{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_36794/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_36794","id":"gutenberg_36794","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36794","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Archaeology & Anthropology","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Myth","Mythology","Religion","Rites and ceremonies"],"text":"</pre>\n\n\n\nProduced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMYTH, RITUAL AND RELIGION\n\nVolume II.\n\nBy Andrew Lang\n\nLongmans, Green, And Co.\n\n39 Paternoster Row, London\n\nNew York And Bombay\n\n1901\n\nFirst printed, August, 1887\n\nMYTH, RITUAL AND RELIGION\n\nCHAPTER XII. GODS OF THE LOWEST RACES.\n\n     Savage religion mysterious--Why this is so--Australians in\n     1688--Sir John Lubbock--Roskoff--Evidence of religion--Mr.\n     Manning--Mr. Howitt--Supreme beings--Mr. Tylor's theory of\n     borrowing--Reply--Morality sanctioned--Its nature--Satirical\n     rite--\"Our Father\"--Mr. Ridley on a creator--Mr. Langloh\n     Parker--Dr. Roth--Conclusion--Australians' religious.\n\nThe Science of Anthropology can speak, with some confidence, on\nmany questions of Mythology. Materials are abundant and practically\nundisputed, because, as to their myths, savage races have spoken out\nwith freedom. Myth represents, now the early scientific, now the early\nimaginative and humorous faculty, playing freely round all objects of\nthought: even round the Superhuman beings of belief. But, as to\nhis Religion, the savage by no means speaks out so freely. Religion\nrepresents his serious mood of trust, dependence or apprehension.\n\nIn certain cases the ideas about superhuman Makers and judges are veiled\nin mysteries, rude sketches of the mysteries of Greece, to which the\nwhite man is but seldom admitted. In other cases the highest religious\nconceptions of the people are in a state of obsolescence, are\nsubordinated to the cult of accessible minor deities, and are rarely\nmentioned. While sacrifice or service again is done to the lower objects\nof faith (ghosts or gods developed out of ghosts) the Supreme Being, in\na surprising number of instances, is wholly unpropitiated. Having all\nthings, he needs nothing (at all events gets nothing) at men's hands\nexcept obedience to his laws; being good, he is not feared; or being\nobsolescent (superseded, as it seems, by deities who can be bribed) he\nhas shrunk to the shadow of a name. Of the gods too good and great to\nneed anything, the Ahone of the Red Men in Virginia, or the Dendid of\nthe African Dinkas, is an example. Of the obsolescent god, now but a\nname, the Atahocan of the Hurons was, while the \"Lord in heaven\" of the\nZulus is, an instance. Among the relatively supreme beings revealed only\nin the mysteries, the gods of many Australian tribes are deserving of\nobservation.\n\nFor all these reasons, mystery, absence of sacrifice or idol, and\nobsolescence, the Religion of savages is a subject much more obscure\nthan their mythology. The truth is that anthropological inquiry is not\nyet in a position to be dogmatic; has not yet knowledge sufficient for a\ntheory of the Origins of Religion, and the evolution of belief from its\nlowest stages and earliest germs. Nevertheless such a theory has been\nframed, and has been already stated.\n\nWe formulated the objections to this current hypothesis, and observed\nthat its defenders must take refuge in denying the evidence as to low\nsavage religions, or, if the facts be accepted, must account for them\nby a theory of degradation, or by a theory of borrowing from Christian\nsources. That the Australians are not degenerate we demonstrated, and we\nmust now give reasons for holding that their religious conceptions are\nnot borrowed from Europeans.\n\nThe Australians, when observed by Dampier on the North-west Coast in\n1688, seemed \"the miserablest people in the world,\" without houses,\nagriculture, metals, or domesticated animals.* In this condition they\nstill remain, when not under European influence. Dampier, we saw, noted\npeculiarities: \"Be it little or much they get, every one has his part,\nas well the young and tender as the old and feeble, who are not able to\ngo abroad, as the strong and lusty\". This kind of justice or generosity,\nor unselfishness, is still inculcated in the religious mysteries of\nsome of the race. Generosity is certainly one of the native's leading\nfeatures. He is always accustomed to give a share of his food, or of\nwhat he may possess, to his fellows. It may be, of course, objected to\nthis that in doing so he is only following an old-established custom,\nthe breaking of which would expose him to harsh treatment and to being\nlooked on as a churlish fellow. It will, however, be hardly denied that,\nas this custom expresses the idea that, in this particular matter, every\none is supposed to act in a kindly way towards certain individuals: the\nvery existence of such a custom, even if it be only carried out in the\nhope of securing at some time a _quid pro quo_, shows that the native is\nalive to the fact that an action which benefits some one else is worthy\nto be performed....\n\n     * Early Voyages to Australia, pp. 102-111.    Hakluyt\n     Society.\n\n\nIt is with the native a fixed habit to give away part of what he has.\"*\nThe authors of this statement do not say that the duty is inculcated, in\nCentral Australia, under religious sanction, in the tribal mysteries.\nThis, however, is the case among the Kurnai, and some tribes of Victoria\nand New South Wales.** Since Dampier found the duty practised as early\nas 1688, it will scarcely be argued that the natives adopted this course\nof what should be Christian conduct from their observations of Christian\ncolonists.\n\nThe second point which impressed Dampier was that men and women, old and\nyoung, all lacked the two front upper teeth. Among many tribes of the\nnatives of New South Wales and Victoria, the boys still have their front\nteeth knocked out, when initiated, but the custom does not prevail (in\nritual) where circumcision and another very painful rite are practised,\nas in Central Australia and Central Queensland.\n\nDampier's evidence shows how little the natives have changed in two\nhundred years. Yet evidence of progress may be detected, perhaps, as we\nhave already shown. But one fact, perhaps of an opposite bearing, must\nbe noted. A singular painting, in a cave, of a person clothed in a robe\nof red, reaching to the feet, with sleeves, and with a kind of halo (or\nset of bandages) round the head, remains a mystery, like similar figures\nwith blue halos or bandages, clothed and girdled. None of the figures\nhad mouths; otherwise, in Sir George Grey's sketches, they have a\nremote air of Cimabue's work.*** These designs were by men familiar\nwith clothing, whether their own, or that of strangers observed by them,\nthough in one case an unclothed figure carries a kangaroo. At present\nthe natives draw with much spirit, when provided with European\nmaterials, as may be seen in Mrs. Langloh Parker's two volumes of\n_Australian Legendary Tales_. Their decorative patterns vary in\ncharacter in different parts of the continent, but nowhere do they now\nexecute works like those in the caves discovered by Sir George Grey. The\nreader must decide for himself how far these monuments alone warrant\nan inference of great degeneration in Australia, or are connected with\nreligion.\n\n     * Spencer and Gillen, Natives of Central Australia, p. 48.\n\n     ** Howitt, Journal Anthrop. Inst., 1885, p. 310.\n\n     *** Grey's Journals of Expeditions  of Discovery in North-\n     West and Western Australia, in the years 1837-39, vol i.,\n     pp. 200-263. Sir George regarded the pictures as perhaps\n     very ancient. The natives \"chaffed\" him when he asked for\n     traditions on the subject.\n\nSuch are the Australians, men without kings or chiefs, and what do we\nknow of their beliefs?\n\nThe most contradictory statements about their religion may be found\nin works of science Mr. Huxley declared that \"their theology is a mere\nbelief in the existence, powers and dispositions (usually malignant) of\nghost-like entities who may be propitiated or scared away; but no cult\ncan be properly said to exist. And in this stage theology is wholly\nindependent of ethics.\" This, he adds, is \"theology in its simplest\ncondition\".\n\nIn a similar sense, Sir John Lubbock writes: \"The Australians have no\nidea of creation, nor do they use prayers; they have no religious forms,\nceremonies or worship. They do not believe in the existence of a Deity,\nnor is morality in any way connected with their religion, if it can be\nso called.\"*\n\n     * Lubbock, Origin of Civilisation, p. 158,1870. In 1889, for\n     \"a deity\" \"a true Deity\".\n\nThis remark must be compared with another in the same work (1882, p.\n210). \"Mr. Ridley, indeed,... states that they have a traditional belief\nin one supreme Creator, called Baiamai, but he admits that most of the\nwitnesses who were examined before the Select Committee appointed by\nthe Legislative Council of Victoria in 1858 to report on the Aborigines,\ngave it as their opinion that the natives had no religious ideas. It\nappears, moreover, from a subsequent remark, that Baiamai only possessed\n'traces' of the three attributes of the God of the Bible, Eternity,\nOmnipotence and Goodness\".*\n\n     * Cf. J. A. I., 1872, 257-271.\n\nMr. Ridley, an accomplished linguist who had lived with wild blacks in\n1854-58, in fact, said long ago, that the Australian _Bora_, or Mystery,\n\"involves the idea of dedication to God \". He asked old Billy Murri\nBundur whether men _worshipped_ Baiame at the Bora? \"Of course they do,\"\nsaid Billy. Mr. Ridley, to whose evidence we shall return, was not the\nonly affirmative witness. Archdeacon Gunther had no doubt that Baiame\nwas equivalent to the Supreme Being, \"a remnant of original traditions,\"\nand it was Mr. Guenther, not Mr. Ridley, who spoke of \"traces\" of\nBaiame's eternity, omnipotence and goodness. Mr. Ridley gave similar\nreports from evidence collected by the committee of 1858. He found the\nhigher creeds most prominent in the interior, hundreds of miles from the\ncoast.\n\nApparently the reply of Gustav Roskoff to Sir John Lubbock (1880) did\nnot alter that writer's opinion. Roskoff pointed out that Waitz-Gerland,\nwhile denying that Australian beliefs were derived from any higher\nculture, denounced the theory that they have no religion as \"entirely\nfalse\". \"Belief in a Good Being is found in South Australia, New South\nWales, and the centre of the south-eastern continent.\"* The opinion of\nWaitz is highly esteemed, and that not merely because, as Mr. Max Mueller\nhas pointed out, he has edited Greek classical works. _Avec du Grec\non nepeut gater rien_. Mr. Oldfield, in addition to bogles and a\nwater-spirit, found Biam (Baiame) and Namba-jundi, who admits souls into\nhis Paradise, while Warnyura torments the bad under earth.** Mr. Eyre,\npublishing in 1845, gives Baiame (on the Morrum-bidgee, Biam; on the\nMurray, Biam-Vaitch-y) as a source of songs sung at dances, and a cause\nof disease. He is deformed, sits cross-legged, or paddles a canoe. On\nthe Murray he found a creator, Noorele, \"all powerful, and of benevolent\ncharacter,\" with three unborn sons, dwelling \"up among the clouds\".\nSouls of dead natives join them in the skies. Nevertheless \"the\nnatives, as far as yet can be ascertained, have no religious belief\nor ceremonies\"; and, though Noorele is credited with \"the origin of\ncreation,\" \"he made the earth, trees, water, etc.,\" a deity, or Great\nFirst Cause, \"can hardly be said to be acknowledged\".***\n\n     * Waitz-Gerland, Anthropologic, vi. 794 et seq.\n\n     ** Oldfield, Translations of Ethnol. Soc., iii. 208.   On\n     this evidence I lay no stress.\n\n     *** Eyre, Journals, ii. pp. 355-358.\n\nSuch are the consistent statements of Mr. Eyre! Roskoff also cites Mr.\nRidley, Braim, Cunningham, Dawson, and other witnesses, as opposed to\nSir John Lubbock, and he includes Mr. Tylor.* Mr. Tylor, later, found\nBaiame, or Pei-a-mei, no earlier in literature than about 1840, in Mr.\nHale's _United States Exploring Expedition?_ Previous to that date,\nBaiame, it seems, was unknown to Mr. Threlkeld, whose early works are of\n1831-1857. He only speaks of Koin, a kind of goblin, and for lack of a\nnative name for God, Mr. Threlkeld tried to introduce Jehova-ka-birue,\nand Eloi, but failed. Mr. Tylor, therefore, appears to suppose that the\nname, Baiame, and, at all events, his divine qualities, were introduced\nby missionaries, apparently between 1831 and 1840.*** To this it must\nbe replied that Mr. Hale, about 1840, writes that \"when the missionaries\nfirst came to Wellington\" (Mr. Threlkeld's own district) \"Baiame was\nworshipped there with songs\". \"These songs or hymns, _according to\nMr. Threlkeld_, were passed on from a considerable distance. It is\nnotorious that songs and dances are thus passed on, till they reach\ntribes who do not even know the meaning of the words.\"****\n\n     * Roskoff, Das Religionstoesen der Rohesten Naturvolher, pp.\n     37-41.\n\n     ** Ethnology and Philology, p. 110.    1846.\n\n     *** Tylor, The Limits of Savage Religion, J. A. I., vol.\n     xxi.    1892.\n\n     **** Roth, Natives of N.-W. Central Queensland, p. 117.\n\nIn this way Baiame songs had reached Wellington before the arrival of\nthe missionaries, and for this fact Mr. Threlkeld (who is supposed not\nto have known Baiame) is Mr. Hale's authority. In Mr. Tylor's opinion\n(as I understand it) the word Baiame was the missionary translation of\nour word \"Creator,\" and derived from _Baia_ \"to make\". Now, Mr. Ridley\nsays that Mr. Greenway \"discovered\" this _baia_ to be the root of\nBaiame. But what missionary introduced the word before 1840? Not Mr.\nThrelkeld, for he (according to Mr. Tylor), did not know the word, and\nhe tried Eloi, and Jehova-ka-biruL, while Immanueli was also tried\nand also failed* Baiame, known in 1840, does not occur in a missionary\nprimer before Mr. Ridley's _Gurre Kamilaroi_ (1856), so the missionary\nprimer did not launch Baiame before the missionaries came to Wellington.\nAccording to Mr. Hale, the Baiame songs were brought by blacks from\na distance (we know how Greek mysteries were also _colportes_ to new\ncentres), and the yearly rite had, in 1840, been for three years in\nabeyance. Moreover, the etymology, _Baia_ \"to make\" has a competitor\nin \"Byamee = Big Man\".** Thus Baiame, as a divine being, preceded the\nmissionaries, and is not a word of missionary manufacture, while sacred\nwords really of missionary manufacture do not find their way into native\ntradition. Mr. Hale admits that the ideas about Baiame may \"possibly\" be\nof European origin, though the great reluctance of the blacks to adopt\nany opinion from Europeans makes against that theory.***\n\n     *  Ridley, speaking of 1855.    Lang's Queensland, p. 435.\n\n     ** Mrs. Langloh Parker, More Australian Legendary Tales.\n     1898. Glossary.\n\n     *** Op. cit., p. 110.\n\nIt may be said that, if Baiame was premissionary, his higher attributes\ndate after Mr. Ridley's labours, abandoned for lack of encouragement\nin 1858. In 1840, Mr. Hale found Baiame located in an isle of the\nseas, like Circe, living on fish which came to his call. Some native\ntheologians attributed Creation to his Son, Burambin, the Demiurge, a\ncommon savage form of Gnosticism.\n\nOn the nature of Baiame, we have, however, some curious early evidence\nof 1844-45. Mr. James Manning, in these years, and earlier, lived \"near\nthe outside boundaries of settlers to the south\". A conversation with\nGoethe, when the poet was eighty-five, induced him to study the native\nbeliefs. \"No missionaries,\" he writes, \"ever came to the southern\ndistrict at any time, and it was not till many years later that they\nlanded in Sydney on their way to Moreton Bay, to attempt, in vain,\nto Christianise the blacks of that locality, before the Queensland\nseparation from this colony took place.\" Mr. Manning lost his notes\nof 1845, but recovered a copy from a set lent to Lord Audley, and read\nthem, in November, 1882, to the Royal Society of New South Wales.\nThe notes are of an extraordinary character, and Mr. Manning, perhaps\nunconsciously, exaggerated their Christian analogies, by adopting\nChristian terminology. Dean Cowper, however, corroborated Mr. Manning's\ngeneral opinion, by referring to evidence of Archdeacon Gunther, who\nsent a grammar, with remarks on \"Bhaime, or Bhaiame,\" from Wellington to\nMr. Max Mueller. \"He received his information, he told me, from some of\nthe oldest blacks, who, he was satisfied, could not have derived their\nideas from white men, as they had not then had intercourse with them.\"\nOld savages are not apt to be in a hurry to borrow European notions. Mr.\nManning also averred that he obtained his information with the greatest\ndifficulty. \"They required such secrecy on my part, and seemed so afraid\nof being heard even in the most secret places, that, in one or two\ncases, I have seen them almost tremble in speaking.\" One native, after\ncarefully examining doors and windows, \"stood in a wooden fireplace, and\nspoke in a tone little above a whisper, and confirmed what I had before\nheard\". Another stipulated that silence must be observed, otherwise\nthe European hands might question his wife, in which case he would be\nobliged to kill her. Mr. Howitt also found that the name of Darumulun\n(in religion) is too sacred to be spoken except almost in whispers,\nwhile the total exclusion of women from mysteries and religious\nknowledge, on pain of death, is admitted to be universal among the\ntribes.* Such secrecy, so widely diffused, is hardly compatible with\nhumorous imposture by the natives.\n\nThere is an element of humour in all things. Mr. Manning, in 1882,\nappealed to his friend, Mr. Mann, to give testimony to the excellency\nof Black Andy, the native from whom he derived most of his notes, which\nwere corroborated by other black witnesses. Mr. Mann arose and replied\nthat \"he had never met one aborigine who had any true belief in a\nSupreme Being\". On cross-examination, they always said that they had got\ntheir information from a missionary or other resident. Black Andy was\nnot alluded to by Mr. Mann, who regarded all these native religious\nideas as filtrations from European sources. Mr. Palmer, on the other\nhand, corroborated Mr. Manning, who repeated the expression of his\nconvictions.** Such, then, is the perplexed condition of the evidence.\n\n     * Howitt,.7. A. I., xiii. 193.\n\n     ** Mr. Mann told a story of native magic, viewed by himself,\n     which might rouse scepticism among persons not familiar with\n     what these conjurers can do.\n\nIt may be urged that the secrecy and timidity of Mr. Manning's\ninformants, corresponding with Mr. Howitt's experience, makes for\nthe affirmative side; that, in 1845, when Mr. Manning made his notes,\nmissionaries were scarce, and that a native \"cross-examined\" by the\nsceptical and jovial Mr. Mann, would probably not contradict. (Lubbock,\nO. of C. p. 4.) Confidence is only won by sympathy, and one inquirer\nwill get authentic legends and folklore from a Celt, while another of\nthe ordinary English type will totally fail On this point Mr. Manning\nsays: \"Sceptics should consider how easy it might be for intelligent\nmen to pass almost a lifetime among the blacks in any quarter of this\ncontinent without securing the confidence even of the best of the\nnatives around them, through whom they might possibly become acquainted\nwith their religious secrets, secrets which they dare not reveal to\ntheir own women at all, nor to their adult youths until the latter have\nbeen sworn to reticence under that terrifying ceremony which my notes\ndescribe\". In the same way Mrs. Langloh Parker found that an European\nneighbour would ask, \"but have the blacks any legends?\" and we have\ncited Mr. Hartt on the difficulty of securing legends on the Amazon,\nwhile Mr. Sproat had to live long among, and become very intimate with,\nthe tribes of British Columbia, before he could get any information\nabout their beliefs. Thus, the present writer is disinclined to believe\nthat the intelligence offered to Mr. Manning with shy secrecy in 1845\nwas wholly a native copy of recently acquired hints on religion derived\nfrom Europeans, especially as Mr. Howitt, who had lived long among\nthe Kurnai, and had written copiously on them, knew nothing of their\nreligion, before, about 1882, he was initiated and admitted to the\nknowledge like that of Mr. Manning in 1845 The theory of borrowing is\nalso checked by the closely analogous savage beliefs reported from North\nAmerica before a single missionary had arrived, and from Africa. For the\nAustralian, African and American ideas have a common point of contact,\nnot easily to be explained as deduced from Christianity. According,\nthen, to Mr. Manning, the natives believed in a being called Boyma,\nwho dwells in heaven, \"immovably fixed in a crystal rock, with only the\nupper half of a supernatural body visible\". Now, about 1880, a native\ndescribed Baiame to Mr. Howitt as \"a very great old man with a beard,\"\nand with crystal pillars growing out of his shoulders which prop up a\nsupernal sky. This vision of Baiame was seen by the native, apparently\nas a result of the world-wide practice of crystal-gazing.* Mr. Tylor\nsuspects \"the old man with the beard\" as derived from Christian artistic\nrepresentations, but old men are notoriously the most venerated objects\namong the aborigines. Turning now to Mrs. Langloh Parker's _More\nAustralian Legendary Tales_ (p. 90), we find Byamee \"fixed to the\ncrystal rock on which he sat in Bullimah\" (Paradise). Are we to suppose\nthat some savage caught at Christian teaching, added this feature of the\ncrystal rock from \"the glassy sea\" of the Apocalpyse, or from the\ngreat white throne, and succeeded in securing wide acceptance and long\npersistence for a notion borrowed from Europeans? Is it likely that the\nchief opponents of Christianity everywhere, the Wirreenuns or sorcerers,\nwould catch at the idea, introduce it into the conservative ritual of\nthe Mysteries, and conceal it from women and children who are as open as\nadults to missionary influence? Yet from native women and children the\nbelief is certainly concealed.\n\n     * J. A. I., xvi. p. 49, 60.\n\nMr. Manning, who prejudices his own case by speaking of Boyma as \"the\nAlmighty,\" next introduces us to a \"Son of God\" equal to the father as\ntouching his omniscience, and otherwise but slightly inferior. Mr.\nEyre had already reported on the unborn sons of Noorele, \"there is\nno mother\". The son of Boyma's name is Grogoragally. He watches over\nconduct, and takes the good to Ballima (Bullimah in Mrs. Langloh\nParker), the bad to Oorooma, the place of fire (gumby). Mr. Eyre had\nattested similar ideas of future life of the souls with Noorele. (Eyre,\nii. 357.) In Mrs. Langloh Parker's book a Messenger is called \"the\nAll-seeing Spirit,\" apparently identical with her Wallahgooroonbooan,\nwhose voice is heard in the noise of the _tundun_, or bull-roarer, used\nin the Mysteries.*\n\n     * More Legendary Tales, p. 86.\n\nGrogoragally is unborn of any mother. He is represented by Mr. Manning\nas a mediator between Boyma and the race of men. Here our belief is\napt to break down, and most people will think that Black Andy was a\nwell-instructed Christian catechumen. This occurred to Mr. Manning, who\nput it plainly to Andy. He replied that the existence of names in the\nnative language for the sacred persons and places proved that they were\nnot of European origin. \"White fellow no call budgery place (paradise)\n'Ballima,' or other place 'Oorooma,' nor God 'Boyma,' nor Son\n'Grogoragally,' only we black fellow think and call them that way in\nour own language, before white fellow came into the country.\" A son or\ndeputy of the chief divine being is, in fact, found among the Kurnai and\nin other tribes. He directs the mysteries. Here, then, Andy is backed by\nMr. Howitt's aboriginal friends. Their deity sanctioned morality \"before\nthe white men came to Melbourne\" (1835) and was called \"Our Father\" at\nthe same date.* Several old men insisted on this, as a matter of their\nown knowledge. They were initiated before the arrival of Europeans.\nArchdeacon Gunther received the same statements from old aborigines,\nand Mr. Palmer, speaking of other notions of tribes of the North, is\nperfectly satisfied that none of their ideas were derived from the\nwhites.** In any case, Black Andy's intelligence and logic are far\nbeyond what most persons attribute to his race. If we disbelieve him, it\nmust be on the score, I think, that he consciously added European ideas\nto names of native origin. On the other hand, analogous ideas, not made\nso startling as in Mr. Manning's Christian terminology, are found in\nmany parts of Australia.\n\n     * J. A., xiii. p. 192, 193,\n\n     ** Op. cit., p. 290.\n\nMr. Manning next cites Moodgeegally, the first man, immortal, a Culture\nHero, and a messenger of Boyma's. There are a kind of rather mediaeval\nfiends, Waramolong, who punish the wicked (murderers, liars and breakers\nof marriage laws) in Gumby. Women do not go to Ballima, Boyma being\ncelibate, and women know nothing of all these mysteries; certainly this\nsecrecy is not an idea of Christian origin. If women get at the secret,\nthe whole race must be exterminated, men going mad and slaying each\nother. This notion we shall see is corroborated. But if missionaries\ntaught the ideas, women must know all about them already. Mr. Manning's\ninformation was confirmed by a black from 300 miles away, who called\nGrogoragally by the name of Boymagela. There are no prayers, except\nfor the dead at burial: corroborated by Mrs. Langloh Parker's beautiful\nLegend of Eerin. \"Byamee,\" the mourners cry, \"let in the spirit of Eerin\nto Bullimah. Save him from Eleanbah wundah, abode of the wicked. For\nEerin was faithful on earth, faithful to the laws you left us!\"* The\ncreed is taught to boys when initiated, with a hymn which Mr. Manning's\ninformant dared not to reveal. He said angrily that Mr. Manning already\nknew more than any other white man. Now, to invent a hymn could not have\nbeen beyond the powers of this remarkable savage, Black Andy. The \"Sons\"\nof Baiame answer, we have seen, to those ascribed to Noorele, in Mr.\nEyre's book. They also correspond to Daramulun where he is regarded as\nthe son of Baiame, while the Culture Hero, Moodgeegally, founder of the\nMysteries, answers to Tundun, among the Kurnai.** We have, too, in\nAustralia, Dawed, a subordinate where Mangarrah is the Maker in the\nLarrakeah tribe.***\n\n     * More Australian Tales, p. 96.\n\n     ** Howitt, J. A. /., 1885, p. 313.\n\n     *** J. A. I., Nov., 1894, p. 191.\n\nIn some cases, responsibility for evil, pain, and punishment, are\nshifted from the good Maker on to the shoulders of his subordinate.\nThis is the case, in early Virginia, with Okeus, the subordinate of\nthe Creator, the good Ahone.* We have also, in West Africa, the\nunpropitiated Nyankupon, with his active subordinate, who has human\nsacrifices, Bobowissi;** and Mulungu, in Central Africa, \"possesses many\npowerful servants, but is himself kept a good deal behind the scenes of\nearthly affairs, like the gods of Epicurus\".*** The analogy, as to the\nSon, interpreter of the divine will, in Apollo and Zeus (certainly not\nof Christian origin!) is worth observing. In the Andaman Islands, Mr.\nMann, after long and minute inquiry from the previously un-contaminated\nnatives, reports on an only son of Puluga, \"a sort of archangel,\" who\nalone is permitted to live with his father, whose orders it is his duty\nto make known to the _moro-win_, his sisters, ministers of Puluga, the\nangels, that is, inferior ministers of Puluga's will.****\n\n     * William Strachey, Hakluyt Society, chapter vii., date,\n     1612.\n\n     ** Ellis, Religion of the Tshi-speaking Races.\n\n     *** Macdonald, Africana, vol. i. p. 67.\n\n     ****J. A. I., xii. p. 158.\n\nIt is for science to determine how far this startling idea of the Son\nis a natural result of a desire to preserve the remote and somewhat\ninaccessible and otiose dignity of the Supreme Being from the exertion\nof activity; and how far it is a savage refraction of missionary\nteaching, even where it seems to be anterior to missionary influences,\nwhich, with these races, have been almost a complete failure. The\nsubject abounds in difficulty, but the sceptic must account for\nthe marvellously rapid acceptance of the European ideas by the most\nconservative savage class, the doctors or sorcerers; for the admission\nof the ideas into the most conservative of savage institutions, the\nMysteries; for the extreme reticence about the ideas in presence of the\nvery Europeans from whom they are said to have been derived; and in\nsome cases for the concealment of the ideas from the women, who, one\npresumes, are as open as the men to missionary teaching. It is very\neasy to talk of \"borrowing,\" not so easy to explain these points on the\nborrowing theory, above all, when evidence is frequent that the ideas\npreceded the arrival of Christian teachers.\n\nOn this crucial point, the question of borrowing, I may cite Mr. Mann as\nto the Andamanese beliefs. Mr. Mann was for eleven years in the islands,\nand for four years superintended our efforts to \"reclaim\" some natives.\nHe is well acquainted with the South Andaman dialect, and has made\nstudies of the other forms of the language. This excellent witness\nwrites: \"It is extremely improbable that their legends were the result\nof the teaching of missionaries or others\". They have no tradition of\nany foreign arrivals, and their reputation (undeserved) as cannibals,\nwith their ferocity to invaders, \"precludes the belief\" that any one\never settled there to convert or instruct them. \"Moreover, to regard\nwith suspicion, as some have done, the genuineness of such legends\nargues ignorance of the fact that numerous other tribes, in equally\nremote or isolated localities, have, when first discovered, been found\nto possess similar traditions on the subject under consideration,\"\nFurther, \"I have taken special care not only to obtain my information\non each point from those who are considered by their fellow tribesmen\nas authorities, but [also from those] who, from having had little or no\nintercourse with other races, were in entire ignorance regarding any\nsave their own legends,\" which, \"they all agree in stating, were\nhanded down to them by their first parent, To-mo, and his immediate\ndescendants\".* What Mr. Mann says concerning the unborrowed character\nof Andaman beliefs applies, of course, to the yet more remote and\ninaccessible natives of Australia.\n\nIn what has been, and in what remains to be said, it must be remembered\nthat the higher religious ideas attributed to the Australians are not\ntheir only ideas in this matter. Examples of their wild myths have\nalready been offered, they are totemists, too, and fear, though they do\nnot propitiate, ghosts. Vague spirits unattached are also held in dread,\nand inspire sorcerers and poets,** as also does the god Bunjil.***\n\n     * J. A. I., xii. pp. 156, 157.\n\n     ** Ibid.y xvi., pp. 330, 331. On Bunjil.\n\n     *** In Folk-Lore, December, 1898, will be found an essay,\n     Mr. Hartland, on my account of Australian gods. Instancing\n     many wild or comic myths (some of them unknown to me when I\n     wrote 'The Making of Religion'), Mr. Hartland seems to argue\n     that these destroy the sacredness of other coexisting native\n     beliefs of a higher kind. But, on this theory, what religion\n     is sacred?   All have contradictory myths.    See\n     Introduction.\n\nTurning from early accounts of Australian religion, say from 1835 to\n1845, we look at the more recent reports. The best evidence is that\nof Mr. Howitt, who, with Mr. Fison, laid the foundations of serious\nAustralian anthropology in _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_ (1881). In 1881,\nMr. Howitt, though long and intimately familiar with the tribes of\nGippsland, the Yarra, the Upper Murray, the Murumbidgee, and other\ndistricts, had found no trace of belief in a moral Supreme\nBeing. He was afterwards, however, initiated, or less formally let into\nthe secret, by two members of Brajerak (wild) black fellows, not of\nthe same tribe as the Kurnai. The rites of these former aborigines are\ncalled Kuringal. Their supreme being is Daramulun \"believed in from the\nsea-coast across to the northern boundary claimed by the Wolgal, about\nYass and Gundagai, and from Omeo to at least as far as the Shoalhaven\nRiver.... He was not, as it seems to me, everywhere thought to be a\nmalevolent being, but he was dreaded as one who could severely punish\nthe trespasses committed against these tribal ordinances and customs,\nwhose first institution is ascribed to him.... It was taught also that\nDaramulun himself watched the youths from the sky, prompt to punish by\nsickness or death the breach of his ordinances.\" These are often mere\ntaboos; an old man said: \"I could not eat Emu's eggs. _He_ would be\nvery angry, and perhaps I should die.\" It will hardly be argued that\nthe savages have recently borrowed from missionaries this conception of\nDaramulun, as the originator and guardian of tribal taboos. Opponents\nmust admit him as of native evolution in that character at least. The\ncreed of Daramulun is not communicated to women and children. \"It is\nsaid that the women among the Ngarego and Wolgal knew only that a great\nbeing lived beyond the sky, and that he was spoken of by them as Papang\n(Father). This seemed to me when I first heard it to bear so suspicious\na resemblance to a belief derived from the white men, that I thought it\nnecessary to make careful and repeated inquiries. My Ngarego and Wolgal\ninformants, two of them old men, strenuously maintained that it was so\nbefore the white men came.\" They themselves only learned the doctrine\nwhen initiated, as boys, by the old men of that distant day. The name\nDaramulun, was almost whispered to Mr. Howitt, and phrases were used\nsuch as \"He,\" \"the man,\" \"the name I told you of\". The same secrecy was\npreserved by a Woi-worung man about Bunjil, or Pund-jel, \"though he\ndid not show so much reluctance when repeating to me the 'folk-lore' in\nwhich the 'Great Spirit' of the Kulin plays a part\". \"He\" was used,\nor gesture signs were employed by this witness, who told how his\ngrandfather had warned him that Bunjil watched his conduct from a star,\n\"he can see you and all you do down here,\"--\"before the white men came\nto Melbourne.\" (1835).*\n\n     * J. A. I.f xiii, 1884, pp. 192, 193.