\nconversion is pretty well known.  Jaroslaf, or Vladimir, or some other\nevangelist, had whole villages baptized in groups, and the pagan peasants\nnaturally kept up their primary semi-savage ways of thought and worship,\nunder the secondary varnish of orthodoxy.  In all Mr. Max Muller's\nexamples, then, fetichism turns out to be _primary_ in point of time;\n_secondary_ only, as subordinate to some later development of faith, or\nto some lately superimposed religion.  Accepting his statement that\nfetichism is ubiquitous, we have the most powerful a priori argument that\nfetichism is primitive.  As religions become developed they are\ndifferentiated; it only fetichism that you find the same everywhere.  Thus\nthe bow and arrow have a wide range of distribution: the musket, one not\nso wide; the Martini-Henry rifle, a still narrower range: it is the\nprimitive stone weapons that are ubiquitous, that are found in the soil\nof England, Egypt, America, France, Greece, as in the hands of Dieyries\nand Admiralty Islanders.  And just as rough stone knives are earlier than\niron ones (though the same race often uses both), so fetichism is more\nprimitive than higher and purer faiths, though the same race often\ncombines fetichism and theism.  No one will doubt the truth of this where\nweapons are concerned; but Mr. Max Muller will not look at religion in\nthis way.\n\nMr. Max Muller's remarks on 'Zoolatry,' as De Brosses calls it, or animal-\nworship, require only the briefest comment.  De Brosses, very unluckily,\nconfused zoolatry with other superstitions under the head of Fetichism.\nThis was unscientific; but is it scientific of Mr. Max Muller to discuss\nanimal-worship without any reference to totemism?  The worship of sacred\nanimals is found, in every part of the globe, to be part of the sanction\nof the most stringent and important of all laws, the laws of marriage.  It\nis an historical truth that the society of Ashantees, Choctaws,\nAustralians, is actually constructed by the operation of laws which are\nunder the sanction of various sacred plants and animals. {226}  There is\nscarcely a race so barbarous that these laws are not traceable at work in\nits society, nor a people (especially an ancient people) so cultivated\nthat its laws and religion are not full of strange facts most easily\nexplained as relics of totemism.  Now note that actual living totemism is\nalways combined with the rudest ideas of marriage, with almost repulsive\nideas about the family.  Presumably, this rudeness is earlier than\nculture, and therefore this form of animal-worship is one of the earliest\nreligions that we know.  The almost limitless distribution of the\nphenomena, their regular development, their gradual disappearance, all\npoint to the fact that they are all very early and everywhere produced by\nsimilar causes.\n\nOf all these facts, Mr. Max Muller only mentions one--that many races\nhave called themselves Snakes, and he thinks they might naturally adopt\nthe snake for ancestor, and finally for god.  He quotes the remark of\nDiodorus that 'the snake may either have been made a god because he was\nfigured on the banners, or may have been figured on the banners because\nhe was a god'; to which De Brosses, with his usual sense, rejoins--'we\nrepresent saints on our banners because we revere them; we do not revere\nthem because we represent them on our banners.'\n\nIn a discussion about origins, and about the corruption of religion, it\nwould have been well to account for institutions and beliefs almost\nuniversally distributed.  We know, what De Brosses did not, that zoolatry\nis inextricably blent with laws and customs which surely must be early,\nif not primitive, because they make the working faith of societies in\nwhich male descent and the modern family are not yet established.  Anyone\nwho wishes to show that this sort of society is a late corruption, not an\nearly stage in evolution towards better things, has a difficult task\nbefore him, which, however, he must undertake, before he can prove\nzoolatry to be a corruption of religion.\n\nAs to the worship of ancestral and embodied human spirits, which (it has\nbeen so plausibly argued) is the first moment in religion, Mr. Max Muller\ndismisses it, here, in eleven lines and a half.  An isolated but\nimportant allusion at the close of his lectures will be noticed in its\nplace.\n\nThe end of the polemic against the primitiveness of fetichism deals with\nthe question, 'Whence comes the supernatural predicate of the fetich?'  If\na negro tells us his fetich is a god, whence got he the idea of 'god'?\nMany obvious answers occur.  Mr. Muller says, speaking of the Indians (p.\n205): 'The concept of _gods_ was no doubt growing up while men were\nassuming a more and more definite attitude towards these semi-tangible\nand intangible objects'--trees, rivers, hills, the sky, the sun, and so\non, which he thinks suggested and developed, by aid of a kind of awe, the\nreligious feeling of the infinite.  We too would say that, among people\nwho adore fetiches and ghosts, the concept of gods no doubt silently grew\nup, as men assumed a more and more definite attitude towards the tangible\nand intangible objects they held sacred.  Again, negroes have had the\nidea of god imported among them by Christians and Islamites, so that,\neven if they did not climb (as De Brosses grants that many of them do) to\npurer religious ideas unaided, these ideas are now familiar to them, and\nmay well be used by them, when they have to explain a fetich to a\nEuropean.  Mr. Max Muller explains the origin of religion by a term ('the\nInfinite ') which, he admits, the early people would not have\ncomprehended.  The negro, if he tells a white man that a fetich is a god,\ntransposes terms in the same unscientific way.  Mr. Muller asks, 'How do\nthese people, when they have picked up their stone or their shell, pick\nup, at the same time, the concepts of a supernatural power, of spirit, of\ngod, and of worship paid to some unseen being?'  But who says that men\npicked up these ideas _at the same time_?  These ideas were evolved by a\nlong, slow, complicated process.  It is not at all impossible that the\nidea of a kind of 'luck' attached to this or that object, was evolved by\ndint of meditating on a mere series of lucky accidents.  Such or such a\nman, having found such an object, succeeded in hunting, fishing, or war.\nBy degrees, similar objects might be believed to command success.  Thus\nburglars carry bits of coal in their pockets, 'for luck.'  This random\nway of connecting causes and effects which have really no inter-relation,\nis a common error of early reasoning.  Mr. Max Muller says that 'this\nprocess of reasoning is far more in accordance with modern thought'; if\nso, modern thought has little to be proud of.  Herodotus, however,\ndescribes the process of thought as consecrated by custom among the\nEgyptians.  But there are many other practical ways in which the idea of\nsupernatural power is attached to fetiches.  Some fetich-stones have a\nsuperficial resemblance to other objects, and thus (on the magical system\nof reasoning) are thought to influence these objects.  Others, again, are\npointed out as worthy of regard in dreams or by the ghosts of the dead.\n{230}  To hold these views of the origin of the supernatural predicate of\nfetiches is not 'to take for granted that every human being was\nmiraculously endowed with the concept of what forms the predicate of\nevery fetich.'\n\nThus we need not be convinced by Mr. Max Muller that fetichism (though it\nnecessarily has its antecedents in the human mind) is 'a corruption of\nreligion.'  It still appears to be one of the most primitive steps\ntowards the idea of the supernatural.\n\nWhat, then, is the subjective element of religion in man?  How has he\nbecome capable of conceiving of the supernatural?  What outward objects\nfirst awoke that dormant faculty in his breast?  Mr. Max Muller answers,\nthat man has 'the faculty of apprehending the infinite'--that by dint of\nthis faculty he is capable of religion, and that sensible objects,\n'tangible, semi-tangible, intangible,' first roused the faculty to\nreligious activity, at least among the natives of India.  He means,\nhowever, by the 'infinite' which savages apprehend, not our metaphysical\nconception of the infinite, but the mere impression that there is\n'something beyond.'  'Every thing of which his senses cannot perceive a\nlimit, is to a primitive savage or to any man in an early stage of\nintellectual activity _unlimited_ or _infinite_?  Thus, in all\nexperience, the idea of 'a beyond' is forced on men.  If Mr. Max Muller\nwould adhere to this theory, then we should suppose him to mean (what we\nhold to be more or less true) that savage religion, like savage science,\nis merely a fanciful explanation of what lies beyond the horizon of\nexperience.  For example, if the Australians mentioned by Mr. Max Muller\nbelieve in a being who created the world, a being whom they do not\nworship, and to whom they pay no regard (for, indeed, he has become\n'decrepit'), their theory is scientific, not religious.  They have looked\nfor the causes of things, and are no more religious (in so doing) than\nNewton was when he worked out his theory of gravitation.  The term\n'infinite' is wrongly applied, because it is a term of advanced thought\nused in explanation of the ideas of men who, Mr. Max Muller says, were\nincapable of conceiving the meaning of such a concept.  Again, it is\nwrongly applied, because it has some modern religious associations, which\nare covertly and fallaciously introduced to explain the supposed emotions\nof early men.  Thus, Mr. Muller says (p. 177)--he is giving his account\nof the material things that awoke the religious faculty--'the mere sight\nof the torrent or the stream would have been enough to call forth in the\nhearts of the early dwellers on the earth . . . a feeling that they were\nsurrounded on all sides by powers invisible, infinite, or divine.'  Here,\nif I understand Mr. Muller, 'infinite' is used in our modern sense.  The\nquestion is, How did men ever come to believe in powers infinite,\ninvisible, divine?  If Mr. Muller's words mean anything, they mean that a\ndormant feeling that there were such existences lay in the breast of man,\nand was wakened into active and conscious life, by the sight of a torrent\nor a stream.  How, to use Mr. Muller's own manner, did these people, when\nthey saw a stream, have mentally, at the same time, 'a feeling of\n_infinite_ powers?'  If this is not the expression of a theory of 'innate\nreligion' (a theory which Mr. Muller disclaims), it is capable of being\nmistaken for that doctrine by even a careful reader.  The feeling of\n'powers infinite, invisible, divine,' _must_ be in the heart, or the mere\nsight of a river could not call it forth.  How did the feeling get into\nthe heart?  That is the question.  The ordinary anthropologist\ndistinguishes a multitude of causes, a variety of processes, which shade\ninto each other and gradually produce the belief in powers invisible,\ninfinite, and divine.  What tribe is unacquainted with dreams, visions,\nmagic, the apparitions of the dead?  Add to these the slow action of\nthought, the conjectural inferences, the guesses of crude metaphysics,\nthe theories of isolated men of religious and speculative genius.  By all\nthese and other forces manifold, that emotion of awe in presence of the\nhills, the stars, the sea, is developed.  Mr. Max Muller cuts the matter\nshorter.  The early inhabitants of earth saw a river, and the 'mere\nsight' of the torrent called forth the feelings which (to us) seem to\ndemand ages of the operation of causes disregarded by Mr. Muller in his\naccount of the origin of Indian religion.\n\nThe mainspring of Mr. Muller's doctrine is his theory about 'apprehending\nthe infinite.'  Early religion, or at least that of India, was, in his\nview, the extension of an idea of Vastness, a disinterested emotion of\nawe. {233a}  Elsewhere, we think, early religion has been a development\nof ideas of Force, an interested search, not for something wide and far\nand hard to conceive, but for something practically _strong_ for good and\nevil.  Mr. Muller (taking no count in this place of fetiches, ghosts,\ndreams and magic) explains that the sense of 'wonderment' was wakened by\nobjects only semi-tangible, trees, which are _taller_ than we are, 'whose\nroots are beyond our reach, and which have a kind of life in them.'  'We\nare dealing with a quartenary, it may be a tertiary troglodyte,' says Mr.\nMuller.  If a tertiary troglodyte was like a modern Andaman Islander, a\nKaneka, a Dieyrie, would he stand and meditate in awe on the fact that a\ntree was taller than he, or had 'a kind of life,' 'an unknown and\nunknowable, yet undeniable something'? {233b}  Why, this is the sentiment\nof modern Germany, and perhaps of the Indian sages of a cultivated\nperiod!  A troglodyte would look for a 'possum in the tree, he would tap\nthe trunk for honey, he would poke about in the bark after grubs, or he\nwould worship anything odd in the branches.  Is Mr. Muller not\nunconsciously transporting a kind of modern malady of thought into the\nmidst of people who wanted to find a dinner, and who might worship a tree\nif it had a grotesque shape, that, for them, had a magical meaning, or if\nboilyas lived in its boughs, but whose practical way of dealing with the\nproblem of its life was to burn it round the stem, chop the charred wood\nwith stone axes, and use the bark, branches, and leaves as they happened\nto come handy?\n\nMr. Muller has a long list of semi-tangible objects 'overwhelming and\noverawing,' like the tree.  There are mountains, where 'even a stout\nheart shivers before the real presence of the _infinite_'; there are\nrivers, those instruments of so sudden a religious awakening; there is\nearth.  These supply the material for semi-deities.  Then come sky,\nstars, dawn, sun, and moon: 'in these we have the germs of what,\nhereafter, we shall have to call by the name of deities.'\n\nBefore we can transmute, with Mr. Muller, these objects of a somewhat\nvague religious regard into a kind of gods, we have to adopt Noire's\nphilological theories, and study the effects of auxiliary verbs on the\ndevelopment of personification and of religion.  Noire's philological\ntheories are still, I presume, under discussion.  They are necessary,\nhowever, to Mr. Muller's doctrine of the development of the vague 'sense\nof the infinite' (wakened by fine old trees, and high mountains) into\ndevas, and of devas (which means 'shining ones') into the Vedic gods.  Our\ntroglodyte ancestors, and their sweet feeling for the spiritual aspect of\nlandscape, are thus brought into relation with the Rishis of the Vedas,\nthe sages and poets of a pleasing civilisation.  The reverence felt for\nsuch comparatively refined or remote things as fire, the sun, wind,\nthunder, the dawn, furnished a series of stepping-stones to the Vedic\ntheology, if theology it can be called.  It is impossible to give each\nstep in detail; the process must be studied in Mr. Muller's lectures.  Nor\ncan we discuss the later changes of faith.  As to the processes which\nproduced the fetichistic 'corruption' (that universal and everywhere\nidentical form of decay), Mr. Muller does not afford even a hint.  He\nonly says that, when the Indians found that their old gods were mere\nnames, 'they built out of the scattered bricks a new altar to the Unknown\nGod'--a statement which throws no light on the parasitical development of\nfetichism.  But his whole theory is deficient if, having called fetichism\na _corruption_, he does not show how corruption arose, how it operated,\nand how the disease attacked all religions everywhere.\n\nWe have contested, step by step, many of Mr. Muller's propositions.  If\nspace permitted, it would be interesting to examine the actual attitude\nof certain contemporary savages, Bushmen and others, towards the sun.\nContemporary savages may be degraded, they certainly are not primitive,\nbut their _legends_, at least, are the oldest things they possess.  The\nsupernatural elements in their ideas about the sun are curiously unlike\nthose which, according to Mr. Muller, entered into the development of\nAryan religion.