\n\nAre we to believe that this mystic secrecy is kept up, as regards white\nmen, about a Being first heard of from white men? And is it credible\nthat the \"old men,\" the holders of tribal traditions, and the most\nconservative of mortals, would borrow a new divinity from \"the\nwhite devils,\" conceal the doctrine from the women (as accessible to\nmissionary teaching as themselves), adopt the new Being as the founder\nof the antique mysteries, and introduce him into the central rite? And\ncan the natives have done so steadily, ever since about 1840 at least?\nTo believe all this is to illustrate the credulity of scepticism.\n\nMr. Howitt adds facts about tribes \"from Twofold Bay to Sydney, and as\nfar west, at least, as Hay\". Here, too, Daramulun instituted the rites;\nhis voice is heard in the noise of the whirling _mudji_ (bull-roarer).\n\"The muttering of thunder is said to be his voice 'calling to the rain\nto fall, and make the grass grow up green'.\" Such are \"the very words of\nUmbara, the minstrel of the tribe\".*\n\nAt the rites, respect for age, for truth, for unprotected women and\nmarried women, and other details of sexual morality, is inculcated\npartly in obscene dances. A magic ceremony, resembling mesmeric passes,\nand accompanied by the word \"Good\" (_nga_) is meant to make the boys\nacceptable to Daramulun. A temporary image of him is made on raised\nearth (to be destroyed after the rites), his attributes are then\nexplained. \"This is the Master (Biamban) who can go anywhere and do\nanything.\"** An old man is buried, and rises again. \"This ceremony is\nmost impressive.\" \"The opportunity is taken of impressing on the mind\nof youth, in an indelible manner, those rules of conduct which form the\nmoral law of the tribe.\" \"There is clearly a belief in a Great Spirit,\nor rather an anthropomorphic Supernatural Being, the Master of All,\nwhose abode is above, the sky, and to whom are attributed powers\nof omnipotence and omnipresence, or, at any rate, the power to do\nanything and go anywhere.... To his direct ordinance are attributed the\nsocial and moral laws of the community.\" Mr. Howitt ends, \"I venture to\nassert that it can no longer be maintained that [the Australians]\nhave no belief which can be called religious--that is, in the sense of\nbeliefs which govern tribal and individual morality under a supernatural\nsanction\".***\n\n     * J. A. I., 1884, p. 446.\n\n     ** Op. cit., p. 453.\n\n     *** J. A. I., 1884, p. 459.\n\nAmong the rites is one which \"is said to be intended to teach the boys\nto speak the straightforward truth, and the kabos (mystagogues) thus\nexplain it to them \".*\n\nIt is, perhaps, unfortunate that Mr. Howitt does not give a full account\nof what the morality thus sanctioned includes. Respect for age, for\ntruth, for unprotected women, and for nature (as regards avoiding\ncertain unnatural vices) are alone spoken of, in addition to taboos\nwhich have no relation to developed morality. Mr. Palmer, in speaking\nof the morality inculcated in the mysteries of the Northern Australians,\nadds to the elements of ethics mentioned by Mr. Howitt in the south,\nthe lesson \"not to be quarrelsome\". To each lad is given, \"by one of the\nelders, advice so kindly, fatherly and impressive, as often to soften\nthe heart, and draw tears from the youth\".**\n\n     * J. A. 1., xiii. 444.\n\n     ** Ibid., xlii 296.\n\nSo far, the morality religiously sanctioned is such as men are likely\nto evolve, and probably no one will maintain that it must have been\nborrowed from Europeans. It is argued that the morality is only such as\nthe tribes would naturally develop, mainly in the interests of the\nold (the ruling class) and of social order (Hart-land, _op. cit_. pp.\n316-329). What else did any one ever suppose the _mores_ of a people\nto be, _plus_ whatever may be allowed for the effects of kindliness,\nor love, which certainly exists? I never hinted at morals divinely and\nsupernormally revealed. All morality had been denied to the Australians.\nYet in the religious rites they are \"taught to speak the straightforward\ntruth\"! As regards women, there are parts of Australia where disgusting\nlaxity prevails, except in cases prohibited by the extremely complex\nrules of forbidden degrees. Such parts are Central Australia and\nNorth-west Central Queensland.*\n\nAnother point in Mr. Howitt's evidence deserves notice. He at first\nwrote \"The Supreme Being who is believed in by all the tribes I refer to\nhere, either as a benevolent or more frequently as a malevolent being,\nit seems to me represents the defunct headman \". We have seen that Mr.\nHowitt came to regard \"malevolence\" as merely the punitive aspect of the\n\"Supreme Being \". As to the theory that such a being represents a dead\nheadman, no proof is anywhere given that ghosts of headmen are in any\nway propitiated. Even \"corpse-feeding\" was represented to Mr. Dawson\nby intelligent old blacks, as \"white fellows' gammon\".** Mrs. Langloh\nParker writes to me that she, when she began to study the blacks, \"had,\nI must allow, a prejudice in favour of Mr. Herbert Spencer's theory--it\nseemed so rational, but, accepting my savages' evidence, I must discard\nit\". As to \"offerings of food to the dead,\" Mrs. Langloh Parker found\nthat nothing was offered except food \"which happened to be in the\npossession of the corpse,\" at his decease.\n\nFor these reasons it is almost inconceivable that the \"Supreme Being\"\nshould \"represent a dead headman,\" as to dead men of any sort no tribute\nis paid. Mr. Howitt himself appears to have abandoned the hypothesis\nthat Daramulun represents a dead headman, for he speaks of him as the\n\"Great Spirit,\" or rather an \"anthropomorphic Supernatural Being\",***\n\n     * Spencer and Gillen, and Roth.\n\n     ** Dawson, Aborigines of Australia.\n\n     *** J. A. I., 1884, p. 458.\n\nA Great Spirit might, conceivably, be developed out of a little spirit,\neven out of the ghost of a tribesman. But to the conception of a\n\"supernatural anthropomorphic being,\" the idea of \"spirit\" is not\nnecessary. Men might imagine such an entity before they had ever dreamed\nof a ghost.\n\nHaving been initiated into the secrets of one set of tribes, Mr. Howitt\nwas enabled to procure admission to those of another group of \"clans,\"\nthe Kurnai. For twenty-five years the Jeraeil, or mystery, had been\nin abeyance, for they are much in contact with Europeans. The old men,\nhowever, declared that they exactly reproduced (with one confessed\naddition) the ancestral ceremonies. They were glad to do it, for their\nlads \"now paid no attention either to the words of the old men, or to\nthose of the missionaries\".*\n\n     *J. A. I.,1885, p. 304.\n\nThis is just what usually occurs. When we meet a savage tribe we destroy\nthe old bases of its morality and substitute nothing new of our own.\n\"They pay no attention to the words of the missionaries,\" but loaf,\ndrink and gamble like station hands \"knocking down a cheque \".\n\nConsequently a rite unknown before the arrival of Europeans is now\nintroduced at the Jeraeil. Swift would have been delighted by this\nceremony. \"It was thought that the boys, having lived so much among the\nwhites, had become selfish and no longer willing to share that which\nthey obtained by their own exertions, or had given to them, with their\nfriends.\" The boys were, therefore, placed in a row, and the initiator\nor mystagogue stooped over the first boy, and, muttering some words\nwhich I could not catch, he kneaded the lad's stomach with his hands.\nThis he did to each one successively, and by it the Kurnai supposed the\n\"greediness\" (------) \"of the youth would be expelled\".*\n\n     *  Op. cit., pp. 310, 311.\n\nSo far from unselfishness being a doctrine borrowed by the Kurnai from\nChristians, and introduced into their rites, it is (as we saw in\nthe case of the Arunta of Central Australia) part of the traditional\nmorality--\"the good old ancestral virtues,\" says Mr. Howitt--of the\ntribes. A special ceremony is needed before unselfishness can be\ninspired among blacks who have lived much among adherents of the Gospel.\n\nThus \"one satiric touch\" seems to demonstrate that the native ethics are\nnot of missionary origin.\n\nAfter overcoming the scruples of the old men by proving that he really\nwas initiated in the Kuringal, Mr. Howitt was admitted to the central\nrite of the Kurnai \"showing the Grandfather\". The essence of it is that\nthe _mystae_ have their heads shrouded in blankets. These are snatched\noff, the initiator points solemnly to the sky with his throwing\nstick (which propels the spears) and then points to the Tundun, or\nbull-roarer. This object (------) was also used in the Mysteries of\nancient Greece, and is still familiar in the rites of savages in all\nquarters of the world.\n\n\"The ancestral beliefs\" are then solemnly revealed. It seems desirable\nto quote freely the \"condensed\" version of Mr. Howitt. \"Long ago there\nwas a great Being called Mungan-ngaur.\" Here a note adds that Mungan\nmeans \"Father,\" and \"ngaur\" means \"Our\".\n\n\"He has no other name among the Kurnai. In other tribes the Great\nSupreme Being, besides being called 'father,' has a name, for example\nBunjil, Baiame, Daramulun.\" \"This Being lived on the earth, and taught\nthe Kurnai... all the arts they know. He also gave them the names they\nbear. Mungan-gnaur had a son\" (the Sonship doctrine already noticed by\nMr. Manning) \"named Tundun (the bull-roarer), who was married, and who\nis the direct ancestor--the Weintwin or father's father--of the Kurnai.\nMungan-ngaur instituted the Jeraeil (mysteries) which was conducted by\nTundun, who made the instruments\" (a large and a small bull-roarer, as\nalso in Queensland) \"which bear the name of himself and his wife.\n\n\"Some tribal traitor impiously revealed the secrets of the Jeraeil to\nwomen, and thereby brought down the anger of Mungan upon the Kurnai. He\nsent fire which filled the wide space between earth and sky. Men went\nmad, and speared one another, fathers killing their children, husbands\ntheir wives, and brethren each other.\" This corroborates Black Andy.\n\"Then the sea rushed over the land, and nearly all mankind were drowned.\nThose who survived became the ancestors of the Kurnai.... Tundun and his\nwife became porpoises\" (as Apollo in the Homeric hymn became a dolphin),\n\"Mungan left the earth, and ascended to the sky, where he still\nremains.\"*\n\n     * Op. cit., pp. 313, 314.\n\nHere the Son is credited with none of the mediatorial attributes in Mr.\nManning's version, but universal massacre, as a consequence of revealing\nthe esoteric doctrine, is common to both accounts.\n\nMorals are later inculcated.\n\n1. \"To listen to and obey the old men.\n\n2. \"To share everything they have with their friends.\n\n3. \"To live peaceably with their friends.\n\n4. \"Not to interfere with girls or married women.\n\n5. \"To obey the food restrictions until they are released from them by\nthe old men.\" [As at Eleusis.]\n\nThese doctrines, and the whole belief in Mungan-ngaur, \"the Kurnai\ncarefully concealed from me,\" says Mr. Howitt, \"until I learned them\nat the Jeraeil\".* Mr. Howitt now admits, in so many words, that\nMungan-ngaur \"is rather the beneficent father, and the kindly though\nsevere headman of the whole tribe.... than the malevolent wizard\".... He\nconsiders it \"perhaps indicative of great antiquity, that this identical\nbelief forms part of the central mysteries of a tribe so isolated as the\nKurnai, as well as of those of the tribes which had free communication\none with another\".\n\nAs the morals sanctioned by Mungan-ngaur are simply the extant tribal\nmorals (of which unselfishness is a part, as in Central Australia),\nthere seems no reason to attribute them to missionaries--who are quite\nunheeded. This part of the evidence may close with a statement of Mr.\nHowitt's: \"Beyond the vaulted sky lies the mysterious home of that great\nand powerful Being who is Bunjil, Baiame, or Dara-mulun in different\ntribal languages, but who in all is known by a name, the equivalent of\nthe only one used by the Kurnai, which is Mungan-ngaur, Our Father\".**\n\n     * Op. cit. 321, note 3\n\n     ** J. A. I., xvi. 64.\n\nOther affirmative evidence might be adduced. Mr. Ridley, who wrote\nprimers in the Kamilaroi language as early as in 1856 (using Baiame for\nGod), says: \"In every part of Australia where I have conversed with the\naborigines, they have a traditional belief in one Supreme Creator,\"\nand he wonders, as he well may, at the statement to the contrary in the\n_Encyclopedia Britannica_, which rests solely on the authority, of Dr.\nLang, in Queensland. Of names for the Supreme Being, Mr. Ridley gives\nBaiame, Anamba; in Queensland, Mumbal (Thunder) and, at Twofold Bay,\n\"Dhu-rumbulum, which signifies, in the Namoi, a sacred staff, originally\ngiven by Baiame, and is used as the title of Deity\".*\n\nBy \"staff\" Mr. Ridley appears to indicate the Tundun, or bull-roarer.\nThis I venture to infer from Mr. Matthews' account of the Wiradthuri\n(New South Wales) with whom Dhuramoolan is an extinct bugbear, not\nanswering to Tundun among the Kurnai, who is subordinate, as son, to\nMungan-ngaur, and is associated with the mystic bull-roarer, as is\nGayandi, the voice of the Messenger of Baiame, among Mrs. Langloh\nParker's informants.** In one tribe, Dara-mulun used to carry off and\neat the initiated boys, till he was stopped and destroyed by Baiame.\nThis myth can hardly exist, one may suppose, among such tribes as\nconsider Daramulun to preside over the mysteries.\n\n     * J. A. I., ii. (1872), 268, 270.\n\n     ** Ibid., xxv. 298.\n\nLiving in contact with the Baiame-worshipping Kamilaroi, the Wiradthuri\nappear to make a jest of the power of Daramulun, who (we have learned)\nis said to have died, while his \"spirit\" dwells on high.* Mr. Green way\nalso finds Turramulan to be subordinate to Baiame, who \"sees all, and\nknows all, if not directly, through Turramulan, who presides at the\nBora.... Turramulan is mediator in all the operations of Baiame upon\nman, and in all man's transactions with Baiame. Turramulan means \"leg on\none side only,\" \"one-legged\". Here the mediatorial aspect corroborates\nMr. Manning's information.** I would suggest, _periculo meo_, that\nthere may have been some syncretism, a Baiame-worshipping tribe adopting\nDaramulun as a subordinate and mediator; or Baiame may have ousted\nDaramulun, as Zeus did Cronos.\n\nMr. Ridley goes on to observe that about eighteen years ago (that is, in\n1854) he asked intelligent blacks \"if they knew Baiame\". The answer was:\n\"Kamil zaia zummi Baiame, zaia winuzgulda,\" \"I have not seen Baiame,\nI have heard or perceived him\". The same identical answer was given in\n1872 \"by a man to whom I had never before spoken\". \"If asked who made\nthe sky, the earth, the animals and man, they always answer 'Baiame'.\"\nVarieties of opinion as to a future life exist. All go to Baiame, or\nonly the good (the bad dying eternally), or they change into birds!***\n\n     * J. A. I., xii. 194.\n\n     ** Ibid., vii. 242.\n\n     *** Ibid., ii. 269.\n\nTurning to North-west Central Queensland we find Dr. Roth (who knows\nthe language and is partly initiated) giving Mul-ka-ri as \"a benevolent,\nomnipresent, supernatural being. Anything incomprehensible.\" He offers\na sentence: \"Mulkari tikkara ena\" = \"Lord (who dwellest) among the sky\".\nAgain: \"Mulkari is the supernatural power who makes everything which the\nblacks cannot otherwise account for; he is a good, beneficent person,\nand never kills any one\". He initiates medicine men. His home is in the\nskies. He once lived on earth, and there was a culture-hero, inventing\nmagic and spells. That Mulkari is an ancestral ghost as well as a\nbeneficent Maker I deem unlikely, as no honours are paid to the dead.\n\"Not in any way to refer to the dead appears to be an universal\nrule among all these tribes.\"* Mulkari has a malignant opposite or\ncounterpart.\n\nNothing is said by Dr. Roth as to inculcation of these doctrines at the\nMysteries, nor do Messrs. Spencer and Gillen allude to any such being\nin their accounts of Central Australian rites, if we except the\n\"self-existing\" \"out of nothing\" Ungambikula, sky-dwellers.\n\nOne rite \"is supposed to make the men who pass through it more kindly,\"\nwe are not told why.** We have also an allusion to \"the great spirit\nTwangirika,\" whose voice (the women are told) is heard in the noise of\nthe bull-roarer.***\n\n     * Roth, pp. 14, 36, 116, 153,158, 165.\n\n     ** Spencer and Gillen, p. 369.\n\n     *** Ibid., p. 246.\n\n\"The belief is fundamentally the same as that found in all Australian\ntribes,\" write the authors, in a note citing Tundun and Daramulun. But\nthey do not tell us whether the Arunta belief includes the sanction, by\nTwangirika, of morality. If it does not, have the Central Australians\nnever developed the idea, or have they lost it? They have had quite as\nmuch experience of white men (or rather much more) than the believers in\nBaiame or Bunjil, \"before the white men came to Melbourne,\" and, if one\nset of tribes borrowed ideas from whites, why did not the other?\n\nThe evidence here collected is not exhaustive. We might refer to\nPirnmeheal, a good being, whom the blacks loved before they were taught\nby missionaries to fear him.*\n\n     * Dawson, The Australian Aborigines.\n\nMr. Dawson took all conceivable pains to get authentic information,\nand to ascertain whether the belief in Pirnmeheal was pre-European. He\nthinks it was original. The idea of \"god-borrowing\" is repudiated by\nManning, Gunther, Ridley, Green-way, Palmer, Mrs. Langloh Parker\nand others, speaking for trained observers and (in several cases) for\nlinguists, studying the natives on the spot, since 1845. It is thought\nhighly improbable by Mr. Hale (1840). It is rejected by Waitz-Gerland,\nspeaking for studious science in Europe. Mr. Howitt, beginning with\ndistrust, seems now to regard the beliefs described as of native origin.\nOn the other hand we have Mr. Mann, who has been cited, and the great\nauthority of Mr. E. B. Tylor, who, however, has still to reply to the\narguments in favour of the native origin of the beliefs which I have\nventured to offer. Such arguments are the occurrence of Baiame before\nthe arrival of missionaries; the secrecy, as regards Europeans, about\nideas derived (Mr. Tylor thinks) from Europeans; the ignorance of the\nwomen on these heads; the notorious conservatism of the \"doctors\"\nwho promulgate the creed as to ritual and dogma, and the other\nconsiderations which have been fully stated. In the meanwhile I venture\nto think, subject to correction, that, while Black Andy may have\nexaggerated, or Mr. Manning may have coloured his evidence by Christian\nterminology, and while mythical accretions on a religious belief are\nnumerous, yet the lowest known human race has attained a religious\nconception very far above what savages are usually credited with, and\nhas not done so by way of the \"ghost-theory\" of the anthropologists. In\nthis creed sacrifice and ghost-worship are absent.*\n\nIt has seemed worth while to devote space and attention to the\nAustralian beliefs, because the vast continent contains the most\narchaic and backward of existing races. We may not yet have a sufficient\ncollection of facts microscopically criticised, but the evidence here\npresented seems deserving of attention. About the still more archaic\nbut extinct Tasmanians and their religion, evidence is too scanty, too\ncasual, and too conflicting for our purpose.**\n\n     *  These Australian gods are confusing.\n\n     1.  Daramulun is supreme among the Coast Murring. J. A. I.,\n     ziv. 432-459.\n\n     2.  Baiame is supreme, Daramulun is an extinct bugbear,\n     among the Wiradthuri.   J. A. I., xxv. 298.\n\n     3.  Baiame is supreme, Daramulun is \"mediator,\" among the\n     Kamilaroi. J. A. I., vii. 242.\n\n     ** See Ling Roth's _Tasmanians_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII. GODS OF THE LOWEST RACES.\n\n     Bushmen gods--Cagn, the grasshopper?--Hottentot gods--\"Wounded\n     knee,\" a dead sorcerer--Melanesian gods--Qat and the spider\n     --Aht and Maori beasts-gods and men-gods--Samoan form of\n     animal-gods--One god incarnate in many animal shapes--One\n     for each clan--They punish the eating of certain animals.\n\nPassing from Australia to Africa, we find few races less advanced than\nthe Bushmen (_Sa-n_, \"settlers,\" in Nama). Whatever view may be taken of\nthe past history of the Bushmen of South Africa, it is certain that at\npresent they are a race on a very low level of development. \"Even the\nHottentots,\" according to Dr. Bleek, \"exceed the Bushmen in civilisation\nand political organisation\".*\n\n     * See Waitz, Anthrop. Nat. Volk, ii. 323-329.\n\nBefore investigating the religious myths of the Bushmen, it must be\nrepeated that, as usual, their religion is on a far higher level than\ntheir mythology. The conception of invisible or extra-natural powers,\nwhich they entertain and express in moments of earnest need, is all\nunlike the tales which they tell about their own.\n\nOur main authorities at present for Bushman myths are contained in\nA Brief Account of Bushman Folk-lore, Bleek, London, 1875; and in A\nGlimpse into the Mythology of the Maluti Bushmen, by Mr. Orpen, Chief\nMagistrate, St. John's Territory, Cape Monthly Magazine, July, 1874.\nSome information may also be gleaned from the South African Folk-lore\nJournal, 1879-80, gods, if gods such mythical beings may be called. Thus\nLivingstone says: \"On questioning intelligent men among the Bakwains as\nto their former knowledge of good and evil, of God and the future state,\nthey have scouted the idea of any of them ever having been without a\ntolerably clear conception on all these subjects\".* Their ideas of sin\nwere the same as Livingstone's, except about polygamy, and apparently\nmurder. Probably there were other trifling discrepancies. But \"they\nspoke in the same way of the direct influence exercised by God in\ngiving rain in answer to the prayers of the rain-makers, and in granting\ndeliverance in times of danger, as they do now, before they ever heard\nof white men \". This was to be expected. In short, the religion of\nsavages, in its childlike and hopeful dependence on an invisible friend\nor friends, in its hope of moving him (or them) by prayer, in its belief\nthat he (or they) \"make for righteousness,\" is absolutely human. On\nthe other side, as in the myths of Greece or India, stand the absurd and\nprofane anecdotes of the gods.\n\n     * Missionary Travels, p. 158.\n\nWe now turn to a Bushman's account of the religious myths of his tribe.\nShortly after the affair of Langa-libalele, Mr. Orpen had occasion to\nexamine an unknown part of the Maluti range, the highest mountains in\nSouth Africa. He engaged a scout named Qing, son of a chief of an almost\nexterminated clan of hill Bushmen. He was now huntsman to King Nqusha,\nMorosi's son, on the Orange River, and _had never seen a white man,\nexcept fighting_. Thus Qing's evidence could not be much affected by\nEuropean communications. Mr. Orpen secured the services of Qing, who\nwas a young man and a mighty hunter. By inviting him to explain the\nwall-pictures in caves, Mr. Orpen led him on to give an account of Cagn,\nthe chief mythical being in Bushman religion. \"Cagn made all things, and\nwe pray to him,\" said Qing. \"At first he was very good and nice, but\nhe got spoilt through fighting so many things.\" \"The prayer uttered by\nQing, 'in a low imploring voice,' ran thus: 'O Cagn, O Cagn, are we not\nyour children? Do you not see our hunger? Give us food.'\" Where Cagn is\nQing did not know, \"but the elands know. Have you not hunted and heard\nhis cry when the elands suddenly run to his call?\"* Now comes in myth.\nCagn has a wife called Coti. \"How came he into the world? Perhaps with\nthose who brought the sun;... only the initiated men of that dance know\nthese things.\"**\n\n     * Another Bushman prayer, a touching appeal, is given in\n     Alexander's Expedition, ii. 125, and a Khoi-Khoi hymn of\n     prayer is in Hahn, pp. 56, 57.\n\n     ** Cf. Custom and Myth, pp. 41, 42. It appears that the\n     Bushmen, like the Egyptians and Greeks, hand down myths\n     through esoteric societies, with dramatic mysteries.\n\nCagn had two sons, Cogaz and Gcwi. He and they were \"great chiefs,\" but\nused stone-pointed digging sticks to grub up edible roots! Cagn's wife\nbrought forth a fawn, and, like Cronus when Rhea presented him with a\nfoal, Cagn was put to it to know the nature and future fortunes of this\nchild of his. To penetrate the future he employed the ordinary native\ncharms and sorcery. The remainder of the myth accounts for the origin of\nelands and for their inconvenient wildness. A daughter of Cagn's married\n\"snakes who were also men,\" the eternal confusion of savage thought.\nThese snakes became the people of Cagn. Cagn had a tooth which was\n\"great medicine\"; his force resided in it, and he lent it to people\nwhom he favoured. The birds (as in Odin's case) were his messengers, and\nbrought him news of all that happened at a distance.*\n\n     * Compare with the separable vigour of Cagn, residing in his\n     tooth, the European and Egyptian examples of a similar\n     myth--the lock of hair of Minos, the hair of Samson--in\n     introduction to Mrs. Hunt's Grimm's Household Stories,\n     p. lxxv.\n\nHe could turn his sandals and clubs into dogs, and set them at his\nenemies. The baboons were once men, but they offended Cagn, and sang a\nsong with the burden, \"Cagn thinks he is clever\"; so he drove them into\ndesolate places, and they are accursed till this day. His strong point\nwas his collection of charms, which, like other Bushmen and Hottentots,\nhe kept \"in his belt\". He could, and did, assume animal shapes; for\nexample, that of a bull-eland. The thorns were once people, and killed\nCagn, and the ants ate him, but his bones were collected and he was\nrevived. It was formerly said that when men died they went to Cagn, but\nit has been denied by later Bushmen sceptics.\n\nSuch is Qing's account of Cagn, and Cagn in myth is plainly but a\nsuccessful and idealised medicine-man whose charms actually work. Dr.\nBleek identifies his name with that of the mantis insect. This insect is\nthe chief mythological personage of the Bushmen of the western province.\nKaggen his name is written. Dr. Bleek knew of no prayer to the mantis,\nbut was acquainted with addresses to the sun, moon and stars. If Dr.\nBleek's identification is correct, the Cagn of Qing is at once human and\na sort of grasshopper, just as Pund-jel was half human, half eagle-hawk.\n\n\"The most prominent of the mythological figures,\" says Dr. Bleek,\nspeaking of the Bushmen, \"is the mantis.\" His proper name is Kaggen, but\nif we call him Cagn, the interests of science will not seriously suffer.\nHis wife is the \"Dasse Hyrax\". Their adopted daughter is the porcupine,\ndaughter of _Khwdi hemm_, the All-devourer. Like Cronus, and many other\nmythological persons, the All-devourer has the knack of swallowing\nall and sundry, and disgorging them alive. Dr. Bleek offers us but\na wandering and disjointed account of the mantis or Cagn, who is\nfrequently defeated by other animals, such as the suricat. Cagn has one\npoint at least in common with Zeus. As Zeus was swallowed and disgorged\nby Cronus, so was Cagn by _Khwai hemm_. As Indra once entered into the\nbody of a cow, so did Cagn enter into the body of an elephant. Dr. Bleek\ndid not find that the mantis was prayed to, as Cagn was by Qing. The\nmoon (like sun and stars) is, however, prayed to, and \"the moon belongs\nto the mantis,\" who, indeed, made it out of his old shoe! The chameleon\nis prayed to for rain on occasion, and successfully.\n\nThe peculiarity of Bushman mythology is the almost absolute predominance\nof animals. Except \"an old woman,\" who appears now and then in these\nincoherent legends, their myths have scarcely one human figure to show.\nNow, whether the Bushmen be deeply degenerate from a past civilisation\nor not, it is certain that their myths are based on their actual\ncondition of thought, unless we prefer to say that their intellectual\ncondition is derived from their myths. We have already derived the\nconstant presence and personal action of animals in myth from that\nsavage condition of the mind in which \"all things, animate or inanimate,\nhuman, animal, vegetable or inorganic, seem on the same level of life,\npassion and reason\" (chap. iii.). Now, there can be no doubt that,\nwhether the Bushman mind has descended to this stage or not, in this\nstage it actually dwells at present. As examples we may select the\nfollowing from Dr. Bleek's _Bushman Folk-lore_. _Dialkwain_ told how the\ndeath of his own wife was \"foretold by the springbok and the gems-bok\".\nAgain, for examples of living belief in community of nature with\nanimals, Dialkwain mentioned an old woman, a relation, and friend of\nhis own, who had the power \"of turning herself into a lioness\". Another\nBushman, Kabbo, retaining, doubtless, his wide-awake mental condition in\nhis sleep, \"dreamed of lions which talked\". Another informant explained\nthat lions talk like men \"by putting their tails in their mouth\".\n\nThis would have pleased Sydney Smith, who thought that \"if lions\nwould meet and growl out their observations to each other,\" they might\nsensibly improve in culture. Again, \"all things that belong to the\nmantis can talk,\" and most things do belong to that famous being.\nIn \"News from Zululand,\"* in a myth of the battle of Isandlwana, a\nblue-buck turns into a young man and attacks the British.\n\n     * Folk-lore Journal of South Africa, i. iv. 83.\n\nThese and other examples demonstrate that the belief in the personal\nand human character and attributes of animals still prevails in South\nAfrica. From that living belief we derive the personal and human\ncharacter and attributes of animals, which, remarkable in all\nmythologies, is perhaps specially prominent in the myths of the Bushmen.\n\nThough Bushman myth is only known to us in its outlines, and is\napparently gifted with even more than the due quantity of incoherence,\nit is perhaps plain that animals are the chief figures in this African\nlore, and that these Bushmen gods, if ever further developed, will\nretain many traces of their animal ancestry.\n\nFrom the Bushmen we may turn to their near neighbours, the Hottentots\nor Khoi-Khoi. Their religious myths have been closely examined in Dr.\nHahn's _Tsuni Goam, the Supreme Being of the Khoi-Khoi_. Though Dr.\nHahn's conclusions as to the origin of Hottentot myth differ entirely\nfrom our own, his collection and critical study of materials, of oral\ntraditions, and of the records left by old travellers are invaluable.\nThe early European settlers at the Cape found the Khoi-Khoi, that is,\n\"The Men,\" a yellowish race of people, who possessed large herds of\ncattle, sheep and goats.* The Khoi-Khoi, as nomad cattle and sheep\nfarmers, are on a much higher level of culture than the Bushmen, who are\nhunters.**\n\n     * Op. cit. i. pp. 1, 32.\n\n     ** Ibid., p. 5.\n\nThe languages of the two peoples leave \"no more doubt as to their\nprimitive relationship\" (p. 7). The wealth of the Khoi-Khoi was\nconsiderable and unequally distributed, a respectable proof of nascent\ncivilisation. The rich man was called _gou, aob_, that is \"fat\". In the\nsame way the early Greeks called the wealthy \"(------------)\".* As\nthe rich man could afford many wives (which gives him a kind of\n\"commendation\" over men to whom he allots his daughters), he \"gradually\nrose to the station of a chief\".** In domestic relations, Khoi-Khoi\nsociety is \"matriarchal\" (pp. 19-21 ).***\n\n     * Herodotus, v. 30.\n\n     ** Op. cit., p. 16.\n\n     *** But speaking of the wife, Kolb calls \"the poor wretch\" a\n     \"drudge, exposed to the insults of her children\",--English\n     transl., p. 162.\n\nAll the sons are called after the mother, the daughters after the\nfather. Among the arts, pottery and mat-making, metallurgy and\ntool-making are of ancient date. A past stone age is indicated by the\nuse of quartz knives in sacrifice and circumcision. In Khoi-Khoi society\nseers and prophets were \"the greatest and most respected old men of\nthe clan\" (p. 24). The Khoi-Khoi of to-day have adopted a number of\nIndo-European beliefs and customs, and \"the Christian ideas introduced\nby missionaries have amalgamated... with the national religious ideas\nand mythologies,\" for which reasons Dr, Hahn omits many legends which,\nthough possibly genuine, might seem imported (pp. 30, 31).\n\nA brief historical abstract of what was known to old travellers of\nKhoi-Khoi religion must now be compiled from the work of Dr. Hahn.\n\nIn 1655 Corporal Mueller found adoration paid to great stones on the\nside of the paths. The worshippers pointed upwards and said _Hette hie_,\nprobably \"Heitsi Eibib,\" the name of a Khoi-Khoi extra-natural being. It\nappears (p. 37) that Heitsi Eibib \"has changed names\" in parts of South\nAfrica, and what was his worship is now offered \"to |Garubeb, or Tsui\n|Goab\". In 1671 Dapper found that the Khoi-Khoi \"believe there is one\nwho sends rain on earth;... they also believe that they themselves can\nmake rain and prevent the wind from blowing\". Worship of the moon and of\n\"erected stones\" is also noticed. In 1691 Nicolas Witsen heard that the\nKhoi-Khoi adored a god which Dr. Hahn (p. 91) supposes to have been \"a\npeculiar-shaped stone-fetish,\" such as the Basutos worship and spit at.\nWitsen found that the \"god\" was daubed with red earth, like the Dionysi\nin Greece. About 1705 Valentyn gathered that the people believed in\n\"a great chief who dwells on high,\" and a devil; \"but in carefully\nexamining this, it is nothing else but their _somsomas_ and _spectres_\"\n(p. 38). We need not accept that opinion. The worship of a \"great chief\"\nis mentioned again in 1868. In 1719 Peter Kolb, the German Magister,\npublished his account of the Hottentots, which has been done into\nEnglish.* Kolb gives Gounja Gounja, or Gounja Ticqvoa, as the divine\nname; \"they say he is a good man, who does nobody any hurt,... and that\nhe dwells far above the moon \".** This corresponds to the Australian\nPirnmeheal. Kolb also noted propitiation of an evil power. He observed\nthat the Khoi-Khoi worship the mantis insect, which, as we have seen, is\nthe chief mythical character among the Bushmen.***\n\n     * Second edition, London, 1788.\n\n     ** Engl. transl., 95.\n\n     *** Engl, transl., i. 97, gives a picture of Khoi-Khoi\n     adoring the mantis.\n\nDr. Hahn remarks, \"Strangely enough the Namaquas also call it |Gaunab,\nas they call the enemy of Tsui |Goab\".