\n\nThe last remark which has to be made about Mr. Muller's scheme of the\ndevelopment of Aryan religion is that the religion, as explained by him,\ndoes not apparently aid the growth of society, nor work with it in any\nway.  Let us look at a sub-barbaric society--say that of Zululand, of New\nZealand, of the Iroquois League, or at a savage society like that of the\nKanekas, or of those Australian tribes about whom we have very many\ninteresting and copious accounts.  If we begin with the Australians, we\nobserve that society is based on certain laws of marriage enforced by\ncapital punishment.  These laws of marriage forbid the intermixing of\npersons belonging to the stock which worships this or that animal, or\nplant.  Now this rule, as already observed, _made_ the 'gentile' system\n(as Mr. Morgan erroneously calls it) the system which gradually reduces\ntribal hostility, by making tribes homogeneous.  The same system (with\nthe religious sanction of a kind of zoolatry) is in force and has worked\nto the same result, in Africa, Asia, America, and Australia, while a host\nof minute facts make it a reasonable conclusion that it prevailed in\nEurope.  Among these facts certain peculiarities of Greek and Roman and\nHindoo marriage law, Greek, Latin, and English tribal names, and a crowd\nof legends are the most prominent. {236}  Mr. Max Muller's doctrine of\nthe development of Indian religion (while admitting the existence of\nSnake or Naga tribes) takes no account of the action of this universal\nzoolatry on religion and society.\n\nAfter marriage and after tribal institutions, look at _rank_.  Is it not\nobvious that the religious elements (magic and necromancy) left out of\nhis reckoning by Mr. Muller are most powerful in developing rank?  Even\namong those democratic paupers, the Fuegians, 'the doctor-wizard of each\nparty has much influence over his companions.'  Among those other\ndemocrats, the Eskimo, a class of wizards, called Angakuts, become 'a\nkind of civil magistrates,' because they can cause fine weather, and can\nmagically detect people who commit offences.  Thus the germs of rank, in\nthese cases, are sown by the magic which is fetichism in action.  Try the\nZulus: 'the heaven is the chief's,' he can call up clouds and storms,\nhence the sanction of his authority.  In New Zealand, every Rangatira has\na supernatural power.  If he touches an article, no one else dares to\nappropriate it, for fear of terrible supernatural consequences.  A head\nchief is 'tapued an inch thick, and perfectly unapproachable.'  Magical\npower abides in and emanates from him.  By this superstition, an\naristocracy is formed, and property (the property, at least, of the\naristocracy) is secured.  Among the Red Indians, as Schoolcraft says,\n'priests and jugglers are the persons that make war and have a voice in\nthe sale of the land.'  Mr. E. W. Robertson says much the same thing\nabout early Scotland.  If Odin was not a god with the gifts of a medicine-\nman, and did not owe his chiefship to his talent for dealing with magic,\nhe is greatly maligned.  The Irish Brehons also sanctioned legal\ndecisions by magical devices, afterwards condemned by the Church.  Among\nthe Zulus, 'the Itongo (spirit) dwells with the great man; he who dreams\nis the chief of the village.'  The chief alone can 'read in the vessel of\ndivination.'  The Kaneka chiefs are medicine-men.\n\nHere then, in widely distant regions, in early European, American,\nMelanesian, African societies, we find those factors in religion which\nthe primitive Aryans are said to have dispensed with, helping to\nconstruct society, rank, property.  Is it necessary to add that the\nancestral spirits still 'rule the present from the past,' and demand\nsacrifice, and speak to 'him who dreams,' who, therefore, is a strong\nforce in society, if not a chief?  Mr. Herbert Spencer, Mr. Tylor, M.\nFustel de Coulanges, a dozen others, have made all this matter of common\nnotoriety.  As Hearne the traveller says about the Copper River Indians,\n'it is almost necessary that they who rule them should profess something\na little supernatural to enable them to deal with the people.'  The few\nexamples we have given show how widely, and among what untutored races,\nthe need is felt.  The rudimentary government of early peoples requires,\nand, by aid of dreams, necromancy, 'medicine' (i.e. fetiches), tapu, and\nso forth, obtains, a supernatural sanction.\n\nWhere is the supernatural sanction that consecrated the chiefs of a race\nwhich woke to the sense of the existence of infinite beings, in face of\ntrees, rivers, the dawn, the sun, and had none of the so-called late and\ncorrupt fetichism that does such useful social work?\n\nTo the student of other early societies, Mr. Muller's theory of the\ngrowth of Aryan religion seems to leave society without cement, and\nwithout the most necessary sanctions.  One man is as good as another,\nbefore a tree, a river, a hill.  The savage organisers of other societies\nfound out fetiches and ghosts that were 'respecters of persons.'  Zoolatry\nis intertwisted with the earliest and most widespread law of prohibited\ndegrees.  How did the Hindoos dispense with the aid of these\nsuperstitions?  Well, they did not quite dispense with them.  Mr. Max\nMuller remarks, almost on his last page (376), that 'in India also . . .\nthe thoughts and feelings about those whom death had separated from us\nfor a time, supplied some of the earliest and most important elements of\nreligion.'  If this was the case, surely the presence of those elements\nand their influence should have been indicated along with the remarks\nabout the awfulness of trees and the suggestiveness of rivers.  Is\nnothing said about the spirits of the dead and their cult in the Vedas?\nMuch is said, of course.  But, were it otherwise, then other elements of\nsavage religion may also have been neglected there, and it will be\nimpossible to argue that fetichism did not exist because it is not\nmentioned.  It will also be impossible to admit that the 'Hibbert\nLectures' give more than a one-sided account of the Origin of Indian\nReligion.\n\nThe perusal of Mr. Max Muller's book deeply impresses one with the\nnecessity of studying early religions and early societies simultaneously.\nIf it be true that early Indian religion lacked precisely those\nsuperstitions, so childish, so grotesque, and yet so useful, which we\nfind at work in contemporary tribes, and which we read of in history, the\ndiscovery is even more remarkable and important than the author of the\n'Hibbert Lectures' seems to suppose.  It is scarcely necessary to repeat\nthat the negative evidence of the Vedas, the religious utterances of\nsages, made in a time of what we might call 'heroic culture,' can never\ndisprove the existence of superstitions which, if current in the former\nexperience of the race, the hymnists, as Barth observes, would\nintentionally ignore.  Our object has been to defend the 'primitiveness\nof fetichism.'  By this we do not mean to express any opinion as to\nwhether fetichism (in the strictest sense of the word) was or was not\nearlier than totemism, than the worship of the dead, or than the\ninvoluntary sense of awe and terror with which certain vast phenomena may\nhave affected the earliest men.  We only claim for the powerful and\nubiquitous practices of fetichism a place _among_ the early elements of\nreligion, and insist that what is so universal has not yet been shown to\nbe 'a corruption' of something older and purer.\n\nOne remark of Mr. Max Muller's fortifies these opinions.  If fetichism be\nindeed one of the earliest factors of faith in the supernatural; if it\nbe, in its rudest forms, most powerful in proportion to other elements of\nfaith among the least cultivated races (and _that_ Mr. Muller will\nprobably allow)--among what class of cultivated peoples will it longest\nhold its ground?  Clearly, among the least cultivated, among the\nfishermen, the shepherds of lonely districts, the peasants of outlying\nlands--in short, among the _people_.  Neglected by sacred poets in the\nculminating period of purity in religion, it will linger among the\nsuperstitions of the rustics.  There is no real break in the continuity\nof peasant life; the modern folklore is (in many points) the savage\nritual.  Now Mr. Muller, when he was minimising the existence of\nfetichism in the Rig Veda (the oldest collection of hymns), admitted its\nexistence in the Atharvana (p. 60). {241}  On p. 151, we read 'the\nAtharva-veda-Sanhita is a later collection, containing, besides a large\nnumber of Rig Veda verses, _some curious relics of popular poetry\nconnected with charms, imprecations, and other superstitious usages_.'\nThe italics are mine, and are meant to emphasise this fact:--When we\nleave the sages, the Rishis, and look at what is _popular_, look at what\nthat class believed which of savage practice has everywhere retained so\nmuch, we are at once among the charms and the fetiches!  This is\nprecisely what one would have expected.  If the history of religion and\nof mythology is to be unravelled, we must examine what the unprogressive\nclasses in Europe have in common with Australians, and Bushmen, and\nAndaman Islanders.  It is the function of the people to retain in\nfolklore these elements of religion, which it is the high duty of the\nsage and the poet to purify away in the fire of refining thought.  It is\nfor this very reason that _ritual_ has (though Mr. Max Muller curiously\nsays that it seems not to possess) an immense scientific interest.  Ritual\nholds on, with the tenacity of superstition, to all that has ever been\npractised.  Yet, when Mr. Muller wants to know about _origins_, about\nactual ancient _practice_, he deliberately turns to that 'great\ncollection of ancient poetry' (the Rig Veda) 'which has no special\nreference to sacrificial acts,' not to the Brahmanas which are full of\nritual.\n\nTo sum up briefly:--(1) Mr. Muller's arguments against the evidence for,\nand the primitiveness of, fetichism seem to demonstrate the opposite of\nthat which he intends them to prove.  (2) His own evidence for\n_primitive_ practice is chosen from the documents of a _cultivated_\nsociety.  (3) His theory deprives that society of the very influences\nwhich have elsewhere helped the Tribe, the Family, Rank, and Priesthoods\nto grow up, and to form the backbone of social existence.\n\n\n\n\nTHE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY.\n\n\nWhat are the original forms of the human family?  Did man begin by being\nmonogamous or polygamous, but, in either case, the master of his own home\nand the assured central point of his family relations?  Or were the\nunions of the sexes originally shifting and precarious, so that the\nwisest child was not expected to know his own father, and family ties\nwere reckoned through the mother alone?  Again (setting aside the\nquestion of what was 'primitive' and 'original'), did the needs and\nbarbarous habits of early men lead to a scarcity of women, and hence to\npolyandry (that is, the marriage of one woman to several men), with the\nconsequent uncertainty about male parentage?  Once more, admitting that\nthese loose and strange relations of the sexes do prevail, or have\nprevailed, among savages, is there any reason to suppose that the\nstronger races, the Aryan and Semitic stocks, ever passed through this\nstage of savage customs?  These are the main questions debated between\nwhat we may call the 'historical' and the 'anthropological' students of\nancient customs.\n\nWhen Sir Henry Maine observed, in 1861, that it was difficult to say what\nsociety of men had _not been_, originally, based on the patriarchal\nfamily, he went, of course, outside the domain of history.  What occurred\nin the very origin of human society is a question perhaps quite\ninscrutable.  Certainly, history cannot furnish the answer.  Here the\nanthropologist and physiologist come in with their methods, and even\nthose, we think, can throw but an uncertain light on the very 'origin' of\ninstitutions, and on strictly primitive man.\n\nFor the purposes of this discussion, we shall here re-state the chief\npoints at issue between the adherents of Sir Henry Maine and of Mr.\nM'Lennan, between historical and anthropological inquirers.\n\n1.  Did man _originally_ live in the patriarchal family, or did he live\nin more or less modified promiscuity, with uncertainty of blood-ties, and\nespecially of male parentage?\n\n2.  Did circumstances and customs at some time compel or induce man\n(whatever his _original_ condition) to resort to practices which made\npaternity uncertain, and so caused kinship to be reckoned through women?\n\n3.  Granting that some races have been thus reduced to matriarchal forms\nof the family--that is, to forms in which the woman is the permanent\nrecognised centre--is there any reason to suppose that the stronger\npeoples, like the Aryans and the Semites, ever passed through a stage of\nculture in which female, not male, kinship was chiefly recognised,\nprobably as a result of polyandry, of many husbands to one wife?\n\nOn this third question, it will be necessary to produce much evidence of\nvery different sorts: evidence which, at best, can perhaps only warrant\nan inference, or presumption, in favour of one or the other opinion.  For\nthe moment, the impartial examination of testimony is more important and\npracticable than the establishment of any theory.\n\n(1.)  Did man _originally_ live in the patriarchal family, the male being\nmaster of his female mate or mates, and of his children?  On this first\npoint Sir Henry Maine, in his new volume, {247a} may be said to come as\nnear proving his case as the nature and matter of the question will\npermit.  Bachofen, M'Lennan, and Morgan, all started from a hypothetical\nstate of more or less modified sexual promiscuity.  Bachofen's evidence\n(which may be referred to later) was based on a great mass of legends,\nmyths, and travellers' tales, chiefly about early Aryan practices.  He\ndiscovered Hetarismus, as he called it, or promiscuity, among Lydians,\nEtruscans, Persians, Thracians, Cyrenian nomads, Egyptians, Scythians,\nTroglodytes, Nasamones, and so forth.  Mr. M'Lennan's view is, perhaps,\nless absolutely stated than Sir Henry Maine supposes.  M'Lennan says\n{247b} 'that there has been a stage in the development of the human\nraces, when there was no such appropriation of women to particular men;\nwhen, in short, marriage, _as it exists among civilised nations_, was not\npractised.  Marriage, _in this sense_, was yet undreamt of.'  Mr.\nM'Lennan adds (pp. 130, 131), 'as among other gregarious animals, the\nunions of the sexes were probably, in the earliest times, loose,\ntransitory, and, _in some degree_, promiscuous.'\n\nSir Henry Maine opposes to Mr. M'Lennan's theory the statement of Mr.\nDarwin: 'From all we know of the passions of all male quadrupeds,\npromiscuous intercourse in a state of Nature is highly improbable.' {248}\nOn this first question, let us grant to Sir Henry Maine, to Mr. Darwin,\nand to common sense that if the very earliest men were extremely animal\nin character, their unions while they lasted were probably monogamous or\npolygamous.  The sexual jealousy of the male would secure that result, as\nit does among many other animals.  Let the first point, then, be scored\nto Sir Henry Maine: let it be granted that if man was created perfect, he\nlived in the monogamous family before the Fall: and that, if he was\nevolved as an animal, the unchecked animal instincts would make for\nmonogamy or patriarchal polygamy in the strictly primitive family.\n\n(2.)  Did circumstances and customs ever or anywhere compel or induce man\n(whatever his original condition) to resort to practices which made\npaternity uncertain, and so caused the absence of the patriarchal family,\nkinship being reckoned through women?  If this question be answered in\nthe affirmative, and if the sphere of action of the various causes be\nmade wide enough, it will not matter much to Mr. M'Lennan's theory\nwhether the strictly primitive family was patriarchal or not.  If there\noccurred a fall from the primitive family, and if that fall was extremely\ngeneral, affecting even the Aryan race, Mr. M'Lennan's adherents will be\namply satisfied.  Their object is to show that the family, even in the\nAryan race, was developed through a stage of loose savage connections.  If\nthat can be shown, they do not care much about primitive man properly so\ncalled.  