* In Kolb's time, as now, the\nrites of the Khoi (except, apparently, their worship at dawn) were\nperformed beside cairns of stones. If we may credit Kolb, the Khoi-Khoi\nare not only most fanatical adorers of the mantis, but \"pay a religious\nveneration to their saints and men of renown departed\". Thunberg (1792)\nnoticed cairn-worship and heard of mantis-worship. In 1803 Lichtenstein\nsaw cairn-worship. With the beginning of the present century we find\nin Apple-yard, Ebner and others Khoi-Khoi names for a god, which are\ntranslated \"Sore-Knee\" or \"Wounded-Knee \".\n\nThis title is explained as originally the name of a \"doctor or sorcerer\"\nof repute, \"invoked even after death,\" and finally converted into a\ndeity. His enemy is Gaunab, an evil being, and he is worshipped at the\ncairns, below which he is believed to be buried.** About 1842 Knudsen\nconsidered that the Khoi-Khoi believed in a dead medicine-man, Heitsi\nEibib, who could make rivers roll back their waves, and then walk over\nsafely, as in the _maerchen_ of most peoples. He was also, like Odin, a\n\"shape-shifter,\" and he died several times and came to life again.***\n\n     * Page 42; compare pp. 92, 125.\n\n     ** Alexander, Expedition, i  166;  Hahn, op. cit., pp. 69,\n     50, where Moffat is quoted.\n\n     *** Hahn, p. 66.\n\nThus the numerous graves of Heitsi Eibib are explained by his numerous\ndeaths. In Egypt the numerous graves of Osiris were explained by the\nstory that he was mutilated, and each limb buried in a different place.\nProbably both the Hottentot and the Egyptian legend were invented to\naccount for the many worshipped cairns attributed to the same corpse.\n\nWe now reach the myths of Heitsi Eibib and Tsui |Goab collected by Dr.\nHahn himself. According to the evidence of Dr. Hahn's own eyes, the\nworking religion of the Khoi-Khoi is \"a firm belief in sorcery and the\narts of living medicine-men on the one hand, and, on the other, belief\nin and adoration of the powers of the dead\" (pp. 81, 82, 112, 113). Our\nauthor tells us that he met in the wilds a woman of the \"fat\" or wealthy\nclass going to pray at the grave and to the manes of her own father. \"We\nKhoi-Khoi always, if we are in trouble, go and pray at the graves of\nour grandparents and ancestors.\" They also sing rude epic verses,\naccompanied by the dance in honour of men distinguished in the late\nNamaqua and Damara war. Now it is alleged by Dr. Hahn that prayers are\noffered at the graves of Heitsi Eibib and Tsui Goab, as at those of\nancestors lately dead, and Heitsi Eibib and Tsui Goab within living\nmemory were honoured by song and dance, exactly like the braves of the\nDamara war.\n\nThe obvious and natural inference is that Heitsi Eibib and Tsui Goab\nwere and are regarded by their worshippers as departed but still helpful\nancestral warriors or medicine-men. We need not hold that they ever were\nactual living men; they may be merely idealised figures of Khoi-Khoi\nwisdom and valour. Here, as elsewhere, Animism, ghost-worship, is\npotent, and, in proportion, theism declines.\n\nHere Dr. Hahn offers a different explanation, founded on etymological\nconjecture and a philosophy of religion. According to him, the name of\nTsui Goab originally meant, not wounded knee, but red dawn. The dawn\nwas worshipped as a symbol or suggestion of the infinite, and only by\nforgetfulness and false interpretation of the original word did the\nKhoi-Khoi fall from a kind of pure theosophy to adoration of a presumed\ndead medicine-man. As Dr. Hahn's ingenious hypothesis has been already\nexamined by us,* it is unnecessary again to discuss the philological\nbasis of his argument.\n\nDr. Hahn not only heard simple and affecting prayers addressed to Tsui\nGoab, but learned from native informants that the god had been a chief,\na warrior, wounded in his knee in battle with Gaunab, another chief, and\nthat he had prophetic powers. He still watches the ways of men (p. 62)\nand punishes guilt. Universal testimony was given to the effect that\nHeitsi Eibib also had been a chief from the East, a prophet and a\nwarrior. He apportioned, by blessings and curses, their present habits\nto many of the animals. Like Odin, he was a \"shape-shifter,\" possessing\nthe medicine-man's invariable power of taking all manner of forms. He\nwas on one occasion born of a cow, which reminds us of a myth of Indra.\nBy another account he was born of a virgin who tasted a certain kind\nof grass. This legend is of wonderfully wide diffusion among savage and\nsemi-civilised races.**\n\n     * Custom and Myth, pp. 197-211.\n\n     ** Le Fits de la Vierge, H. de Charency, Havre, 1879. A tale\n     of incest by Heitsi Eibib, may be compared with another in\n     Muir's Sanskrit Texts, iv. 39.\n\nThe tales about Tsui Goab and Heitsi Eibib are chiefly narratives of\ncombats with animals and with the evil power in a nascent dualism,\nGaunab, \"at first a ghost,\" according to Hahn (p. 85), or \"certainly\nnobody else but the Night\" (pp. 125, 126). Here there is some\ninconsistency. If we regard the good power, Tsui Goab, as the Red Dawn,\nwe are bound to think the evil power, Gaunab, a name for the Night.\nBut Dr. Hahn's other hypothesis, that the evil power was originally a\nmalevolent ghost, seems no less plausible. In either case, we have\nhere an example of the constant mythical dualism which gives the\ncomparatively good being his perpetual antagonist--the Loki to his Odin,\nthe crow to his eagle-hawk. In brief, Hottentot myth is pretty plainly\na reflection of Hottentot general ideas about ancestor worship, ghosts,\nsorcerers and magicians, while, in their _religious_ aspect, Heitsi\nEibib or Tsui Goab are guardians of life and of morality, fathers and\nfriends.\n\nA description of barbarous beliefs not less scholarly and careful\nthan that compiled by Dr. Hahn has been published by the Rev. R. H.\nCodrington.* Mr. Codrington has studied the myths of the Papuans and\nother natives of the Melanesian group, especially in the Solomon Islands\nand Banks Island. These peoples are by no means in the lowest grade of\nculture; they are traders in their way, builders of canoes and houses,\nand their society is interpenetrated by a kind of mystic hierarchy,\na religious _Camorra_. The Banks Islanders** recognise two sorts of\nintelligent extra-natural beings--the spirits of the dead and powers\nwhich have never been human.\n\n     * Journal Anthrop. Inst., February, 1881.\n\n     ** Op. cit., p. 267.\n\nThe former are _Tamate_, the latter _Vui_--ghosts and _genii_, we\nmight call them. Vuis are classed by Mr. Codrington as \"corporeal\" and\n\"incorporeal,\" but he thinks the corporeal Vuis have not _human_\nbodies. Among corporeal Vuis the chief are the beings nearest to gods in\nMelanesian myths--the half god, half \"culture-hero,\" I Qat, his eleven\nbrothers, and his familiar and assistant, Marawa. These were members of\na race anterior to that of the men of to-day, and they dwelt in Vanua\nLevu. Though now passed away from the eyes of mortals, they are still\ninvoked in prayer. The following appeal by a voyaging Banks Islander\nresembles the cry of the shipwrecked Odysseus to the friendly river:--\n\n\"Qat! Marawa! look down upon us; smooth the sea for us two, that I may\ngo safely on the sea. Beat down for me the crests of the tide-rip; let\nthe tide-rip settle down away from me; beat it down level that it may\nsink and roll away, and I may come to a quiet landing-place.\"\n\nCompare the prayer of Odysseus:--\n\n\"'Hear me, O king, whosoever thou art; unto thee am I come as to one\nto whom prayer is made, while I flee the rebukes of Poseidon from the\ndeep....' So spake he, and the god straightway stayed his stream and\nwithheld his waves, and made the water smooth before him, and brought\nhim safely to the mouth of the river.\"\n\nBut for Qat's supernatural power and creative exploits,* \"there would be\nlittle indeed to show him other than a man\". He answers almost precisely\nto Maui, the \"the culture-hero\" of New Zealand. Qat's mother either was,\nor, like Niobe, became a stone.\n\n     *  See \"Savage Myths of the Origin of Things\".\n\nHe was the eldest (unlike Maui) of twelve brothers, among whom were\nTongaro the Wise and Tongaro the Fool. The brothers were killed by an\nevil gluttonous power like Kwai Hemm and put in a food chest. Qat killed\nthe foe and revived his brothers, as the sons of Cronus came forth alive\nfrom their father's maw. His great foe--for of course he had a foe--was\nQasavara, whom he destroyed by dashing him against the solid firmament\nof sky. Qasavara is now a stone (like the serpent displayed by Zeus at\nAulis*), on which sacrifices are made. Qat's chief friend is Marawa, a\nspider, or a Vui in the shape of a spider. The divine mythology of the\nMelanesians, as far as it has been recovered, is meagre. We only see\nmembers of a previous race, \"magnified non-natural men,\" with a friendly\ninsect working miracles and achieving rather incoherent adventures.\n\n     * Iliad, ii. 315-318.\n\nMuch on the same footing of civilisation as the Melanesians were\nthe natives of Tonga in the first decade of this century. The Tongan\nreligious beliefs were nearly akin to the ideas of the Samoans and of\nthe Solomon Islanders. In place of Vuis they spoke of Hotooas (Atuas),\nand like the Vuis, those spiritual beings have either been purely\nspiritual from the beginning or have been incarnate in humanity and are\nnow ghosts, but ghosts enjoying many of the privileges of gods. All men,\nhowever, have not souls capable of a separate existence, only the _Egi_\nor nobles, possess a spiritual part, which goes to Bolotoo, the land of\ngods and ghosts, after death, and enjoys \"power similar to that of the\noriginal gods, but less\".\n\nIt is open to philosophers of Mr. Herbert Spencer's school to argue that\nthe \"original gods\" were once ghosts like the others, but this was\nnot the opinion of the Tongans. They have a supreme Creator, who alone\nreceives no sacrifice.* Both sorts of gods appear occasionally to\nmankind--the primitive deities particularly affect the forms of\n\"lizards, porpoises and a species of water-snake, hence those animals\nare much respected\".**\n\n     * Mariner, ii. 205.\n\n     ** Mariner's Tonga Islands, Edin., 1827, ii 99-101.\n\nWhether each stock of Tongans had its own animal incarnation of its\nspecial god does not appear from Mariner's narrative. The gods took\nhuman morality under their special protection, punishing the evil and\nrewarding the good, in this life only, not in the land of the dead.\nWhen the comfortable doctrine of eternal punishment was expounded to the\nTongans by Mariner, the poor heathen merely remarked that it \"was very\nbad indeed for the Papalangies\" or foreigners. Their untutored minds,\nin their pagan darkness, had dreamed of no such thing. The Tongans\nthemselves are descended from some gods who set forth on a voyage of\ndiscovery out of Bolotoo. Landing on Tonga, these adventurers were much\npleased with the island, and determined to stay there; but in a few days\ncertain of them died. They had left the deathless coasts for a world\nwhere death is native, and, as they had eaten of the food of the new\nrealm, they would never escape the condition of mortality. This has been\nremarked as a widespread belief. Persephone became enthralled to Hades\nafter tasting the mystic pomegranate of the underworld.\n\nIn Samoa Siati may not eat of the god's meat, nor Wainamoinen in\nPohjola, nor Thomas the Rhymer in Fairyland. The exploring gods from\nBolotoo were in the same way condemned to become mortal and people\nthe world with mortal beings, and all about them should be _mea mama_,\nsubject to decay and death.* It is remarkable, if correctly reported,\nthat the secondary gods, or ghosts of nobles, cannot reappear as\nlizards, porpoises and water-snakes; this is the privilege of the\noriginal gods only, and may be an assumption by them of a conceivably\ntotemistic aspect. The nearest approach to the idea of a permanent\nsupreme deity is contained in the name of Tali y Toobo--\"wait there,\nToobo\"--a name which conveys the notion perhaps of permanence or\neternity. \"He is a great chief from the top of the sky to the bottom of\nthe earth.\"**\n\n     * Mariner, ii. 115.\n\n     ** Ibid., ii. 205.\n\nHe is invoked both in war and peace, not locally, but \"for the general\ngood of the natives\". He is the patron, not of any special stock or\nfamily, but of the house in which the royal power is lodged for the\ntime. Alone of gods he is unpropitiated by food or libation, indicating\nthat he is not evolved out of a hungry ghost. Another god, Toobo Toty or\nToobo the Mariner, may be a kind of Poseidon. He preserves canoes\nfrom perils at sea. On the death of the daughter of Finow, the king in\nMariner's time, that monarch was so indignant that he threatened to kill\nthe priest of Toobo Toty. As the god is believed to inspire the priest,\nthis was certainly a feasible way of getting at the god. But Toobo Toty\nwas beforehand with Finow, who died himself before he could carry the\nwar into Bolotoo.* This Finow was a sceptic; he allowed that there were\ngods, because he himself had occasionally been inspired by them; \"but\nwhat the priests tell us about their power over mankind I believe to\nbe all false\". Thus early did the conflict of Church and State declare\nitself in Tonga. Human sacrifices were a result of priestcraft in Tonga,\nas in Greece. Even the man set to kill a child of Toobo Toa's was moved\nby pity, and exclaimed _O iaooe chi vale!_ (\"poor little innocent!\") The\npriest demanded this sacrifice to allay the wrath of the gods for the\nslaying of a man in consecrated ground.** Such are the religious ideas\nof Tonga; of their mythology but little has reached us, and that is\nunder suspicion of being coloured by acquaintance with the stories of\nmissionaries.\n\n     * Mariner, i. 307, it 107.\n\n     ** Compare the ayos of the Alcmaenidae.\n\nThe Maoris, when first discovered by Europeans, were in a comparatively\nadvanced stage of barbarism. Their society had definite ranks, from that\nof the Rangatira, the chief with a long pedigree, to the slave. Their\nreligious hymns, of great antiquity, have been collected and translated\nby Grey, Taylor, Bastian and others. The mere possession of such hymns,\naccurately preserved for an unknown number of years by oral tradition,\nproves that the mythical notions of the Maoris have passed through the\nminds of professed bards and early physical speculators. The verses,\nas Bastian has observed (_Die Heilige Sage der Polynesier_), display a\nclose parallel to the roughest part of the early Greek cosmogonies, as\nexpounded by Hesiod. Yet in the Maori hymns there are metaphysical ideas\nand processes which remind one more of Heraclitus than of Hesiod, and\nperhaps more of Hegel than of either. Whether we are to regard the\nabstract conceptions or the rude personal myths of gods such as A, the\nBeyond All, as representing the earlier development of Maori thought,\nwhether one or the other element is borrowed, not original, are\nquestions which theorists of different schools will settle in their own\nway to their own satisfaction. Some hymns represent the beginning of\nthings from a condition of thought, and Socrates might have said of\nthe Maori poets as he did of Anaxagoras, that compared with other early\nthinkers, they are \"like sober men among drunkards\". Thus one hymn of\nthe origins runs thus:--\n\n     From the conception the increase,\n     From the increase the swelling,\n     From the swelling the thought,\n     From the thought the remembrance,\n     From the remembrance the desire.\n     The word became fruitful,\n     It dwelt with the feeble glimmering,\n     It brought forth Night.\n     From the nothing the begetting,\n     It produced the atmosphere which is above us.\n     The atmosphere above dwelt with the glowing sky,\n     Forthwith was produced the sun.\n     Then the moon sprang forth.\n     They were thrown up above as the chief eyes of heaven,\n     Then the heavens became light.\n     The sky which floats above dwelt with Hawaiki,*\n     And produced (certain islands).\n\n          * The islands of Hawaiki, being then the only land known, is\n          put for Papa, the earth.\n\n\nThen follow genealogies of gods, down to the chief in whose family this\nhymn was traditional.*\n\n     * Taylor, New Zealand, pp. 110-112.\n\nOther hymns of the same character, full of such metaphysical and\nabstract conceptions as \"the proceeding from the nothing,\" are quoted at\ngreat length.\n\nThese extracts are obviously speculative rather than in any sense\nmythological The element of myth just shows itself when we are told that\nthe sky dwelt with the earth and produced certain islands. But myth of\na familiar character is very fully represented among the Maoris. Their\nmythical gods, though \"mixed up with the spirits of ancestors,\" are\ngreat natural powers, first Heaven and Earth, Rangi and Papa, the\nparents of all. These are conceived as having originally been united in\nsuch a close embrace, the Heaven lying on the Earth, that between\ntheir frames all was darkness, and in darkness the younger gods, Atua,\nO-te-po, their children, were obliged to dwell. These children\nor younger gods (answering to the Cronidae) were the god of war\n(Tumatauenga), the forest-god (Tane Mahuta), in shape a tree, the\nwind-god (Tawhiri Matea), the gods of cultivated and natural fruits, the\ngod of ocean (Tangaroa). These gods were unable to endure the dungeon\nand the darkness of their condition, so they consulted together and\nsaid: \"Let us seek means whereby to destroy Heaven and Earth, or to\nseparate them from each other\". The counsel of Tane Mahuta prevailed:\n\"Let one go upwards and become a stranger to us; let the other remain\nbelow and be a parent to us\". Finally, Tane Mahuta rent asunder Heaven\nand Earth, pushing Heaven up where he has ever since remained. The\nwind-god followed his father, abode with him in the open spaces of the\nsky, and thence makes war on the trees of the forest-god, his enemy.\nTangaroa went, like Poseidon, to the great deep, and his children, the\nreptiles and fishes, clove part to the waters, part to the dry land. The\nwar-god, Tu, was more of a human being than the other gods, though his\n\"brethren\" are plants, fish and reptiles. Still, Tu is not precisely\nthe first man of New Zealand.\n\nThough all these mythical beings are in a sense departmental gods,\nthey yield in renown to a later child of their race, Maui, the great\nculture-hero, who is an advanced form of the culture-heroes, mainly\ntheriomorphic, of the lower races.*\n\nMaui, like many heroes of myth, was a youngest son. He was prematurely\nborn (a similar story comes in the Brahmanic legend of the Adityas);\nhis mother wrapped him up in her long hair and threw him out to sea. A\nkinsman rescued him, and he grew up to be much the most important member\nof his family, like Qat in his larger circle of brethren. Maui it was\nwho snared the sun, beat him,** and taught him to run his appointed\ncourse, instead of careering at will and at any pace he chose about the\nheavens.\n\n     * Te-Heu-Heu, a powerful chief, described to Mr. Taylor the\n     departmental character of his gods. \"Is there one maker of\n     things among Europeans? Is not one a carpenter, another a\n     blacksmith, another a shipbuilder? So it was in the\n     beginning. One made this, another that. Tane made trees, Ru\n     mountains, Tangaroa fish, and so forth.\" Taylor, New\n     Zealand, p. 108, note.\n\n     ** The sun, when beaten, cried out and revealed his great\n     name, exactly as Indra did in his terror and flight after\n     slaying the serpent. Taylor, op. cit., p. 131.\n\nHe was the culture-hero who invented barbs for spears and hooks; he\nturned his brother into the first dog, whence dogs are sacred, he fished\nNew Zealand out of the sea; he stole fire for men. How Maui performed\nthis feat, and how he \"brought death into the world and all our\nwoe,\" are topics that belong to the myths of _Death_ and of the\n_Fire-Stealer_.* Maui could not only change men into animals, but could\nhimself assume animal shapes at will.\n\nSuch is a brief account of the ancient traditions of mythical Maori gods\nand of the culture-hero. In practice, the conception of _Atua_ (or a\nkind of extra-natural power or powers) possesses much influence in New\nZealand. All manner of spirits in all manner of forms are _Atuas_. \"A\ngreat chief was regarded as a malignant god in life, and a still worse\none after death.\"** Again, \"after Maui came a host of gods, each with\nhis history and wonderful deeds.... These were ancestors who became\ndeified by their respective tribes,\"***--a statement which must be\nregarded as theoretical.\n\n     *  See La Mythologie, A. L., Paris, 1886.\n\n     ** Taylor, op. cit., pp. 134, 136.\n\n     ***Op. cit., p. 136.\n\nIt is odd enough, if true, that Maru should be the war-god of the\nsouthern island, and that the planet Mars is called after him Maru.\n\"There were also gods in human forms, and others with those of\nreptiles.... At one period there seems to have been a mixed offspring\nfrom the same parents. Thus while Tawaki was of the human form, his\nbrethren were _taniwa_ and sharks; there were likewise mixed marriages\namong them.\" These legends are the natural result of that lack of\ndistinction between man and the other things in the world which, as\nwe demonstrated, prevails in early thought. It appears that the great\nmythical gods of the Maoris have not much concern with their morality.\nThe myths are \"but a magnified history of their chiefs, their wars,\nmurders and lusts, with the addition of some supernatural powers\"--such\nas the chiefs are very apt to claim.* In the opinion of a competent\nobserver, the gods, or Atua, who are feared in daily life, are \"spirits\nof the dead,\" and _their_ attention is chiefly confined to the conduct\nof their living descendants and clansmen. They inspire courage, the\nleading virtue. When converted, the natives are said not to expel,\nbut merely to subordinate their Atua, \"believing Christ to be a more\npowerful Atua\".**\n\n     * Op. cit., p. 137.\n\n     ** Shortland, Trad, and Superst. of New Zealanders, 1856,\n     pp. 83-85.\n\nThe Maoris are perhaps the least elevated race in which a well-developed\npolytheism has obscured almost wholly that belief in a moral Maker which\nwe find among the lowest savages who have but a rudimentary polytheism.\nWhen we advance to ancient civilised peoples, like the Greeks, we shall\nfind the archaic Theism obscured, or obliterated, in a similar way.\n\nIn the beliefs of Samoa (formerly called the Navigators' Islands,\nand discovered by a Dutch expedition in 1722) may be observed a most\ninteresting moment in the development of religion and myth. In many\nregions it has been shown that animals are worshipped as totems, and\nthat the gods are invested with the shape of animals. In the temples\nof higher civilisations will be found divine images still retaining in\nhuman form certain animal attributes, and a minor worship of various\nbeasts will be shown to have grouped itself in Greece round the altars\nof Zeus, or Apollo, or Demeter. Now in Samoa we may perhaps trace the\nactual process of the \"transition,\" as Mr. Tylor says, \"from the\nspirit inhabiting an individual body to the deity presiding over all\nindividuals of a kind\". In other words, whereas in Australia or America\neach totem-kindred reveres each animal supposed to be of its own\nlineage--the \"Cranes\" revering all cranes, the \"Kangaroos\" all\nkangaroos--in Samoa the various clans exhibit the same faith, but\ncombine it with the belief that one spiritual deity reveals itself in\neach separate animal, as in a kind of avatar. For example, the several\nAustralian totem-kindreds do not conceive that Pund-jel incarnates\nhimself in the emu for one stock, in the crow for another, in the\ncockatoo for a third, and they do not by these, but by other means,\nattain a religious unity, transcending the diversity caused by the\ntotemic institutions. In Samoa this kind of spiritual unity is actually\nreached by various stocks.\n\nThe Samoans were originally spoken of by travellers as the \"godless\nSamoans,\" an example of a common error. Probably there is no people\nwhose practices and opinions, if duly investigated, do not attest their\nfaith in something of the nature of gods. Certainly the Samoans, far\nfrom being \"godless,\" rather deserve the reproach of being \"in all\nthings too superstitious\". \"The gods were supposed to appear in some\n_visible incarnation_, and the particular thing in which his god was in\nthe habit of appearing was to the Samoanan object of veneration.\"*\n\n     * Turner's Samoa, p. 17.\n\nHere we find that the religious sentiment has already become more or\nless self-conscious, and has begun to reason on its own practices. In\npure totemism it is their kindred animal that men revere. The Samoans\nexplain their worship of animals, not on the ground of kinship and\ncommon blood or \"one flesh\" (as in Australia), but by the comparatively\nadvanced hypothesis that a spiritual power is _in_ the animal. \"One, for\ninstance, saw his god in the eel, another in the shark, another in the\nturtle, another in the dog, another in the owl, another in the lizard,\"\nand so on, even to shell-fish. The creed so far is exactly what\nGarcilasso de la Vega found among the remote and ruder neighbours of the\nIncas, and attributed to the pre-Inca populations. \"A man,\" as in\nEgypt, and in totemic countries generally, \"would eat freely of what\nwas regarded as the incarnation of the god of another man\", but the\nincarnation of his own god he would consider it death to injure or eat.\nThe god was supposed to avenge the insult by taking up his abode in that\nperson's body, and causing to generate there the very thing which he had\neaten until it produced death. The god used to be heard within the man,\nsaying, \"I am killing this man; he ate my incarnation\". This class of\ntutelary deities they called _aitu fale_, or \"gods of the house,\" gods\nof the stock or kindred. In totemistic countries the totem is respected\n_per se_, in Samoa the animal is worshipful because a god abides within\nhim. This appears to be a theory by which the reflective Samoans have\nexplained to themselves what was once pure totemism.\n\nNot only the household, but the village has its animal gods or god\nincarnate in an animal As some Arab tribes piously bury dead gazelles,\nas Athenians piously buried wolves, and Egyptians cats, so in Samoa \"if\na man found a dead owl by the roadside, and if that happened to be the\nincarnation of his village god, he would sit down and weep over it, and\nbeat his forehead with a stone till the blood came. This was supposed to\nbe pleasing to the deity. Then the bird would be wrapped up and buried\nwith care and ceremony, as if it were a human body. This, however,\nwas not the death of the god.\" Like the solemnly sacrificed buzzard in\nCalifornia, like the bull in the Attic _Dupolia_, \"he was supposed to\nbe yet alive and incarnate in all the owls in existence\".*\n\nIn addition to these minor and local divinities, the Samoans have gods\nof sky, earth, disease and other natural departments.** Of their origin\nwe only know that they fell from heaven, and all were incarnated or\nembodied in birds, beasts, plants, stones and fishes. But they can\nchange shapes, and appear in the moon when she is not visible, or in any\nother guise they choose. If in Samoa the sky-god was once on the usual\nlevel of sky-gods elsewhere, he seems now to be degenerate.\n\n     * (------------------) Porph., De Abst.t ii. 29; Samoa, p.\n     21.\n\n     ** I am careful not to call Samoan sacred animals \"Totems.\"\n     to which Mr. Tylor justly objects, but I think the Samoan\n     belief has Totemistic origins.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV. AMERICAN DIVINE MYTHS\n\n     Novelty of the \"New World \"--Different stages of culture\n     represented there--Question of American Monotheism--\n     Authorities and evidence cited--Myths examined: Eskimo,\n     Ahts, Thlinkeets, Iroquois, the Great Hare--Dr. Brinton's\n     theory of the hare--Zuni myths--Transition to Mexican\n     mythology.\n\nThe divine myths of the vast American continent are a topic which a\nlifetime entirely devoted to the study could not exhaust. At best it\nis only a sketch in outline that can be offered in a work on the\ndevelopment of mythology in general. The subject is the more interesting\nas anything like systematic borrowing of myths from the Old World is all\nbut impossible, as has already been argued in chapter xi. America, it\nis true, may have been partially \"discovered\" many times; there probably\nhave been several points and moments of contact between the New and the\nOld World. Yet at the time when the Spaniards landed there, and while\nthe first conquests and discoveries were being pursued, the land and\nthe people were to Europeans practically as novel as the races and\nterritories of a strange planet.* But the New World only revealed the\nold stock of humanity in many of its familiar stages of culture, and,\nconsequently, with the old sort of gods, and myths, and creeds.\n\n     * Reville, Hibbert Lectures, 1884, p. 8\n\nIn the evolution of politics, society, ritual, and in all the outward\nand visible parts of religion, the American races ranged between a\nculture rather below the ancient Egyptian and a rudeness on a level with\nAustralian or Bushman institutions. The more civilised peoples, Aztecs\nand Peruvians, had many peculiarities in common with the races of\nancient Egypt, China and India; where they fell short was in the lack\nof alphabet or syllabary. The Mexican MSS. are but an advanced\npicture-writing, more organised than that of the Ojibbeways; the\nPeruvian Quipus was scarcely better than the Red Indian wampum records.\nMexicans and Peruvians were settled in what deserved to be called\ncities; they had developed a monumental and elaborately decorated\narchitecture; they were industrious in the arts known to them, though\nignorant of iron. Among the Aztecs, at least, weapons and tools of\nbronze, if rare, were not unknown. They were sedulous in agriculture,\ndisciplined in war, capable of absorbing and amalgamating with conquered\ntribes.\n\nIn Peru the ruling family, the Incas, enjoyed all the sway of a\nhierarchy, and the chief Inca occupied nearly as secure a position,\nreligious, social and political, as any Rameses or Thothmes. In Mexico,\ndoubtless, the monarch's power was at least nominally limited, in much\nthe same way as that of the Persian king. The royal rule devolved on the\nelected member of an ancient family, but once he became prince he was\nsurrounded by imposing ceremony. In both these two civilised peoples\nthe priesthood enjoyed great power, and in Mexico, though not so\nextensively, if at all, in Peru, practised an appalling ritual of\ncannibalism and human sacrifice. It is extremely probable, or rather\ncertain, that both of these civilisations were younger than the culture\nof other American peoples long passed away, whose cities stand in\ncolossal ruin among the forests, whose hieroglyphs seem undecipherable,\nand whose copper-mines were worked at an unknown date on the shore of\nLake Superior. Over the origin and date of those \"crowned races\" it\nwere vain to linger here. They have sometimes left the shadows of\nnames--Toltecs and Chichimecs--and relics more marvellous than the\nfainter traces of miners and builders in Southern and Central Africa.\nThe rest is silence. We shall never know why the dwellers in Palenque\ndeserted their majestic city while \"the staircases were new, the steps\nwhole, the edges sharp, and nowhere did traces of wear and tear give\ncertain proof of long habitation\".* On a much lower level than the\ngreat urban peoples, but tending, as it were, in the same direction,\nand presenting the same features of state communism in their social\narrangements, were, and are, the cave and cliff dwellers, the\nagricultural village Indians (Pueblo Indians) of New Mexico and Arizona.\nIn the sides of the canons towns have been burrowed, and men have\ndwelt in them like sand-martins in a sand-bank. The traveller views\n\"perpendicular cliffs everywhere riddled with human habitations, which\nresemble the cells of a honeycomb more than anything else\". In lowland\nvillages the dwellings are built of clay and stone.\n\n* Nadaillac, Prehistoric America, p. 328.\n\n\"The San Juan valley is strewn with ruins for hundreds of miles; some\nbuildings, three storeys high, of masonry, are still standing.\"* The\nMoquis, Zunis and Navahos of to-day, whose habits and religious rites\nare known from the works of Mr. Cushing, Mr. Matthews, and Captain John\nG. Bourke, are apparently descendants of \"a sedentary, agricultural and\ncomparatively cultivated race,\" whose decadence perhaps began \"before\nthe arrival of the Spaniards.\"**\n\nRather lower in the scale of culture than the settled Pueblo Indians\nwere the hunter tribes of North America generally. They dwelt, indeed,\nin collections of wigwams which were partially settled, and the \"long\nhouse\" of the Iroquois looks like an approach to the communal system of\nthe Pueblos.*** But while such races as Iroquois, Mandans and Ojibbeways\ncultivated the maize plant, they depended for food more than did the\nPueblo peoples on success in the chase. Deer, elk, buffalo, the wild\nturkey, the bear, with ducks and other birds, supplied the big kettle\nwith its contents. Their society was totemistic, as has already been\ndescribed; kinship, as a rule, was traced through the female line; the\nSachems or chiefs and counsellors were elected, generally out of\ncertain totem-kindreds; the war-chiefs were also elected when a military\nexpedition started on the war-path; and Jossakeeds or medicine-men (the\ntitle varied in different dialects) had no small share of secular power.\n\n     *Nadaillac, p. 222.\n\n     ** Ibid., p. 257. See Bourke's Snake-Dance of the Natives of\n     Arizona, and the fifth report of the Archaeological\n     Institute of America, with an account of the development of\n     Pueblo buildings. It seems scarcely necessary to discuss Mr.\n     Lewis Morgan's attempt to show that the Aztecs of Cortes's\n     time were only on the level of the modern Pueblo Indians.\n\n     *** Mr. Lewis Morgan's valuable League of the Iroquois and\n     the Iroquois Book of Rites (Brinton, Philadelphia, 1883) may\n     be consulted.\n\nIn war these tribes displayed that deliberate cruelty which survived\nunder the Aztec rulers as the enormous cannibal ritual of human\nsacrifice. A curious point in Red Indian custom was the familiar\ninstitution of scalping the slain in war. Other races are head-hunters,\nbut scalping is probably peculiar to the Red Men and the Scythians.*\n\n     * Herodotus, iv. 64.\n\nOn a level, yet lower than that of the Algonkin and other hunter tribes,\nare the American races whom circumstances have driven into desolate\ninfertile regions; who live, like the Ahts, mainly on fish; like the\nEskimos, in a world of frost and winter; or like the Fuegians, on\ncrustaceans and seaweed. The minute gradations of culture cannot be\nclosely examined here, but the process is upwards, from people like the\nFuegians and Diggers, to the builders of the kitchen-middens--probably\nquite equals of the Eskimos***--and so through the condition of Ahts.\n\n     *** Nadaillac, Prehistoric America, p. 66.\n\nThe resemblance between Scythian and Red Indian manners exercised the\nlearned in the time of Grotius. It has been acutely remarked by J. G.\nMueller, that in America one stage of society, as developed in the Old\nWorld, is absent. There is no pastoral stage. The natives had neither\ndomesticated kine, goats nor sheep. From this lack of interest in the\nwell-being of the domesticated lower animals he is inclined to deduce\nthe peculiarly savage cruelty of American war and American religion.\nSympathy was undeveloped. Possibly the lack of tame animals may have\nencouraged the prevalence of human sacrifice. The Brahmana shows how,\nin Hindostan, the lower animals became vicarious substitutes for man in\nsacrifice, as the fawn of Artemis or the ram of Jehovah took the\nplace of Iphigenia or of Isaac. Cf. J. G. Mueller, Oeschichte der\nAmerikanisehen Urreligionen, pp. 22, 23.\n\nThlinkeets, Cahrocs and other rude tribes of the North-west Pacific\nCoast, to that of Sioux, Blackfeet, Mandans, Iroquois, and then to the\nsettled state of the Pueblo folk, the southern comforts of the Natchez,\nand finally to the organisation of the Mayas, and the summit occupied by\nthe Aztecs and Incas.\n\nThrough the creeds of all these races, whether originally of the same\nstock or not, run many strands of religious and mythical beliefs--the\nvery threads that are woven into the varied faiths of the Old World. The\ndread of ghosts; the religious adoration paid to animals; the belief in\nkindred and protecting beasts; the worship of inanimate objects, roughly\nstyled fetishes; a certain reverence for the great heavenly bodies, sun,\nmoon and Pleiades; a tendency to regard the stars, with all other things\nand phenomena, as animated and personal--with a belief in a Supreme\nCreator, these are the warp, as it were, of the fabric of American\nreligion.*\n\n     * The arguments against the borrowing of the Creator from\n     missionaries have already been stated.\n\nIn one stage of culture one set of those ideas may be more predominant\nthan in another stage, but they are present in all. The zoo-morphic or\ntheriomorphic mythologies and creeds are nowhere more vivacious than in\nAmerica. Not content with the tribal zoomorphic guardian and friend,\nthe totem, each Indian was in the habit of seeking for a special animal\nprotector of his own. This being, which he called his Manitou,\nrevealed itself to him in the long fasts of that savage sacrament\nwhich consecrates the entrance on full manhood. Even in the elaborate\nreligions of the civilised races, Peruvians and Aztecs, the animal\ndeities survive, and sacred beasts gather in the shrine of Pachacamac,\nor a rudimentary remnant of ancestral beak or feather clings to the\nstatue of Huitzilopochtli. But among the civilised peoples, in which\nthe division of labour found its place and human ranks were minutely\ndiscriminated, the gods too had their divisions and departments. An\norganised polytheism prevailed, and in the temples of Centeotl and\nTlazolteotl, Herodotus or Pausanias would have readily recognised the\nDemeter and the Aphrodite of Mexico.\n\nThere were departmental gods, and there was even an obvious tendency\ntowards the worship of one spiritual deity, the Bretwalda of all the\ndivine kings, a god on his way to becoming single and supreme. The\nreligions and myths of America thus display, like the myths and\nreligions of the Old World, the long evolution of human thought in its\nseeking after God. The rude first draughts of Deity are there, and\nthey are by no means effaced in the fantastic priestly designs of\ndepartmental divinities.\n\nThe question of a primitive American monotheism has been more debated\nthan even that of the \"Heno-theism\" of the Aryans in India. On this\npoint it must be said that, in a certain sense, probably any race of men\nmay be called monotheistic, just as, in another sense, Christians who\nrevere saints may be called polytheistic.*\n\n     * Gaidoz, Revue Critique, March, 1887.\n\nIt has been constantly set forth in this work that, in moments of truly\nreligious thought, even the lowest tribes turn their minds towards a\nguardian, a higher power, something which watches and helps the race of\nmen. This mental approach towards the powerful friend is an aspiration,\nand sometimes a dogma; it is religious, not mythological; it is\nmonotheistic, not polytheistic. The Being appealed to by the savage in\nmoments of need or despair may go by a name which denotes a hawk, or a\nspider, or a grasshopper, but we may be pretty sure that little thought\nof such creatures is in the mind of the worshipper in his hour of need.*\n\n     * There are exceptions, as when the Ojibbeway, being in\n     danger, appeals to his own private protecting Manitou,\n     perhaps a wild duck; or when the Zuni cries to \"Ye animal\n     gods, my fathers!\" (Bureau of Ethnol., 1880-81, p. 42.) Thus\n     we can scarcely agree entirely with M. Maurice Vernes when\n     he says, \"All men are monotheistic in the fervour of\n     adoration or in moments of deep thought\". (L'Histoire des\n     Religions, Paris, 1887, p. 61.) The tendency of adoration\n     and of speculation is, however, monotheistic.\n\nAgain, the most ludicrous or infamous tales may be current about the\nadventures and misadventures of the grasshopper or the hawk. He may be,\nas mythically conceived, only one out of a crowd of similar magnified\nnon-natural men or lower animals. But neither his companions nor his\nlegend are likely to distract the thoughts of the Bushman who cries to\nCagn for food, or of the Murri who tells his boy that Pund-jel watches\nhim from the heavens, or of the Solomon Islander who appeals to Qat as\nhe crosses the line of reefs and foam. Thus it may be maintained that\nwhenever man turns to a guardian not of this world, not present to the\nsenses, man is for the moment a theist, and often a monotheist. But when\nwe look from aspiration to doctrine, from the solitary ejaculation to\nritual, from religion to myth, it would probably be vain to suppose that\nan uncontaminated belief in one God only, the maker and creator of all\nthings, has generally prevailed, either in America or elsewhere. Such\na belief, rejecting all minor deities, consciously stated in terms\nand declared in ritual, is the result of long ages and efforts of\nthe highest thought, or, if once and again the intuition of Deity has\nflashed on some lonely shepherd or sage like an inspiration, his creed\nhas usually been at war with the popular opinions of men, and has,\nexcept in Islam, won its disciples from the learned and refined. America\nseems no exception to so general a rule.\n\nAn opposite opinion is very commonly entertained, because the narratives\nof missionaries, and even the novels of Cooper and others, have made\nreaders familiar with such terms as \"the Great Spirit\" in the mouths of\nPawnees or Mohicans. On the one hand, taking the view of borrowing, Mrs.\nE. A. Smith says: \"'The Great Spirit,' so popularly and poetically know\nas the God of the Red Man,' and 'the happy hunting-ground,' generally\nreported to be the Indian's idea of a future state, are both of them but\ntheir ready conception of the white man's God and heaven\".* Dr. Brinton,\ntoo,** avers that \"the Great Spirit is a post-Christian conception.\"\nIn most cases these terms are entirely of modern origin, coined at the\nsuggestion of missionaries, applied to the white man's God....\n\n     * Bureau of Ethnology's Second Report, p. 52.\n\n     **  Myths of the New World, New York, 1876, p. 58.\n\nThe Jesuits' _Relations_ state positively that there was \"no one\nimmaterial God recognised by the Algonkin tribes, and that the title\n'The Great Manito' was introduced first by themselves in its personal\nsense.\" The statement of one missionary cannot be taken, of course, to\nbind all the others. The Pere Paul le Jeune remarks: \"The savages give\nthe name of Manitou to whatsoever in nature, good or evil, is superior\nto man. Therefore when we speak of God, they sometimes call him 'The\nGood Manitou,' that is, 'The Good Spirit'.\"* The same Pere Paul le\nJeune** says that by Manitou his flock meant _un ange ou quelque nature\npuissante. Il y'en a de bons et de mauvais_. The evidence of Pere\nHierosme Lallemant*** has already been alluded to, but it may be as well\nto repeat that, while he attributes to the Indians a kind of unconscious\nreligious theism, he entirely denies them any monotheistic dogmas. With\nTertullian, he writes, _Exclamant vocem naturaliter Christianam_. \"To\nspeak truth, these peoples have derived from their fathers no knowledge\nof a god, and before we set foot in their country they had nothing but\nvain fables about the origin of the world. Nevertheless, savages as they\nwere, there did abide in their hearts a secret sentiment of divinity,\nand of a first principle, author of all things, whom, not knowing, they\nyet invoked. In the forest, in the chase, on the water, in peril by sea,\nthey call him to their aid.\"\n\n     * Relations de la Novelle France, 1637, p. 49.\n\n     ** Relations, 1633, p. 17.\n\n     *** 1648, p. 77.\n\nThis guardian, it seems, receives different names in different\ncircumstances. Myth comes in; the sky is a God; a Manitou dwelling in\nthe north sends ice and snow; another dwells in the waters, and many in\nthe winds.* The Pere Allouez** says, \"They recognise no sovereign of\nheaven or earth\". Here the good father and all who advocate a theory\nof borrowing are at variance with Master Thomas Heriot, \"that learned\n_Mathematician_\" (1588). In Virginia \"there is one chiefe god, that\nhas beene from all eternitie,\" who \"made other gods of a principal\norder\".*** Near New Plymouth, Kiehtan was the chief god, and the souls\nof the just abode in his mansions.**** We have already cited Alione,\nand shown that he and the other gods found by the first explorers, are\ncertainly not of Christian origin.\n\n     * The Confessions of Kah-ge-ga-gah Bowh, a converted Crane\n     of the Ojibbeways, may be rather a suspicious document. Kah,\n     to shorten his noble name, became a preacher and platform-\n     speaker of somewhat windy eloquence, according to Mr.\n     Longfellow, who had heard him. His report is that in youth\n     he sought the favour of the Manitous (Mon-e-doos he calls\n     them), but also revered Ke-sha-mon-e-doo, the benevolent\n     spirit, \"who made the earth with all its variety and smiling\n     beauty\". But his narrative is very unlike the Indian account\n     of the manufacture of the world by this or that animal,\n     already given in \"Myths of the Origin of Things\". The\n     benevolent spirit, according to Kah's father, a medicine-\n     man, dwelt in the sun (Copway, Recollections of a Forest\n     Life, London, s. a. pp. 4, 5). Practical and good-natured\n     actions of the Great Spirit are recorded on p. 35. He\n     directs starving travellers by means of dreams.\n\n     ** Relations, 1667, p. 1.\n\n     *** Arber, Captain John Smith, p. 321.\n\n     **** Op. cit., p. 768.\n\nA curious account of Red Indian religion may be extracted from a work\nstyled _A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner\nduring a Thirty Years' Residence among the Indians_ (New York, 1830).\nTanner was caught when a boy, and lived as an Indian, even in religion.\nThe Great Spirit constantly appears in his story as a moral and\nprotecting deity, whose favour and help may be won by \"prayers, which\nare aided by magical ceremonies and dances. Tanner accepted and acted\non this part of the Indian belief, while generally rejecting the\nmedicine men, who gave themselves out for messengers or avaters of the\nGreat Spirit. Tanner had frequent visions of the Great Spirit in the\nform of a handsome young man, who gave him information about the future.\n\"Do I not know,\" said the appearance, \"when you are hungry and in\ndistress? I look down upon you at all times, and it is not necessary you\nshould call me with such loud cries\". (p. 189).\n\nAlmost all idea of a tendency towards monotheism vanishes when we turn\nfrom the religions to the myths of the American peoples. Doubtless it\nmay be maintained that the religious impulse or sentiment never wholly\ndies, but, after being submerged in a flood of fables, reappears in\nthe philosophic conception of a pure deity entertained by a few of the\ncultivated classes of Mexico and Peru. But our business just now is with\nthe flood of fables. From north to south the more general beliefs are\nmarked with an early dualism, and everywhere are met the two opposed\nfigures of a good and a bad extra-natural being in the shape of a man or\nbeast. The Eskimos, for example, call the better being Torngarsuk. \"They\ndon't all agree about his form or aspect. Some say he has no form at\nall; others describe him as a great bear, or as a great man with one\narm, or as small as a finger. He is immortal, but might be killed by the\nintervention of the god Crepitus.\"*\n\n     * The circumstances in which this is possible may be sought\n     for in Crantz, History of Greenland, London, 1767, vol. i.\n     p. 200\n\n\"The other great but malignant spirit is a nameless female,\" the wife or\nmother of Torngarsuk. She dwells under the sea in a habitation guarded\nby a Cerberus of her own, a huge dog, which may be surprised, for he\nsleeps for one moment at a time. Torngarsuk is not the maker of all\nthings, but still is so much of a deity that many, \"when they hear\nof God and his omnipotence, are readily led to the supposition that\nprobably we mean their Torngarsuk \". All spirits are called Torngak,\nand _soak = great_; hence the good spirit of the Eskimos in his limited\npower is \"the Great Spirit\".* In addition to a host of other spirits,\nsome of whom reveal themselves affably to all, while others are only\naccessible to Angakut or medicine-men, the Eskimos have a Pluto, or\nHades, or Charos of their own. He is meagre, dark, sullen, and devours\nthe bowels of the ghosts. There are spirits of fire, water, mountains,\nwinds; there are dog-faced demons, and the souls of abortions become\nhideous spectres, while the common ghost of civilised life is familiar.\nThe spirit of a boy's dead mother appeared to him in open day, and\naddressed him in touching language: \"Be not afraid; I am thy mother,\nand love thee!\" for here, too, in this frozen and haunted world, love is\nmore strong than death.**\n\nEskimo myth is practical, and, where speculative, is concerned with the\nfortunes of men, alive or dead, as far as these depend on propitiating\nthe gods or extra-natural beings. The Eskimo myth of the origin of death\nwould find its place among the other legends of this sort.***\n\n     * Crantz, op. cit., i. 207. note.\n\n     ** Op. cit., i. 209\n\n     *** Cf. Modern Mythology, \"The Origin of Death\".\n\nAs a rule, Eskimo myth, as far as it has been investigated, rather\nresembles that of the Zulus. _Maerchen_ or romantic stories are very\ncommon; tales about the making of things and the actions of the\npre-human beings are singularly scarce. Except for some moon and star\nmyths, and the tale of the origin of death, hardly any myths, properly\nso called, are reported. \"Only very scanty traces,\" says Rink, \"have\nbeen found of any kind of ideas having been formed as to the origin and\nearly history of the world and the ruling powers or deities.\"*\n\n     * He adds that this \"seems sufficiently to show that such\n     mythological speculations have been, in respect to other\n     nations, also the product of a later stage of culture\". That\n     this position is erroneous is plain from the many myths here\n     collected from peoples lower in culture than the Eskimos.\n     Cf. Rink, _Tales and Traditions of the Eskimos_.\n\nTurning from the Eskimos to the Ahts of Vancouver's Island, we find them\nin possession of rather a copious mythology. Without believing exactly\nin a _supreme_, they have the conception of a _superior_ being,\nQuawteaht, no mere local nor tribal deity, but known in every village,\nlike Osiris in Egypt. He is also, like Osiris and Baiame, the chief of\na beautiful, far-off, spiritual country, but he had his adventures\nand misadventures while he dwelt on earth. The malevolent aspect of\nthings--storms, disease and the rest--is either Quawteaht enraged, or\nthe manifestation of his opponent in the primitive dualism, Tootooch or\nChay-her, the Hades or Pluto of the Ahts. Like Hades, Chay-her is both a\nperson and a place--the place of the dead discomforted, and the ruler\nof that land, a boneless form with a long grey beard. The exploits of\nQuawteaht in the beginning of things were something between those of\nZeus and of Prometheus.\n\n\"He is the general framer--I do not say creator of all things, though\nsome special things are excepted.\"* Quawteaht, in the legend of the\nloon (who was once an injured Indian, and still wails his wrongs), is\nrepresented as conscious of the conduct of men, and as prone to avenge\nmisdeeds.** In person Quawteaht was of short stature, with very strong\nhairy arms and legs.*** There is a touch of unconscious Darwinism in\nthis description of \"the first Indian\". In Quawteaht mingle the rough\ndraughts of a god and of an Adam, a creator and a first man. This\nmixture is familiar in the Zulu Unkulunkulu. Unlike Prometheus,\nQuawteaht did not steal the seed of fire. It was stolen by the\ncuttlefish, and in some legends Quawteaht was the original proprietor.\nLike most gods, he could assume the form of the beasts, and it was in\nthe shape of a great whale that he discomfited his opponent Tootooch.***\nIt does not appear that Tootooch receives any worship or adoration, such\nas is offered to the sun and moon.\n\n     * Sproat, Savage Life, London, 1868, p. 210.\n\n     ** Op. cit., p. 182.\n\n     ***Ibid. i. p. 179.\n\nLeaving the Ahts for the Thlinkeets, we find Yehl, the god or hero of\nthe introduction of the arts, who, like the Christ of the Finnish epic\nor Maui in New Zealand, was born by a miraculous birth. His mother was\na Thlinkeet woman, whose boys had all been slain. As she wandered\ndisconsolate by the sea-shore, a dolphin or whale, taking pity upon her.\nbade her drink a little salt water and swallow a pebble. She did so, and\nin due time bore a child, Yehl, the hero of the Thlinkeets. Once, in\nhis youth, Yehl shot a supernatural crane, skinned it, and whenever\nhe wished to fly, clothed himself in the bird's skin. Yet he is always\nknown as a raven. Hence there is much the same confusion between Yehl\nand the bird as between Amun in Egypt and the ram in whose skin he was\nonce pleased to reveal himself to a mortal. In Yehl's youth occurred the\ndeluge, produced by the curse of an unfriendly uncle of his own; but the\ndeluge was nothing to Yehl, who flew up to heaven, and anchored himself\nto a cloud by his beak till the waters abated. Like most heroes of his\nkind, Yehl brought light to men. The heavenly bodies in his time were\nkept in boxes by an old chief. Yehl, by an ingenious stratagem, got\npossession of the boxes. To fly up to the firmament with the treasure,\nto open the boxes, and to stick stars, sun and moon in their proper\nplaces in the sky, was to the active Yehl the work of a moment.\n\nFire he stole, like Prometheus, carrying a brand in his beak till\nhe reached the Thlinkeet shore. There the fire dropped on stones and\nsticks, from which it is still obtained by striking the flints or\nrubbing together the bits of wood. Water, like fire, was a monopoly in\nthose days, and one Khanukh kept all of it in his own well. Khanukh was\nthe ancestor of the Wolf family among the Thlinkeets, as Yehl is the\nfirst father of the stock called Ravens. The wolf and raven thus answer\nto the mythic creative crow and cockatoo in Australian mythology, and\ntake sides in the primitive dualism. When Yehl went to steal water\nfrom Khanukh, the pair had a discussion, exactly like that between\nJoukahainen and Waina-moinen in the epic of the Finns, as to which of\nthem had been longer in the world. \"Before the world stood in its place,\nI was there,\" says Yehl; and Wainamoinen says, \"When earth was made,\nI was there; when space was unrolled, I launched the sun on his way\".\nSimilar boasts occur in the poems of Empedocles and of Taliesin.\nKhanukh, however, proved to be both older and more skilled in magic\nthan Yehl. Yet the accomplishment of flying once more stood Yehl in good\nstead, and he carried off the water, as Odin, in the form of a bird,\nstole Suttung's mead, by flying off with it in his beak. Yehl then went\nto his own place.*\n\nIn the myths of the other races on the North-west Pacific Coast nothing\nis more remarkable than the theriomorphic character of the heroes, who\nare also to a certain extent gods and makers of things.\n\nThe Koniagas have their ancestral bird and dog, demiurges, makers of\nsea, rivers, hills, yet subject to \"a great deity called Schljam Schoa,\"\nof whom they are the messengers and agents.** The Aleuts have their\nprimeval dog-hero, and also a great old man, who made people, like\nDeucalion, and as in the Macusi myth, by throwing stones over his\nshoulder.***\n\n     * Bancroft, iii. 100-102 [Holmberg, Eth. Skiz., p. 61].\n\n     ** Ibid., 104, quoting Dall's Alaska, p. 405, and\n     Lisiansky's Voyage, pp. 197, 198.\n\n     *** Brett's Indians qf Guiana, p. 384.\n\nConcerning the primal mythical beings of the great hunter and warrior\ntribes of America, Algonkins, Hurons and Iroquois, something has already\nbeen said in the chapter on \"Myths of the Origin of Things\".\n\nIt is the peculiarity of such heroes or gods of myth as the opposing Red\nIndian good and evil deities that they take little part in the affairs\nof the world when once these have been started.* Ioskeha and Tawiscara,\nthe good and bad primeval brothers, have had their wars, and are now, in\nthe opinion of some, the sun and the moon.** The benefits of Ioskeha\nto mankind are mainly in the past; as, for example, when, like another\nIndra, he slew the great frog that had swallowed the waters, and gave\nthem free course over earth.***\n\n     * Erminie Smith, in _Report of Bureau of Ethnology_, 1880-\n     81, publishes a full, but not very systematic, account of\n     Iroquois gods of to-day. Thunder, the wind, and echo are the\n     chief divine figures. The Titans or Jotuns, the opposed\n     supernatural powers, are giants of stone. \"Among the most\n     ancient of the deities were their most remote ancestors,\n     certain animals who later were transformed into human\n     shapes, the name of the animals being preserved by their\n     descendants, who have used them to designate their gentes or\n     clans.\" The Iroquois have a strange and very touching\n     version of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice (op. cit., p.\n     104). It appears to be native and unborrowed; all the\n     details are pure Iroquois.\n\n     ** Relations de la Nouvelle France, 1636, p. 102.\n\n     *** Ibid. i. p. 108.\n\nIoskeha is still so far serviceable that he \"makes the pot boil,\" though\nthis may only be a way of recalling the benefits conferred on man by him\nwhen he learned from the turtle how to make fire. Ioskeha, moreover is\nthanked for success in the chase, because he let loose the animals from\nthe cave in which they lived at the beginning. As they fled he spoiled\ntheir speed by wounding them with arrows; only one escaped, the\nwind-swift wolf. Some devotees regarded Ioskeha as the teacher of\nagriculture and the giver of great harvests of maize. In 1635 Ioskeha\nwas seen, all meagre and skeleton-like, tearing a man's leg with his\nteeth, a prophecy of famine. A more agreeable apparition of loskeha is\nreported by the Pere Barthelemy Vimont.* When an Iroquois was fishing,\n\"a demon appeared to him in the shape of a tall and beautiful young man.\n'Be not afraid,' said this spirit; 'I am the master of earth, whom\nyou Hurons worship under the name of Ioskeha; the French give me the\nerroneous name of Jesus, but they know me not.'\" Ioskeha then gave some\ndirections for curing the small-pox. The Indian's story is, of course,\ncoloured by what he knew of missionary teaching, but the incident should\nbe compared with the \"medicine dream\" of John Tanner.\n\nThe sky, conceived as a person, held a place rather in the religion\nthan in the mythology of the Indians. He was approached with prayer and\nsacrifice, and \"they implored the sky in all their necessities\".** \"The\nsky hears us,\" they would say in taking an oath, and they appeased the\nwrath of the sky with a very peculiar semi-cannibal sacrifice.***\n\n     * Relations, 1640, p. 92.\n\n     ** Op. cit. i. 1636, p. 107.\n\n     *** For Pawnees and Blackfeet see Grinnell, Pawnee and\n     Blackfoot Legends (2 vols.).\n\nWhat Ioskeha was to the Iroquois, Michabo or Manibozho was to the\nAlgonkin tribes. There has been a good deal of mystification about\nMichabo or Manibozho, or Messou, who was probably, in myth, a hare _sans\nphrase_, but who has been converted by philological processes into a\npersonification of light or dawn. It has already been seen that the wild\nNorth Pacific peoples recognise in their hero and demiurge animals of\nvarious species; dogs, ravens, muskrats and coyotes have been found in\nthis lofty estimation, and the Utes believe in \"Cin-au-av, the ancient\nof wolves\".* It would require some labour to derive all the ancient\nheroes and gods from misconceptions about the names of vast natural\nphenomena like light and dawn, and it is probable that Michabo or\nMani-bozho, the Great Hare of the Algonkins, is only a successful\napotheosised totem like the rest. His legend and his dominion are very\nwidely spread. Dr. Brinton himself (p. 153) allows that the great hare\nis a totem. Perhaps our earliest authority about the mythical great hare\nin America is William Strachey's _Travaile into Virginia_.**\n\n     * Powell, in Bureau of Ethnology, 1879-80, p. 43.\n\n     ** Circa 1612; reprinted by the Hakjuyt Society.\n\nAmong other information as to the gods of the natives, Strachey quotes\nthe remarks of a certain Indian: \"We have five gods in all; our chief\ngod appears often unto us in the likeness of a mighty great hare; the\nother four have no visible shape, but are indeed the four wynds\". An\nIndian, after hearing from the English the Biblical account of the\ncreation, explained that \"our god, who takes upon him the shape of a\nhare,... at length devised and made divers men and women\". He also drove\naway the cannibal Manitous. \"That godlike hare made the water and the\nfish and a great deare.\" The other four gods, in envy, killed the\nhare's deer. This is curiously like the Bushman myth of Cagn, the mantis\ninsect, and his favourite eland. \"The godly hare's house\" is at the\nplace of sun-rising; there the souls of good Indians \"feed on delicious\nfruits with that great hare,\" who is clearly, so far, the Virginian\nOsiris.* Dr. Brinton has written at some length on \"this chimerical\nbeast,\" whose myth prevails, he says, \"from the remotest wilds of the\nNorth-west to the coast of the Atlantic, from the southern boundary\nof Carolina to the cheerless swamps of Hudson's Bay.... The totem\"\n(totem-kindred probably is meant) \"clan which bore his name was looked\nup to with peculiar respect.\" From this it would appear that the hare\nwas a totem like another, and had the same origin, whatever that may\nhave been. According to the Pere Allouez, the Indians \"ont en veneration\ntoute particuliere, une certaine beste chimerique, qu'ils n'ont jamais\nveue sinon en songe, ils Tappelient Missibizi,\" which appears to be a\nform of Michabo and Mani-bozho.**\n\n     * _History of Travaile_, pp. 98, 99. This hare we have\n     alluded to in vol. i. p. 184, but it seems worth while again\n     to examine Dr. Brinton's theory more closely.\n\n     ** Relations, 1637, p. 13\n\nIn 1670 the same Pere Allouez gives some myths about Michabo.\n\"C'est-a-dire le grand lievre,\" who made the world, and also invented\nfishing-nets. He is the master of life, and can leap eight leagues at\none bound, and is beheld by his servants in dreams. In 1634 Pere Paul le\nJeune gives a longer account of Messou, \"a variation of the same name,\"\naccording to Dr. Brinton, as Michabo. This Messou reconstructed the\ndrowned world out of a piece of clay brought him by an otter, which\nsucceeded after the failure of a raven sent out by Messou. He afterwards\nmarried a muskrat, by whom he became the father of a flourishing family.\n\"Le brave reparateur de l'univers est le frere aisne de toutes les\nbestes,\" says the mocking missionary.* Messou has the usual powers of\nshape-shifting, which are the common accomplishments of the medicine-man\nor conjuror, _se transformant en mille sortes d'animaux.** He is not\nso much a creator as a demiurge, inferior to a mysterious being called\nAtahocan. But Atahocan is obsolescent, and his name is nearly equivalent\nto an old wife's fable, a story of events _au temps jadis_.*** \"Le mot\n_Nitatoho-can signifie, 'Je dis un vieux conte fait a plaisir'.\"\n\n     * _Relations_, 1634, p. 13.\n\n     ** Op. cit., 1633, p. 16.\n\n     *** Op. cit., 1634, p. 13.\n\nThese are examples of the legends of Michabo or Manibozho, the great\nhare. He appears in no way to differ from the other animals of magical\nrenown, who, in so many scores of savage myths, start the world on its\nway and instruct men in the arts. His fame may be more widely\nspread, but his deeds are those of eagle, crow, wolf, coyote, spider,\ngrasshopper, and so forth, in remote parts of the world. His legend is\nthe kind of legend whose origin we ascribe to the credulous fancy of\nearly peoples, taking no distinction between themselves and the beasts.\nIf the hare was indeed the totem of a successful and honoured kindred,\nhis elevation is perfectly natural and intelligible.\n\nDr. Brinton, in his _Myths of the New World_ (New York, 1876), adopts\na different line of explanation. Michabo, he says, \"was originally the\nhighest divinity recognised by them, powerful and beneficent beyond all\nothers, maker of the heavens and the world\". We gladly welcome him in\nthat capacity in religion. But it has already been shown that Michabo is\nonly, in myth, the _reparateur de l'univers_, and that he has a sleeping\npartner--a deity retired from business. Moreover, Dr. Brinton's account\nof Michabo, \"powerful and beneficent beyond all others, maker of\nthe heavens and the world,\" clashes with his own statement, that \"of\nmonotheism as displayed in the one personal definite God of the Semitic\nraces\" (to whom Dr. Brinton's description of Michabo applies) \"there is\nnot a single instance on the American continent.\"* The residences and\nbirthplaces of Michabo are as many as those of the gods of Greece. It is\ntrue that in some accounts, as in Strachey's, \"his bright home is in\nthe _rising_ sun\". It does not follow that the hare had any original\nconnection with the dawn. But this connection Dr. Brinton seeks to\nestablish by philological arguments. According to this writer, the names\n(Manibozho, Nanibozhu, Missibizi, Michabo, Messou) \"all seem compounded,\naccording to well-ascertained laws of Algonkin euphony, from the words\ncorresponding to _great_ and _hare or rabbit_, or the first two perhaps\nfrom _spirit_ and _hare_\".** But this seeming must not be trusted. We\nmust attentively examine the Algonkin root _wab_, when it will appear\n\"that in fact there are two roots having this sound. One is the initial\nsyllable of the word translated hare or rabbit, but the other means\n_white_, and from it is derived the words for the east, the dawn,\nthe light, the day, and the morning. Beyond a doubt (sic) this is the\ncompound in the names Michabo and Manibozho, which therefore mean the\ngreat light, the spirit of light, of the dawn, or the east.\"\n\n     * Relations, pp. 63, 176.\n\n     ** Op. cit., p. 178.\n\nThen the war of Manibozho became the struggle of light and darkness.\nFinally, Michabo is recognised by Dr. Brinton as \"the not unworthy\npersonification of the purest conceptions they possessed concerning the\nFather of All,\"* though, according to Dr. Brinton in an earlier passage,\nthey can hardly be said to have possessed such conceptions.** We are not\nresponsible for these inconsistencies. The degeneracy to the belief in\na \"mighty great hare,\" a \"chimerical beast,\" was the result of a\nmisunderstanding of the root _wab_ in their own language by the\nAlgonkins, a misunderstanding that not only affected the dialects in\nwhich the root _wab_ occurred in the hare's name, but those in which it\ndid not!\n\nOn the whole, the mythology of the great hunting and warrior tribes of\nNorth America is peopled by the figures of ideal culture-heroes, partly\nregarded as first men, partly as demiurges and creators. They waver in\noutward aspect between the beautiful youths of the \"medicine-dreams\" and\nthe bestial guise of totems and protecting animals. They have a tendency\nto become identified with the sun, like Osiris in Egypt, or with the\nmoon. They are adepts in all the arts of the medicine-man, and they\nare especially addicted to animal metamorphosis. In the long winter\nevenings, round the camp-fire, the Indians tell such grotesque tales of\ntheir pranks and adventures as the Greeks told of their gods, and the\nMiddle Ages of the saints.***\n\n     * Relations, p. 183.\n\n     ** Op. cit., p. 53.\n\n     *** A full collection of these, as they survive in oral\n     tradition, with an obvious European intermixture, will be\n     found in Mr. Leland's _Algonquin Legends_, London, 1884, and\n     in Schoolcraft's _Hiawatha Legends_, London, 1856.    See\n     especially the Manibozho legend.\n\nThe stage in civilisation above that of the hunter tribes is represented\nin the present day by the settled Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and\nArizona. Concerning the faith of the Zunis we fortunately possess an\nelaborate account by Mr. Frank Cushing.* Mr. Cushing was for long a\ndweller in the clay _pueblos_ of the Zunis, and is an initiated member\nof their sacred societies. He found that they dealt at least as freely\nin metaphysics as the Maoris, and that, like the Australians, \"they\nsuppose sun, moon and stars, the sky, earth and sea, in all their\nphenomena and elements, and all inanimate objects, as well as plants,\nanimals and men, to belong to one great system of all conscious and\ninterrelated life, in which the degrees of relationship seem to be\ndetermined largely, if not wholly, by the degrees of resemblance\". This,\nof course, is stated in terms of modern self-conscious speculation.