Sir Henry Maine admits, as a matter of fact, that among certain\nraces, in certain districts, circumstances have overridden the sexual\njealousy which secures the recognition of male parentage.  Where women\nhave been few, and where poverty has been great, jealousy has been\nsuppressed, even in the Venice of the eighteenth century.  Sir H. Maine\nsays, 'The usage' (that of polyandry--many husbands to a single wife)\n'seems to me one which circumstances overpowering morality and decency\nmight at any time call into existence.  It is known to have arisen in the\nnative Indian army.'  The question now is, what are the circumstances\nthat overpower morality and decency, and so produce polyandry, with its\nnecessary consequences, when it is a recognised institution--the absence\nof the patriarchal family, and the recognition of kinship through women?\nAny circumstances which cause great scarcity of women will conduce to\nthose results.  Mr. M'Lennan's opinion was, that the chief cause of\nscarcity of women has been the custom of female infanticide--of killing\nlittle girls as bouches inutiles.  Sir Henry Maine admits that 'the cause\nassigned by M'Lennan is a vera causa--it is capable of producing the\neffects.' {249}  Mr. M'Lennan collected a very large mass of testimony to\nprove the wide existence of this cause of paucity of women.  Till that\nevidence is published, I can only say that it was sufficient, in Mr.\nM'Lennan's opinion, to demonstrate the wide prevalence of the factor\nwhich is the mainspring of his whole system. {250a}  How frightfully\nfemale infanticide has prevailed in India, everyone may read in the\nofficial reports of Col. M'Pherson, and other English authorities.  Mr.\nFison's 'Kamilaroi and Kurnai' contains some notable, though not to my\nmind convincing, arguments on the other side.  Sir Henry Maine adduces\nanother cause of paucity of women: the wanderings of our race, and\nexpeditions across sea. {250b}  This cause would not, however, be\nimportant enough to alter forms of kinship, where the invaders (like the\nearly English in Britain) found a population which they could conquer and\nwhose women they could appropriate.\n\nApart from any probable inferences that may be drawn from the presumed\npractice of female infanticide, actual ascertained facts prove that many\nraces do not now live, or that recently they did not live, in the\npatriarchal or modern family.  They live, or did live, in polyandrous\nassociations.  The Thibetans, the Nairs, the early inhabitants of Britain\n(according to Caesar), and many other races, {251} as well as the\ninhabitants of the Marquesas Islands, and the Iroquois (according to\nLafitau), practise, or have practised, polyandry.\n\nWe now approach the third and really important problem--(3.)  Is there\nany reason to suppose that the stronger peoples, like the Aryans and the\nSemites, ever passed through a stage of culture in which female, not\nmale, kinship was chiefly recognised, probably as a result of polyandry?\n\nNow the nature of the evidence which affords a presumption that Aryans\nhave all passed through Australian institutions such as polyandry, is of\nextremely varied character.  Much of it may undoubtedly be explained\naway.  But such strength as the evidence has (which we do not wish to\nexaggerate) is derived from its convergence to one point--namely, the\nanterior existence of polyandry and the matriarchal family among Aryans\nbefore and after the dawn of real history.\n\nFor the sake of distinctness we may here number the heads of the evidence\nbearing on this question.  We have--\n\n1.  The evidence of inference from the form of capture in bridal\nceremonies.\n\n2.  The evidence from exogamy: the law which forbids marriage between\npersons of the same family name.\n\n3.  The evidence from totemism--that is, the derivation of the family\nname and crest or badge, from some natural object, plant or animal. {252}\nPersons bearing the name may not intermarry, nor, as a rule, may they eat\nthe object from which they derive their family name and from which they\nclaim to be descended.\n\n4.  The evidence from the gens of Rome, or [Greek] of ancient Greece, in\nconnection with Totemism.\n\n5.  The evidence from myth and legend.\n\n6.  The evidence from direct historical statements as to the prevalence\nof the matriarchal family, and inheritance through the maternal line.\n\nTo take these various testimonies in their order, let us begin with\n\n(1.)  The form of capture in bridal ceremonies.  That this form survived\nin Sparta, Crete, in Hindoo law, in the traditions of Ireland, in the\npopular rustic customs of Wales, is not denied.\n\nIf we hold, with Mr. M'Lennan, that scarcity of women (produced by female\ninfanticide or otherwise) is the cause of the habit of capturing wives,\nwe may see, in survivals of this ceremony of capture among Aryans, a\nproof of early scarcity of women, and of probable polyandry.  But an\nopponent may argue, like Mr. J. A. Farrer in 'Primitive Manners,' that\nthe ceremony of capture is mainly a concession to maiden modesty among\nearly races.  Here one may observe that the girls of savage tribes are\nnotoriously profligate and immodest about illicit connections.  Only\nhonourable marriage brings a blush to the cheek of these young persons.\nThis is odd, but, in the present state of the question, we cannot lean on\nthe evidence of the ceremony of capture.  We cannot demonstrate that it\nis derived from a time when paucity of women made capture of brides\nnecessary.  Thus 'honours are easy' in this first deal.\n\n(2.)  The next indication is very curious, and requires much more\nprolonged discussion.  The custom of Exogamy was first noted and named by\nMr. M'Lennan.  Exogamy is the prohibition of marriage within the supposed\nblood-kinship, as denoted by the family name.  Such marriage, among many\nbackward races, is reckoned incestuous, and is punishable by death.\nCertain peculiarities in connection with the family name have to be noted\nlater.  Now, Sir Henry Maine admits that exogamy, as thus defined, exists\namong the Hindoos.  'A Hindoo may not marry a woman belonging to the same\ngotra, all members of the gotra being theoretically supposed to have\ndescended from the same ancestor.'  The same rule prevails in China.\n'There are in China large bodies of related clansmen, each generally\nbearing the same clan-name.  They are exogamous; no man will marry a\nwoman having the same clan-name with himself.'  It is admitted by Sir\nHenry Maine that this wide prohibition of marriage was the early Aryan\nrule, while advancing civilisation has gradually permitted marriage\nwithin limits once forbidden.  The Greek Church now (according to Mr.\nM'Lennan), and the Catholic Church in the past, forbade intermarriages\n'as far as relationship could be known.'  The Hindoo rule appears to go\nstill farther, and to prohibit marriage as far as the common gotra name\nseems merely to indicate relationship.\n\nAs to the ancient Romans, Plutarch says: Formerly they did not marry\nwomen connected with them by blood, any more than they now marry aunts or\nsisters.  It was long before they would even intermarry with cousins.'\nPlutarch also remarks that, in times past, Romans did not marry [Greek],\nand if we may render this 'women of the same gens,' the exogamous\nprohibition in Rome was as complete as among the Hindoos.  I do not quite\ngather from Sir Henry Maine's account of the Slavonic house communities\n(pp. 254, 255) whether they dislike _all_ kindred marriages, or only\nmarriage within the 'greater blood'--that is, within the kinship on the\nmale side.  He says: 'The South Slavonians bring their wives into the\ngroup, in which they are socially organised, from a considerable distance\noutside. . . .  Every marriage which requires an ecclesiastical\ndispensation is regarded as disreputable.'\n\nOn the whole, wide prohibitions of marriage are archaic: the widest are\nsavage; the narrowest are modern and civilised.  Thus the Hindoo\nprohibition is old, barbarous, and wide.  'The barbarous Aryan,' says Sir\nHenry Maine, 'is generally exogamous.  He has a most extensive table of\nprohibited degrees.'  Thus exogamy seems to be a survival of barbarism.\nThe question for us is, Can we call exogamy a survival from a period when\n(owing to scarcity of women and polyandry) clear ideas of kinship were\nimpossible?  If this can be proved, exogamous Aryans either passed\nthrough polyandrous institutions, or borrowed a savage custom derived\nfrom a period when ideas of kinship were obscure.\n\nIf we only knew the origin of the prohibition to marry within the family\nname all would be plain sailing.  At present several theories of the\norigin of exogamy are before the world.  Mr. Morgan, the author of\n'Ancient Society,' inclines to trace the prohibition to a great early\nphysiological discovery, acted on by primitive men by virtue of a contrat\nsocial.  Early man discovered that children of unsound constitutions were\nborn of nearly related parents.  Mr. Morgan says: 'Primitive men very\nearly discovered the evils of close interbreeding.'  Elsewhere Mr. Morgan\nwrites: 'Intermarriage in the gens was prohibited, to secure the benefits\nof marrying out with unrelated persons.'  This arrangement was 'a product\nof high intelligence,' and Mr. Morgan calls it a 'reform.'\n\nLet us examine this very curious theory.  First: Mr. Morgan supposes\nearly man to have made a discovery (the evils of the marriage of near\nkin) which evades modern physiological science.  Modern science has not\ndetermined that the marriages of kinsfolk are pernicious.  Is it credible\nthat savages should discover a fact which puzzles science?  It may be\nreplied that modern care, nursing, and medical art save children of near\nmarriages from results which were pernicious to the children of early\nman.  Secondly: Mr. Morgan supposes that barbarous man (so notoriously\nreckless of the morrow as he is), not only made the discovery of the\nevils of interbreeding, but acted on it with promptitude and self-denial.\nThirdly: Mr. Morgan seems to require, for the enforcement of the\nexogamous law, a contrat social.  The larger communities meet, and divide\nthemselves into smaller groups, within which wedlock is forbidden.  This\n'social pact' is like a return to the ideas of Rousseau.  Fourthly: The\nhypothesis credits early men with knowledge and discrimination of near\ndegrees of kin, which they might well possess if they lived in\npatriarchal families.  But it represents that they did not act on their\nknowledge.  Instead of prohibiting marriage between parents and children,\ncousins, nephews and aunts, uncles and nieces, they prohibited marriage\nwithin the limit of the name of the kin.  This is still the Hindoo rule,\nand, if the Romans really might not at one time marry within the gens, it\nwas the Roman rule.  Now observe, this rule fails to effect the very\npurpose for which ex hypothesi it was instituted.  Where the family name\ngoes by the male side, marriages between cousins are permitted, as in\nIndia and China.  These are the very marriages which some theorists now\ndenounce as pernicious.  But, if the family name goes by the female side,\nmarriages between half-brothers and half-sisters are permitted, as in\nancient Athens and among the Hebrews of Abraham's time.  Once more, the\nexogamous prohibition excludes, in China, America, Africa, Australia,\npersons who are in no way akin (according to our ideas) from\nintermarriage.  Thus Mr. Doolittle writes: {256} 'Males and females of\nthe same surname will never intermarry in China.  Cousins who have not\nthe same ancestral surname may intermarry.  Though the ancestors of\npersons of the same surname have not known each other for thousands of\nyears, they may not intermarry.'  The Hindoo gotra rule produces the same\neffects.\n\nFor all these reasons, and because of the improbability of the\nphysiological discovery, and of the moral 'reform' which enforced it; and\nagain, because the law is not of the sort which people acquainted with\nnear degrees of kinship would make; and once more, because the law fails\nto effect its presumed purpose, while it does attain ends at which it\ndoes not aim--we cannot accept Mr. Morgan's suggestion as to the origin\nof exogamy.  Mr. M'Lennan did not live to publish a subtle theory of the\norigin of exogamy, which he had elaborated.  In 'Studies in Ancient\nHistory,' he hazarded a conjecture based on female infanticide:--\n\n   'We believe the restrictions on marriage to be connected with the\n   practice in early times of female infanticide, which, rendering women\n   scarce, led at once to polyandry within the tribe, and the capturing\n   of women from without. . . .  Hence the cruel custom which, leaving\n   the primitive human hordes with very few young women of their own,\n   occasionally with none, and in any case seriously disturbing the\n   balance of the sexes within the hordes, forces them to prey upon one\n   another for wives.  Usage, induced by necessity, would in time\n   establish a prejudice among the tribes observing it, a prejudice\n   strong as a principle of religion--as every prejudice relating to\n   marriage is apt to be--against marrying women of their own stock.'\n\nMr. M'Lennan describes his own hypothesis as 'a suggestion thrown out at\nwhat it was worth.' {258}  In his later years, as we have said, he\ndeveloped a very subtle and ingenious theory of the origin of exogamy,\nstill connecting it with scarcity of women, but making use of various\nsupposed stages and processes in the development of the law.  That\nspeculation remains unpublished.  To myself, the suggestion given in\n'Studies in Ancient History' seems inadequate.  I find it difficult to\nconceive that the frequent habit of stealing women should indispose men\nto marry the native women they had at hand.  That this indisposition\nshould grow into a positive law, and the infringement of the law be\nregarded as a capital offence, seems still more inconceivable.  My own\nimpression is, that exogamy may be connected with some early superstition\nor idea of which we have lost the touch, and which we can no longer\nexplain.\n\nThus far, the consideration of exogamy has thrown no clear light on the\nmain question--the question whether the customs of civilised races\ncontain relics of female kinship.  On Sir Henry Maine's theory of\nexogamy, that Aryan custom is unconnected with female kinship, polyandry,\nand scarcity of women.  On Mr. M'Lennan's theory, exogamy is the result\nof scarcity of women, and implies polyandry and female kinship.  But\nneither theory has seemed satisfactory.  Yet we need not despair of\nextracting some evidence from exogamy, and that evidence, on the whole,\nis in favour of Mr. M'Lennan's general hypothesis.  (1.) The exogamous\nprohibition must have first come into force _when kinship was only\nreckoned on one side of the family_.  This is obvious, whether we suppose\nit to have arisen in a society which reckoned by male or by female\nkinship.  In the former case, the law only prohibits marriage with\npersons of the father's, in the second case with persons of the mother's,\nfamily name, and these only it recognises as kindred.  (2.) Our second\npoint is much more important.  The exogamous prohibition must first have\ncome into force _when kinship was so little understood that it could best\nbe denoted by the family name_.  This would be self-evident, if we could\nsuppose the prohibition to be intended to prevent marriages of relations.\nHad the authors of the prohibition been acquainted with the nature of\nnear kinships, they would simply (as we do) have forbidden marriage\nbetween persons in those degrees.  The very nature of the prohibition, on\nthe other hand, shows that kinship was understood in a manner all unlike\nour modern system.  The limit of kindred was everywhere the family name:\na limit which excludes many real kinsfolk and includes many who are not\nkinsfolk at all.  In Australia especially, and in America, India, and\nAfrica, to a slighter extent, that definition of kindred by the family\nname actually includes alligators, smoke, paddy melons, rain, crayfish,\nsardines, and what you please. {259}  Will anyone assert, then, that\npeople among whom the exogamous prohibition arose were organised on the\nsystem of the patriarchal family, which permits the nature of kinship to\nbe readily understood at a glance?  Is it not plain that the exogamous\nprohibition (confessedly Aryan) must have arisen in a stage of culture\nwhen ideas of kindred were confused, included kinship with animals and\nplants, and were to us almost, if not quite, unintelligible?  It is even\npossible, as Mr. M'Lennan says, {260} 'that the prejudice against\nmarrying women of the same group may have been established _before the\nfacts of blood relationship had made any deep impression on the human\nmind_.'  How the exogamous prohibition tends to confirm this view will\nnext be set forth in our consideration of _Totemism_.\n\nThe Evidence from Totemism.--Totemism is the name for the custom by which\na stock (scattered through many local tribes) claims descent from and\nkindred with some plant, animal, or other natural object.  This object,\nof which the effigy is sometimes worn as a badge or crest, members of the\nstock refuse to eat.  As a general rule, marriage is prohibited between\nmembers of the stock--between all, that is, who claim descent from the\nsame object and wear the same badge.  The exogamous limit, therefore, is\ndenoted by the stock-name and crest, and kinship is kinship in the wolf,\nbear, potato, or whatever other object is recognised as the original\nancestor.  Finally, as a general rule, the stock-name is derived through\nthe mother, and where it is derived through the father there are proofs\nthat the custom is comparatively modern.  It will be acknowledged that\nthis sort of kindred, which is traced to a beast, bird, or tree, which is\nrecognised in every person bearing the same stock-name, which is counted\nthrough females, and which governs marriage customs, is not the sort of\nkindred which would naturally arise among people regulated on the\npatriarchal or monandrous family system.  Totemism, however, is a\nwidespread institution prevailing all over the north of the American\ncontinent, also in Peru (according to Garcilasso de la Vega); in Guiana\n(the negroes have brought it from the African Gold Coast, where it is in\nfull force, as it also is among the Bechuanas); in India among Hos,\nGaros, Kassos, and Oraons; in the South Sea Islands, where it has left\nstrong traces in Mangaia; in Siberia, and especially in the great island\ncontinent of Australia.  The Semitic evidences for totemism\n(animal-worship, exogamy, descent claimed through females) are given by\nProfessor Robertson Smith, in the 'Journal of Philology,' ix. 17, 'Animal\nWorship and Animal Tribes among the Arabs, and in the Old Testament.'\nMany other examples of totemism might be adduced (especially from Egypt),\nbut we must restrict ourselves to the following questions:--\n\n(1.)  What light is thrown on the original form of the family by\ntotemism?  (2.) Where we find survivals of totemism among civilised\nraces, may we conclude that these races (through scarcity of women) had\nonce been organised on other than the patriarchal model?\n\nAs to the first question, we must remember that the origin and\ndetermining causes of totemism are still unknown.  Mr. M'Lennan's theory\nof the origin of totemism has never been published.  It may be said\nwithout indiscretion that Mr. M'Lennan thought totemism arose at a period\nwhen ideas of kinship scarcely existed at all.  'Men only thought of\nmarking one off from another,' as Garcilasso de la Vega says: the totem\nwas but a badge worn by all the persons who found themselves existing in\nclose relations; perhaps in the same cave or set of caves.  People united\nby contiguity, and by the blind sentiment of kinship not yet brought into\nexplicit consciousness, might mark themselves by a badge, and might\nthence derive a name, and, later, might invent a myth of their descent\nfrom the object which the badge represented.  I do not know whether it\nhas been observed that the totems are, as a rule, objects which may be\neasily drawn or tattooed, and still more easily indicated in\ngesture-language.  Some interesting facts will be found in the 'First\nAnnual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology,' p. 458 (Washington, 1881).\nHere we read how the 'Crow' tribe is indicated in sign-language by 'the\nhands held out on each side, striking the air in the manner of flying.'\nThe Bunaks (another bird tribe) are indicated by an imitation of the cry\nof the bird.  In mentioning the Snakes, the hand imitates the crawling\nmotion of the serpent, and the fingers pointed up behind the ear denote\nthe Wolves.  Plainly names of the totem sort are well suited to the\nconvenience of savages, who converse much in gesture-language.  Above\nall, the very nature of totemism shows that it took its present shape at\na time when men, animals, and plants were conceived of as physically\nakin; when names were handed on through the female line; when exogamy was\nthe rule of marriage, and when the family theoretically included all\npersons bearing the same family name, that is, all who claimed kindred\nwith the same plant, animal, or object, whether the persons are really\nakin or not.  These ideas and customs are not the ideas natural to men\norganised in the patriarchal family.\n\nThe second question now arises: Can we infer from survivals of totemism\namong Aryans that these Aryans had once been organised on the full\ntotemistic principle, probably with polyandry, and certainly with female\ndescent?  Where totemism now exists in full force, there we find exogamy\nand derivation of the family name through women, the latter custom\nindicating uncertainty of male parentage in the past.  Are we to believe\nthat the same institutions have existed wherever we find survivals of\ntotemism?  If this be granted, and if the supposed survivals of totemism\namong Aryans be accepted as genuine, then the Aryans have distinctly come\nthrough a period of kinship reckoned through women, with all that such an\ninstitution implies.  For indications that the Aryans of Greece and India\nhave passed through the stage of totemism, the reader may be referred to\nMr. M'Lennan's 'Worship of Plants and Animals' ('Fortnightly Review,'\n1869, 1870).  The evidence there adduced is not all of the same value,\nand the papers are only a hasty rough sketch based on the first\ntestimonies that came to hand.  Probably the most important 'survival' of\ntotemism in Greek legend is the body of stories about the amours of Zeus\nin animal form.  Various noble houses traced their origin to Zeus or\nApollo, who, as a bull, tortoise, serpent, swan, or ant, had seduced the\nmother of the race.  The mother of the Arcadians became a she-bear, like\nthe mother of the bear stock of the Iroquois.  As we know plenty of races\nall over the world who trace their descent from serpents, tortoises,\nswans, and so forth, it is a fair hypothesis that the ancestors of the\nGreeks once believed in the same fables.  In later times the swan,\nserpent, ant, or tortoise was explained as an avatar of Zeus.  The\nprocess by which an anthropomorphic god or hero succeeds to the exploits\nof animals, of theriomorphic gods and heroes, is the most common in\nmythology, and is illustrated by actual practice in modern India.  When\nthe Brahmins convert a pig-worshipping tribe of aboriginals, they tell\ntheir proselytes that the pig was an avatar of Vishnu.  The same process\nis found active where the Japanese have influenced the savage Ainos, and\npersuaded them that their bear- or dog-father was a manifestation of a\ndeity.  We know from Plutarch ('Theseus') that, in addition to families\nclaiming descent from divine animals, one Athenian [Greek], the Ioxidae,\nrevered an ancestral plant, the asparagus.  A vaguer indication of\ntotemism may perhaps be detected in the ancient theriomorphic statues of\nGreek gods, as the Ram-Zeus and the Horse-headed Demeter, and in the\nvarious animals and plants which were sacred to each god and represented\nas his companions.\n\nThe hints of totemism among the ancient Irish are interesting.  One hero,\nConaire, was the son of a bird, and before his birth his father (the\nbird) told the woman (his mother) that the child must never eat the flesh\nof fowls.  'Thy son shall be named Conaire, and that son shall not kill\nbirds.' {265a}  The hero Cuchullain, being named after the dog, might not\neat the flesh of the dog, and came by his ruin after transgressing this\ntotemistic taboo.  Races named after animals were common in ancient\nIreland.  The red-deer and the wolves were tribes dwelling near Ossory,\nand Professor Rhys, from the frequency of dog names, inclines to believe\nin a dog totem in Erin.  According to the ancient Irish 'Wonders of Eri,'\nin the 'Book of Glendaloch,' 'the descendants of the wolf are in Ossory,'\nand they could still transform themselves into wolves. {265b}  As to our\nAnglo-Saxon ancestors, there is little evidence beyond the fact that the\npatronymic names of many of the early settlements of Billings, Arlings,\nand the rest, are undeniably derived from animals and plants.  The manner\nin which those names are scattered locally is precisely like what results\nin America, Africa, and Australia from the totemistic organisation.\n{265c}  In Italy the ancient custom by which animals were the leaders of\nthe Ver sacrum or armed migration is well known.  The Piceni had for\ntheir familiar animal or totem (if we may call it so) a woodpecker; the\nHirpini were like the 'descendants of the wolf' in Ossory, and practised\na wolf-dance in which they imitated the actions of the animal.\n\nSuch is a summary of the evidence which shows that Aryans had once been\ntotemists, therefore savages, and therefore, again, had probably been in\na stage when women were scarce and each woman had many husbands.\n\nEvidence from the Gens or [Greek].--There is no more puzzling topic in\nthe history of the ancient world than the origin and nature of the\ncommunity called by the Romans the gens, and by the Greeks the [Greek].\nTo the present writer it seems that no existing community of men, neither\ntotem kin, nor clan, nor house community, nor gotra, precisely answers to\nthe gens or the [Greek].  Our information about these forms of society is\nslight and confused.  The most essential thing to notice for the moment\nis the fact that both in Greece and Rome the [Greek] and gens were\nextremely ancient, so ancient that the [Greek] was decaying in Greece\nwhen history begins, while in Rome we can distinctly see the rapid\ndecadence and dissolution of the gens.  In the Laws of the Twelve Tables,\nthe gens is a powerful and respected corporation.  In the time of Cicero\nthe nature of the gens is a matter but dimly understood.  Tacitus begins\nto be confused about the gentile nomenclature.  In the Empire gentile law\nfades away.  In Greece, especially at Athens, the early political reforms\ntransferred power from the [Greek] to a purely local organisation, the\nDeme.  The Greek of historical times did not announce his [Greek] in his\nname (as the Romans always did), but gave his own name, that of his\nfather, and that of his deme.  Thus we may infer that in Greek and Roman\nsociety the [Greek] and gens were dying, not growing, organisations.  In\nvery early times it is probable that foreign gentes were adopted en bloc\ninto the Roman Commonwealth.  Very probably, too, a great family, on\nentering the Roman bond, may have assumed, by a fiction, the character\nand name of a gens.  But that Roman society in historical times, or that\nGreek society, could evolve a new gens or [Greek] in a normal natural\nway, seems excessively improbable.\n\nKeeping in mind the antique and 'obsolescent' character of the gens and\n[Greek], let us examine the theories of the origin of these associations.\nThe Romans themselves knew very little about the matter.  Cicero quotes\nthe dictum of Scaevola the Pontifex, according to which the gens\nconsisted of _all persons of the same gentile name_ who were not in any\nway disqualified. {267}  Thus, in America, or Australia, or Africa, all\npersons bearing the same totem name belong to that totem kin.  Festus\ndefines members of a gens as persons of the same stock and same family\nname.  Varro says (in illustration of the relationships of words and\ncases) 'Ab AEmilio homines orti AEmilii sunt gentiles.'  The two former\ndefinitions answer to the conception of a totem kin, which is united by\nits family name and belief in identity of origin.  Varro adds the\nelement, in the Roman gens, of common descent from one male ancestor.\nSuch was the conception of the gens in historical times.  It was in its\nway an association of kinsfolk, real or supposed.  According to the Laws\nof the Twelve Tables the gentiles inherited the property of an intestate\nman without agnates, and had the custody of lunatics in the same\ncircumstances.  The gens had its own sacellum or chapel, and its own\nsacra or religious rites.  The whole gens occasionally went into mourning\nwhen one of its members was unfortunate.  It would be interesting if it\ncould be shown that the sacra were usually examples of ancestor-worship,\nbut the faint indications on the subject scarcely permit us to assert\nthis.\n\nOn the whole, Sir Henry Maine strongly clings to the belief that the gens\ncommonly had 'a real core of agnatic consanguinity from the very first.'\nBut he justly recognises the principle of imitation, which induces men to\ncopy any fashionable institution.  Whatever the real origin of the gens,\nmany gentes were probably copies based on the fiction of common ancestry.\n\nOn Sir Henry Maine's system, then, the gens rather proves the constant\nexistence of recognised male descents among the peoples where it exists.\n\nThe opposite theory of the gens is that to which Mr. M'Lennan inclined.\n'The composition and organisation of Greek and Roman tribes and\ncommonwealths cannot well be explained except on the hypothesis that they\nresulted from the joint operation, in early times, of exogamy, and the\nsystem of kinship through females only.' {268}  'The gens', he adds, 'was\ncomposed of all the persons in the tribe bearing the same name and\naccounted of the same stock.  Were the gentes really of different stocks,\nas their names would imply and as the people believed?  If so, how came\nclans of different stocks to be united in the same tribe? . . .  How came\na variety of such groups, of different stocks, to coalesce in a local\ntribe?'  These questions, Mr. M'Lennan thought, could not be answered on\nthe patriarchal hypothesis.  His own theory, or rather his theory as\nunderstood by the present writer, may be stated thus.  In the earliest\ntimes there were homogeneous groups, which became, totem kin.  Let us say\nthat, in a certain district, there were groups called woodpeckers,\nwolves, bears, suns, swine, each with its own little territory.  These\ngroups were exogamous, and derived the name through the mother.  Thus, in\ncourse of time, when sun men married a wolf girl, and her children were\nwolves, there would be wolves in the territory of the suns, and thus each\nstock would be scattered through all the localities, just as we see in\nAustralia and America.  Let us suppose that (as certainly is occurring in\nAustralia and America) paternal descent comes to be recognised in custom.\nThis change will not surprise Sir Henry Maine, who admits that a system\nof male may alter, under stress of circumstances, to a system of female\ndescents.  In course of time, and as knowledge and common sense advance,\nthe old superstition of descent from a woodpecker, a bear, a wolf, the\nsun, or what not, becomes untenable.  A human name is assumed by the\ngroup which had called itself the woodpeckers or the wolves, or perhaps\nby a local tribe in which several of these stocks are included.  Then a\nfictitious human ancestor is adopted, and perhaps even adored.  Thus the\nwolves might call themselves Claudii, from their chief's name, and,\ngiving up belief in descent from a wolf, might look back to a fancied\nancestor named Claudius.  The result of these changes will be that an\nexogamous totem kin, with female descent, has become a gens, with male\nkinship, and only the faintest trace of exogamy.  An example of somewhat\nsimilar processes must have occurred in the Highland clans after the\nintroduction of Christianity, when the chief's Christian name became the\npatronymic of the people who claimed kinship with him and owned his sway.\n\nAre there any traces at all of totemism in what we know of the Roman\ngentes?  