\nWhen much the same opinions are found among the Kamilaroi and Kurnai of\nAustralia, they are stated thus: \"Some of the totems divide not mankind\nonly, but the whole universe into what may almost be called gentile\ndivisions\".**\n\n     *  Report of Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, 1880-81.\n\n     ** Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 167.(p. 170). Mrs. Langloh\n     Parker, in a letter to me, remarks that Baiame alone is\n     outside of this conception, and is common to all classes,\n     and totems, and class divisions.\n\n\"Everything in nature is divided between the classes. The wind belongs\nto one and the rain to another. The sun is Wutaroo and the moon is\nYungaroo.... The South Australian savage looks upon the universe as\nthe great tribe, to one of whose divisions he himself belongs, and all\nthings, animate or inanimate, which belong to his class are parts of\nthe body corporate, whereof he himself is part. They are almost parts of\nhimself\".\n\nManifestly this is the very condition of mind out of which mythology,\nwith all existing things acting as _dramatis personae_, must inevitably\narise.\n\nThe Zuni philosophy, then, endows all the elements and phenomena of\nnature with personality, and that personality is blended with\nthe personality of the beast \"whose operations most resemble its\nmanifestation\". Thus lightning is figured as a serpent, and the serpent\nholds a kind of mean position between lightning and man. Strangely\nenough, flint arrow-heads, as in Europe, are regarded as the gift of\nthunder, though the Zunis have not yet lost the art of making, nor\nentirely abandoned, perhaps, the habit of using them. Once more, the\nsupernatural beings of Zuni religion are almost invariably in the shape\nof animals, or in monstrous semi-theriomorphic form. There is no general\nname for the gods, but the appropriate native terms mean \"creators and\nmasters,\" \"makers,\" and \"finishers,\" and \"immortals\". All the classes of\nthese, including the class that specially protects the animals necessary\nto men, \"are believed to be related by blood \". But among these\nessences, the animals are nearest to man, most accessible, and therefore\nmost worshipped, sometimes as mediators. But the Zuni has mediators even\nbetween him and his animal mediators, and these are fetishes, usually\nof stone, which accidentally resemble this or that beast-god in shape.\nSometimes, as in the Egyptian sphinx, the natural resemblance of a stone\nto a living form has been accentuated and increased by art. The stones\nwith a natural resemblance to animals are most valued when they are old\nand long in use, and the orthodox or priestly theory is that they are\npetrifactions of this or that beast. Flint arrow-heads and feathers are\nbound about them with string.\n\nAll these beliefs and practices inspire the Zuni epic, which is\nrepeated, at stated intervals, by the initiated to the neophytes. Mr.\nCushing heard a good deal of this archaic poem in his sacred capacity.\nThe epic contains a Zuni cosmogony. Men, as in so many other myths,\noriginally lived in the dark places of earth in four caverns. Like the\nchildren of Uranus and Gaea, they murmured at the darkness. The \"holder\nof the paths of life,\" the sun, now made two beings out of his own\nsubstance; they fell to the earth, armed with rainbow and lightning, a\nshield and a magical flint knife. The new-comers cut the earth with a\nflint-knife, as Qat cut the palpable dark with a blade of red obsidian\nin Melanesia. Men were then lifted through the hole on the shield, and\nbegan their existence in the sunlight, passing gradually through the\nfour caverns. Men emerged on a globe still very wet; for, as in the\nIroquois and other myths, there had been a time when \"water was the\nworld \". The two benefactors dried the earth and changed the monstrous\nbeasts into stones. It is clear that this myth accounts at once for\nthe fossil creatures found in the rocks and for the merely accidental\nresemblance to animals of stones now employed as fetishes.* In the\nstones is believed to survive the \"medicine\" or magic, the spiritual\nforce of the animals of old.\n\n     * Report, etc, p. 15.\n\nThe Zunis have a culture-hero as usual, Po'shai-an-k'ia, who founded the\nmysteries, as Demeter did in Greece, and established the sacred orders.\nHe appeared in human form, taught men agriculture, ritual, and then\ndeparted. He is still attentive to prayer. He divided the world into\nregions, and gave the animals their homes and functions, much as Heitsi\nEibib did in Namaqualand. These animals carry out the designs of the\nculture-hero, and punish initiated Zunis who are careless of their\nreligious duties and ritual. The myths of the sacred beasts are long\nand dismal, chiefly aetiological, or attempts to account by a fictitious\nnarrative for the distribution and habits of the various creatures. Zuni\nprayers are mainly for success in the chase; they are directed to the\ndivine beasts, and are reinforced by magical ceremonies. Yet a prayer\nfor sport may end with such a truly religious petition as this: \"Grant\nme thy light; give me and my children a good trail across life \". Again\nwe read: \"This day, my fathers, ye animal gods, although this country\nbe filled with enemies, render me precious.... Oh, give ye shelter of\nmy heart from them!\" Yet in religious hymns the Zunis celebrate\nAhonawilona, \"the Maker and Container of All, the All Father,\" the\nuncreated, the unbegotten, who \"thought himself out into space\". Here\nis monotheism among fetishists.*\n\n     * Cushing, _Report, Ethnol. Bureau_, 1891-92, p. 379.\n\nThe faith of the Zunis, with its metaphysics, its devoutness and its\nmagic ritual, may seem a kind of introduction to the magic, the ritual\nand the piety of the ancient Aztecs. The latter may have grown, in a\nlong course of forgotten ages, out of elements like those of the Zuni\npractice, combined with the atrocious cruelty of the warrior tribes of\nthe north. Perhaps in no race is the extreme contrast between low myth,\nand the highest speculation, that of \"the Eternal thinking himself\nout into space,\" so marked as among the Zunis. The highly abstract\nconception of Ahonawilona was unknown to Europeans when this work first\nappeared.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV. MEXICAN DIVINE MYTHS\n\n     European eye-witnesses of Mexican ritual--Diaz, his account\n     of temples and Gods__Sahagun, his method--Theories of the\n     god Huitzilopochtli--Totemistic and other elements in his\n     image and legend--Illustrations from Latin religion--\n     \"God-eating\"--The calendar--Other gods--Their feasts and cruel\n     ritual--Their composite character--Parallels from ancient\n     classical peoples--Moral aspects of Aztec gods.\n\nThe religion of the Mexicans was a compound of morality and cruelty\nso astonishing that its two aspects have been explained as the\ncontributions of two separate races. The wild Aztecs from the north are\ncredited with having brought to a high pitch of organised ritual the\nferocious customs of the Red Indians. The tortures which the tribes\ninflicted on captives taken in war were transmuted into the cannibal\nsacrifices and orgies of bloodshed with which the Aztec temples reeked.\nThe milder elements, again, the sense of sin which found relief in\nconfession and prayer, are assigned to the influence of Mayas, and\nespecially of Toltecs, a shadowy and perhaps an imaginary people. Our\nignorance of Mexican history before the Spanish conquest is too deep to\nmake any such theory of the influence of race on religion in Mexico more\nthan merely plausible. The facts of ritual and of myth are better known,\nthanks to the observations of such an honest soldier as Bernal Diaz\nand such a learned missionary as Sahagun. The author of the _Historia\nGeneral de las Cosas de Nueva Espana_ was a Spanish Franciscan, and one\nof the earliest missionaries (1529) in Mexico. He himself describes the\nmethod by which he collected his information about the native religion.\nHe summoned together the chief men of one of the provinces, who,\nin turn, chose twelve old men well seen in knowledge of the Mexican\npractices and antiquities. Several of them were also scholars in\nthe European sense, and had been taught Latin. The majority of the\ncommission collected and presented \"pictures which were the writings\nformerly in use among them,\" and the \"grammarians\" or Latin-learned\nAztecs wrote in European characters and in Aztec the explanations\nof these designs. When Sahagun changed his place of residence, these\ndocuments were again compared, re-edited and enlarged by the assistance\nof the native gentlemen in his new district, and finally the whole was\npassed through yet a third \"sieve,\" as Sahagun says, in the city of\nMexico. The completed manuscript had many ups and downs of fortune, but\nSahagun's book remains a source of almost undisputed authenticity.\n\nProbably no dead religion whose life was among a people ignorant of\nsyllabaries or of the alphabet is presented to us in a more trustworthy\nform than the religion of Mexico. It is necessary, however, to discount\nthe _theories_ of Sahagun and his converts, who though they never heard\nof Euhemerus, habitually applied the euhemeristic doctrine to their\nfacts. They decided that the gods of the Aztecs had once been living men\nand conjurors, worshipped after their decease. It is possible, too, that\na strain of Catholic piety has found its way into the long prayers of\nthe heathen penitents, as reported by Sahagun.* Sahagun gives us a full\naccount of the Mexican mythology. What the gods, as represented by\nidols and adored in ritual, were like, we learn from a gallant Catholic\nsoldier, Bernal Diaz.** \"Above the altars,\" he writes, \"were two shapes\nlike giants, wondrous for height and hugeness. The first on the right\nwas Huichilobos (Huitzilopochtli), their god of war. He had a big head\nand trunk, his eyes great and terrible, and so inlaid with precious\nstones that all his head and body shone with stars thereof. Great snakes\nof gold and fine stones were girdled about his flanks; in one hand he\nheld a bow, and arrows in the other, and a little idol called his page\nstood by his side.... Thereby also were braziers, wherein burned the\nhearts of three Indians, torn from their bodies that very day, and the\nsmoke of them and the savour of incense were the sacrifice. The walls of\nthis oratory were black and dripping with gouts of blood, and likewise\nthe floor that stank horribly.\" Such was the aspect of a Mexican shrine\nbefore the Spaniards introduced their faith.\n\n     * For a brief account of Sahagun and the fortunes of his\n     book, see Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_,\n     iii. 231, note 61. The references here to Sahagun's own work\n     are to the translation by MM. Jourdanet and Simeon,\n     published by Masson, Paris, 1880. Bernal Diaz is referred to\n     in the French edition published by M. Lemerre in 1879.\n\n     ** _Veridique Histoire_, chap, xcii.\n\nAs to the mythical habits of the Aztec Olympians in general, Sahagun\nobserves that \"they were friends of disguise, and changed themselves\noften into birds or savage beasts\". Hence he, or his informants, infer\nthat the gods have originally been necromancers or medicine-men,\nnow worshipped after death; a natural inference, as magical feats\nof shape-shifting are commonly ascribed \"everywhere to witches and\nwarlocks\". As a matter of fact, the Aztec gods, though bedizened with the\nattributes of mortal conjurors, and with the fur and feathers of totems,\nare, for the most part, the departmental deities of polytheism, each\nruling over some province of nature or of human activity. Combined\nwith these are deities who, in their origin, were probably ideal\nculture-heroes, like Yehl, or Qat, or Prometheus. The long and tedious\nmyths of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca appear to contain memories of\na struggle between the gods or culture-heroes of rival races. Such\nstruggles were natural, and necessary, perhaps, before a kind of\nsyncretism and a general tolerance could unite in peace the deities of\na realm composed of many tribes originally hostile. In a cultivated\npeople, made up out of various conquered and amalgamated tribes, we\nmust expect polytheism, because their Olympus is a kind of divine\nrepresentative assembly. Anything like monotheism, in such a state, must\nbe the result of philosophic reflection. \"A laughable matter it is,\"\nsays Bernal Diaz, \"that in each province the Indians have their gods,\nand the gods of one province or town are of no profit to the people of\nanother. Thus have they an infinite number of idols, to each of which\nthey sacrifice.\"*\n\n     * Bernal Diaz, chap. xcii.\n\nHe might have described, in the same words, the local gods of the\nEgyptian nomes, for a similar state of things preceded, and to\nsome extent survived, the syncretic efforts of Egyptian priesthood.\nMeanwhile, the _Teocallis_, or temples of Mexico, gave hospitable\nshelter to this mixed multitude of divinities. Hard by Huitzilopochtli\nwas Tezcatlipoca (Tezcatepuca, Bernal calls him), whose chapel \"stank\nworse than all the shambles of Castile\". He had the face of a bear and\nshining eyes, made of mirrors called _Tezcut_. He was understood by\nBernal to be the Mexican Hades, or warden of the dead. Not far off was\nan idol, half-human and half-lizard, \"the god of fruits and harvest, I\nremember not his name,\" and all his chapel walls dripped blood.\n\nIn the medley of such a pantheon, it is difficult to arrange the deities\non any principle of order. Beginning with Huitzilopochtli, as perhaps\nthe most famous, it is to be observed that he indubitably became and\nwas recognised as a god of battles, and that he was also the guide\nand protector who (according to the Aztec painted scriptures) led the\nwandering fathers through war and wilderness to the promised land of\nMexico. His birth was one of those miraculous conceptions which we\nhave seen so frequently in the myths and _maerchen_ of the lower and the\nhigher races. It was not by swallowing a berry, as in Finland, but by\ncherishing in her bosom a flying ball of feathers that the devout woman,\nCoatlicue, became the mother of Huitzilopochtli. All armed he sprang to\nthe light, like Athene from the head of Zeus, and slew his brothers that\nhad been born by natural generation. From that day he received names of\ndread, answering to _Deimos_ and _Phobos_.*\n\n     * Clavigero, _Staria Ant. del Mexico_, ii. 17, 19; Bancroft,\n     iii. 290.\n\nBy another myth, euhemeristic in character, Huitziton (the name is\nconnected with _huitzilin_, the humming-bird) was the leader of the\nAztecs in their wanderings. On his death or translation, his skull gave\noracles, like the head of Bran in the Welsh legend. Sahagun, in the\nfirst page of his work, also euhemerises Huitzilopochtli, and makes him\nout to have been a kind of Hercules _double_ with a medicine-man;\nbut all this is mere conjecture. The position of Huitzilopochtli as\na war-god, guardian and guide through the wilderness is perfectly\nestablished, and it is nearly as universally agreed that his name\nconnects him with the humming-bird, which his statue wore on its left\nfoot. He also carried a green bunch of plumage upon his head, shaped\nlike the bill of a small bird Now, as J. G. Mueller has pointed out,\nthe legend and characteristics of Huitzilopochtli are reproduced, by\na coincidence startling even in mythology, in the legend and\ncharacteristics of Picus in Latium. Just as Huitzilopochtli wore the\nhumming-bird indicated by his name on his foot, so Picus was represented\nwith the woodpecker of his name on his head.*\n\n     * J. G. Muller, _Uramerik. Rel_., p. 595.\n\nOn the subject of Picus one may consult Ovid, _Metamorph_, xiv. 314.\nHere the story runs that Circe loved Picus, whom she met in the woods.\nHe disdained her caresses, and she turned him into the woodpecker, \"with\nhis garnet head\". \"Et fulvo cervix pnecingitur auro.\"\n\nAccording to Virgil (J. Sn., vii. 187), the statue of this Picus was\nsettled in an old Laurentian temple or palace of unusual sanctity,\nsurrounded by images of the earlier gods. The woodpeckers, _pici_,\nare known _Martio cognomine_, says Pliny (10, 18, 20, Sec. 40), and so\nconnected with the Roman war-god, _Picas Martius_.\n\nIn his Romische Mythologie, i. 336, 337, Preller makes no use of these\nmaterials for comparison, though the conduct and character of the other\nbeast of war, the wolf, as guide and protector of the Hirpi (wolves),\nand worshipped by them with wolf-dances, is an obvious survival of\ntotemism. The Picini have their animal leader, Picus, the woodpecker,\nthe Hirpi have their animal leader, the wolf, just as the humming-bird\nwas the leader of the Aztecs.\n\nIn these Latin legends, as in the legends of Huit-zilopochtli, the\nbasis, as J. G. Mueller sees, is the bird--the humming-bird in one case,\nthe woodpecker in the other. The bird is then euhemerised or brought\ninto anthropomorphic form. It is fabled that he was originally a man\n(like Picus before Circe enchanted him to a bird's shape), or, in\nMexico, a man named Huitziton, who during the Aztec migrations heard and\npursued a little bird that cried \"Tinni,\" that is, \"Follow, follow\".*\nNow we are all familiar with classical legends of races that were guided\nby a bird or beast to their ultimate seats. Mueller mentions Battus and\nthe raven, the Chalcidians and the dove, the Cretans and the dolphin,\nwhich was Apollo, Cadmus and the cow; the Hirpi, or wolves, who followed\nthe wolf. In the same way the Picini followed the woodpecker, _Picus_,\nfrom whom they derived their name, and carried a woodpecker on their\nbanners. Thus we may connect both the Sabine war-gods and the bird of\nthe Mexican war-gods with the many guiding and protecting animals which\noccur in fable. Now a guiding and protecting animal is almost a synonym\nfor a totem. That the Sabine woodpecker had been a totem may be pretty\ncertainly established on the evidence of Plutarch. The people called by\nhis name (Picini) declined, like totemists everywhere, to eat their holy\nbird, in this case the woodpecker.**\n\n     * Bancroft, iii. 69, note, quoting Torquemada.\n\n     ** Quoest. Rom., xxi.\n\nThe inference is that the humming-bird whose name enters into that of\nHuitzilopochtli, and whose feathers were worn on his heel, had been\nthe totem of an Aztec kindred before Huitzilopochtli, like Picus, was\nanthropomorphised. On the other hand, if Huitzilopochtli was once the\nBaiame of the Aztecs, their Guide in their wanderings, he might, in\nmyth, be mixed up with a totem or other worshipful animal. \"Before this\ngod was represented in human form, he was merely a little humming-bird,\nHuitziton; but as the anthropomorphic processes advanced, the\nbird became an attribute, emblem, or symbol of the deity.\"* If\nHuitzilopochtli is said to have given the Aztecs fire, that boon is\nusually regarded by many races, from Normandy to Australia, as the\npresent given to men by a bird; for example, the fire-crested wren.**\nThus understood, the ornithological element in Huitzilopochtli is purely\ntotemic. While accepting the reduction of him to a hummingbird, M.\nReville ingeniously concludes that he was \"a derivative form of the\nsun, and especially of the sun of the fair season\". If the bird was\nworshipped, it was not as a totem, but as \"the divine messenger of the\nspring,\" like \"the plover among the Latins\".*** Attempts have been made,\nwith no great success, to discover the cosmical character of the god\nfrom the nature of his feasts.\n\n     * J. G. Muller, op. cit. i. p. 596.\n\n     ** Bosquet, La Normandie Merveilleuse, Paris, 1845; Brough\n     Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, vol. i.; Kuhn, Herabkunft,\n     p. 109; Journal Anthrop. Inst., November, 1884; Sproat,\n     Savage Life (the cuttlefish), p. 178; Bancroft, iii. 100.\n\n     *** Hibbert Lectures, 1884, English trans., pp. 54, 55. The\n     woodpecker seems a better Latin example than the plover.\n\nThe Mexican calendar, \"the Aztec year,\" as described at considerable\nlength by Sahagun, was a succession of feasts, marked by minute and\nelaborate rites of a magical character. The gods of rain were frequently\npropitiated, so was the goddess of maize, the mountain god, the mother\nof the gods, and many other divinities. The general theory of worship\nwas the adoration of a deity, first by innumerable human sacrifices,\nnext by the special sacrifice of a man for male gods, of a woman for\neach goddess. The latter victims were regarded as the living images or\nincarnations of the divinities in each case; for no system of worship\ncarried farther the identification of the god with the sacrifice, and of\nboth with the officiating priest. The connection was emphasised by\nthe priest's wearing the newly-flayed skins of the victims, just as in\nGreece, Egypt and Assyria the fawn-skin, or bull-hide, or goat-skin, or\nfish-skin of the victims is worn by the celebrants. Finally, an image\nof the god was made out of paste, and this was divided into morsels and\neaten in a hideous sacrament by those who communicated.*\n\n     * Copious details as to the sacraments, human sacrifices,\n     paste figures of gods, and identity of god and victim, will\n     be found in Sahagun's second and third books. The _magical_\n     character of the ritual deserves particular attention. See\n     many examples of gods made of flour and eaten in Liebrecht's\n     _Zur Volkskunde_, \"Der aufgegessene Gott,\" p. 436. It will\n     be noted that the feasts of the corn goddess, like the rites\n     of Demeter, were celebrated with torch-dances. The ritual of\n     the month Quecholli (iii. 33, 144) is a mere medicine hunt,\n     as Tanner and the Red Indians call it, a procuring of\n     magical virtue for the arrows, as in the Zuni mysteries to-\n     day. Compare _Report of Bureau of Ethnology_, vol. ii.,\n     \"Zuni Prey Gods\".\n\nFrom the special ritual of Huitzilopochtli Mr. Tylor conjectures\nthat this \"inextricable compound parthenogenetic god may have been\noriginally\" a nature deity whose life and death were connected with\nthe year\".* This theory is based on the practice at the feast called\nPanquetzaliztli.** \"His paste idol was shot through with an arrow,\" says\nMr. Tylor, \"and being thus killed, was divided into morsels and eaten;\nwherefore the ceremony was called _Teoqualo_, or 'god-eating,' and this\nwas associated with the winter solstice.\" M. Reville says that this\nfeast coincided with our month of December, the beginning of the cold\nand dry season, Huitzilopochtli would die with the verdure, the flowers\nand all the beauteous adornments of spring and summer; but like Adonis,\nlike Osiris, and so many other solar deities, he only died to live and\nto return again. Before identifying him with the sun, it may be remarked\nthat the Aztec feast of the return of the gods was celebrated in the\ntwelfth month and the paste sacrifice of Huitzilopochtli was in the\nfifteenth.\n\nThere were eighteen months in the Aztec year, and the year began on the\n2nd of February. The return of the gods was, therefore, in September,\nand the paste sacrifice of Huitzilopochtli in December. Clearly the god\nwho dies in the winter solstice cannot be thought to \"return\" late in\nSeptember. Huitzilopochtli had another feast on the first day of the\nninth month, that is, between June and July, when much use was made\nof floral decorations, and \"they offered him the first flowers of the\nyear,\" although flowers were used two months earlier, in the seventh\nmonth and in the fourth month.***\n\n     * _Primitive Culture_, ii. 307; Clavigero, _Messico_, ii.\n     17, 81.\n\n     ** Sahagun, ii. 15, and Appendix, iii. 2, 3.\n\n     *** Ibid. i. ii 9.\n\nBut the Mexican calendar is hard to deal with. Mueller places the feasts\nof Huitzilopochtli in the middle of May, the middle of August, and the\nmiddle of December.* He combines his facts with a legend which made\nHuitzilopochtli to be the son of the goddess of vegetation. J. G.\nMueller's whole argument is learned and acute, but errs probably in\nattempting to extract a consecutive symbolical sense out of the chaos of\nmyth. Thus he writes: \"When the myth makes the god the son of the mother\nof plants, it divides his essence from that of his mother, and thus\nHuitzilopochtli, however closely akin to the plant world, is not the\nplant world itself \". This is to consider more curiously than the\nmyth-makers. The name of the patron goddess of the flower-wearers in\nfeasts was Coatlicue or Coatlan, which is also the name of the mother of\nHuitzilopochtli; its meaning is \"serpent petticoated\".**\n\n     * Uramerik. Rel. v. p. 602.\n\n     ** Sahagun, ii. 8\n\nWhen Mueller goes on to identify Huitzilopochtli with the bunch of\nfeathers that fell into his mother's breast before his birth, and that\nagain with the humming-bird, and that again with the honey-sucking\nbird as the \"means of fructifying the plants,\" and, finally, with the\n_maennliche befrwchtende Naturkraft_, we have left myth far behind, and\nare in a region of symbolism and abstract thought, where one conjecture\nis as good as another. The hypothesis is that men, feeling a sense\nof religious reverence for the germinal force in Nature, took the\nhumming-bird for its emblem, and so evolved the myth of the birth of\nHuitzilopochtli, who at once fructifies and is born from the bosom of\nvernal Nature. It would be rash and wrong to deny that such ideas are\nmixed in the medley of myth. But, as a rule, the sacred animal (as the\nhumming-bird) is sacred first in itself, probably as a totem or as a\nguide and protector, and the symbolical sense is a forced interpretation\nput later on the facts.* We can hardly go farther, with safety, than the\nrecognition of mingled aspects and elements in Huitzilopochtli as the\ntotem, the tribal god, the departmental war-god, and possibly he is\nthe god of the year's progress and renewal. His legend and ritual are\na conglomerate of all these things, a mass of ideas from many stages of\nculture.\n\nAn abstract comparatively brief must suffice for the other Aztec\ndeities.\n\nTezcatlipoca is a god with considerable pretensions to an abstract and\nlofty divinity. His appearance was not prepossessing; his image, as\nBernal has described it, wore the head of a bear, and was covered with\ntiny mirrors.** Various attributes, especially the mirror and a golden\near, showed him forth as the beholder of the conduct of men and the\nhearer of prayer. He was said, while he lived on earth, to have been a\nkind of Ares in the least amiable aspect of the god, a maker of wars\nand discord.*** Wealth and power were in his gift. He was credited with\nability to destroy the world when he chose. Seats were consecrated to\nhim in the streets and the public places; on these might no man sit\ndown.\n\n     * Compare Maspero on \"Egyptian Beast-Gods,\" Rev. de l'Hist.\n     des Rel., vol. i. and chapter postea, on \"Egyptian Divine\n     Myths\".\n\n     **The name means \"shining mirror\". Acosta makes him the god\n     of famine and pestilence (p. 353).\n\n     *** Sahagun, i. 3.\n\nHe was one of the two gods whose extraordinary birth, and death by\n\"happy despatch,\" that their vitality might animate the motionless sun,\nhave already been described.* Tezcatlipoca, like most of the other gods,\nrevived, and came back from the sky to earth. At a place called Tulla he\nencountered another god or medicine-man, Quetzalcoatl, and their\nlegends become inextricably entangled in tales of trickery, animal\nmetamorphosis, and perhaps in vague memories of tribal migrations.\nThroughout Tezcatlipoca brought grief on the people called Toltecs, of\nwhom Quetzalcoatl was the divine culture-hero.** His statues, if we\nmay believe Acosta, did him little credit. \"In Cholula, which is a\ncommonwealth of Mexico, they worship a famous idol, which was the god\nof merchandise.... It had the forme of a man, but the visage of a little\nbird with a red bill and above a combe full of wartes.\"***\n\n     * _Antea_, \"Myths of the Origins of Things \".\n\n     ** Sahagnn, iii. 5, 6.\n\n     *** Acosta, _Nalurall and Morall Historic of the East and\n     West Indies_, London, 1604.\n\nA ready way of getting a view of the Mexican Pantheon is to study\nSahagun's two books on the feasts of the gods, with their ritual. It\nwill become manifest that the worship was a worship, on the whole,\nof departmental gods of the elements, of harvest, of various human\nactivities, such as love and commerce, and war and agriculture. The\nnature of the worship, again, was highly practical. The ceremonies,\nwhen not mere offerings of human flesh, were commonly representations on\nearth of desirable things which the gods were expected to produce in the\nheavenly sphere. The common type of all such magical ceremonies, whereby\nlike is expected to produce like, has been discussed in the remarks on\nmagic (chapter iv.). The black smoke of sacrifice generates clouds; the\npouring forth of water from a pitcher (as in the Attic Thesmophoria)\ninduces the gods to pour forth rain. Thus in Mexico the rain-god\n(Tlaloc, god of waters) was propitiated with sacrifices of children.\n\"If the children wept and shed abundant tears, they who carried them\nrejoiced, being convinced that rain would also be abundant.\"* The god\nof the maize, again (Cinteotl, son of the maize-goddess), had rites\nresembling those of the Greek Pyanepsion and Eiresione. The Aztecs\nused to make an image of the god, and offer it all manner of maize and\nbeans.** Curiously enough, the Greeks also regarded their Pyanepsion\nas a bean-feast. A more remarkable analogy is that of the Peruvian Mama\nCora, the figure of a goddess made of maize, which was asked \"if it\nhath strength sufficient to continue until the next year,\" and of which\nthe purpose was, \"that the seed of the maize may not perish\".*** This\ncorn image of the corn goddess, preserved through all the year and\nreplaced in the next year by a fresh image, is the Attic (--------), a\nbranch of olive hung with a loaf and with all the fruits of the season,\nand set up to stand for all the year in front of each house. \"And it\nremains for a year, and when it is dry and withered next year they make\na fresh one.\"****\n\n     * Sahagun. ii. 2, 3.\n\n     ** Ibid., ii. 4, 24.\n\n     *** Acosta, Hist Nat., 1604, p. 413.\n\n     **** See Schol.  in Aristoph.   Plut., 1054, and other\n     texts, quoted by Mannhardt, _Arntike Waldund Feld Cultus_,\n     ii. 221, note 3.\n\nChildren were sacrificed in Mexico to this deity. In the rites of a\ngoddess of harvest, as has been said, torches were borne by the dancers,\nas in the Eleusinia; and in European and Oriental folk-lore.1 Demeter\nwas the Greek harvest goddess, in whose rites torches had a place. One\nof her names is Demeter Erinnys. Mr. Max Mueller recognises Erinnys as\nthe dawn. Schwartz connects Demeter Erinnys with the thunderstorm. The\ntorch in the hand of Demeter is the lightning, according to Schwartz. It\nis interesting, whether the torch be the torch of dawn, or of storm, or\nneither, to see the prevalence of these torch festivals in rural rites\nin Mexico, Greece and modern Europe. The idea of the peasants is that\nthe lights scare away evil spirits.** In the Mexican rite, a woman,\nrepresenting the goddess and dressed in her ornaments, was sacrificed.\nThe same horrid ceremony accompanied the feast of the mother of the\ngods, Teteo Innan.*** In this rite the man who represented the son of\nthe goddess wore a mask of the skin from the thigh of the female\nvictim who had personated the goddess herself. The wearing of the skin\nestablished a kinship between the man and the woman, as in the many\nclassical, ancient and savage rituals where the celebrants wear the\nhides of the sacrificed beasts. There was a god of storm called \"cloudy\nserpent,\" Mixcoatl, whose rites were not more humane. The Mexican\nAphrodite was named _Tlacolteotl_,**** \"the impure\".\n\n     * Mannhardt, op.  cit., ii.  263,  i.  501, 502; Schwartz,\n     _Praehistorisch Anthropologische Studien_, p. 79.\n\n     ** Compare the French _jour des brandons_.\n\n     ***See Sahagun, ii. 30.\n\n     **** Ibid., i. 12.\n\nAbout her character the Aztecs had no illusions. She listened to the\nconfessions of the most loathsome sinners, whom she perhaps first\ntempted to err, and then forgave and absolved. Confession was usually\nput off till people had ceased to be likely to sin. She is said to have\nbeen the wife of Tlaloc, carried off by Tezcatlipoca. \"She must\nhave been the aquatic vegetation of marshy lands,\" says M. Roville,\n\"possessed by the god of waters till the sun dries her up and she\ndisappears.\" This is an amusing example of modern ingenuity. It\nresembles M. Reville's assertion that Tlaloc, the rain-god, \"had but\none eye, which shows that he must be ultimately identified as an ancient\npersonification of the rainy sky, whose one eye is the sun\". A rainy sky\nhas usually no \"eye\" at all, and, when it has, in this respect it does\nnot differ from a cloudless sky.\n\nA less lovely set of Olympians than the Aztec gods it is difficult to\nconceive. Yet, making every allowance for Catholic after-thoughts, there\ncan be no doubt that the prayers, penances and confessions described at\nlength by Sahagun indicate a firm Mexican belief that even these strange\ndeities \"made for righteousness,\" loved good, and, in this world and the\nnext, punished evil. However it happened, whatever accidents of history\nor of mixture of the races in the dim past caused it, the Aztecs carried\nto extremes the religious and the mythical ideas. They were exceedingly\npious in their attitude of penitence and prayer; they were more fierce\nand cruel in ritual, more fantastic in myth, than the wildest of tribes,\ntameless and homeless, ignorant of agriculture or of any settled and\nassured existence. Even the Inquisition of the Spanishof the sixteenth\ncentury was an improvement on the unheard-of abominations of Mexican\nritual. As in all fully developed polytheisms of civilised races among\nthe Aztecs we lose sight of the moral primal Being of low savage races.\nHe is obscured by deities of a kind not yet evolved in the lowest\nculture.