Certainly the traces are very slight; perhaps they are only\nvisible to the eye of the intrepid anthropologist.  I give them for what\nthey are worth, merely observing that they do tally, as far as they go,\nwith the totemistic theory.  The reader interested in the subject may\nconsult the learned Streinnius's 'De Gentibus Romanis,' p. 104 (Aldus,\nVenice, 1591).\n\nAmong well-known savage totems none is more familiar than the sun.  Men\nclaim descent from the sun, call themselves by his name, and wear his\neffigy as a badge. {270}  Were there suns in Rome?  The Aurelian gens is\nthus described on the authority of Festus Pompeius:--'The Aurelii were of\nSabine descent.  The Aurelii were so named from the sun (aurum, urere,\nthe burning thing), because a place was set apart for them in which to\npay adoration to the sun.'  Here, at least, is an odd coincidence.  Among\nother gentile names, the Fabii, Cornelii, Papirii, Pinarii, Cassii, are\npossibly connected with plants; while wild etymology may associate\nPorcii, Aquilii, and Valerii with swine and eagles.  Pliny ('H. N.'\nxviii. 3) gives a fantastic explanation of the vegetable names of Roman\ngentes.  We must remember that vegetable names are very common in\nAmerican, Indian, African, and Australian totem kin.  Of sun names the\nNatchez and the Incas of Peru are familiar examples.  Turning from Rome\nto Greece, we find the [Greek] less regarded and more decadent than the\ngens.  Yet, according to Grote (iii. 54) the [Greek] had--(l) sacra, 'in\nhonour of the same god, supposed to be the primitive ancestor.'  (2) A\ncommon burial-place.  (3) Certain rights of succession to property.  (4)\nObligations of mutual help and defence.  (5) Mutual rights and\nobligations to intermarry in certain cases.  (6) Occasionally possession\nof common property.\n\nTraces of the totem among the Greek [Greek] are, naturally, few.  Almost\nall the known [Greek] bore patronymics derived from personal names.  But\nit is not without significance that the Attic demes often adopted the\nnames of obsolescent [Greek], and that those names were, as Mr. Grote\nsays, often 'derived from the plants and shrubs which grew in their\nneighbourhood.'  We have already seen that at least one Attic [Greek],\nthe Ioxidae, revered the plant from which they derived their lineage.  One\nthing is certain, the totem names, and a common explanation of the totem\nnames in Australia, correspond with the names and Mr. Grote's explanation\nof the names of the Attic demes.  'One origin of family names,' says Sir\nGeorge Grey (ii. 228), 'frequently ascribed by the natives, is that they\nwere derived from some vegetable or animal being common in the district\nwhich the family inhabited.'  Some writers attempt to show that the Attic\n[Greek] was once exogamous and counted kin on the mother's side, by\nquoting the custom which permitted a man to marry his half-sister, the\nchild of his father but not of his mother.  They infer that this\npermission is a survival from the time when a man's _father's_ children\nwere not reckoned as his kindred, and when kinship was counted through\nmothers.  Sir Henry Maine (p. 105) prefers M. Fustel De Coulanges'\ntheory, that the marriage of half-brothers and sisters on the father's\nside was intended to save the portion of the girl to the family estate.\nProof of this may be adduced from examination of all the recorded cases\nof such marriages in Athens.  But the reason thus suggested would have\nequally justified marriage between brothers and sisters on both sides,\nand this was reckoned incest.  A well-known line in Aristophanes shows\nhow intense was Athenian feeling about the impiety of relations with a\nsister uterine.\n\nOn the whole, the evidence which we have adduced tends to establish some\nlinks between the ancient [Greek] and gens, and the totem kindreds of\nsavages.  The indications are not strong, but they all point in one\ndirection.  Considering the high civilisation of Rome and Greece at the\nvery dawn of history--considering the strong natural bent of these\npeoples toward refinement--it is almost remarkable that even the slight\ntestimonies we have been considering should have survived.\n\n(5.)  On the evidence from myth and legend we propose to lay little\nstress.  But, as legends were not invented by anthropologists to prove a\npoint, it is odd that the traditions of Athens, as preserved by Varro,\nspeak of a time when names were derived from the mother, and when\npromiscuity prevailed.  Marriage itself was instituted by Cecrops, the\nserpent, just as the lizard, in Australia, is credited with this useful\ninvention. {273a}  Similar legends among non-Aryan races, Chinese and\nEgyptian, are very common.\n\n(6.)  There remains the evidence of actual fact and custom among Aryan\npeoples.  The Lycians, according to Herodotus, 'have this peculiar\ncustom, _wherein they resemble no other men_, they derive their names\nfrom their mothers, and not from their fathers, and through mothers\nreckon their kin.'  Status also was derived through the mothers. {273b}\nThe old writer's opinion that the custom (so common in Australia,\nAmerica, and Africa) was unique, is itself a proof of his good faith.\nBachofen (p. 390) remarks that several Lycian inscriptions give the names\nof mothers only.  Polybius attributes (assigning a fantastic reason) the\nsame custom of counting kin through mothers to the Locrians. {273c}  The\nBritish and Irish custom of deriving descents through women is well\nknown, {273d} and a story is told to account for the practice.  The\npedigrees of the British kings show that most did not succeed to their\nfathers, and the various records of early Celtic morals go to prove that\nno other system of kinship than the maternal would have possessed any\nvalue, so uncertain was fatherhood.  These are but hints of the\nprevalence of institutions which survived among Teutonic races in the\nimportance attached to the relationship of a man's sister's son.  Though\nno longer his legal heir, the sister's son was almost closer than any\nother kinsman.\n\nWe have now summarised and indicated the nature of the evidence which, on\nthe whole, inclines us to the belief of Mr. M'Lennan rather than of Sir\nHenry Maine.  The point to which all the testimony adduced converges, the\nexplanation which most readily solves all the difficulties, is the\nexplanation of Mr. M'Lennan.  The Aryan races have very generally passed\nthrough the stage of scarcity of women, polyandry, absence of recognised\nmale kinship, and recognition of kinship through women.  What Sir Henry\nMaine admits as the exception, we are inclined to regard as having, in a\nvery remote past, been the rule.  No one kind of evidence--neither traces\nof marriage by capture, of exogamy, of totemism, of tradition, of noted\nfact among Lycians and Picts and Irish--would alone suffice to guide our\nopinion in this direction.  But the cumulative force of the testimony\nstrikes us as not inconsiderable, and it must be remembered that the\ntestimony has not yet been assiduously collected.\n\nLet us end by showing how this discussion illustrates the method of\nFolklore.  We have found anomalies among Aryans.  We have seen the gens\nan odd, decaying institution.  We have seen Greek families claim descent\nfrom various animals, said to be Zeus in disguise.  We have found them\ntracing kinship and deriving names from the mother.  We have found stocks\nwith animal and vegetable names.  We have found half-brothers and sisters\nmarrying.  We have noted prohibition to marry anyone of the same family\nname.  All these institutions are odd, anomalous, decaying things among\nAryans, and the more civilised the Aryans the more they decay.  All of\nthem are living, active things among savages, and, far from being\nanomalous, are in precise harmony with savage notions of the world.\nSurely, then, where they seem decaying and anomalous, as among Aryans,\nthese customs and laws are mouldering relics of ideas and practices\nnatural and inevitable among savages.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ART OF SAVAGES. {276}\n\n\n'Avoid Coleridge, he is _useless_,' says Mr. Ruskin.  Why should the\npoetry of Coleridge be useful?  The question may interest the critic, but\nwe are only concerned with Mr. Ruskin here, for one reason.  His\ndisparagement of Coleridge as 'useless' is a survival of the belief that\nart should be 'useful.'  This is the savage's view of art.  He imitates\nnature, in dance, song, or in plastic art, for a definite practical\npurpose.  His dances are magical dances, his images are made for a\nmagical purpose, his songs are incantations.  Thus the theory that art is\na disinterested expression of the imitative faculty is scarcely warranted\nby the little we know of art's beginnings.  We shall adopt,\nprovisionally, the hypothesis that the earliest art with which we are\nacquainted is that of savages contemporary or extinct.  Some philosophers\nmay tell us that all known savages are only degraded descendants of early\ncivilised men who have, unluckily and inexplicably, left no relics of\ntheir civilisation.  But we shall argue on the opposite theory, that the\nart of Australians, for example, is really earlier in kind, more\nbackward, nearer the rude beginnings of things, than the art of people\nwho have attained to some skill in pottery, like the New Caledonians.\nThese, again, are much more backward, in a state really much earlier,\nthan the old races of Mexico and Peru; while they, in turn, show but a\nfew traces of advance towards the art of Egypt; and the art of Egypt, at\nleast after the times of the Ancient Empire, is scarcely advancing in the\ndirection of the flawless art of Greece.  We shall be able to show how\nsavage art, as of the Australians, develops into barbarous art, as of the\nNew Zealanders; while the arts of strange civilisations, like those of\nPeru and Mexico, advance one step further; and how, again, in the early\nart of Greece, in the Greek art of ages prior to Pericles, there are\nremains of barbaric forms which are gradually softened into beauty.  But\nthere are necessarily breaks and solutions of continuity in the path of\nprogress.\n\nOne of the oldest problems has already risen before us in connection with\nthe question stated--is art the gratification of the imitative faculty?\nNow, among the lowest, the most untutored, the worst equipped savages of\ncontemporary races, art is rather decorative on the whole than imitative.\nThe patterns on Australian shields and clubs, the scars which they raise\non their own flesh by way of tattooing, are very rarely imitations of any\nobjects in nature.  The Australians, like the Red Indians, like many\nAfrican and some aboriginal Indian races, Peruvians, and others,\ndistinguish their families by the names of various plants and animals,\nfrom which each family boasts its descent.  Thus you have a family called\nKangaroos, descended, as they fancy, from the kangaroo; another from the\ncockatoo, another from the black snake, and so forth.  Now, in many\nquarters of the globe, this custom and this superstition, combined with\nthe imitative faculty in man, has produced a form of art representing the\nobjects from which the families claim descent.  This art is a sort of\nrude heraldry--probably the origin of heraldry.  Thus, if a Red Indian\n(say a Delaware) is of the family of the Turtle, he blazons a turtle on\nhis shield or coat, probably tattoos or paints his breast with a figure\nof a turtle, and always has a turtle, _reversed_, designed on the pillar\nabove his grave when he dies, just as, in our mediaeval chronicles, the\nleopards of an English king are reversed on his scutcheon opposite the\nrecord of his death.  But the Australians, to the best of my knowledge,\nthough they are much governed by belief in descent from animals, do not\nusually blazon their crest on their flesh, nor on the trees near the\nplace where the dead are buried.  They have not arrived at this pitch of\nimitative art, though they have invented or inherited a kind of runes\nwhich they notch on sticks, and in which they convey to each other secret\nmessages.  The natives of the Upper Darling, however, do carve their\nfamily crests on their shields.  In place of using imitative art, the\nMurri are said, I am not quite sure with what truth, to indicate the\ndistinction of families by arrangements of patterns, lines and dots,\ntattooed on the breast and arms, and carved on the bark of trees near\nplaces of burial.  In any case, the absence of the rude imitative art of\nheraldry among a race which possesses all the social conditions that\nproduce this art is a fact worth noticing, and itself proves that the\nnative art of one of the most backward races we know is not essentially\nimitative.\n\n[Fig. 1.  An Australian Shield: 278.jpg]\n\nAnyone who will look through a collection of Australian weapons and\nutensils will be brought to this conclusion.  The shields and the clubs\nare elaborately worked, but almost always without any representation of\nplants, animals, or the human figure.  As a rule the decorations take the\nsimple shape of the 'herring-bone' pattern, or such other patterns as can\nbe produced without the aid of spirals, or curves, or circles.  There is\na natural and necessary cause of this choice of decoration.  The\nAustralians, working on hard wood, with tools made of flint, or broken\nglass, or sharp shell, cannot easily produce any curved lines.  Everyone\nwho, when a boy, carved his name on the bark of a tree, remembers the\ndifficulty he had with S and G, while he got on easily with letters like\nM and A, which consist of straight or inclined lines.  The savage artist\nhas the same difficulty with his rude tools in producing anything like\nsatisfactory curves or spirals.  We engrave above (Fig. 1) a shield on\nwhich an Australian has succeeded, with obvious difficulty, in producing\nconcentric ovals of irregular shape.  It may be that the artist would\nhave produced perfect circles if he could.  His failure is exactly like\nthat of a youthful carver of inscriptions coming to grief over his G's\nand S's.  Here, however (Fig. 2), we have three shields which, like the\nancient Celtic pipkin (the tallest of the three figures in Fig. 3), show\nthe earliest known form of savage decorative art--the forms which survive\nunder the names of 'chevron' and 'herring-bone.'  These can be scratched\non clay with the nails, or a sharp stick, and this primeval way of\ndecorating pottery made without the wheel survives, with other relics of\nsavage art, in the western isles of Scotland.  The Australian had not\neven learned to make rude clay pipkins, but he decorated his shields as\nthe old Celts and modern old Scotch women decorated their clay pots, with\nthe herring-bone arrangement of incised lines.  In the matter of colour\nthe Australians prefer white clay and red ochre, which they rub into the\nchinks in the woodwork of their shields.  When they are determined on an\nambush, they paint themselves all over with white, justly conceiving that\ntheir sudden apparition in this guise will strike terror into the boldest\nhearts.  But arrangements in black and white of this sort scarcely\ndeserve the name of even rudimentary art.\n\n[Fig. 2.  Shields: 280.jpg]\n\n[Fig. 3.  Savage Ornamentation: 282.jpg]\n\nThe Australians sometimes introduce crude decorative attempts at\ndesigning the human figure, as in the pointed shield opposite (Fig. 2,\na), which, with the other Australian designs, are from Mr. Brough Smyth's\n'Aborigines of Victoria.'  But these ambitious efforts usually end in\nfailure.  Though the Australians chiefly confine themselves to decorative\nart, there are numbers of wall-paintings, so to speak, in the caves of\nthe country which prove that they, like the Bushmen, could design the\nhuman figure in action when they pleased.  Their usual preference for the\nemployment of patterns appears to me to be the result of the nature of\ntheir materials.  In modern art our mechanical advantages and facilities\nare so great that we are always carrying the method and manner of one art\nover the frontier of another.  Our poetry aims at producing the effects\nof music; our prose at producing the effects of poetry.  Our sculpture\ntries to vie with painting in the representation of action, or with lace-\nmaking in the production of reticulated surfaces, and so forth.  