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI. THE MYTHOLOGY OF EGYPT\n\n     Antiquity of Egypt--Guesses at origin of the people--\n     Chronological views of the religion--Permanence and changes--\n     Local and syncretic worship--Elements of pure belief and of\n     totemism--Authorities for facts--Monuments and Greek\n     reports--Contending theories of modern authors--Study of the\n     gods, their beasts, their alliances and mutations--Evidence\n     of ritual--A study of the Osiris myth and of the development\n     of Osiris-Savage and theological elements in the myth--Moral\n     aspect of the religion--Conclusion.\n\nEven to the ancients Egypt was antiquity, and the Greeks sought in the\ndateless mysteries of the Egyptian religion for the fountain of all that\nwas most mysterious in their own. Curiosity about the obscure beginnings\nof human creeds and the first knowledge of the gods was naturally\naroused by that spectacle of the Pantheon of Egypt. Her highest gods\nwere abstractions, swathed, like the Involuti of the Etrurians, in veils\nof mystic doctrine; yet in the most secret recess of her temples the\npious beheld \"a crocodile, a cat, or a serpent, a beast rolling on a\npurple couch\".*\n\n     * Clem. Alex., _Paedagog_., iii. 2 (93).\n\nIn Egypt, the earlier ages and the later times beheld a land dominated\nby the thought of death, whose shadow falls on the monarch on his\ncrowning day, whose whisper bids him send to far-off shores for the\ngranite and the alabaster of the tomb. As life was ruled by the idea\nof death; so was fact conquered by dream, and all realities hastened to\nlose themselves in symbols; all gods rushed to merge their identity in\nthe sun, as moths fly towards the flame of a candle. This spectacle of\na race obedient to the dead and bowing down before the beasts, this\nprocession of gods that were their own fathers and members together in\nRa, wakened the interest of the Greeks, who were even more excited by\nthe mystery of extreme age that hid the beginnings of Egypt. Full of\ntheir own memories and legends of tribal movements, of migrations, of\ninvasions, the Greeks acknowledged themselves children of yesterday in\nface of a secular empire with an origin so remote that it was scarcely\nguessed at in the conjectures of fable. Egypt presented to them, as to\nus, the spectacle of antique civilisation without a known beginning.\nThe spade of to-day reveals no more than the traditions of two thousand\nyears ago. The most ancient relics of the earliest dynasty are the\nmassive works of an organised society and an accomplished art. There is\nan unbridged interval between the builders of the mysterious temple hard\nby the Sphinx and their predecessors, the chippers of palaeolithic flint\naxes in the river drift. We know not whence the Egyptians came; we only\ntrifle with hypotheses when we conjecture that her people are of an\nAsiatic or an African stock; we know not whether her gods arose in the\nfertile swamps by Nile-side, or whether they were borne in arks, like\nthe Huitzilopochtli of Mexico, from more ancient seats by the piety\nof their worshippers. Yet as one great river of mysterious source flows\nthroughout all Egypt, so through the brakes and jungles of her religion\nflows one great myth from a distant fountain-head, the myth of Osiris.*\n\n     * As to the origin of the Egyptians, the prevalent belief\n     among the ancients was that they had descended the Nile from\n     the interior of Africa. Cf. Diodorus Siculus, iii. 8. Modern\n     theorists occasionally lean in this direction. Dumichen,\n     _Geschichte des Alien AEgyptiens_, i. 118. Again, an attempt\n     has been made to represent them as successful members of a\n     race whereof the Bushmen of South Africa are the social\n     failures. M. Maspero conceives, once more, that the\n     Egyptians were \"proto-Semitic,\" ethnologically related to the\n     people of Eastern Asia, and the grammar of their language\n     has Semitic affinities. But the connection, if it ever\n     existed, is acknowledged to be extremely remote. Maspero,\n     _Hist, de l'Orient_, 4th edit., p. 17. De Rouge writes,\n     \"Tout nous ramene vers la parente primitive de Mitsraim\n     (Egyptains) et de Canaan\" (_Recherches sur les Muniments_,\n     p. 11).\n\nThe questions which we have to ask in dealing with the mythology of\nEgypt come under two heads: First, What was the nature of Egyptian\nreligion and myth? Secondly, How did that complex mass of beliefs and\npractices come into existence?\n\nThe question, _What was the religion of Egypt?_ is far from simple. In\na complete treatise on the topic, it would be necessary to ask in reply,\nAt what period, in what place, and among what classes of society did\nthe religion exist which you wish to investigate? The ancient Egyptian\nreligion had a lifetime so long that it almost requires to be meted by\nthe vague measures of geological time. It is historically known to us,\nby the earliest monuments, about the date at which Archbishop Usher\nfixed the Creation. Even then, be it noticed, the religion of Egypt was\nold and full-grown; there are no historical traces of its beginnings.\nLike the material civilisation, it had been fashioned by the unrecorded\n_Sheshoa Hor_, \"the servants of Horus,\" patriarchs dwelling with the\nblessed. In the four or five thousand years of its later existence,\nEgyptian religion endured various modifications.* It was a conservative\npeople, and schooled by the wisdom of the sepulchre. But invaders,\nSemitic, Ethiopian and Greek, brought in some of their own ideas.\nPriestly colleges developed novel dogmas, and insensibly altered ritual\nThe thought of hundreds of generations of men brooded, not fruitlessly,\nover the problems of the divine nature. Finally, it is likely that in\nEgypt, as elsewhere, the superstitions of the least educated and\nmost backward classes, and of subject peoples on a lower level of\ncivilisation, would again and again break up, and win their way to the\nsurface of religion. Thus a complete study of Egyptian faiths would be\nchronological--would note the setting and rising of the stars of elder\nand later deities.\n\n     * Professor Lieblein, maintaining this view, opposes the\n     statement of Mr. Le Page Renouf, who writes: \"The earliest\n     monuments which have been discovered present to us the very\n     same fully developed civilisation and the same religion as\n     the later monuments\" (_Hib. Lectures_, 1880, p. 81). But it\n     is superfluous to attack a position which Mr. Le Page Renouf\n     does not appear really to hold. He admits the existence of\n     development and evolution in Egyptian religious thought \"I\n     believe, therefore, that, after closely approaching the\n     point at which polytheism might have turned into monotheism,\n     the religious thought of Egypt turned aside into a wrong\n     track\" (Op. cit, p. 236).\n\nThe method of a systematic history of Egyptian religion would not be\nregulated by chronology alone. Topographical and social conditions\nwould also claim attention. The favoured god or gods of one nome\n(administrative district), or of one town, or of one sacred metropolis,\nwere not the gods of another metropolis, or town, or nome, though some\ndeities were common to the whole country. The fundamental character\nmight be much the same in each case, but the titles, and aspects, and\nritual, and accounts of the divine genealogy varied in each locality.\nOnce more, the \"syncretic\" tendency kept fusing into one divine name\nand form, or into a family triad of gods (mother, father and son),\nthe deities of different districts, which, beneath their local\npeculiarities, theologians could recognise as practically the same.\n\nWhile political events and local circumstances were thus modifying\nEgyptian religion, it must never be forgotten that the different classes\nof society were probably by no means at one in their opinions. The\nmonuments show us what the kings believed, or at least what the kings\npractised, record the prayers they uttered and the sacrifices they\noffered. The tombs and the papyri which contain the _Book of the Dead_\nand other kindred works reveal the nature of belief in a future life,\nwith the changes which it underwent at different times. But the people,\nthe vast majority, unlettered and silent, cannot tell us what _they_\nbelieved, or what were their favourite forms of adoration. We are\nleft to the evidence of amulets, of books of magic, of popular tales,\nsurviving on a papyrus here and there, and to the late testimony of\nGreek writers--Herodotus, Diodorus, the author of the treatise _De\nOsiride et hide_, and others. While the clergy of the twentieth dynasty\nwere hymning the perfections of Ammon Ra--\"so high that man may not\nattain unto him, dweller in the hidden place, him whose image no man has\nbeheld\"--the peasant may have been worshipping, like a modern Zulu, the\nserpents in his hovel, or may have been adoring the local sacred cat\nof his village, or flinging stones at the local sacred crocodile of\nhis neighbours. To the enlightened in the later empire, perhaps to the\nremotest unknown ancestors also, God was self-proceeding, self-made,\nmanifest in the deities that were members together in him of godhead.\nBut the peasant, if he thinks of the gods at all, thinks of them walking\nthe earth, like our Lord and the saints in the Norse nursery tales, to\namuse themselves with the adventures of men. The peasant spoke of the\nSeven Hathors, that come like fairy godmothers to the cradle of each\ninfant, and foretell his lot in life.*\n\n     * Compare Maspero, _Hist, de l'Orient_., 4th edit., pp. 279-\n     288, for the priestly hymns and the worship of beasts. \"The\n     lofty thoughts remained the property of a small number of\n     priests and instructed people; they did not penetrate the\n     mass of the population. Far from that, the worship of\n     animals, goose, swallow, cat, serpent, had many more\n     followers than Amnion Ra could count.\" See also Tiele,\n     _Manuel de l'Hist. des Rel._, Paris, 1880, pp. 46, 47. For\n     the folk-lore of wandering gods see Maspero, _Contes\n     Egyptiens_, Paris, 1882, p. 17.\n\nIt is impossible, of course, to write here a complete history of\nEgyptian religion, as far as it is to be extracted from the books and\nessays of learned moderns; but it has probably been made clear that\nwhen we speak of the religion and mythology of Egypt, we speak of a very\nlarge and complicated subject. Plainly this is a topic which the lay\nstudent will find full of pitfalls, and on which even scholars may well\narrive at contradictory opinions. To put the matter briefly, where one\nschool finds in the gods and the holy menagerie of Egyptian creeds\nthe corruption of a primitive monotheism, its opponents see a crowd of\nsurvivals from savagery combined with clearer religious ideas, which are\nthe long result of civilised and educated thought.* Both views may be\nright in part.\n\n     * The English leader of the former school, the believer in a\n     primitive purity, corrupted and degraded but not\n     extinguished, is Mr. Le Page Renouf (_Hibbert Lectures_,\n     London, 1879). It is not always very easy to make out what\n     side Mr. Le Page Renouf does take. For example, in his\n     _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 89, he speaks somewhat\n     sympathetically of the \"very many eminent scholars, who,\n     with full knowledge of all that can be said to the contrary,\n     maintain that the Egyptian religion is essentially\n     monotheistic\". He himself says that \"a power without a name\n     or any mythological characteristic is constantly referred to\n     in the singular number, and can only be regarded as the\n     object of that _sensus numinis_, or immediate perception of\n     the Infinite.\" which is \"the result of an intuition as\n     irresistible as the impressions of our senses\". If this be\n     not primitive instinctive monotheism, what is it? Yet Mr.\n     Le Page Renouf says that Egyptian polytheism, after closely\n     approaching the point where it might have become monotheism,\n     went off on a wrong track; so the Egyptians after all were\n     polytheists, not monotheists (op. cit., p. 235). Of similar\n     views are the late illustrious Vicomte de Rouge, M.\n     Mariette, M. Pierret, and Brugsch Pasha (_Rel. und Myth, der\n     Alien Egypter_, vol i., Leipzig, 1884). On the other side,\n     on the whole regarding Egyptian creeds as a complex mass of\n     early uncivilised and popular ideas, with a later priestly\n     religion tending towards pantheism and monotheism, are M.\n     Maspero, Professor Tiele, Professor Lieblein (English\n     readers may consult his pamphlet, _Egyptian Religion_,\n     Leipzig, 1884), M. Edward Meyer, (_Geschichte des\n     Alterthums_, Stuttgart, 1884), Herr Pietsch. mann\n     (_Zeitschrtftfur Ethnologic_, Berlin, 1878, art. \"Fetisch\n     Dienst\"), and Professor Tiele (_Manuel de l'Histoire des\n     Religions_, Paris, 1880, and \"_History of Egyptian Religion,\n     English translation_, 1882).\n\nAfter this preamble let us endeavour to form a general working idea of\nwhat Egyptian religion was as a whole. What kind of religion did the\nIsraelites see during the sojourn in Egypt, or what presented itself to\nthe eyes of Herodotus? Unluckily we have no such eye-witnesses of the\nearlier Egyptian as Bernal Diaz was of the Aztec temples. The Bible says\nlittle that is definite about the theological \"wisdom of the Egyptians\".\nWhen confronted with the sacred beasts, Herodotus might have used with\ndouble truth the Greek saw: \"A great ox has trod upon my tongue\".* But\nwhat Herodotus hinted at or left unsaid is gathered from the evidence of\ntombs and temple walls and illuminated papyri.\n\nOne point is certain. Whatever else the religion of Egypt may at any\ntime have been, it struck every foreign observer as polytheism.**\nMoreover, it was a polytheism like another. The Greeks had no\ndifficulty, for example, in recognising amongst these beast-headed\nmonsters gods analogous to their own. This is demonstrated by the\nfact that to almost every deity of Egypt they readily and unanimously\nassigned a Greek divine name. Seizing on a certain aspect of Osiris and\nof his mystery-play, they made him Dionysus; Hor became Apollo; Ptah,\nHephaestus: Ammon Ra, Zeus; Thoth, Hermes, and so on with the rest.\nThe Egyptian deities were recognised as divine beings, with certain\n(generally ill-defined) departments of Nature and of human activity\nunder their care. Some of them, like Seb (earth) and Nut (heaven), were\nesteemed elemental forces or phenomena, and were identified with the\nsame personal phenomena or forces, Uranus and Gaea, in the Greek system,\nwhere heaven and earth were also parents of many of the gods.\n\n     * AEschylus, _Agamemnon_, 37, (--------)\n\n     **  Maspero, Musee de Boulaq, p. 150; Le Page Renouf, Hib.\n     Led., pp. 85,86.\n\nThus it is indisputably clear that Egyptian religion had a polytheistic\naspect, or rather, as Maspero says, was \"a well-marked polytheism\";\nthat in this regard it coincided with other polytheisms, and that this\nelement must be explained in the Egyptian, as it is explained in the\nGreek or the Aztec, or the Peruvian or the Maori religion.* Now an\nexplanation has already been offered in the mythologies previously\nexamined. Some gods have been recognised, like Rangi and Papa, the Maori\nheaven and earth (Nut and Seb), as representatives of the old personal\nearth and heaven, which commend themselves to the barbaric fancy. Other\ngods are the informing and indwelling spirits of other phenomena, of\nwinds or sea or woods. Others, again, whatever their origin, preside\nover death, over the dead, over the vital functions, such as love,\nor over the arts of life, such as agriculture; and these last gods\nof departments of human activity were probably in the beginning\nculture-heroes, real, or more likely ideal, the first teachers of men.\n\n     * \"It is certainly erroneous to consider Egyptian religion\n     as a polytheistic corruption of a prehistoric monotheism. It\n     is more correct to say that, while polytheistic in\n     principle, the religion developed in two absolutely opposite\n     directions. On one side, the constant introduction of new\n     gods, local or foreign; on the other, a groping after a\n     monotheism never absolutely reached. The learned explained\n     the crowd of gods as so many incarnations of the one hidden\n     uncreated deity.\"--Tiele, _Manuel de l'Histoire des\n     Religions_, p. 46.\n\nIn polytheisms of long standing all these attributes and functions have\nbeen combined and reallotted, and the result we see in that confusion\nwhich is of the very essence of myth. Each god has many birth-places,\none has many sepulchres, all have conflicting genealogies. If these\nideas about other polytheisms be correct, then it is probable that they\nexplain to a great extent the first principles of the polytheism of\nEgypt They explain at least the factors in Egyptian religion, which the\nGreeks recognised as analogous with their own, and which are found among\npolytheists of every degree of culture, from New Zealand to Hellas. If\never Ptah, or any other name, represented \"Our Father\" as he is known\nto the most backward races, he was buried into the background by gods\nevolved from ghosts, by departmental gods, and by the gods of races\namalgamated in the course of conquest and settlement.\n\nLeaving on one side, then, for the moment, the vast system of\nancestor-worship and of rites undertaken for the benefit of the dead,\nand leaving aside the divinity of the king, polytheism was the most\nremarkable feature of Egyptian religion. The foreign traveller in the\ntime of the pyramid-builders, as in the time of Ramses II., or of the\nPtolemies, or of the Roman domination, would have found a crowd of gods\nin receipt of honour and of sacrifice. He would have learned that one\ngod was most adored in one locality, another in another, that Ammon Ra\nwas predominant in Thebes; Ra, the sun-god, in Heliopolis; Osiris in\nAbydos, and so forth. He would also have observed that certain animals\nwere sacred to certain gods, and that in places where each beast was\nrevered, his species was not eaten, though it might blamelessly be\ncooked and devoured in the neighbouring nome or district, where another\nanimal was dominant. Everywhere, in all nomes and towns, the adoration\nof Osiris, chiefly as the god and redeemer of the dead, was practised.*\n\n     * On the different religions of different nomes, and\n     especially the animal worship, see Pietschmann, _Der\n     AEgyptische Fetischdienst und Goetterglaube, Zeitschrtft fuer\n     Ethnologie_, 1878, p. 168.\n\nWhile these are the general characteristics of Egyptian religion, there\nwere inevitably many modifications in the course of five thousand years.\nIf one might imagine a traveller endowed, like the Wandering Jew, with\nendless life, and visiting Egypt every thousand, or every five hundred\nyears, we can fancy some of the changes in religion which he would\nobserve. On the whole, from the first dynasty and the earliest\nmonuments to the time when Hor came to wear a dress like that of a Roman\ncenturion, the traveller would find the chief figures of the Pantheon\nrecognisably the same. But there would be novelties in the manner of\nworshipping and of naming or representing them. \"In the oldest\ntombs, where the oldest writings are found, there are not many gods\nmentioned--there are Osiris, Horus, Thot, Seb, Nut, Hathor, Anubis,\nApheru, and a couple more.\"* Here was a stock of gods who remained in\ncredit till \"the dog Anubis\" fled from the Star of Bethlehem. Most of\nthese deities bore birth-marks of the sky and of the tomb. If Osiris\nwas \"the sun-god of Abydos,\" he was also the murdered and mutilated\nculture-hero. If Hor or Horus was the sun at his height, he too had\nsuffered despiteful usage from his enemies. Seb and Nut (named on the\ncoffin of Mycerinus of the fourth dynasty in the British Museum) were\nour old friends the personal heaven and earth. Anubis, the jackal, was\n\"the lord of the grave,\" and dead kings are worshipped no less than\ngods who were thought to have been dead kings. While certain gods, who\nretained permanent power, appear in the oldest monuments, sacred animals\nare also present from the first.\n\n     * Lieblein, _Egyptian Religion_, p. 7.\n\nThe gods, in fact, of the earliest monuments were beasts. Here is one of\nthe points in which a great alteration developed itself in the midst\nof Egyptian religion. Till the twelfth dynasty, when a god is mentioned\n(and in those very ancient remains gods are not mentioned often), \"he is\nrepresented by his animal, or with the name spelled out in hieroglyphs,\noften beside the bird or beast\".* \"The jackal stands for Anup (Anubis),\nthe frog for Hekt, the baboon for Tahuti (Thoth). It is not till after\nSemitic influence had begun to work in the country that any figures of\ngods are found.\" By \"figures of gods\" are meant the later man-shaped\nor semi-man-shaped images, the hawk-headed, jackal-headed, and similar\nrepresentations with which we are familiar in the museums. The change\nbegins with the twelfth dynasty, but becomes most marked under the\neighteenth. \"During the ancient empire,\" says M. Maspero, \"I only find\nmonuments at four points--at Memphis, at Abydos, in some parts of Middle\nEgypt, at Sinai, and in the valley of Hammamat. The divine names appear\nbut occasionally, in certain unvaried formulae. Under the eleventh and\ntwelfth dynasties Lower Egypt comes on the scene. The formulae are more\nexplicit, but the religious monuments rare. From the eighteenth dynasty\nonwards, we have _representations_ of all the deities, accompanied\nby legends more or less developed, and we begin to discover books of\nritual, hymns, amulets, and other objects.\"** There are also sacred\ntexts in the Pyramids.\n\n     * Flinders Petrie, _Arts of Ancient Egypt_, p. 8.\n\n     ** _Revue de l'Histoire des Religions_, i. 124.\n\nOther changes, less important than that which turned the beast-god\ninto a divine man or woman, often beast-headed, are traced in the very\nearliest ages. The ritual of the holy bulls (Hapi, Apis) makes its\nofficial appearance under the fourth king of the first, and the first\nking of the second dynasties.* Mr. Le Page Renouf, admitting this,\nthinks the great development of bull-worship later.** In the third\ndynasty the name of Ra, sun, comes to be added to the royal names of\nkings, as Nebkara, Noferkara, and so forth.*** Osiris becomes more\nimportant than the jackal-god as the guardian of the dead. Sokar,\nanother god of death, shows a tendency to merge himself in Osiris.\nWith the successes of the eighteenth dynasty in Thebes, the process of\n_syncretism_, by which various god-names and god-natures are mingled, so\nas to unite the creeds of different nomes and provinces, and blend\nall in the worship of the Theban Ammon Ra, is most notable. Now arise\nschools of theology; pantheism and an approach to monotheism in the\nTheban god become probable results of religious speculations and\nimperial success. These tendencies are baffled by the break-up of the\nTheban supremacy, but the monotheistic idea remains in the esoteric\ndogmas of priesthoods, and survives into Neo-Platonism. Special changes\nare introduced--now, as in the case of worship of the solar disk by a\nheretic king; earlier, as in the prevalence of Set-worship, perhaps by\nSemitic invaders.****\n\n     * Brugsch, _History of Egypt_, English transl., i. 59, 60.\n\n     ** Hib. Lect., pp. 237, 238.\n\n     *** Op. cit. i. p. 56.\n\n     **** For Khunaten, and his heresy of the disk in Thebes, see\n     Brugsch, op. cit., i. 442. It had little or no effect on\n     myth. Tiele says (_Hist. Egypt. Rel._, p. 49), \"From the\n     most remote antiquity Set is one of the Osirian circle, and\n     is thus a genuine Egyptian deity\".\n\nIt is impossible here to do more than indicate the kind of modification\nwhich Egyptian religion underwent. Throughout it remained constant\nin certain features, namely, the _local_ character of its gods, their\nusefulness to the dead (their _Chthonian_ aspect), their tendency to be\nmerged into the sun, Ra, the great type and symbol and source of life,\nand, finally, their inability to shake off the fur and feathers of the\nbeasts, the earliest form of their own development. Thus life,\ndeath, sky, sun, bird, beast and man are all blended in the religious\nconceptions of Egypt. Here follow two hymns to Osiris, hymns of the\nnineteenth and twentieth dynasties, which illustrate the confusion of\nlofty and almost savage ideas, the coexistence of notions from every\nstage of thought, that make the puzzle of Egyptian mythology.\n\n\"Hail to thee, Osiris, eldest son of Seb, greatest of the six deities\nborn of Nut, chief favourite of thy father, Ra, the father of fathers;\nking of time, master of eternity; one in his manifestations, terrible.\nWhen he left the womb of his mother he united all the crowns, he fixed\nthe urseus (emblem of sovereignty) on his head. God of many shapes, god\nof the unknown name, thou who hast many names in many provinces; if Ra\nrises in the heavens, it is by the will of Osiris; if he sets, it is at\nthe sight of his glory.\"*\n\nIn another hymn** Osiris is thus addressed: \"King of eternity, great\ngod, risen from the waters that were in the beginning, strong hawk, king\nof gods, master of souls, king of terrors, lord of crowns, thou that\nart great in Hnes, that dost appear at Mendes in the likeness of a ram,\nmonarch of the circle of gods, king of Amenti (Hades), revered of gods\nand men, who so knoweth humility and reckoneth deeds of righteousness,\nthereby knows he Osiris.\"***\n\n\n     *  From Abydos, nineteenth dynasty. Maspero, _Musee de\n     Boulaq_, pp. 49,50.\n\n     ** Twentieth dynasty.    _Op. cit._, p. 48.\n\n     *** \"This phase of religious thought,\" says Mr. Page Renouf,\n     speaking of what he calls _monotheism_, \"is chiefly\n     presented to us in a large number of hymns, beginning with\n     the earliest days of the eighteenth dynasty. It is certainly\n     much more ancient, but.... none of the hymns of that time\n     have come down to us.\" See a very remarkable pantheistic\n     hymn to Osiris, \"lord of holy transformations,\" in a passage\n     cited, _Hib. Lect_., p. 218, and the hymns to Amnion Ra,\n     \"closely approaching the language of monotheism,\" pp. 225,\n     226. Excellent examples of pantheistic litanies of Ra are\n     translated from originals of the nineteenth dynasty, in\n     _Records of the Past_, viii. 105-128. The royal Osiris is\n     identified with Ra. Here, too, it is told how Ra smote Apap,\n     the serpent of evil, the Egyptian Ahi.\n\nHere the noblest moral sentiments are blended with Oriental salutations\nin the worship of a god who, for the moment, is recognised as lord\nof lords, but who is also a ram at Mendes. This apparent confusion of\nideas, and this assertion of supremacy for a god who, in the next\nhymn, is subjected to another god, mark civilised polytheism; but the\nconfusion was increased by the extreme age of the Egyptian faith, and\nby the doubt that prevailed as to the meaning of tradition. \"The\nseventeenth chapter of the _Book of the Dead_\" which seems to contain\na statement of the system of the universe as understood at Heliopolis\nunder the first dynasties, \"is known to us by several examples of the\neleventh and twelfth dynasties.\" _Each of the verses had already been\ninterpreted in three or four different ways_; so different, that,\naccording to one school, the Creator, _Ra-Show_, was the solar fire;\naccording to another school, not the fire, but the waters! The _Book\nof the Dead_, in fact, is no book, but collections of pamphlets, so to\nspeak, of very different dates. \"Plan or unity cannot be expected,\" and\nglosses only some four thousand years old have become imbedded in really\nancient texts.* Fifteen centuries later the number of interpretations\nhad considerably increased.**\n\nWhere the Egyptians themselves were in helpless doubt, it would be\nvain to offer complete explanations of their opinions and practices\nin detail; but it is possible, perhaps, to account for certain large\nelements of their beliefs, and even to untie some of the knots of the\nOsirian myth.\n\nThe strangest feature in the rites of Egypt was animal-worship, which\nappeared in various phases. There was the local adoration of a beast,\na bird, or fish, to which the neighbours of other districts were\nindifferent or hostile. There was the presence of the animal in the most\nsacred _penetralia_ of the temple; and there was the god conceived of,\non the whole, as anthropomorphic, but often represented in art, after\nthe twelfth dynasty, as a man or woman with the head of a bird or\nbeast.***\n\n     * Cf. Tiele, _Hist Egypt_. Rel., pp. 26-29, and notes.\n\n     **  Maspero, _Musee de Boulaq_, p. 149.\n\n     *** As to the animals which were sacred and might not be\n     eaten in various nomes, an account will be found in\n     Wilkinson's _Ancient Egyptians_, ii. 467. The English reader\n     will find many beast-headed gods in the illustrations to\n     vol. iii. The edition referred to is Birch's, London, 1878.\n     A more scientific authority is Lanzoni, _Dizion. Mit_.\n\nThese points in Egyptian religion have been the great puzzle both of\nantiquity and of modern mythology. The common priestly explanations\nvaried. Sometimes it was said that the gods had concealed themselves in\nthe guise of beasts during the revolutionary wars of Set against Horus.*\nOften, again, animal-worship was interpreted as symbolical; it was not\nthe beast, but the qualities which he personified that were adored.**\nThus Anubis, really a jackal, is a dog, in the explanations of Plutarch,\nand is said to be worshipped for his fidelity, or because he can see in\nthe night, or because he is the image of time. \"As he brought forth all\nthings out of himself, and contains all things within himself, he gets\nthe title of dog.\"*** Once more, and by a nearer approach to what is\nprobably the truth, the beast-gods were said to be survivals of the\nbadges (representing animals) of various tribal companies in the forces\nof Osiris. Such were the ideas current in Graeco-Roman speculation,\nnor perhaps is there any earlier evidence as to the character of native\ninterpretation of animal-worship. The opinion has also been broached\nthat beast-worship in Egypt is a refraction from the use of hieroglyphs.\nIf the picture of a beast was one of the signs in the writing of a god's\nname, adoration might be transferred to the beast from the god. It is\nby no means improbable that this process had its share in producing\nthe results.**** Some of the explanations of animal-worship which were\npopular of old are still in some favour.\n\n     * De Is. et Os., lxxii.\n\n     ** Op. cit., xi.\n\n     *** Ibid., xliv.\n\n     **** Pietschmann, op. cit., p. 163, contends that the\n     animal-worship is older than these Egyptian modes of writing\n     the divine names, say of Amnion Ra or Hathor. Moreover, the\n     signs were used in writing the names because the gods were\n     conceived of in these animal shapes.\n\nMr. Le Page Renouf appears to hold that there was something respectably\nmythical in the worship of the inhabitants of zoological and botanical\ngardens, something holy apparent at least to the devout.* He quotes the\nopinion attributed to Apollonius of Tyana, that the beasts were symbols\nof deity, not deities, and this was the view of \"a grave opponent\".\nMr. Le Page Renouf also mentions Porphyry's theory, that \"under the\nsemblance of animals the Egyptians worship the universal power which\nthe gods have revealed in the various forms of living nature\".** It is\nevident, of course, that all of these theories may have been held by the\nlearned in Egypt, especially after the Christian era, in the times of\nApollonius and Porphyry; but that throws little light on the motives and\nbeliefs of the pyramid-builders many thousands of years before, or of\nthe contemporary peasants with their worship of cats and alligators. In\nshort, the systems of symbolism were probably made after the facts, to\naccount for practices whose origin was obscure. Yet another hypothesis\nis offered by Mr. Le Page Renouf, and in the case of Set and the\nhippopotamus is shared by M. Maspero. Tiele also remarks that some\nbeasts were promoted to godhead comparatively late, because their names\nresembled names of gods.***\n\n     * _Hibbert Lectures_, pp. 6, 7.\n\n     ** _De Abst_., iv. c. 9.\n\n     *** _Theolog. Tidjsch_., 12th year, p. 261.\n\nThe gods, in certain cases, received their animal characteristics by\nvirtue of certain unconscious puns or mistakes in the double senses of\nwords. Seb is the earth. Seb is also the Egyptian name for a certain\nspecies of goose, and, in accordance with the _homonymous_ tendency\nof the mythological period of all nations, the god and the bird were\nidentified.* Seb was called \"the Great Cackler\".** Again, the god Thoth\nwas usually represented with the head of an ibis. A mummied ibis \"in\nthe human form is made to represent the god Thoth\".*** This connection\nbetween Thoth and the ibis Mr. Le Page Renouf explains at some length as\nthe result of an etymological confusion.**** Thus metaphorical language\nreacted upon thought, and, as in other religions, obtained the mastery.\n\nWhile these are the views of a distinguished modern Egyptologist,\nanother Egyptologist, not less distinguished, is of an entirely opposite\nopinion as to the question on the whole. \"It is possible, nay, certain,\"\nwrites M. Maspero, \"that during the second Theban empire the learned\npriests may have thought it well to attribute a symbolical sense to\ncertain bestial deities. But whatever they may have worshipped in\nThoth-Ibis, it was a bird, and not a hieroglyph, that the first\nworshippers of the ibis adored.\"***** M. Meyer is of the same opinion,\nand so are Professor Tiele and M. Perrot.******\n\n     * For a statement of the theory of \"homonymous tendency,\"\n     see Selected Essays, Max Mueller, i. 299, 245. For a\n     criticism of the system, see Mythology in Encyclop, Brit.,\n     or in La Mythologie, A. Lang, Paris, 1886.\n\n     ** Hibbert Lectures, 1880, p. 111.\n\n     *** Wilkinson, iii. 325.\n\n     **** Op. cit., pp. 116, 117, 237.\n\n     ***** Revue de V Histoire des Religions, vol. i.\n\n     ****** Meyer, Oeschichte des Alterthums, p. 72; Tiele,\n     Manuel, p. 45; Perrot and Chipiez, Egyptian Art, English\n     transl., i. 54. Hist. Egypt. Rel., pp. 97, 103. Tiele finds\n     the origin of this animal-worship in \"animism,\" and supposes\n     that the original colonists or conquerors from Asia found it\n     prevalent in and adopted it from an African population.\n     Professor Tiele does not appear, when he wrote this chapter,\n     to have observed the world-wide diffusion of animal-worship\n     in totem ism, for he says, \"Nowhere else does the worship\n     of animals prevail so extensively as among African peoples\".\n\n\nWhile the learned have advanced at various periods these conflicting\ntheories of the origin of Egyptian animal-worship, a novel view was\nintroduced by Mr. M'Lennan. In his essays on _Plant and Animal Worship_,\nhe regarded Egyptian animal-worship as only a consecrated and elaborate\nsurvival of totemism. Mr. Le Page Renouf has ridiculed the \"school-boy\nauthorities on which Mr. M'Lennan relied\".* Nevertheless, Mr. M'Lennan's\nviews are akin to those to which M. Maspero and MM. Perrot and Chipiez\nare attached, and they have also the support of Professor Sayce.\n\n\"These animal forms, in which a later myth saw the shapes assumed by the\naffrighted gods during the great war between Horus and Typhon, take us\nback to a remote prehistoric age, when the religious creed of Egypt was\nstill totemism. They are survivals from a long-forgotten past, and\nprove that Egyptian civilisation was of slow and independent growth, the\nlatest stage only of which is revealed to us by the monuments. Apis of\nMemphis, Mnevis of Heliopolis, and Pachis of Hermonthis are all links\nthat bind together the Egypt of the Pharaohs and the Egypt of the stone\nage. These were the sacred animals of the clans which first settled\nin these localities, and their identification with the deities of the\nofficial religion must have been a slow process, never fully carried\nout, in fact, in the minds of the lower classes.\"**\n\n     * Hibbert Lectures, pp. 6, 30.\n\n     ** Herodotus, p. 344.\n\nThus it appears that, after all, even on philological showing, the\nreligions and myths of a civilised people may be illustrated by the\nreligions and myths of savages. It is in the study of savage totemism\nthat we too seek a partial explanation of the singular Egyptian\npractices that puzzled the Greeks and Romans, and the Egyptians\nthemselves. To some extent the Egyptian religious facts were purely\ntotemistic in the strict sense.\n\nSome examples of the local practices and rites which justify this\nopinion may be offered. It has been shown that the totem of each\ntotem-kindred among the lower races is sacred, and that there is a\nstrict rule against eating, or even making other uses of, the sacred\nanimal or plant.* At the same time, one totem-kindred has no scruple\nabout slaying or eating the totem of any other kindred. Now similar\nrules prevailed in Egypt, and it is not easy for the school which\nregards the holy beasts as _emblems_, or as the results of misunderstood\nlanguage, to explain why an emblem was adored in one village and\npersecuted and eaten in the next. But if these usages be survivals of\ntotemism, the practice at once ceases to be isolated, and becomes part\nof a familiar, if somewhat obscure, body of customs found all over\nthe world. \"The same animal which was revered and forbidden to be\nslaughtered for the altar or the table in one part of the country was\nsacrificed and eaten in another.\"**\n\n     * This must be taken generally.   See Spencer and Gillen in\n     the _Natives of Central Australia_, where each kin helps the\n     others to kill its own totem.\n\n     ** Wilkinson, _Ancient Egyptians_, ii. 467.\n\nHerodotus bears testimony to this habit in an important passage. He\nremarks that the people of the Theban nome whose god, Ammon Ra, or\nKhnum, was ram-headed, abstain from sheep and sacrifice goats; but\nthe people of Mendes, whose god was goat-headed, abstain from goats,\nsacrifice sheep, and hold all goats in reverence.*\n\nThese local rites, at least in Roman times, caused civil brawls, for the\ncustoms of one town naturally seemed blasphemous to neighbours with a\ndifferent sacred animal. Thus when the people of Dog-town were feasting\non the fish called oxyrrhyncus, the citizens of the town which revered\nthe oxyrrhyncus began to eat dogs, to which there is no temptation.\nHence arose a riot.**\n\n     * Herodotus, ii. 42-46. The goat-headed Mendesian god Pan,\n     as Herodotus calls him, is recognised by Dr. Birch as the\n     goat-headed Ba-en-tattu.    Wilkinson, ii. 512, note 2.\n\n     ** De Is. et Os., 71, 72.\n\nThe most singular detail in Juvenal's famous account of the war between\nthe towns of Ombi and Tentyra does not appear to be a mere invention.\nThey fought \"because each place loathes the gods of its neighbours\".\nThe turmoil began at a sacred feast, and the victors devoured one of the\nvanquished. Now if the religion were really totemistic, the worshippers\nwould be of the same blood as the animal they worshipped, and in eating\nan adorer of the crocodile, his enemies would be avenging the eating\nof their own sacred beast. When that beast was a crocodile, probably\nnothing but starvation or religious zeal could induce people to taste\nhis unpalatable flesh. Yet \"in the city Apollinopolis it is the custom\nthat every one must by all means eat a bit of crocodile; and on one day\nthey catch and kill as many crocodiles as they can, and lay them out in\nfront of the temple \". The mythic reason was that Typhon, in his flight\nfrom Horus, took the shape of a crocodile. Yet he was adored at various\nplaces where it was dangerous to bathe on account of the numbers and\naudacity of the creatures. Mummies of crocodiles are found in various\ntowns where the animal was revered.*\n\nIt were tedious to draw up a list of the local sacred beasts of Egypt;**\nbut it seems manifest that the explanation of their worship as totems\nat once colligates it with a familiar set of phenomena. The symbolic\nexplanations, on the other hand, are clearly fanciful, mere _jeux\nd'esprit_. For example, the sacred shrew-mouse was locally adored, was\ncarried to Butis on its death, and its mummy buried with care, but the\nexplanation that it \"received divine honours because it is blind, and\ndarkness is more ancient than light,\" by no means accounts for the\nmainly _local_ respect paid to the little beast.***\n\n     * Wilkinson, iii. 329. Compare AElian, x. 24, on the enmity\n     between worshippers of crocodiles and hawks (and Strabo,\n     xvii. 558). The hawk-worshippers averred that the hawk was a\n     symbol of fire; the crocodile people said that their beast\n     was an emblem of water; but why one city should be so\n     attached to water-worship and its neighbour to tire-worship\n     does not appear.\n\n     ** A good deal of information will be found in Wilkinson's\n     third volume, but must be accepted with caution.\n\n     *** Wilkinson, iii. 33; Plutarch, Sympos., iv. quaest. 5;\n     Herodot, ii. 67.\n\nIf this explanation of the _local_ worship of sacred beasts be admitted\nas plausible, the beast-headed gods, or many of them, may be accounted\nfor in the same way. It is always in a town where a certain animal is\nlocally revered that the human-shaped god wearing the head of the same\nanimal finds the centre and chief holy place of his worship. The cat is\ngreat in Bubastis, and there is Bast, and also the cat-headed Sekhet* of\nMemphis. The sheep was great in Thebes, and there was the sacred city of\nthe ram-headed Khnum or Ammon Ra.** If the crocodile was held in supreme\nregard at Ombos, there, too, was the sacred town of the crocodile-headed\ngod, Sebak.\n\n     * Wilkinson, iii. 286. But the cat, though Bubastis was her\n     centre and metropolis, was sacred all over the land. Nor was\n     puss only in this proud position.   Some animals were\n     _universally_ worshipped.\n\n     ** The inconsistencies of statement about this ram-headed\n     deity in Wilkinson are most confusing. Ammon is an adjective\n     = \"hidden,\" and is connected with the ram-headed Khnum, and\n     with the hawk-headed Ra, the sun.\n\nWhile Greek writers like Porphyry and Plutarch and Jamblichus repeat the\nvarious and inconsistent Egyptian allegorical accounts of the origin of\nthose beast-headed gods, the facts of their worship and chosen residence\nshow that the gods are only semi-anthropomorphic refinements or\nsuccessors of the animals. It has been said that these representations\nare later in time, and it is probable that they are later in evolution,\nthan the representations of the deities as mere animals. Nor, perhaps,\nis it impossible to conjecture how the change in art was made. It is a\ncommon ritual custom for the sacrificer to cover himself with the skin\nand head of the animal sacrificed. In Mexico we know that the Aztec\npriests wore the flayed skins of their human victims. Herodotus mentions\nthat on the one awful day when a sheep was yearly sacrificed in Thebes,\nthe statue of Zeus, as he calls him, was draped in the hide of the\nbeast. In the same way certain Californian tribes which worship the\nbuzzard sacrifice him, \"himself to himself,\" once a year, and use his\nskin as a covering in the ritual.* Lucian gives an instance in his\ntreatise _De Dea Syria_ (55): \"When a man means to go on pilgrimage to\nHierapolis, he sacrifices a sheep and eats of its flesh. He then kneels\ndown and draws the head over his own head, praying at the same time to\nthe god.\" Chaldean works of art often represent the priest in the skin\nof the god, sometimes in that of a fish.**\n\nIt is a conjecture not unworthy of consideration that the human gods\nwith bestial heads are derived from the aspect of the celebrant clad in\nthe pelt of the beast whom he sacrifices. In Egyptian art the heads of\nthe gods are usually like masks, or flayed skins superimposed on the\nhead of a man.*** If it be asked _why_ the celebrant thus disguises\nhimself in the sacrifice, it is only possible to reply by guess-work.\nBut the hypothesis may be hazarded that this rite was one of the many\nways in which the sacred animal has been propitiated in his death by\nmany peoples. It is a kind of legal fiction to persuade him that, like\nthe bear in the Finnish Kalewala and in the Red Indian and Australian\nlegend, \"he does not die\". His skin is still capering about on other\nshoulders.****\n\n     * [Robinson, _Life in California_, pp. 241, 803;]\n     Herodotus, ii. 42.\n\n     ** Menant, _Recherehes_, ii. 49. See a collection of cases\n     in our _Cupid and Psyche_, pp. lviii., lix.\n\n     *** The idea is Professor Robertson Smith's.\n\n     **** For examples of propitiation of slain animals by this\n     and other arts, see _Prim. Cult_, i. 467, 469. When the\n     Koriaks slay a bear or wolf, they dress one of their people\n     in his skin, and dance round him, chanting excuses. We must\n     not forget, while offering this hypothesis of the origin of\n     beast-headed gods, that representations of this kind in art\n     may only be a fanciful kind of shorthand. Everyone knows the\n     beasts which, in Christian art, accompany the four\n     Evangelists.   These do not, of course, signify that St.\n     John was of the eagle totem kin, and St. Mark of the stock\n     of the lion. They are the beasts of Ezekiel and the\n     Apocalypse, regarded as types of the four Gospel writers.\n     Moreover, in mediaeval art, the Evangelists are occasionally\n     represented with the heads of their beasts--John with an\n     eagle's head, Mark with a lion's, Luke with that of an ox.\n     See _Bulletin, Com. Hist. Archeol_., iv. 1852.   For this\n     note I am indebted to M. H. Gaidoz.\n\nWhile Egyptian myth, religion and ritual is thus connected with the\nbeliefs of the lower races, the animal-worship presents yet another\npoint of contact. Not only were beasts locally adored, but gods were\nthought of and represented in the shape of various different beasts. How\ndid the evolution work its way? what is the connection between a lofty\nspiritual conception, as of Ammon Ra, the lord of righteousness, and\nOsiris, judge of the dead, and bulls, rams, wolves, cranes, hawks, and\nso forth? Osiris especially had quite a collection of bestial heads,\nand appeared in divers bestial forms.* The bull Hapi \"was a fair and\nbeautiful image of the soul of Osiris,\" in late ritual.** We have read\na hymn in which he is saluted as a ram. He also \"taketh the character\nof the god Bennu, with the head of a crane,\" and as Sokar Osiris has\nthe head of a hawk.*** These phenomena could not but occur, in the\nlong course of time, when political expediency, in Egypt, urged the\nrecognition of the identity of various local deities. In the same way\n\"Ammon Ra, like most of the gods, frequently took the character of other\ndeities, as Khem, Ra and Chnumis, and even the attributes of Osiris\n\".****\n\n     * Cf. Wilkinson, iii. 86, 87.\n\n     ** De Is. et Os., 29.\n\n     ***Wilkinson, iii. 82.\n\n     ****Op. cit., iii, 9.\n\nThere was a constant come and go of attributes, and gods adopted each\nother's symbols, as kings and emperors wear the uniform of regiments in\neach other's service. Moreover, it is probable that the process so\namply illustrated in Samoan religion had its course in Egypt, and that\ndifferent holy animals might be recognised as aspects of the same deity.\nFinally, the intricate connection of gods and beasts is no singular or\nisolated phenomenon. From Australia upwards, a god, perhaps originally,\nconceived of as human and moral in character, is also recognised in a\ntotem, as Pund-jel in the eagle-hawk. Thus the confusion of Egyptian\nreligion is what was inevitable in a land where new and old did not\nsucceed and supersede each other, but coexisted on good terms. Had\nreligion not been thus confused, it would have been a solitary exception\namong the institutions of the country.\n\nThe peculiarity of Egypt, in religion and myth as in every other\ninstitution, is the retention of the very rudest and most barbarous\nthings side by side with the last refinements of civilisation (Tiele,\nManuel, p. 44). The existence of this conservatism (by which we profess\nto explain the Egyptian myths and worship) is illustrated, in another\nfield, by the arts of everyday life, and by the testimony of the\nsepulchres of Thebes. M. Passalacqua, in some excavations at Quoarnah\n(Gurna), struck on the common cemetery of the ancient city of Thebes.\nHere he found \"the mummy of a hunter, with a wooden bow and twelve\narrows, the shaft made of reed, the points of hardened wood tipped\nwith edged flints. Hard by lay jewels belonging to the mummy of a young\nwoman, pins with ornamental heads, necklaces of gold and lapis-lazuli,\ngold earrings, scarabs of gold, bracelets of gold,\" and so forth\n(Chabas, _Etudes sur l'Antiquity Historique_, p. 390). The refined art\nof the gold-worker was contemporary, and this at a late period, with\nthe use of flint-headed arrows, the weapons commonly found all over\nthe world in places where the metals had never penetrated. Again, a\nrazor-shaped knife of flint has been unearthed; it is inscribed in\nhieroglyphics with the words, \"The great Sam, son of Ptah, chief of\nartists \". The \"Sams\" were members of the priestly class, who fulfilled\ncertain mystic duties at funerals. It is reported by Herodotus that the\nembalmers opened the bodies of the dead with a knife of stone; and the\ndiscovery of such a knife, though it had not belonged to an embalmer,\nproves that in Egypt the stone age did not disappear, but coexisted\nthroughout with the arts of metal-working. It is alleged that flint\nchisels and stone hammers were used by the workers of the mines\nin Sinai, even under Dynasties XII., XIX. The soil of Egypt, when\nexcavated, constantly shows that the Egyptians, who in the remote age of\nthe pyramid-builders were already acquainted with bronze, and even\nwith iron, did not therefore relinquish the use of flint knives and\narrow-heads when such implements became cheaper than tools of metal, or\nwhen they were associated with religion. Precisely in the same way did\nthe Egyptians, who, in the remotest known times, had imposing religious\nideas, decline to relinquish the totems and beast-gods and absurd or\nblasphemous myths which (like flint axes and arrow-heads) are everywhere\ncharacteristic of savages. The fact is, that the Egyptian mind, when\nturned to divine matters, was constantly working on, and working over,\nthe primeval stuff of all mythologies and of all religions. First, there\nis the belief in a moral guardian and father of men; this is expressed\nin the sacred hymns. Next, there is the belief in \"a strange and\npowerful race, supposed to have been busy on earth before the making,\nor the evolution, or the emergence of man\"; this is expressed in\nthe mythical legends. The Egyptians inherited a number of legends of\nextra-natural heroes, not unlike the savage Qat, Cagn, Yehl, Pund-jel,\nIoskeha and Quahteaht, the Maori Tutenganahau and the South Sea\nTangaroa. Some of these were elemental forces, personified in human\nor bestial guise; some were merely idealised medicine-men. Their\n\"wanderings, rapes and manslaughters and mutilations,\" as Plutarch says,\nremained permanently in legend. When these beings, in the advance of\nthought, had obtained divine attributes, and when the conception of\nabstract divinity, returning, perhaps, to its first form, had become\npure and lofty, the old legends became so many stumbling-blocks to the\nfaithful. They were explained away as allegories (every student having\nhis own allegorical system), or the extranatural beings were taken (as\nby Plutarch) to be \"demons, not gods \".\n\nA brief and summary account of the chief figures in the Egyptian\npantheon will make it sufficiently plain that this is a plausible theory\nof the gods of Egypt, and a probable interpretation of their adventures.\n\nAccepting the classification proposed by M. Maspero, and remembering the\nlimitations under which it holds good, we find that:--\n\n1. The gods of death and the dead were Sokari, Isis and Osiris, the\nyoung Horus and Nephthys.*\n\n2. The elemental gods were Seb and Nut, of whom Seb is the earth and Nut\nthe heavens. These two, like heaven and earth in almost all mythologies,\nare represented as the parents of many of the gods. The other elemental\ndeities are but obscurely known.\n\n3. Among solar deities are at once recognised Ra and others, but\nthere was a strong tendency to identify each of the gods with the sun,\nespecially to identify Osiris with the sun in his nightly absence.**\nEach god, again, was apt to be blended with one or more of the sacred\nanimals. \"Ra, in his transformations, assumed the form of the lion, cat\nand hawk.\"*** \"The great cat in the alley of persea trees at Heliopolis,\nwhich is Ra, crushed the serpent.\"****\n\n     * Their special relation to the souls of the departed is\n     matter for a separate discussion.\n\n     ** \"The gods of the dead and the elemental gods were almost\n     all identified with the sun, for the purpose of blending\n     them in a theistic unity\" (Maspero, _Rev. de l'hist. des\n     Rel_., i. 126).\n\n     *** Birch, in Wilkinson, iii. 59.\n\n     ***Le Page Renouf, op. cit., p. 114.\n\nIn different nomes and towns, it either happened that the same gods had\ndifferent names, or that analogies were recognised between different\nlocal gods; in which case the names were often combined, as in Ammon-Ra,\nSabek-Ra, Sokar-Osiris, and so forth.\n\nAthwart all these classes and compounds of gods, and athwart the\ntheological attempt at constructing a monotheism out of contradictory\nmaterials, came that ancient idea of dualism which exists in the myths\nof the most backward peoples. As Pund-jel in Australia had his enemy,\nthe crow, as in America Yehl had his Khanukh, as Ioskeha had his\nTawiscara, so the gods of Egypt, and specially Osiris, have their Set or\nTyphon, the spirit who constantly resists and destroys.\n\nWith these premises we approach the great Osirian myth.\n\n\nTHE OSIRIAN MYTH.\n\nThe great Egyptian myth, the myth of Osiris, turns on the antagonism of\nOsiris and Set, and the persistence of the blood-feud between Set and\nthe kindred of Osiris.* To narrate and as far as possible elucidate this\nmyth is the chief task of the student of Egyptian mythology.\n\nThough the Osiris myth, according to Mr. Le Page Renouf, is \"as old as\nEgyptian civilisation,\" and though M. Maspero finds the Osiris myth in\nall its details under the first dynasties, our accounts of it are by no\nmeans so early.**\n\n     * Herodotus, ii. 144.\n\n     ** The principal native documents are the Magical Harris\n     Papyrus, of the nineteenth or twentieth dynasty, translated\n     by M. Chabas (Records of the Past, x. 137); the papyrus of\n     Nebseni (eighteenth dynasty), translated by M. Naville, and\n     in Records of Past, x. 159; the hymn to Osiris, on a stele\n     (eighteenth dynasty) translated by M. Chabas (Rev. Archeol.,\n     1857; Records of Past, iv. 99); \"The Book of Respirations,\"\n     mythically said to have been made by Isis to restore Osiris--\n     \"Book of the Breath of Life\" (the papyrus is probably of\n     the time of the Ptolemies--Records of Part, iv. 119); \"The\n     Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys,\" translated by M. de\n     Horrack (Records of Past, ii. 117). There is also \"The Book\n     of the Dead\": the version of M. Pierret, (Paris, 1882) is\n     convenient in shape (also Birch, in Bunsen, vol. v.). M. de\n     Naville's new edition is elaborate and costly, and without a\n     translation. Sarcophagi and royal tombs (Champollion) also\n     contain many representations of the incidents in the myth.\n     \"The myth of Osiris in its details, the laying out of his\n     body by his wife Isis and his sister Nephthys, the\n     reconstruction of his limbs, his mythical chest, and other\n     incidents connected with his myth are represented in detail\n     in the temple of Philae\" (Birch, ap. Wilkinson, iii. 84).\n     The reverent awe of Herodotus prevents him from describing\n     the mystery-play on the sufferings of Osiris, which he says\n     was acted at Sais, ii. 171, and ii. 61, 67, 86. Probably the\n     clearest and most consecutive modern account of the Osiris\n     myth is given by M. Lefebure in Les Yeux d'Horus et Osiris.\n     M. Lefebure's translations are followed in the text; he is\n     not, however, responsible for our treatment of the myth. The\n     Ptolemaic version of the temple of Edfou is published by M.\n     Naville,  _Mythe d'Horus_ (Geneva, 1870).\n\n\nThey are mainly allusive, without any connected narrative. Fortunately\nthe narrative, as related by the priests of his own time, is given\nby the author of _De Iside et Osiride_, and is confirmed both by the\nEgyptian texts and by the mysterious hints of the pious Herodotus. Here\nwe follow the myth as reported in the Greek tract, and illustrated by\nthe monuments.\n\nThe reader must, for the moment, clear his mind of all the many theories\nof the meaning of the myth, and must forget the lofty, divine and\nmystical functions attributed by Egyptian theologians and Egyptian\nsacred usage to Osiris. He must read the story simply as a story, and he\nwill be struck with its amazing resemblances to the legends about their\nculture-heroes which are current among the lowest races of America and\nAfrica.\n\nSeb and Nut--earth and heaven--were husband and wife. In the _De Iside_\nversion, the sun cursed Nut that she should have no child in month or\nyear; but thanks to the cleverness of a new divine co-respondent, five\ndays were added to the calendar. This is clearly a later edition to the\nfable. On the first of those days Osiris was born, then Typhon or Set,\n\"neither in due time, nor in the right place, but breaking through with\na blow, he leaped out from his mother's side\".*\n\n     * De Iside et Osiride, xii. It is a most curious coincidence\n     that the same story is told of Indra in the Rig- Veda, iv.\n     18, 1. \"This is the old and well-known path by which all\n     the gods were born: thou mayst not, by other means, bring\n     thy mother unto death.\" Indra replies, \"I will not go out\n     thence, that is a dangerous way: right through the side will\n     I burst\". Compare (Leland, Algonquin Legends, p. 15) the\n     birth of the Algonquin Typhon, the evil Malsumis, the wolf.\n     \"Glooskap said, 'I will be born as others are'.\" But the\n     evil Malsumis thought himself too great to be brought forth\n     in such a manner, and declared that he would burst through\n     his mother's side. Mr. Leland's note, containing a Buddhist\n     and an Armenian parallel, but referring neither to Indra nor\n     Typhon, shows the _bona fides_ of the Algonquin report. The\n     Bodhisattva was born through his mother's right side (Kern..\n     Der Buddhismus, 30). The Irish version is that our Lord was\n     born through the crown of the head of the Virgin, like\n     Athene. _Saltair na Rann_, 7529, 7530. Se\" also Liebrecht,\n     _Zur Volkskunde_, p. 490. For the Irish and Buddhist legends\n     (there is an Anglo-Saxon parallel) I am indebted to Mr\n     Whitley Stokes. Probably the feeling that a supernatural\n     child should have no natural birth, and not the borrowing of\n     ideas, accounts for those strange similarities of myth.\n\nIsis and Nephthys were later-born sisters. The Greek version of the myth\nnext describes the conduct of Osiris as a \"culture-hero\". He instituted\nlaws, taught agriculture, instructed the Egyptians in the ritual of\nworship, and won them from \"their destitute and bestial mode of living\".\nAfter civilising Egypt, he travelled over the world, like the Greek\nDionysus, whom he so closely resembles in some portions of his legend\nthat Herodotus supposed the Dionysiac myth to have been imported from\nEgypt.* In the absence of Osiris, his evil brother, Typhon, kept quiet.\nBut, on the hero's return, Typhon laid an ambush against him, like\nAEgisthus against Agamemnon. He had a decorated coffer (mummy-case?) made\nof the exact length of Osiris, and offered this as a present to any one\nwhom it would fit. At a banquet all the guests tried it; but when Osiris\nlay down in it, the lid was closed and fastened with nails and melted\nlead. The coffer, Osiris and all, was then thrown into the Nile. Isis,\narrayed in mourning robes like the wandering Demeter, sought Osiris\neverywhere lamenting, and found the chest at last in an _erica_ tree\nthat entirely covered it. After an adventure like that of Demeter with\nTriptolemus, Isis obtained the chest. During her absence Typhon lighted\non it as he was hunting by moonlight; he tore the corpse of Osiris into\nfourteen pieces, and scattered them abroad. Isis sought for the mangled\nremnants, and, whenever she found one, buried it, each tomb being\nthenceforth recognised as \"a grave of Osiris\". Precisely the same fable\noccurs in Central Australian myths of the Alcheringa, or legendary\npast.**\n\n     * \"Osiris is Dionysus in the tongue of Hellas\" (Herodotus,\n     ii. 144, ii. 48). \"Most of the details of the mystery of\n     Osiris, as practised by the Egyptians, resemble the Dionysus\n     mysteries of Greece.... Methinks that Melampus, Amythaon's\n     son, was well seen in this knowledge, for it was Melampus\n     that brought among the Greeks the name and rites and phallic\n     procession of Dionysus.\" (Compare Dels, et Os., xxxv.) The\n     coincidences are probably not to be explained by borrowing;\n     many of them are found in America.\n\n     ** Spencer and Gillen, p. 399.\n\nThe wives \"search for the murdered man's mutilated parts\". It is a\nplausible suggestion that, if graves of Osiris were once as common in\nEgypt as cairns of Heitsi Eibib are in Namaqualand to-day, the existence\nof many tombs of one being might be explained as tombs of his scattered\nmembers, and the myth of the dismembering may have no other foundation.\nOn the other hand, it must be noticed that a swine was sacrificed to\nOsiris, at the full moon, and it was in the form of a black swine that\nTyphon assailed Horus, the son of Osiris, whose myth is a _doublure\nor replica_, in some respects, of the Osirian myth itself.1 We may\nconjecture, then, that the fourteen portions into which the body of\nOsiris was rent may stand for the fourteen days of the waning moon.** It\nis well known that the phases of the moon and lunar eclipses are\nalmost invariably accounted for in savage science by the attacks of a\nbeast--dog, pig, dragon, or what not--on the heavenly body. Either of\nthese hypothesis (the Egyptians adopted the latter)*** is consistent\nwith the character of early myth, but both are merely tentative\nsuggestions.****\n\n     * In the Edfou monuments Set is slain and dismembered in the\n     shape of a red hippopotamus (Naville, Mythe d'Horus, p. 7).\n\n     ** The fragments of Osiris were sixteen, according to the\n     texts of Deuderah, one for each nome.\n\n     *** De Is. et Os., xxxv.\n\n     **** Compare Lefebure, Les Yeux d'Horus, pp. 47 48.\n\nThe phallus of Osiris was not recovered, and the totemistic habit\nwhich made the people of three different districts abstain from three\ndifferent fish--_lepidotus, phagrus and oxyrrhyncus_--was accounted for\nby the legend that these fish had devoured the missing portion of the\nhero's body.\n\nSo far the power of evil, the black swine Typhon, had been triumphant.\nBut the blood-feud was handed on to Horus, son of Isis and Osiris. To\nspur Horus on to battle, Osiris returned from the dead, like Hamlet's\nfather. But, as is usual with the ghosts of savage myth, Osiris\nreturned, not in human, but in bestial form as a wolf.* Horus was\nvictorious in the war which followed, and handed Typhon over bound in\nchains to Isis. Unluckily Isis let him go free, whereon Horus pushed off\nher crown and placed a bull's skull on her head.\n\nThere the Greek narrator ends, but** he expressly declines to tell the\nmore blasphemous parts of the story, such as \"the dismemberment of Horus\nand the beheading of Isis\". Why these myths should be considered \"more\nblasphemous\" than the rest does not appear.\n\nIt will probably be admitted that nothing in this sacred story would\nseem out of place if we found it in the legends of Pund-jel, or Cagn,\nor Yehl, among Australians, Bushmen, or Utes, whose own \"culture-hero,\"\nlike the ghost of Osiris, was a wolf. This dismembering of Osiris in\nparticular resembles the dismembering of many other heroes in American\nmyth; for example, of Chokanipok, out of whom were made vines and\nflint-stones. Objects in the mineral and vegetable world were explained\nin Egypt as transformed parts or humours of Osiris, Typhon and other\nheroes.***\n\n     * Wicked squires in Shropshire (Miss Burns, Shropshire Folk-\n     Lore) \"come\" as bulls. Osiris, in the Mendes nonie, \"came\"\n     as a ram (Marietta, Denderah, iv. 75).\n\n     ** De Is, et Os., xx.\n\n     ***Magical Text, nineteenth dynasty, translated by Dr. Birch\n     Records of Past vi. 115; Lefebure, Osiris, pp. 100,\n     113,124, 205; Livre des Morts chap. xvii.; Records of Past,\n     x. 84.\n\nOnce more, though the Egyptian gods are buried here and are immortal in\nheaven, they have also, like the heroes of Eskimos and Australians and\nIndians of the Amazon, been transformed into stars, and the priests\ncould tell which star was Osiris, which was Isis, and which was Typhon.*\nSuch are the wild inconsistencies which Egyptian religion shares with\nthe fables of the lowest races. In view of these facts it is difficult\nto agree with Brugsch** that \"from the root and trunk of a pure\nconception of deity spring the boughs and twigs of a tree of myth, whose\nleaves spread into a rank impenetrable luxuriance \". Stories like the\nOsiris myth--stories found all over the whole world--spring from no pure\nreligious source, but embody the delusions and fantastic dreams of the\nlowest and least developed human fancy and human speculation. And these\nflourish, like mistletoe on the oak, over the sturdier growth of a\nreligious conception of another root.\n\nThe references to the myth in papyri and on the monuments, though\nobscure and fragmentary, confirm the narrative of the _De Iside_. The\ncoffer in which Osiris foolishly ventured himself seems to be alluded\nto in the Harris magical papyrus.*** \"Get made for me a shrine of eight\ncubits. Then it was told to thee, O man of seven cubits, How canst thou\nenter it? And it had been made for thee, and thou hast reposed in it.\"\n\n     * Custom and Myth, \"Star Myths\"; De Rouge, Nouv. Not., p.\n     197; Lefebure, Osiris, p. 213.\n\n     ** Religion und Mythologie, p. 99.\n\n     *** Records of Past, x. 154.\n\nHere, too, Isis magically stops the mouths of the Nile, perhaps to\nprevent the coffer from floating out to sea. More to the point is one\nof the original \"Osirian hymns\" mentioned by Plutarch.* The hymn is on\na stele, and is attributed by M. Chabas, the translator, to the\nseventeenth dynasty.** Osiris is addressed as the joy and glory of his\nparents, Seb and Nut, who overcomes his enemy. His sister, Isis, accords\nto him due funeral rites after his death and routs his foes. Without\nceasing, without resting, she sought his dead body, and wailing did she\nwander round the world, nor stopped till she found him. Light flashed\nfrom her feathers.*** Horus, her son, is king of the world.\n\nSuch is a _precis_ of the mythical part of the hymn. The rest regards\nOsiris in his religious capacity as a sovereign of nature, and as the\nguide and protector of the dead. The hymn corroborates, as far as it\ngoes, the narrative of the Greek two thousand years later. Similar\nconfirmation is given by \"The Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys,\" a\npapyrus found within a statue of Osiris in Thebes. The sisters wail for\nthe dead hero, and implore him to \"come to his own abode\". The theory\nof the birth of Horus here is that he was formed out of the scattered\nmembers of Osiris, an hypothesis, of course, inconsistent with the other\nmyths (especially with the myth that he dived for the members of Osiris\nin the shape of a crocodile),**** and, therefore, all the more mythical.\n\n     * De Is. et Os., 211.\n\n     ** Rev. Archeol., May, 1857.\n\n     *** The Greek version says that Isis took the form of a\n     swallow.\n\n     **** Mariette, Denderah, iv. 77, 88, 89.\n\n\nThe \"Book of Respirations,\" finally, contains the magical songs by which\nIsis was feigned to have restored breath and life to Osiris.* In the\nrepresentations of the vengeance and triumph of Horus on the temple\nwalls of Edfou in the Ptolemaic period, Horus, accompanied by Isis,\nnot only chains up and pierces the red hippopotamus (or pig in some\ndesigns), who is Set, but, exercising reprisals, cuts him into pieces,\nas Set cut Osiris. Isis instructs Osiris as to the portion which\nproperly falls to each of nine gods. Isis reserves his head and\n\"saddle\"; Osiris gets the thigh; the bones are given to the cats. As\neach god had his local habitation in a given town, there is doubtless\nreference to local myths. At Edfou also the animal of Set is sacrificed,\nsymbolically in his image made of paste, a common practice in ancient\nMexico.**\n\n     * Records of Past, iv. 121.