But the\nsavage, in his art, has sense enough to confine himself to the sort of\nwork for which his materials are fitted.  Set him in the bush with no\nimplements and materials but a bit of broken shell and a lump of hard\nwood, and he confines himself to decorative scratches.  Place the black\nin the large cave which Pundjel, the Australian Zeus, inhabited when on\nearth (as Zeus inhabited the cave in Crete), and give the black plenty of\nred and white ochre and charcoal, and he will paint the human figure in\naction on the rocky walls.  Later, we will return to the cave-paintings\nof the Australians and the Bushmen in South Africa.  At present we must\ntrace purely decorative art a little further.  But we must remember that\nthere was once a race apparently in much the same social condition as the\nAustralians, but far more advanced and ingenious in art.  The earliest\nmen of the European Continent, about whom we know much, the men whose\nbones and whose weapons are found beneath the gravel-drift, the men who\nwere contemporary with the rhinoceros, mammoth, and cave-bear, were not\nfurther advanced in material civilisation than the Australians.  They\nused weapons of bone, of unpolished stone, and probably of hard wood.  But\nthe remnants of their art, the scraps of mammoth or reindeer bone in our\nmuseums, prove that they had a most spirited style of sketching from the\nlife.  In a collection of drawings on bone (probably designed with a\nflint or a shell), drawings by palaeolithic man, in the British Museum, I\nhave only observed one purely decorative attempt.  Even in this the\ndecoration resembles an effort to use the outlines of foliage for\nornamental purposes.  In almost all the other cases the palaeolithic\nartist has not decorated his bits of bone in the usual savage manner, but\nhas treated his bone as an artist treats his sketch-book, and has\nscratched outlines of beasts and fishes with his sharp shell as an artist\nuses his point.  These ancient bones, in short, are the sketch-books of\nEuropean savages, whose untaught skill was far greater than that of the\nAustralians, or even of the Eskimo.  When brought into contact with\nEuropeans, the Australian and Eskimo very quickly, even without regular\nteaching, learn to draw with some spirit and skill.  In the Australian\nstele, or grave-pillar, which we have engraved (Fig. 4), the shapeless\nfigures below the men and animals are the dead, and the boilyas or\nghosts.  Observe the patterns in the interstices.  The artist had lived\nwith Europeans.  In their original conditions, however, the Australians\nhave not attained to such free, artist-like, and unhampered use of their\nrude materials as the mysterious European artists who drew the mammoth\nthat walked abroad amongst them.\n\n[Fig. 4.  An Australian Stele: 283.jpg]\n\nWe have engraved one solitary Australian attempt at drawing curved lines.\nThe New Zealanders, a race far more highly endowed, and, when Europeans\narrived amongst them, already far more civilised than the Australians,\nhad, like the Australians, no metal implements.  But their stone weapons\nwere harder and keener, and with these they engraved the various spirals\nand coils on hard wood, of which we give examples here.  It is sometimes\nsaid that New Zealand culture and art have filtered from some Asiatic\nsource, and that in the coils and spirals designed, as in our engravings,\non the face of the Maori chief, or on his wooden furniture, there may be\nfound debased Asiatic influences. {286}  This is one of the questions\nwhich we can hardly deal with here.  Perhaps its solution requires more\nof knowledge, anthropological and linguistic, than is at present within\nthe reach of any student.  Assuredly the races of the earth have wandered\nfar, and have been wonderfully intermixed, and have left the traces of\ntheir passage here and there on sculptured stones, and in the keeping of\nthe ghosts that haunt ancient grave-steads.  But when two pieces of\nartistic work, one civilised, one savage, resemble each other, it is\nalways dangerous to suppose that the resemblance bears witness to\nrelationship or contact between the races, or to influences imported by\none from the other.  New Zealand work may be Asiatic in origin, and\ndebased by the effect of centuries of lower civilisation and ruder\nimplements.  Or Asiatic ornament may be a form of art improved out of\nruder forms, like those to which the New Zealanders have already\nattained.  One is sometimes almost tempted to regard the favourite Maori\nspiral as an imitation of the form, not unlike that of a bishop's crozier\nat the top, taken by the great native ferns.  Examples of resemblance, to\nbe accounted for by the development of a crude early idea, may be traced\nmost easily in the early pottery of Greece.  No one says that the Greeks\nborrowed from the civilised people of America.  Only a few enthusiasts\nsay that the civilised peoples of America, especially the Peruvians, are\nAryan by race.  Yet the remains of Peruvian palaces are often by no means\ndissimilar in style from the 'Pelasgic' and 'Cyclopean' buildings of\ngigantic stones which remain on such ancient Hellenic sites as Argos and\nMycenae.  The probability is that men living in similar social\nconditions, and using similar implements, have unconsciously and\nunintentionally arrived at like results.\n\n[Fig 5.  a, A Maori Design; b, Tattoo on a Maori's face: 285.jpg]\n\nFew people who are interested in the question can afford to visit Peru\nand Mycenae and study the architecture for themselves.  But anyone who is\ninterested in the strange identity of the human mind everywhere, and in\nthe necessary forms of early art, can go to the British Museum and\nexamine the American and early Greek pottery.  Compare the Greek key\npattern and the wave pattern on Greek and Mexican vases, and compare the\nbird-faces, or human faces very like those of birds, with the similar\nfaces on the clay pots which Dr. Schliemann dug up at Troy.  The latter\nare engraved in his book on Troy.  Compare the so-called 'cuttle-fish'\nfrom a Peruvian jar with the same figure on the early Greek vases, most\nof which are to be found in the last of the classical vase-rooms\nupstairs.  Once more, compare the little clay 'whorls' of the Mexican and\nPeruvian room with those which Dr. Schliemann found so numerous at\nHissarlik.  The conviction becomes irresistible that all these objects,\nin shape, in purpose, in character of decoration, are the same, because\nthe mind and the materials of men, in their early stages of civilisation\nespecially, are the same everywhere.  You might introduce old Greek bits\nof clay-work, figures or vases, into a Peruvian collection, or might\nfoist Mexican objects among the clay treasures of Hissarlik, and the\nwisest archaeologist would be deceived.  The Greek fret pattern\nespecially seems to be one of the earliest that men learnt to draw.  The\nsvastika, as it is called, the cross with lines at right angles to each\nlimb, is found everywhere--in India, Greece, Scotland, Peru--as a natural\nbit of ornament.  The allegorising fancy of the Indians gave it a mystic\nmeaning, and the learned have built I know not what worlds of religious\ntheories on this 'pre-Christian cross,' which is probably a piece of\nhasty decorative work, with no original mystic meaning at all. {289}\nOrnaments of this sort were transferred from wood or bone to clay, almost\nas soon as people learned that early art, the potter's, to which the\nAustralians have not attained, though it was familiar to the not distant\npeople of New Caledonia.  The style of spirals and curves, again, once\nacquired (as it was by the New Zealanders), became the favourite of some\nraces, especially of the Celtic.  Any one who will study either the\nornaments of Mycenae, or those of any old Scotch or Irish collection,\nwill readily recognise in that art the development of a system of\nornament like that of the Maoris.  Classical Greece, on the other hand,\nfollowed more in the track of the ancient system of straight and slanted\nlines, and we do not find in the later Greek art that love of interlacing\ncoils and spirals which is so remarkable among the Celts, and which is\nvery manifest in the ornaments of the Mycaenean hoards--that is, perhaps,\nof the ancient Greek heroic age.  The causes of these differences in the\ndevelopment of ornament, the causes that made Celtic genius follow one\ntrack, and pursue to its aesthetic limits one early motif, while\nclassical art went on a severer line, it is, perhaps, impossible at\npresent to ascertain.  But it is plain enough that later art has done\nlittle more than develop ideas of ornament already familiar to untutored\nraces.\n\n[Fig. 6.  From a Maori's Face: 287.jpg]\n\nIt has been shown that the art which aims at decoration is better adapted\nto both the purposes and materials of savages than the art which aims at\nrepresentation.  As a rule, the materials of the lower savages are their\nown bodies (which they naturally desire to make beautiful for ever by\ntattooing), and the hard substances of which they fashion their tools and\nweapons.  These hard substances, when worked on with cutting instruments\nof stone or shell, are most easily adorned with straight cut lines, and\nspirals are therefore found to be, on the whole, a comparatively late\nform of ornament.\n\n[Fig. 7.  Bushman Dog: 290.jpg]\n\nWe have now to discuss the efforts of the savage to represent.  Here,\nagain, we have to consider the purpose which animates him, and the\nmaterials which are at his service.  His pictures have a practical\npurpose, and do not spring from what we are apt, perhaps too hastily, to\nconsider the innate love of imitation for its own sake.  In modern art,\nin modern times, no doubt the desire to imitate nature, by painting or\nsculpture, has become almost an innate impulse, an in-born instinct.  But\nthere must be some 'reason why' for this; and it does not seem at all\nunlikely that we inherit the love, the disinterested love, of imitative\nart from very remote ancestors, whose habits of imitation had a direct,\ninterested, and practical purpose.  The member of Parliament who mimics\nthe crowing of a cock during debate, or the street boy who beguiles his\nleisure by barking like a dog, has a disinterested pleasure in the\nexercise of his skill; but advanced thinkers seem pretty well agreed that\nthe first men who imitated the voices of dogs, and cocks, and other\nanimals, did not do so merely for fun, but with the practical purpose of\nindicating to their companions the approach of these creatures.  Such\nwere the rude beginnings of human language: and whether that theory be\ncorrect or not, there are certainly practical reasons which impel the\nsavage to attempt imitative art.  I doubt if there are many savage races\nwhich do not use representative art for the purposes of writing--that is,\nto communicate information to persons whom they cannot reach by the\nvoice, and to assist the memory, which, in a savage, is perhaps not very\nstrong.  To take examples.  A savage man meets a savage maid.  She does\nnot speak his language, nor he hers.  How are they to know whether,\naccording to the marriage laws of their race, they are lawful mates for\neach other?  This important question is settled by an inspection of their\ntattooed marks.  If a Thlinkeet man of the Swan stock meets an Iroquois\nmaid of the Swan stock they cannot speak to each other, and the 'gesture\nlanguage' is cumbrous.  But if both are tattooed with the swan, then the\nman knows that this daughter of the swan is not for him.  He could no\nmore marry her than Helen of Troy could have married Castor, the tamer of\nhorses.  Both are children of the Swan, as were Helen and Castor, and\nmust regard each other as brother and sister.  The case of the Thlinkeet\nman and the Iroquois maid is extremely unlikely to occur; but I give it\nas an example of the practical use among savages, of representative art.\n\n[Fig. 8.  Red Indian Picture-Writing - The Legend of Manabozho: 293.jpg]\n\nAmong the uses of art for conveying intelligence we notice that even the\nAustralians have what the Greeks would have called the [Greek], a staff\non which inscriptions, legible to the Aborigines, are engraven.  I\nbelieve, however, that the Australian [Greek] is not usually marked with\npicture-writing, but with notches--even more difficult to decipher.  As\nan example of Red Indian picture-writing we publish a scroll from Kohl's\nbook on the natives of North America.  This rude work of art, though the\nreader may think little of it, is really a document as important in its\nway as the Chaldaean clay tablets inscribed with the record of the\nDeluge.  The coarsely-drawn figures recall, to the artist's mind, much of\nthe myth of Manabozho, the Prometheus and the Deucalion, the Cain and the\nNoah of the dwellers by the great lake.  Manabozho was a great chief, who\nhad two wives that quarrelled.  The two stumpy half-figures (4) represent\nthe wives; the mound between them is the displeasure of Manabozho.\nFurther on (5) you see him caught up between two trees--an unpleasant\nfix, from which the wolves and squirrels refused to extricate him.  The\nkind of pyramid with a figure at top (8) is a mountain, on which when the\nflood came, Manabozho placed his grandmother to be out of the water's\nway.  The somewhat similar object is Manabozho himself, on the top of his\nmountain.  The animals you next behold (10) were sent out by Manabozho to\nascertain how the deluge was faring, and to carry messages to his\ngrandmother.  This scroll was drawn, probably on birch bark, by a Red Man\nof literary attainments, who gave it to Kohl (in its lower right-hand\ncorner (11) he has pictured the event), that he might never forget the\nstory of the Manabozhian deluge.  The Red Indians have always, as far as\nEuropean knowledge goes, been in the habit of using this picture-writing\nfor the purpose of retaining their legends, poems, and incantations.  It\nis unnecessary to say that the picture-writing of Mexico and the\nhieroglyphics of ancient Egypt are derived from the same savage\nprocesses.  I must observe that the hasty indications of the figure used\nin picture-writing are by no means to be regarded as measures of the Red\nMen's skill in art.  They can draw much better than the artist who\nrecorded the Manabozhian legend, when they please.\n\nIn addition to picture-writing, Religion has fostered savage\nrepresentative art.  If a man worships a lizard or a bear, he finds it\nconvenient to have an amulet or idol representing a bear or a lizard.  If\none adores a lizard or a bear, one is likely to think that prayer and\nacts of worship addressed to an image of the animal will please the\nanimal himself, and make him propitious.  Thus the art of making little\nportable figures of various worshipful beings is fostered, and the craft\nof working in wood or ivory is born.  As a rule, the savage is satisfied\nwith excessively rude representations of his gods.  Objects of this\nkind--rude hewn blocks of stone and wood--were the most sacred effigies\nof the gods in Greece, and were kept in the dimmest recesses of the\ntemple.  No Demeter wrought by the craft of Phidias would have appeared\nso holy to the Phigalians as the strange old figure of the goddess with\nthe head of a mare.  The earliest Greek sacred sculptures that remain are\nscarcely, if at all, more advanced in art than the idols of the naked\nAdmiralty Islanders.  But this is anticipating; in the meantime it may be\nsaid that among the sources of savage representative art are the need of\nsomething like writing, and ideas suggested by nascent religion.\n\n[Fig. 9.  Bushman Wall-Painting: 295.jpg]\n\nThe singular wall-picture (Fig. 9) from a cave in South Africa, which we\ncopy from the 'Cape Monthly Magazine,' probably represents a magical\nceremony.  Bushmen are tempting a great water animal--a rhinoceros, or\nsomething of that sort--to run across the land, for the purpose of\nproducing rain.  The connection of ideas is scarcely apparent to\ncivilised minds, but it is not more indistinct than the connection\nbetween carrying a bit of the rope with which a man has been hanged and\nsuccess at cards--a common French superstition.  The Bushman\ncave-pictures, like those of Australia, are painted in black, red, and\nwhite.  Savages, like the Assyrians and the early Greeks, and like\nchildren, draw animals much better than the human figure.  The Bushman\ndog in our little engraving (Fig. 7) is all alive--almost as full of life\nas the dog which accompanies the centaur Chiron, in that beautiful vase\nin the British Museum which represents the fostering of Achilles.  The\nBushman wall-paintings, like those of Australia, seem to prove that\nsavage art is capable of considerable freedom, when supplied with fitting\nmaterials.  Men seem to draw better when they have pigments and a flat\nsurface of rock to work upon, than when they are scratching on hard wood\nwith a sharp edge of a broken shell.  Though the thing has little to do\nwith art, it may be worth mentioning, as a matter of curiosity, that the\nlabyrinthine Australian caves are decorated, here and there, with the\nmark of a red hand.  The same mysterious, or at least unexplained, red\nhand is impressed on the walls of the ruined palaces and temples of\nYucatan--the work of a vanished people.\n\n[Fig. 10.  Palaelithic art: 297.jpg]\n\nThere is one singular fact in the history of savage art which reminds us\nthat savages, like civilised men, have various degrees of culture and\nvarious artistic capacities.  The oldest inhabitants of Europe who have\nleft any traces of their lives and handiwork must have been savages.\nTheir tools and weapons were not even formed of polished stone, but of\nrough-hewn flint.  The people who used tools of this sort must\nnecessarily have enjoyed but a scanty mechanical equipment, and the life\nthey lived in caves from which they had to drive the cave-bear, and among\nsnows where they stalked the reindeer and the mammoth, must have been\nvery rough.  These earliest known Europeans, 'palaeolithic men,' as they\ncalled, from their use of the ancient unpolished stone weapons, appear to\nhave inhabited the countries now known as France and England, before the\ngreat Age of Ice.  This makes their date one of incalculable antiquity;\nthey are removed from us by a 'dark backward and abysm of time.'  The\nwhole Age of Ice, the dateless period of the polishers of stone weapons,\nthe arrival of men using weapons of bronze, the time which sufficed to\nchange the climate and fauna and flora of Western Europe, lie between us\nand palaeolithic man.  Yet in him we must recognise a skill more akin to\nthe spirit of modern art than is found in any other savage race.\nPalaeolithic man, like other savages, decorated his weapons; but, as I\nhave already said, he did not usually decorate them in the common savage\nmanner with ornamental patterns.  He scratched on bits of bone spirited\nrepresentations of all the animals whose remains are found mixed with his\nown.  He designed the large-headed horse of that period, and science\ninclines to believe that he drew the breed correctly.  His sketches of\nthe mammoth, the reindeer, the bear, and of many fishes, may be seen in\nthe British Museum, or engraved in such works as Professor Boyd Dawkins's\n'Early Man in Britain.'  The object from which our next illustration\n(Fig. 12) was engraved represents a deer, and was a knife-handle.  Eyes\nat all trained in art can readily observe the wonderful spirit and\nfreedom of these ancient sketches.  They are the rapid characteristic\nwork of true artists who know instinctively what to select and what to\nsacrifice.\n\n[Fig 12.  Palaeolithic art - a knife-handle: 299.jpg]\n\nSome learned men, Mr. Boyd Dawkins among them, believe that the Eskimo,\nthat stunted hunting and fishing race of the Western Arctic circle, are\ndescendants of the palaeolithic sketchers, and retain their artistic\nqualities.  Other inquirers, with Mr. Geikie and Dr. Wilson, do not\nbelieve in this pedigree of the Eskimo.  I speak not with authority, but\nthe submission of ignorance, and as one who has no right to an opinion\nabout these deep matters of geology and ethnology.  But to me, Mr.\nGeikie's arguments appear distinctly the more convincing, and I cannot\nthink it demonstrated that the Eskimo are descended from our old\npalaeolithic artists.  But if Mr. Boyd Dawkins is right, if the Eskimo\nderive their lineage from the artists of the Dordogne, then the Eskimo\nare sadly degenerated.  In Mr. Dawkins's 'Early Man' is an Eskimo drawing\nof a reindeer hunt, and a palaeolithic sketch of a reindeer; these (by\npermission of the author and Messrs. Macmillan) we reproduce.  Look at\nthe vigour and life of the ancient drawing--the feathering hair on the\ndeer's breast, his head, his horns, the very grasses at his feet, are\ntouched with the graver of a true artist (Fig. 14).  The design is like a\nhasty memorandum of Leech's.  Then compare the stiff formality of the\nmodern Eskimo drawing (Fig. 13).  It is rather like a record, a piece of\npicture-writing, than a free sketch, a rapid representation of what is\nmost characteristic in nature.  Clearly, if the Eskimo come from\npalaeolithic man, they are a degenerate race as far as art is concerned.\nYet, as may be seen in Dr. Rink's books, the Eskimo show considerable\nskill when they have become acquainted with European methods and models,\nand they have at any rate a greater natural gift for design than the Red\nIndians, of whose sacred art the Thunderbird brooding over page 298 is a\nfair example.  The Red Men believe in big birds which produce thunder.\nQuahteaht, the Adam of Vancouver's Island, married one, and this (Fig.\n11) is she.\n\n[Fig. 11.  Red Indian art - the Thunderbird: 298.jpg]\n\n[Fig. 13.  Eskimo Drawing - A Reindeer hunt: 300.jpg]\n\n[Fig. 14.  Palaeolithic sketch - a reindeer: 301.jpg]\n\nWe have tried to show how savage decorative art supplied the first ideas\nof patterns which were developed in various ways by the decorative art of\nadvancing civilisation.  The same progress might be detected in\nrepresentative art.  Books, like the guide-book to ancient Greece which\nPausanias wrote before the glory had quite departed, prove that the Greek\ntemples were museums in which the development of art might be clearly\ntraced.  Furthest back in the series of images of gods came things like\nthat large stone which was given to Cronus when he wished to swallow his\ninfant child Zeus, and which he afterwards vomited up with his living\nprogeny.  This fetich-stone was preserved at Delphi.  Next came wild\nbulks of beast-headed gods, like the horse-headed Demeter of Phigalia,\nand it seems possible enough that there was an Artemis with the head of a\nshe-bear.  Gradually the bestial characteristics dropped, and there\nappeared such rude anthropomorphic images of Apollo--more like South Sea\nidols than the archer prince--as are now preserved in Athens.  Next we\nhave the stage of semi-savage realism, which is represented by the\nmetopes of Selinus in Sicily, now in the British Museum, and by not a few\ngems and pieces of gold work.  Greek temples have fallen, and the statues\nof the gods exist only in scattered fragments.  But in the representative\ncollection of casts belonging to the Cambridge Archaeological Museum, one\nmay trace the career of Greek art backwards from Phidias to the rude\nidol.\n\n'Savage realism' is the result of a desire to represent an object as it\nis known to be, and not as it appears.  Thus Catlin, among the Red\nIndians, found that the people refused to be drawn in profile.  They knew\nthey had two eyes, and in profile they seemed only to have one.  Look at\nthe Selinus marbles, and you will observe that figures, of which the body\nis seen in profile, have the full face turned to the spectator.  Again,\nthe savage knows that an animal has two sides; both, he thinks, should be\nrepresented, but he cannot foreshorten, and he finds the profile view\neasiest to draw.  To satisfy his need of realism he draws a beast's head\nfull-face, and gives to the one head two bodies drawn in profile.\nExamples of this are frequent in very archaic Greek gems and gold work,\nand Mr. A. S. Murray suggests (as I understand him) that the attitude of\nthe two famous lions, which guarded vainly Agamemnon's gate at Mycenae,\nis derived from the archaic double-bodied and single-headed beast of\nsavage realism.  Very good examples of these oddities may be found in the\n'Journal of the Hellenic Society,' 1881, pl. xv.  Here are double-bodied\nand single headed birds, monsters, and sphinxes.  We engrave (Fig. 15)\nthree Greek gems from the islands as examples of savagery in early Greek\nart.  In the oblong gem the archers are rather below the Red Indian\nstandard of design.  The hunter figured in the first gem is almost up to\nthe Bushman mark.  In his dress ethnologists will recognise an\narrangement now common among the natives of New Caledonia.  In the third\ngem the woman between two swans may be Leda, or she may represent Leto in\nDelos.  Observe the amazing rudeness of the design, and note the modern\nwaist and crinoline.  The artists who engraved these gems on hard stone\nhad, of necessity, much better tools than any savages possess, but their\nart was truly savage.  To discover how Greek art climbed in a couple of\ncenturies from this coarse and childish work to the grace of the AEgina\nmarbles, and thence to the absolute freedom and perfect unapproachable\nbeauty of the work of Phidias, is one of the most singular problems in\nthe history of art.  Greece learned something, no doubt, from her early\nknowledge of the arts the priests of Assyria and Egypt had elaborated in\nthe valleys of the Euphrates and the Nile.  That might account for a\nswift progress from savage to formal and hieratic art; but whence sprang\nthe inspiration which led her so swiftly on to art that is perfectly\nfree, natural, and god-like?  It is a mystery of race, and of a divine\ngift.  'The heavenly gods have given it to mortals.'\n\n[Fig. 15.  Archaic Greek Gems: 303.jpg]\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n\n{3a}  Compare De Cara: Essame Critico, xx. i.\n\n{3b}  Revue de l'Hist. des Rel. ii. 136.\n\n{4}  Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschichte, p. 431.\n\n{5}  Prim. Cult. i. 394.\n\n{11a}  A study of the contemporary stone age in Scotland will be found in\nMitchell's Past and Present.\n\n{11b}  About twenty years ago, the widow of an Irish farmer, in Derry,\nkilled her deceased husband's horse.  When remonstrated with by her\nlandlord, she said, 'Would you have my man go about on foot in the next\nworld?'  She was quite in the savage intellectual stage.\n\n{12}  At the solemn festival suppers, ordained for the honour of the\ngods, they forget not to serve up certain dishes of young whelp's flesh.\n(Pliny, H. N. xxix. 4.)\n\n{15}  Nov. 1880.\n\n{18}  'Ah, once again may I plant the great fan on her corn-heap, while\nshe stands smiling by, Demeter of the threshing floor, with sheaves and\npoppies in her hands' (Theocritus, vii. 155-157).\n\n{20}  Odyssey, xi. 32.\n\n{28}  Rev. de l'Hist. des Rel., vol. ii.\n\n{33}  Pausanias, iii. 15.  When the boys were being cruelly scourged, the\npriestess of Artemis Orthia held an ancient barbaric wooden image of the\ngoddess in her hands.  If the boys were spared, the image grew heavy; the\nmore they were tortured, the lighter grew the image.  In Samoa the image\n(shark's teeth) of the god Taema is consulted before battle.  'If it felt\nheavy, that was a bad omen; if light, the sign was good'--the god was\npleased (Turner's Samoa, p. 55).\n\n[Bull-roarer: 35.jpg]\n\n{34}  Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 268.\n\n{35}  Fison, Journal Anthrop. Soc., Nov. 1883.\n\n{36a}  Taylor's New Zealand, p. 181.\n\n{36b}  This is not the view of le Pere Lafitau, a learned Jesuit\nmissionary in North America, who wrote (1724) a work on savage manners,\ncompared with the manners of heathen antiquity.  Lafitau, who was greatly\nstruck with the resemblances between Greek and Iroquois or Carib\ninitiations, takes Servius's other explanation of the mystica vannus, 'an\nosier vessel containing rural offerings of first fruits.'  This exactly\nanswers, says Lafitau, to the Carib Matoutou, on which they offer sacred\ncassava cakes.\n\n{37}  The Century Magazine, May 1883.\n\n{39}  [Greek].  Lobeck, Aglaophamus (i. p. 700).\n\n{40a}  De Corona, p. 313.\n\n{40b}  Savage Africa.  Captain Smith, the lover of Pocahontas, mentions\nthe custom in his work on Virginia, pp. 245-248.\n\n{40c}  Brough Smyth, i. 60, using evidence of Howitt, Taplin, Thomas, and\nWilhelmi.\n\n{41a}  Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 214.\n\n{41b}  [Greek], c. 15.\n\n{42}  Cape Monthly Magazine, July 1874.\n\n{44}  Wallace, Travels on the Amazon, p. 349.\n\n{46a}  New Zealand, Taylor, pp. 119-121.  Die heilige Sage der\nPolynesier, Bastian, pp. 36-39.\n\n{46b}  A crowd of similar myths, in one of which a serpent severs Heaven\nand Earth, are printed in Turner's Samoa.\n\n{48}  The translation used is Jowett's.\n\n{49a}  Theog., 166.\n\n{49b}  Apollodorus, i. 15.\n\n{50a}  Primitive Culture, i. 325.\n\n{50b}  Pauthier, Livres sacres de l'Orient, p. 19.\n\n{50c}  Muir's Sanskrit Texts, v. 23.  Aitareya Brahmana.\n\n{52a}  Hesiod, Theog., 497.\n\n{52b}  Paus. x. 24.\n\n{54a}  Bleek, Bushman Folklore, pp. 6-8.\n\n{54b}  Theal, Kaffir Folklore, pp. 161-167.\n\n{54c}  Brough Smith, i. 432-433.\n\n{55a}  i. 338.\n\n{55b}  Rel. de la Nouvelle-France (1636), p. 114.\n\n{56}  Codrington, in Journal Anthrop. Inst. Feb. 1881.  There is a Breton\nMarchen of a land where people had to 'bring the Dawn' daily with carts\nand horses.  A boy, whose sole property was a cock, sold it to the people\nof this country for a large sum, and now the cock brings the dawn, with a\ngreat saving of trouble and expense.  The Marchen is a survival of the\nstate of mind of the Solomon Islanders.\n\n{58a}  Selected Essays, i. 460.\n\n{58b}  Ibid. i. 311.\n\n{59}  Ueber Entwicklungsstufen der Mythenbildung (1874), p. 148.\n\n{60a}  ii. 127.\n\n{60b}  G. D. M., ii. 127, 129.\n\n{61a}  Gr. My., i. 144.\n\n{61b}  De Abst., ii. 202, 197.\n\n{61c}  Rel. und Myth., ii. 3.\n\n{61d}  Ursprung der Myth., pp. 133, 135, 139, 149.\n\n{62a}  Contemporary Review, Sept. 1883.\n\n{62b}  Rev. de l'Hist. rel. i. 179.\n\n{65}  That Pururavas is regarded as a mortal man, in relations with some\nsort of spiritual mistress, appears from the poem itself (v. 8, 9, 18).\nThe human character of Pururavas also appears in R. V. i. 31, 4.\n\n{66a}  Selected Essays, i. 408.\n\n{66b}  The Apsaras is an ideally beautiful fairy woman, something\n'between the high gods and the lower grotesque beings,' with 'lotus eyes'\nand other agreeable characteristics.  A list of Apsaras known by name is\ngiven in Meyer's Gandharven-Kentauren, p. 28.  They are often regarded as\ncloud-maidens by mythologists.\n\n{68}  Selected Essays, i. p. 405.\n\n{69a}  Cf. ruber, rufus, O. H. G. rot, rudhira, [Greek]; also Sanskrit,\nravi, sun.\n\n{69b}  Myth. Ar. Nat., ii. 81.\n\n{69c}  R. V. iii. 29, 3.\n\n{69d}  The passage alluded to in Homer does not mean that dawn 'ends' the\nday, but 'when the fair-tressed Dawn brought the full light of the third\nday' (Od., v. 390).\n\n{70a}  Liebrecht (Zur Volkskunde, 241) is reminded by Pururavas (in\nRoth's sense of der Bruller) of loud-thundering Zeus, [Greek].\n\n{70b}  Herabkunft des Fetters, p. 86-89.\n\n{71}  Liebrecht (Zur Volkskunde, p. 241) notices the reference to the\n'custom of women.'  But he thinks the clause a mere makeshift, introduced\nlate to account for a prohibition of which the real meaning had been\nforgotten.  The improbability of this view is indicated by the frequency\nof similar prohibitions in actual custom.\n\n{72}  Astley, Collection of Voyages, ii. 24.  This is given by Bluet and\nMoore on the evidence of one Job Ben Solomon, a native of Bunda in Futa.\n'Though Job had a daughter by his last wife, yet he never saw her without\nher veil, as having been married to her only two years.'  Excellently as\nthis prohibition suits my theory, yet I confess I do not like Job's\nsecurity.\n\n{73a}  Brough Smyth, i. 423.\n\n{73b}  Bowen, Central Africa, p. 303.\n\n{73c}  Lafitau, i. 576.\n\n{73d}  Lubbock, Origin of Civilisation (1875), p. 75.\n\n{74a}  Chansons Pop. Bulg., p. 172.\n\n{74b}  Lectures on Language, Second Series, p. 41.\n\n{75a}  J. A. Farrer, Primitive Manners, p. 202, quoting Seemann.\n\n{75b}  Sebillot, Contes Pop. de la Haute-Bretagne, p. 183.\n\n{76a}  Gervase of Tilbury.\n\n{76b}  Kuhn, Herabkunft, p. 92.\n\n{77}  Chips, ii. 251.\n\n{80a}  Kitchi Gami, p. 105.\n\n{80b}  The sun-frog occurs seven times in Sir G. W: Cox's Mythology of\nthe Aryan Peoples, and is used as an example to prove that animals in\nmyth are usually the sun, like Bheki, 'the sun-frog.'\n\n{81a}  Dalton's Ethnol. of Bengal, pp. 165, 166.\n\n{81b}  Taylor, New Zealand, p. 143.\n\n{82a}  Liebrecht gives a Hindoo example, Zur Volkskunde, p. 239.\n\n{82b}  Cymmrodor, iv. pt. 2.\n\n{82c}  Prim. Cult., i. 140.\n\n{83a}  Primitive Manners, p. 256.\n\n{83b}  See Meyer, Gandharven-Kentauren, Benfey, Pantsch., i. 263.\n\n{84a}  Selected Essays, i. 411.\n\n{84b}  Callaway, p. 63.\n\n{84c}  Ibid., p. 119.\n\n{87}  Primitive Culture, i. 357: 'The savage sees individual stars as\nanimate beings, or combines star-groups into living celestial creatures,\nor limbs of them, or objects connected with them.'\n\n{88}  This formula occurs among Bushmen and Eskimo (Bleek and Rink).\n\n{92}  The events of the flight are recorded correctly in the Gaelic\nvariant 'The Battle of the Birds.'  (Campbell, Tales of the West\nHighlands, vol. i. p. 25.)\n\n{93a}  Ralston, Russian Folk Tales, 132; Kohler, Orient und Occident, ii.\n107, 114.\n\n{93b}  Ko ti ki, p. 36.\n\n{93c}  Callaway, pp. 51, 53, 64, 145, 228.\n\n{93d}  See also 'Petrosinella' in the Pentamerone, and 'The Mastermaid'\nin Dasent's Tales from the Norse.\n\n{93e}  Folk-Lore Journal, August 1883.\n\n{95}  Poetae Minores Gr. ii.\n\n{96}  Mythol. Ar., ii. 150.\n\n{97a}  Gr. My., ii. 318.\n\n{97b}  Sonne, Mond und Sterne, pp. 213, 229.\n\n{99a}  This proves that the tale belongs to the pre-Christian cannibal\nage.\n\n{99b}  Turner's Samoa, p. 102.  In this tale only the names of the\ndaughters are translated; they mean 'white fish' and 'dark fish.'\n\n{99c}  Folk-Lore Journal, August 1883.\n\n{101}  Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, ii. 94-104.\n\n{102a}  Nature, March 14, 1884.\n\n{102b}  The earlier part of the Jason cycle is analysed in the author's\npreface to Grimm's Marchen (Bell & Sons).\n\n{104a}  Comm. Real. i. 75.\n\n{104b}  See Early History of the Family, infra.\n\n{105a}  The names Totem and Totemism have been in use at least since\n1792, among writers on the North American tribes.  Prof. Max Muller\n(Academy, Jan. 1884) says the word should be, not Totem, but Ote or Otem.\nLong, an interpreter among the Indians, introduced the word Totamism in\n1792.\n\n{105b}  Christoval de Moluna (1570), p. 5.\n\n{105c}  Cieza de Leon, p. 183.\n\n{105d}  Idyll xv.\n\n{107}  Sayce, Herodotos, p. 344; Herodotus, ii. 42; Wilkinson's Ancient\nEgyptians (1878, ii. 475, note 2); Plutarch, De Is. et Os., 71, 72;\nAthenaeus, vii. 299; Strabo, xvii. 813.\n\n{108a}  The Mouse, according to Dalton, is still a totem among the Oraons\nof Bengal.  A man of the Mouse 'motherhood,' as the totem kindred is\nlocally styled, may not eat mice (esteemed a delicacy), nor marry a girl\nwho is a Mouse.\n\n{108b}  xiii. 604.  Casaub. 1620.\n\n{108c}  There were Sminthiac feasts at Rhodes, Gela, Lesbos, and Crete\n(De Witte, Revue Numismatique, N.S. iii. 3-11).\n\n{109a}  Iliad, i. 39.\n\n{109b}  AElian, H. A. xii. 5.\n\n{110a}  The bas-relief is published in Paoli's Della Religione de'\nGentili, Naples, 1771, p. 9; also by Fabretti, Ad Cal. Oper. de Colum.\nTrajan. p. 315.  Paoli's book was written after the discovery in\nNeapolitan territory of a small bronze image, hieratic in character,\nrepresenting a man with a mouse on his hand.  Paoli's engraving of this\nwork of art, unluckily, does not enable us to determine its date or\n_provenance_.  The book is a mine of mouse-lore.\n\n{110b}  Colden, History of the Five Nations, p. 15 (1727).\n\n{110c}  Onomast., ix. 6, segm. 84, p. 1066.\n\n{110d}  De Witte says Pollux was mistaken here.  In the Revue\nNumismatique, N.S. iii., De Witte publishes coins of Alexandria, the more\nancient Hamaxitus, in the Troad.  The Sminthian Apollo is represented\nwith his bow, and the mouse on his hand.  Other coins show the god with\nthe mouse at his foot, or show us the lyre of Apollo supported by mice.  A\nbronze coin in the British Museum gives Apollo with the mouse beside his\nfoot.\n\n{111a}  Spanheim, ad Fl. Joseph., vi. I, p. 312.\n\n{111b}  Della Rel., p. 174.\n\n{111c}  Herodotus, ii. 141.\n\n{112a}  Liebrecht (Zur Volkskunde, p. 13, quoting Journal Asiatique, 1st\nseries, 3, 307) finds the same myth in Chinese annals.  It is not a god,\nhowever, but the king of the rats, who appears to the distressed monarch\nin his dream.  Rats then gnaw the bowstrings of his enemies.  The\ninvaders were Turks, the rescued prince a king of Khotan.  The king\nraised a temple, and offered sacrifice--to the rats?\n\n{112b}  Herodotos, p. 204.\n\n{113a}  Wilkinson, iii. 294, quoting the Ritual xxxiii.: 'Thou devourest\nthe abominable rat of Ra, or the sun.'\n\n{113b}  Mr. Loftie has kindly shown me a green mouse containing the\nthrone-name of Thothmes III.  The animals thus used as substitutes for\nscarabs were also sacred, as the fish, rhinoceros, fly, all represented\nin Mr. Loftie's collection.  See his Essay of Scarabs, p. 27.  It may be\nadmitted that, in a country where Cats were gods, the religion of the\nMouse must have been struggling and oppressed.\n\n[Illustration: 113.jpg]\n\n{114a}  Strabo, xiii. 604.\n\n{114b}  Eustathius on Iliad, i. 39.\n\n{114c}  A Strange and True Relation of the Prodigious Multitude of Mice,\n1670.\n\n{115a}  Journal of Philol., xvii. p. 96.\n\n{115b}  Leviticus xi. 29.\n\n{116}  Samuel i. 5, 6.\n\n{117a}  Zool. Myth, ii. 68.\n\n{117b}  Melusine, N.S. i.\n\n{118a}  De Iside et Osiride, lxxvi.\n\n{118b}  This hypothesis does not maintain that totemism prevailed in\nGreece during historic times.  Though Plutarch mentions an Athenian\n[Greek], the Ioxidae, which claimed descent from and revered asparagus,\nit is probable that genuine totemism had died out of Greece many hundreds\nof years before even Homer's time.  But this view is not inconsistent\nwith the existence of survivals in religion and ritual.\n\n{119}  Rolland, Faune populaire.\n\n{121}  The attempt is not to explain the origin of each separate name but\nonly of the general habit of giving animal or human names stars.\n\n{125}  Mr. Herbert Spencer believes that the Australians were once more\ncivilised than at present.  But there has never been found a trace of\npottery on the Australian continent, which says little for their\ncivilisation in the past.\n\n{128}  Brugsch, History of Egypt, i. 32.\n\n{130}  Brough Smith.\n\n{131}  Amazonian Tortoise Myths, p. 39.\n\n{132a}  Sahagun, vii. 3.\n\n{132b}  Grimm, D. M., Engl. transl., p. 716.\n\n{133}  Hartt, op. cit., p. 40.\n\n{134a}  Kaegi, Der Rig Veda, p. 217.\n\n{134b}  Mainjo-i-Khard, 49, 22, ed. West.\n\n{134c}  Op. cit. p. 98.\n\n{137}  Prim. Cult., i. 357.\n\n{140}  Lectures on Language, pp. 359, 362.\n\n{144}  Grimm, D. M., Engl., Trans. p. 1202.\n\n{145}  Tom Sawyer, p. 87.\n\n{146a}  Rep. vi. 488.  Dem. 10, 6.\n\n{146b}  Journal Anthrop. Inst., Feb. 1881.\n\n{147a}  Gregor, Folklore of North-east Counties, p, 40.\n\n{147b}  Wars of Jews, vii. 6, 3.\n\n{147c}  Var. Hist., 14, 27.\n\n{148}  Max Muller, Selected Essays, ii. 622.\n\n{151}  Myth of Kirke, p. 80.\n\n{152a}  Turner's Samoa.\n\n{152b}  Josephus, loc. cit.  For this, and many other references, I am\nindebted to Schwartz's Prahistorisch-anthropologische Studien.  In most\nmagic herbs the learned author recognises thunder and lightning--a theory\nno less plausible than Mr. Brown's.\n\n{152c}  Lib. xxviii.\n\n{152d}  Schoolcraft.\n\n{157a}  Talvj, Charakteristik der Volkslieder, p. 3.\n\n{157b}  Fauriel, Chants de la Grece moderne.\n\n{160}  Thus Scotland scarcely produced any ballads, properly speaking,\nafter the Reformation.  The Kirk suppressed the dances to whose motion\nthe ballad was sung in Scotland, as in Greece, Provence, and France.\n\n{161}  L. Preller's Ausgewahlte Aufsatze.  Greek ideas on the origin of\nMan.  It is curious that the myth of a gold, a silver, and a copper race\noccurs in South America.  See Brasseur de Bourbourg's Notes on the Popol\nVuh.\n\n{164a}  See essay on Early History of the Family.\n\n{164b}  This constant struggle may be, and of course by one school of\ncomparative mythologists will be, represented as the strife between light\nand darkness, the sun's rays, and the clouds of night, and so on.  M.\nCastren has well pointed out that the struggle has really an historical\nmeaning.  Even if the myth be an elementary one, its constructors must\nhave been in the exogamous stage of society.\n\n{169}  Sampo _may_ be derived from a Thibetan word, meaning 'fountain of\ngood,' or it may possibly be connected with the Swedish Stamp, a hand-\nmill.  The talisman is made of all the quaint odds and ends that the\nFetichist treasures: swan's feathers, flocks of wool, and so on.\n\n{170}  Sir G. W. Cox's Popular Romances of the Middle Ages, p. 19.\n\n{171}  Fortnightly Review, 1869: 'The Worship of Plants and Animals.'\n\n{176}  Mr. McLennan in the Fortnightly Review, February 1870.\n\n{178}  M. Schmidt, Volksleben der Neugriechen, finds comparatively few\ntraces of the worship of Zeus, and these mainly in proverbial\nexpressions.\n\n{183}  Preller, Ausgewahlte Aufsatze, p. 154.\n\n{184a}  Tylor, Prim. Cult., ii. 156.  Pinkerton, vii. 357.\n\n{184b}  Universities Mission to Central Africa, p. 217.  Prim. Cult,, ii.\n156, 157.\n\n{186}  Quoted in 'Jacob's Rod': London, n.d., a translation of La Verge\nde Jacob, Lyon, 1693.\n\n{190}  Lettres sur la Baguette, pp. 106-112.\n\n{200}  Turner's Samoa, pp, 77, 119.\n\n{201}  Cox, Mythol. of Aryan Races, passim.\n\n{202a}  See examples in 'A Far-travelled Tale,' 'Cupid and Psyche,' and\n'The Myth of Cronus.'\n\n{202b}  Trubner, 1881.\n\n{203a}  Hahn, p. 23.\n\n{203b}  Ibid., p. 45.\n\n{204}  Expedition, i. 166.\n\n{205}  Herodotus, ii.\n\n{209}  See Fetichism and the Infinite.\n\n{211}  Sacred Books of the East, xii. 130, 131,\n\n{218}  Lectures on Language.  Second series, p. 41.\n\n{222}  A defence of the evidence for our knowledge of savage faiths,\npractices, and ideas will be found in Primitive Culture, i. 9-11.\n\n{223}  A third reference to Pausanias I have been unable to verify.  There\nare several references to Greek fetich-stones in Theophrastus's account\nof the Superstitious Man.  A number of Greek sacred stones named by\nPausanias may be worth noticing.  In Boeotia (ix. 16), the people\nbelieved that Alcmene, mother of Heracles, was changed into a stone.  The\nThespians worshipped, under the name of Eros, an unwrought stone,\n[Greek], 'their most ancient sacred object' (ix. 27).  The people of\nOrchomenos 'paid extreme regard to certain stones,' said to have fallen\nfrom heaven, 'or to certain figures made of stone that descended from the\nsky' (ix. 38).  Near Chaeronea, Rhea was said to have deceived Cronus, by\noffering him, in place of Zeus, a stone wrapped in swaddling bands.  This\nstone, which Cronus vomited forth after having swallowed it, was seen by\nPausanias at Delphi (ix. 41).  By the roadside, near the city of the\nPanopeans, lay the stones out of which Prometheus made men (x. 4).  The\nstone swallowed in place of Zeus by his father lay at the exit from the\nDelphian temple, and was anointed (compare the action of Jacob, Gen.\nxxviii. 18) with oil every day.  The Phocians worshipped thirty squared\nstones, each named after a god (vii. xxii.).  '_Among all the Greeks rude\nstones were worshipped before the images of the gods_.'  Among the\nTroezenians a sacred stone lay in front of the temple, whereon the\nTroezenian elders sat, and purified Orestes from the murder of his\nmother.  In Attica there was a conical stone worshipped as Apollo (i.\nxliv.).  Near Argos was a stone called Zeus Cappotas, on which Orestes\nwas said to have sat down, and so recovered peace of mind.  Such are\nexamples of the sacred stones, the oldest worshipful objects, of Greece.\n\n{226}  See essays on 'Apollo and the Mouse' and 'The Early History of the\nFamily.'\n\n{230}  Here I may mention a case illustrating the motives of the fetich-\nworshipper.  My friend, Mr. J. J. Atkinson, who has for many years\nstudied the manners of the people of New Caledonia, asked a native _why_\nhe treasured a certain fetich-stone.  The man replied that, in one of the\nvigils which are practised beside the corpses of deceased friends, he saw\na lizard.  The lizard is a totem, a worshipful animal in New Caledonia.\nThe native put out his hand to touch it, when it disappeared and left a\nstone in its place.  This stone he therefore held sacred in the highest\ndegree.  Here then a fetich-stone was indicated as such by a spirit in\nform of a lizard.\n\n{233a}  Much the same theory is propounded in Mr. Muller's lectures on\n'The Science of Religion.'\n\n{233b}  The idea is expressed in a well known parody of Wordsworth, about\nthe tree which\n\n   'Will grow ten times as tall as me\n   And live ten times as long.'\n\n{236}  See Essay on 'The Early History of the Family.'\n\n{241}  Bergaigne's La Religion Vedique may be consulted for Vedic\nFetichism.\n\n{247a}  Early Law and Custom.\n\n{247b}  Studies in Ancient History, p. 127.\n\n{248}  Descent of Man, ii. 362.\n\n{249}  Early Law and Custom, p. 210.\n\n{250a}  Here I would like to point out that Mr. M'Lennan's theory was not\nso hard and fast as his manner (that of a very assured believer in his\nown ideas) may lead some inquirers to suppose.  Sir Henry Maine writes,\nthat both Mr. Morgan and Mr. M'Lennan 'seem to me to think that human\nsociety went everywhere through the same series of changes, and Mr.\nM'Lennan, at any rate, expresses himself as if all those stages could be\nclearly discriminated from one another, and the close of one and the\ncommencement of another announced with the distinctness of the clock-bell\ntelling the end of the hour.'  On the other hand, I remember Mr.\nM'Lennan's saying that, in his opinion, 'all manner of arrangements\nprobably went on simultaneously in different places.'  In Studies in\nAncient History, p. 127, he expressly guards against the tendency 'to\nassume that the progress of the various races of men from savagery has\nbeen a uniform progress: that all the stages which any of them has gone\nthrough have been passed in their order by all.'  Still more to the point\nis his remark on polyandry among the very early Greeks and other Aryans;\n'it is quite consistent with my view that in all these quarters (Persia,\nSparta, Troy, Lycia, Attica, Crete, &c.) monandry, and even the patria\npotestas, may have prevailed at points.'\n\n{250b}  Early Law and Custom, p. 212.\n\n{251}  Studies in Ancient History, pp. 140-147.\n\n{252}  Totem is the word generally given by travellers and interpreters\nfor the family crests of the Red Indians.  Cf. p. 105.\n\n{256}  Domestic Manners of the Chinese, i. 99.\n\n{258}  Fortnightly Review, June 1, 1877.\n\n{259}  Kamilaroi and Kurnai.  Natives call these objects their kin, 'of\none flesh' with them.\n\n{260}  Studies, p. 11.\n\n{265a}  O'Curry, Manners of Ancient Irish, l. ccclxx., quoting Trin.\nColl. Dublin MS.\n\n{265b}  See also Elton's Origins of English History, pp. 299-301.\n\n{265c}  Kemble's Saxons in England, p. 258.  Politics of Aristotle,\nBolland and Lang, p. 99. {265d}\n\n{265d}  Mr. Grant Allen kindly supplied me some time ago with a list of\nanimal and vegetable names preserved in the titles of ancient English\nvillage settlements.  Among them are: ash, birch, bear (as among the\nIroquois), oak, buck, fir, fern, sun, wolf, thorn, goat, horse, salmon\n(the trout is a totem in America), swan (familiar in Australia), and\nothers.\n\n{267}  'Gentiles sunt qui inter se eodem nomine sunt.  Qui ab ingeniis\noriundi sunt.  Quorum majorum nemo servitutem servivit.  Qui capite non\nsunt deminuti.'\n\n{268}  Studies in Ancient History, p. 212.\n\n{270}  Fortnightly Review, October 1869: 'Archaeologia Americana,' ii.\n113.\n\n{273a}  Suidas, 3102.\n\n{273b}  Herod., i. 173.\n\n{273c}  Cf. Bachofen, p. 309.\n\n{273d}  Compare the Irish Nennius, p. 127.\n\n{276}  The illustrations in this article are for the most part copied, by\npermission of Messrs. Cassell & Co., from the Magazine of Art, in which\nthe essay appeared.\n\n{286}  Part of the pattern (Fig. 5, b) recurs on the New Zealand Bull-\nroarer, engraved in the essay on the Bull-roarer.\n\n[Bull-roarer: 35.jpg]\n\n{289}  See Schliemann's Troja, wherein is much learning and fancy about\nthe Aryan Svastika.","title":"Custom and Myth","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":80234}