\n\n     ** Herodotus, ii. 47; De. Is. et Os., 90. See also\n     Porphyry's Life of Pythagoras, who sacrificed a bull made of\n     paste, Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 436.\n\nMany of these myths, as M. Naville remarks, are doubtless ratiological:\nthe priests, as in the Brahmanas, told them to account for peculiar\nparts of the ritual, and to explain strange local names. Thus the\nnames of many places are explained by myths setting forth that they\ncommemorate some event in the campaign of Horus against Set. In\nprecisely the same way the local superstitions, originally totemic,\nabout various animals were explained by myths attaching these animals to\nthe legends of the gods.\n\nExplanations of the Osiris myth thus handed down to us were common\namong the ancient students of religion. Many of them are reported in the\nfamiliar tract De Iside et Osiride. They are all the interpretations of\ncivilised men, whose method is to ask themselves, \"Now, if _I_ had\ntold such a tale as this, or invented such a mystery-play of divine\nmisadventures, what meaning could _I_ have intended to convey in what\nis apparently blasphemous nonsense?\" There were moral, solar, lunar,\ncosmical, tellurian, and other methods of accounting for a myth which,\nin its origin, appears to be one of the world-wide early legends of the\nstrife between a fabulous good being and his brother, a fabulous evil\nbeing. Most probably some incidents from a moon-myth have also crept\ninto, or from the first made part of, the tale of Osiris. The enmity\nof Typhon to the eyes of Horus, which he extinguishes, and which are\nrestored,* has much the air of an early mythical attempt to explain the\nphenomena of eclipses, or even of sunset. We can plainly see how local\nand tribal superstitions, according to which this or that beast, fish,\nor tree was held sacred, came to be tagged to the general body of the\nmyth. This or that fish was not eaten; this or that tree was holy; and\nmen who had lost the true explanation of these superstitions explained\nthem by saying that the fish had tasted, or the tree had sheltered.\n\n     * Livre des Moris, pp. 112, 118.\n\nThis view of the myth, while it does not pretend to account for every\ndetail, refers it to a large class of similar narratives, to\nthe barbarous dualistic legends about the original good and bad\nextra-natural beings, which are still found current among contemporary\nsavages. These tales are the natural expression of the savage fancy, and\nwe presume that the myth of the mutilated Osiris survived in Egypt, just\nas the use of flint-headed arrows and flint knives survived during\nmillenniums in which bronze and iron were perfectly familiar. The cause\nassigned is adequate, and the process of survival is verified.\n\n\nWhether this be the correct theory of the fundamental facts of the\nmyth or not, it is certain that the myth received vast practical and\nreligious developments. Orisis did not remain the mere culture-hero\nof whom we have read the story, wounded in the house of his friends,\ndismembered, restored and buried, reappearing as a wolf or bull, or\ntranslated to a star. His worship pervaded the whole of Egypt, and his\nname grew into a kind of hieroglyph for all that is divine.\n\n\"The Osirian type, in its long evolution, ended in being the symbol of\nthe whole deified universe--underworld and world of earth, the waters\nabove and the waters below. It is Osiris that floods Egypt in the Nile,\nand that clothes her with the growing grain. His are the sacred eyes,\nthe sun that is born daily and meets a daily death, the moon that every\nmonth is young and waxes old. Osiris is the soul that animates these,\nthe soul that vivifies all things, and all things are but his body. He\nis, like Ra of the royal tombs, the earth and the sun, the creator and\nthe created.\"*\n\n     * Lefebure, Osiris, p. 248.\n\nSuch is the splendid sacred vestment which Egyptian theology wove for\nthe mangled and massacred hero of the myth. All forces, all powers, were\nfinally recognised in him; he was sun and moon, and the maker of all\nthings; he was the truth and the life; in him all men were justified.\n\nOn the origin of the myth philology throws no light. M. Lefebure\nrecognises in the name Osiris the meaning of \"the infernal abode,\" or\n\"the nocturnal residence of the sacred eye,\" for, in the duel of Set\nand Horus, he sees a mythical account of the daily setting of the sun.*\n\"Osiris himself, the sun at his setting, became a centre round which the\nother incidents of the war of the gods gradually crystallised.\" Osiris\nis also the earth. It would be difficult either to prove or disprove\nthis contention, and the usual divergency of opinion as to the meaning\nand etymology of the word \"Osiris\" has always prevailed.** The Greek***\nidentifies Osiris with Hades. \"Both,\" says M. Lefebure, \"originally\nmeant the dwellings--and came to mean the god--of the dead.\" In the\nsame spirit Anubis, the jackal (a beast still dreaded as a ghost by the\nEgyptians), is explained as \"the circle of the horizon,\" or \"the portals\nof the land of darkness,\" the gate kept, as Homer would say, by Hades,\nthe mighty warden. Whether it is more natural that men should represent\nthe circle of the horizon or the twilight at sunset as a jackal, or that\na jackal-totem should survive as a god, mythologists will decide for\nthemselves.****\n\n     * Osiris, p. 129.   So Lieblein, op. cit., p. 7.\n\n     ** See the guesses of etymologists (Osiris, pp. 132,133).\n     Horus has even been connected with the Greek Hera, as the\n     atmosphere!\n\n     *** De Is. Os., 75.\n\n     **** Le Page Renouf, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 112-114, 237.\n\nThe jackal, by a myth that cannot be called pious, was said to have\neaten his father, Osiris. Mr. Frazers theory of Osiris as somehow\nconnected with vegetation will be found in his _Golden Bough_. His\nmaster, Mannhardt, the great writer on vegetation myths, held that\nOsiris was the sun.\n\nThe conclusions to be drawn from so slight a treatment of so vast a\nsubject are, that in Egypt, as elsewhere, a mythical and a religious, a\nrational and an irrational stream of thought flowed together, and even\nto some extent mingled their waters. The rational tendency, declared in\nprayers and hymns, amplifies the early human belief in a protecting\nand friendly personal power making for righteousness. The irrational\ntendency, declared in myth and ritual, retains and elaborates the\nearly human confusions of thought between man and beast and god, things\nanimate and inanimate. On the one hand, we have almost a recognition\nof supreme divinity; on the other, savage rites and beliefs, shared by\nAustralians and Bushmen. It is not safe or scientific to call one of\nthose tendencies earlier than the other; perhaps we know no race so\nbackward that it is not influenced by forms of both. Nor is it safe\nor scientific to look on ruder practices as corruptions of the purer\nbeliefs. Perhaps it may never be possible to trace both streams to the\nsame fountain-head; probably they well up from separate springs in the\nnature of man. We do but recognise and contrast them; the sources of\nboth are lost in the distance, where history can find no record of\nactual experience. Egyptian religion and myth are thus no isolated\nthings; they are but the common stuff of human thought, decorated or\ndistorted under a hundred influences in the course of unknown centuries\nof years.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII. GODS OF THE ARYANS OF INDIA.\n\n     Difficulties of the study--Development of clan-gods--\n     Departmental gods-Divine patronage of morality--Immorality\n     mythically attributed to gods--Indra--His love of Soma--\n     Scandal about Indra--Attempts to explain Indra as an\n     elemental god--Varuna--Ushas--The Asvins--Their legend and\n     theories about it--Tvashtri--The Maruts--Conclusions arrived\n     at.\n\nNothing in all mythology is more difficult than the attempt to get\na clear view of the gods of Vedic India. The perplexed nature of the\nevidence has already been explained, and may be briefly recapitulated.\nThe obscure documents on which we have to rely, the Vedas and the\nBrahmanaa, contain in solution the opinions of many different ages and\nof many different minds. Old and comparatively modern conceptions of the\ndeities, pious efforts to veil or to explain away what seemed crude\nor profane, the puerilities of ritual, half-conscious strivings in the\ndirection of monotheism or pantheism, clan or family prejudices, rough\netymological guesses, and many other elements of doubt combine to\nconfuse what can never have been clear. Savage legends, philosophic\nconjectures, individual predilections are all blended into the\ncollection of hymns called the _Rig- Veda_. Who can bring order into\nsuch a chaos?\n\nAn attempt to unravel the tangled threads of Indian faith must be made.\nThe gods of the Vedas are, on the whole, of the usual polytheistic type,\nthough their forms mix into each other like shadows cast by a flickering\nfire. The ideas which may be gathered about them from the ancient hymns\nhave, as usual, no consistency and no strict orthodoxy. As each bard\nof each bardic family celebrates a god, he is apt to make him for the\noccasion the pre-eminent deity of all.* This way of conceiving of\nthe gods leads naturally (as thought advances) in the direction of a\npantheistic monotheism, a hospitable theology which accepts each divine\nbeing as a form or manifestation of the supreme universal spirit. It\nis easy, however, to detect certain attributes more or less peculiar to\neach god. As among races far less forward in civilisation, each of\nthe greater powers has his own special department, however much his\nworshippers may be inclined to regard him as really supreme sovereign.\nThus Indra is mainly concerned with thunder and other atmospheric\nphenomena: these are his department; but Vayu is the wind or the god\nof the wind, and Agni as fire or the god of fire is necessarily not\nunconnected with the lightning. The Maruts, again, are the storm-winds,\nor gods of the storm-winds; Mitra and Varuna preside over day and night;\nUshas is the dawn or the goddess of dawn, and Tvashtri is the mechanic\namong the deities, corresponding more or less closely to the Greek\nHephaestus.\n\n     * Muir, v. 125. Compare Muir, i. 348, on the word _Kusikas_,\n     implying, according to Benfey, that Indra \"is designated as\n     the sole or chief deity of this tribe \".    Cf, also Hang,\n     Ait. Br., ii. 384.\n\nThough many of these beings are still in Vedic poetry departmental\npowers with provinces of their own in external Nature, they are also\nsupposed to be interested not only in the worldly, but in the moral\nwelfare of mankind, and are imagined to \"make for righteousness \". It is\ntrue that the myths by no means always agree in representing the gods as\nthemselves moral. Incest and other hideous offences are imputed to them,\nand it is common to explain these myths as the result of the forgotten\nmeanings of sayings which originally were only intended to describe\nprocesses of nature, especially of the atmosphere. Supposing, for the\nsake of argument, that this explanation is correct, we can scarcely\nbe expected to think highly of the national taste which preferred\nto describe pure phenomena like dawn and sunset in language which is\nappropriate to the worst crimes in the human calendar. It is certain\nthat the Indians, when they came to reflect and philosophise on their\nown religion (and they had reached this point before the Veda was\ncompiled), were themselves horrified by the immoralities of some of\ntheir gods. Yet in Vedic times these gods were already acknowledged\nas beings endowed with strong moral attributes and interested in the\nconduct of men. As an example of this high ethical view, we may quote\nMr. Max Muller's translation of part of a hymn addressed to Varuna.*\n\n     * Rig-Veda, ii. 28; _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 284.\n\n\"Take from me my sin like a fetter, and we shall increase, O Varuna, the\nspring of thy law. Let not the thread be cut while I weave my song! Let\nnot the form of the workman break before the time.... Like as a rope\nfrom a calf, remove from me my sin, for away from thee I am not\nmaster even of the twinkling of an eye.... Move far away from me all\nself-committed guilt, and may I not, O king, suffer for what others have\ncommitted. Many dawns have not yet dawned; grant me to live in them, O\nVaruna.\" What follows is not on the same level of thought, and the\nnext verse contains an appeal to Varuna to save his worshipper from the\neffect of magic spells. \"Whether it be my companion or a friend who,\nwhile I was asleep and trembling, uttered fearful spells against me,\nwhether it be a thief or a wolf who wishes to hurt me, protect us\nagainst them, O Varuna.\"* Agni, again, the god of fire, seems to have\nno original connection with righteousness. Yet even Agni** is prayed to\nforgive whatever sin the worshipper may have committed through folly,\nand to make him guiltless towards Aditi.*** The goddess Aditi once more,\nwhether her name (rendered the \"boundless\") be or be not \"one of\nthe oldest names of the dawn,\"**** is repeatedly called on by her\nworshippers to \"make them sinless\". In the same way sun, dawn, heaven,\nsoma, and earth are implored to pardon sin.\n\n     * An opposite view is expressed in Weber's Hist, of Sansk.\n     Literature.\n\n     **  Rig- Veda, iv. 12, 4; viii. 93, 7.\n\n     *** For divergent opinions about Aditi, compare _Revue de\n     l'Histoire des Religions_, xii. 1, pp. 40-42; Muir, v. 218.\n\n     **** Max Mueller, _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 228.\n\nThough the subject might be dwelt on at very great length, it is perhaps\nalready apparent that the gods of the Vedic poetry are not only potent\nover regions of the natural world, but are also conceived of, at times,\nas being powers with ethical tendencies and punishers of mortal guilt.\nIt would be difficult to overstate the ethical nobility of certain Vedic\nhymns, which even now affect us with a sense of the \"hunger and thirst\nafter righteousness\" so passionately felt by the Hebrew psalmists. How\nthis emotion, which seems naturally directed to a single god, came to be\ndistributed among a score, it is hard to conjecture. But all this aspect\nof the Vedic deities is essentially the province of the science of\nreligion rather than of mythology. Man's consciousness of sin, his sense\nof being imperfect in the sight of \"larger other eyes than ours,\" is\na topic of the deepest interest, but it comes but by accident into the\nrealm of mythological science. That science asks, not with what feelings\nof awe and gratitude the worshipper approaches his gods, but what myths,\nwhat stories, are told to or told by the worshipper concerning the\norigin, personal characteristics and personal adventures of his deities.\nAs a rule, these stories are a mere _chronique scandaleuse_, full of the\nmost absurd and offensive anecdotes, and of the crudest fictions. The\ndeities of the Vedic poems, so imposing when regarded as vast natural\nforces, or as the spiritual beings that master vast natural forces, so\nsympathetic when looked on as merciful gods conscious of, yet lenient\ntowards, the sins of perishing mortals, have also their mythological\naspect and their _chronique scandaleuse_.*\n\n     * Here we must remind the reader that the Vedas do not offer\n     us all these tales, nor the worst of them. As M. Barth says,\n     \"Le sentiment religieux a ecarte la plupart de ces mythes\n     ainsi que beaucoup d'autres qui le choquaient, mais il ne\n     les a pas ecartes tous\" (_Religions de l'Inde_,  p.  14).\n\nIt is, of course, in their anthropomorphic aspect that the Vedic deities\nshare or exceed the infirmities of mortals. The gods are not by any\nmeans always regarded as practically equal in supremacy. There were\ngreat and small, young and old gods,* though this statement, with the\nhabitual inconsistency of a religion without creeds and articles, is\nelsewhere controverted. \"None of you, O gods, is small or young; you are\nall great.\"** As to the immortality and the origin of the gods,\nopinions are equally divided among the Vedic poets and in the traditions\ncollected in the Brahmanas. Several myths of the origin of the gods have\nalready been discussed in the chapter on \"Aryan Myths of the Creation of\nthe World and of Man\". It was there demonstrated that many of the Aryan\nmyths were on a level with those current among contemporary savages all\nover the world, and it was inferred that they originally sprang from the\nsame source, the savage imagination.\n\nIn this place, while examining the wilder divine myths, we need only\nrepeat that, in one legend, heaven and earth, conceived of as two\nsentient living beings of human parts and passions, produced the Aryan\ngods, as they did the gods of the New Zealanders and of other races.\nAgain, the gods were represented in the children of Aditi, and this\nmight be taken either in a high and refined sense, as if Aditi were the\ninfinite region from which the solar deities rise,*** or we may hold\nthat Aditi is the eternal which sustains and is sustained by the\ngods,**** or the Indian imagination could sink to the vulgar and\nhalf-magical conception of Aditi as a female, who, being desirous of\nsons, cooked a Brahmandana oblation for the gods, the Sadhyas.*****\n\n     * Rig-Veda, i. 27,13.\n\n     ** Ibid., viii. 30; Muir, v. 12.\n\n     *** Max Mueller, _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 230.\n\n     **** Roth, in Muir, iv. 56.\n\n     ***** _Taittirya Brahmana_, i. 1, 9, 1; Muir, v. 55, 1, 27.\n\nVarious other gods and supernatural beings are credited with having\ncreated or generated the gods. Indra's father and mother are constantly\nspoken of, and both he and other gods are often said to have been\noriginally mortal, and to have reached the heavens by dint of that\n\"austere fervour,\" that magical asceticism, which could do much more\nthan move mountains. The gods are thus by no means always credited\nin Aryan mythology with inherent immortality. Like most of the other\ndeities whose history we have been studying, they had struggles for\npre-eminence with powers of a titanic character, the Asuras. \"Asura,\n'living,' was originally an epithet of certain powers of Nature,\nparticularly of the sky,\" says Mr. Max Mueller.** As the gods also are\nrecognised as powers of Nature, particularly of the sky, there does not\nseem to be much original difference between Devas and Asuras.*** The\nopposition between them may be \"secondary,\" as Mr. Max Mueller says, but\nin any case it too strongly resembles the other wars in heaven of other\nmythologies to be quite omitted. Unluckily, the most consecutive account\nof the strife is to be found, not in the hymns of the Vedas, but in\nthe collected body of mythical and other traditions called the\nBrahmanas.****\n\n     ** Hibbert Lectures, p. 318.\n\n     *** In the _Atharva Veda_ it is said that a female Asura\n     once drew Indra from among the gods (Muir, v. 82). Thus gods\n     and Asuras are capable of amorous relations.\n\n     **** _Satapatha Br_.\n\nThe story in the Brahmana begins by saying that throughout. See the\nOxford translation. Prajapati (the producer of things, whose acquaintance\nwe have made in the chapter on cosmogonic myths) was half mortal and\nhalf immortal. After creating things endowed with life, he created\nDeath, the devourer. With that part of him which was mortal he was\nafraid of Death, and the gods were also \"afraid of this ender, Death\".\nThe gods in this tradition are regarded as mortals. Compare the _Black\nYajur Veda_:* \"_The gods were formerly just like men_. They desired to\novercome want, misery, death, and to go to the divine assembly.\nThey saw, took and sacrificed with this Chaturvimsatiratra, and in\nconsequence overcame want, misery and death, and reached the divine\nassembly.\" In the same Veda we are told that the gods and Asuras\ncontended together; the gods were less numerous, but, as politicians\nmake men peers, they added to their number by placing some bricks in\nthe proper position to receive the sacrificial fire. They then used\nincantations: \"Thou art a multiplier\"; and so the bricks became\nanimated, and joined the party of the gods, and made numbers more\nequal.**\n\n     * _Taittirya Sanhita_; Muir, v. 15, note 22.\n\n     ** According to a later legend, or a legend which we have\n     received in a later form, the gods derived immortality from\n     drinking of the churned ocean of milk. They churned it with\n     Mount Mandara for a staff and the serpent Hasuki for a cord.\n     The _Ramayana and Mahabharata_ ascribe this churning to the\n     desire of the gods to become immortal. According to the\n     _Mahabharata_, a Daitya named Rahu insinuated himself among\n     the gods, and drank some of the draught of immortality.\n     Vishnu beheaded him before the draught reached lower than\n     his throat; his _head_ was thus immortal, and is now a\n     constellation. He pursues the sun and moon, who had spied\n     him among the gods, and causes their eclipses by his\n     ferocity. All this is on a level with Australian mythology.\n\nTo return to the gods in the _Satapatha Brahmana_ and their dread of\ndeath. They overcame him by certain sacrifices suggested by Prajapati.\nDeath resented this, and complained that men would now become immortal\nand his occupation would be gone. To console him the gods promised that\nno man in future should become immortal with his body, but only through\nknowledge after parting with his body. This legend, at least in its\npresent form, is necessarily later than the establishment of minute\nsacrificial rules. It is only quoted here as an example of the opinion\nthat the gods were once mortal and \"just like men\". It may be urged,\nand probably with truth, that this belief is the figment of religious\ndecadence. As to the victory of the gods over the Asuras, that is\nascribed by the _Satapatha Brahmana_* to the fact that, at a time when\nneither gods nor Asuras were scrupulously veracious, the gods invented\nthe idea of speaking the truth. The Asuras stuck to lying. The first\nresults not unnaturally were that the gods became weak and poor, the\nAsuras mighty and rich. The gods at last overcame the Asuras, not by\nveracity, but by the success of a magical sacrifice. Earlier\ndynasties of gods, to which the generation of Indra succeeded, are not\nunfrequently mentioned in the _Rig- Veda_.**\n\n     * Muir, iv. 6a.\n\n     ** Ibid., v. 16.\n\nOn the whole, the accounts of the gods and of their nature present in\nAryan mythology the inconsistent anthropomorphism, and the mixture of\nincongruous and often magical and childish ideas, which mark all other\nmythological systems. This will become still more manifest when we\nexamine the legends of the various gods separately, as they have been\ndisentangled by Dr. Muir and M. Bergaigne from the Vedas, and from the\nlater documents which contain traditions of different dates.\n\nThe Vedas contain no such orderly statements of the divine genealogies\nas we find in Hesoid and Homer. All is confusion, all is contradiction.*\nIn many passages heaven and earth, Dyaus and Prithivi, are spoken of\nas parents of the other gods. Dyaus is commonly identified, as is well\nknown, with Zeus by the philologists, but his legend has none of the\nfulness and richness which makes that of Zeus so remarkable. Before the\nstory of Dyaus could become that of Zeus, the old Aryan sky or heaven\ngod had to attract into his cycle that vast collection of miscellaneous\nadventures from a thousand sources which fill the legend of the chief\nHellenic deity. In the Veda, Dyaus appears now, as with Prithivi,**\nthe parent of all, both men and gods, now as a created thing or being\nfashioned by Indra or by Tvashtri.*** He is \"essentially beneficent,\nbut has no marked individuality, and can only have become the Greek Zeus\nby inheriting attributes from other deities \".****\n\nAnother very early divine person is Aditi, the mother of the great\nand popular gods called Adityas. \"Nothing is less certain than the\nderivation of the name of Aditi,\" says M. Paul Regnaud.*****\n\n     * Certain myths of the beginnings of things will be found in\n     the chapter on cosmogonic traditions.\n\n     ** Muir, v. 21-24.\n\n     *** Ibid., v. 30.\n\n     **** Bergaigne, iii. 112.\n\n     ***** _Revue de l'Histoire des Religions_, xii. 1, 40.\n\nM. Regnaud finds the root of Aditi in _ad_, to shine. Mr. Max Mueller\nlooks for the origin of the word in _a_, privative, and _da_, to bind;\nthus Aditi will mean \"the boundless,\" the \"infinite,\" a theory rejected\nby M. Regnaud. The expansion of this idea, with all its important\nconsequences, is worked out by Mr. Max Mueller in his _Hibbert Lectures_.\n\"The dawn came and went, but there remained always behind the dawn that\nheaving sea of light or fire from which she springs. Was not this the\ninvisible infinite? And what better name could be given than that which\nthe Vedic poets gave to it, Aditi, the boundless, the yonder, the beyond\nall and everything.\" This very abstract idea \"may have been one of\nthe earliest intuitions and creations of the Hindu mind\" (p. 229). M.\nDarmesteter and Mr. Whitney, on the other hand, explain Aditi just as\nWelcker and Mr. Max Mueller explain Cronion. There was no such thing as\na goddess named Aditi till men asked themselves the meaning of the\ntitle of their own gods, \"the Adityas\". That name might be interpreted\n\"children of Aditi,\" and so a goddess called Aditi was invented to fit\nthe name, thus philologically extracted from Adityas.*\n\nM. Bergaigne** finds that Aditi means \"free,\" \"untrammelled,\" and is\nused both as an adjective and as a name.\n\n     * The Brahmanic legend of the birth of the Adityas (Aitareya\n     Brahmana iii. 33) is too disgusting to be quoted.\n\n     ** _Religion Vedique_, iii. 88.\n\nThis vague and floating term was well suited to convey the pantheistic\nideas natural to the Indian mind, and already notable in the Vedic\nhymns. \"Aditi,\" cries a poet, \"is heaven; Aditi is air; Aditi is the\nfather, the mother and the son; Aditi is all the gods; Aditi is that\nwhich is born and which awaits the birth.\"* Nothing can be more advanced\nand metaphysical. Meanwhile, though Aditi is a personage so floating\nand nebulous, she figures in fairly definite form in a certain myth. The\n_Rig-Veda_ (x. 72, 8) tells us the tale of the birth of her sons, the\nAdityas. \"Eight sons were there of Aditi, born of her womb. To the gods\nwent she with seven; Martanda threw she away.\" The _Satapatha Brahmana_\nthrows a good deal of light on her conduct. Aditi had eight sons; but\nthere are only seven gods whom men call Adityas. The eighth she bore a\nshapeless lump, of the dimensions of a man, as broad as long, say some.\nThe Adityas then trimmed this ugly duckling of the family into human\nshape, and an elephant sprang from the waste pieces which they threw\naway; therefore an elephant partakes of the nature of man. The shapen\neighth son was called Vivasvat, the sun.**\n\n     * Rig- Veda, i. 89, 10.\n\n     ** Muir, iv. 15.\n\nIt is not to be expected that many, if any, remains of a theriomorphic\ncharacter should cling to a goddess so abstract as Aditi. When,\ntherefore, we find her spoken of as a cow, it is at least as likely that\nthis is only part of \"the pleasant unconscious poetry\" of the Veda,\nas that it is a survival of some earlier zoomorphic belief. Gubernatis\noffers the following lucid account of the metamorphosis of the infinite\n(for so he understands Aditi) into the humble domestic animal: \"The\ninexhaustible soon comes to mean that which can be milked without end\"\n(it would be more plausible to say that what can be milked without end\nsoon comes to mean the inexhaustible), \"and hence also a celestial cow,\nan inoffensive cow, which we must not offend.... The whole heavens being\nthus represented as an infinite cow, it was natural that the principal\nand most visible phenomena of the sky should become, in their turn,\nchildren of the cow.\" Aditi then is \"the great spotted cow\". Thus did\nthe Vedic poets (according to Gubernatis) descend from the unconditioned\nto the byre.\n\nFrom Aditi, however she is to be interpreted, we turn to her famous\nchildren, the Adityas, the high gods.\n\nThere is no kind of consistency, as we have so often said, in Vedic\nmythical opinion. The Adityas, for example, are now represented as\nthree, now as seven; for three and seven are sacred numbers. To the\ntriad a fourth is sometimes added, to the seven an eighth Aditya. The\nAdityas are a brotherhood or college of gods, but some of the members\nof the fraternity have more individual character than, for example, the\nMaruts, who are simply a company with a tendency to become confused\nwith the Adityas. Considered as a triad, the Adityas are Varuna, Mitra,\nAryaman. The name of Varuna is commonly derived from vri (or Var),* to\ncover, according to the commentator Sayana, because \"he envelops the\nwicked in his snares,\" the nets which he carries to capture the guilty.\nAs god of the midnight sky, Varuna is also \"the covering\" deity, with\nhis universal pall of darkness. Varuna's name has frequently been\ncompared to that of Uranus (------), the Greek god of heaven, who was\nmutilated by his son Cronos.\n\n     * Max Mueller, Select Essays, i. 871.\n\nSupposing Varuna to mean the heaven, we are not much advanced, for _dyu_\nalso lias the same meaning; yet Dyaus and Varuna have little in common.\nThe interpreters of the Vedas attempted to distinguish Mitra from Varuna\nby making the former the god of the daylight, the latter the god of the\nmidnight vault of heaven. The distinction, like other Vedic attempts at\ndrawing a line among the floating phantasms of belief, is not kept up\nwith much persistency.\n\nOf all Vedic deities, Varuna has the most spiritual and ethical\ncharacter. \"The grandest cosmical functions are ascribed to Varuna.\"\n\"His ordinances are fixed and unassailable.\" \"He who should flee far\nbeyond the sky would not escape Varuna the king.\" He is \"gracious even\nto him who has committed sin\". To be brief, the moral sentiments, which\nwe have shown to be often present in a pure form, even in the religion\nof savages, find a lofty and passionate expression in the Vedic psalms\nto Varuna.* But even Varuna has not shaken off all remains of the ruder\nmythopoeic fancy. A tale of the grossest and most material obscenity\nis told of Mitra and Varuna in the _Rig- Veda_ itself--the tale of the\nbirth of Vasistha.**\n\nIn the Aitareya Brahmana (ii. 460) Varuna takes a sufficiently personal\nform. He has somehow fallen heir to a role familiar to us from the\nRussian tale of _Tsar Morskoi_, the Gaelic \"Battle of the Birds,\" and\nthe Scotch \"Nicht, Nought, nothing\"*** Varuna, in short, becomes the\ngiant or demon who demands from the king the gift of his yet unborn son.\n\n     * Muir, v. 66.\n\n     ** Rig. Veda, vii. 33, 2.\n\n     *** See Custom, and Myth, \"A Far-Travelled Tale,\" and our\n     chapter postea, on \"Romantic Myths\".\n\nHarischandra is childless, and is instructed to pray to Varuna,\npromising to offer the babe as a human sacrifice. When the boy is born,\nHarischandra tries to evade the fulfilment of his promise. Finally\na young Brahman is purchased, and is to be sacrificed to Varuna as\na substitute for the king's son. The young Brahman is supernaturally\nreleased.\n\nThus even in Vedic, still more in Brahmanic myth, the vague and\nspiritual form of Varuna is brought to shame, or confused with some\ndemon of lower earlier legends.\n\nThere are believed on somewhat shadowy evidence to be traces of a\nconflict between Varuna and Indra (the fourth Aditya sometimes added to\nthe triad), a conflict analogous to that between Uranus and Cronos.*\nThe hymn, as M. Bergaigne holds, proves that Indra was victorious over\nVaruna, and thereby obtained possession of fire and of the soma juice.\nBut these births and battles of gods, who sometimes are progenitors of\ntheir own fathers, and who seem to change shapes with demons, are no\nmore to be fixed and scientifically examined than the torn plumes and\nstandards of the mist as they roll up a pass among the mountain pines.**\n\n     * Rig- Veda, x. 124.\n\n     ** Bergaigne, iii. 147.\n\nWe next approach a somewhat better defined and more personal figure,\nthat of the famous god Indra, who is the nearest Vedic analogue of the\nGreek Zeus. Before dealing with the subject more systematically, it may\nbe interesting to give one singular example of the parallelisms between\nAryan and savage mythology.\n\nIn his disquisition on the Indian gods, Dr. Muir has been observing*\nthat some passages of the _Rig- Veda_ imply that the reigning deities\nwere successors of others who had previously existed. He quotes, in\nproof of this, a passage from _Rig- Veda_, iv. 18, 12: \"Who, O Indra,\nmade thy mother a widow? Who sought to kill thee, lying or moving? What\ngod was present in the fray when thou didst slay thy father, seizing\nhim by the foot?\" According to M. Bergaigne,** Indra slew his father,\nTvashtri, for the purpose of stealing and drinking the soma, to which he\nwas very partial. This is rather a damaging passage, as it appears that\nthe Vedic poet looked on Indra as a parricide and a drunkard. To explain\nthis hint, however, Sayana the ancient commentator, quotes a passage\nfrom the _Black Yajur Veda_ which is no explanation at all. But it has\nsome interest for us, as showing how the myths of Aryans and Hottentots\ncoincide, even in very strange details. Yajna (sacrifice) desired\nDakshina (largesse). He consorted with her. Indra was apprehensive of\nthis. He reflected, \"Whoever is born of her will be this\". He entered\ninto her. Indra himself was born of her. He reflected, \"Whoever is born\nof her besides me will be this\". Having considered, he cut open her\nwomb. She produced a cow. Here we have a high Aryan god passing into and\nbeing born from the womb of a being who also bore a cow. The Hottentot\nlegend of the birth of their god, Heitsi Eibib, is scarcely so\nrepulsive.***\n\n     * _Sanskrit Texts_, v. 16,17.\n\n     ** _Religion Vedique_, iii. 99.\n\n     *** _Tsuni Goam_, Hahn, p.\n\n\"There was grass growing, and a cow came and ate of that grass, and she\nbecame pregnant\" (as Hera of Ares in Greek myth), \"and she brought forth\na young bull. And this bull became a very large bull.\" And the people\ncame together one day in order to slaughter him. But he ran away down\nhill, and they followed him to turn him back and catch him. But when\nthey came to the spot where he had disappeared, they found a man making\nmilk tubs. They asked this man, \"Where is the bull that passed down\nhere?\" He said, \"I do not know; has he then passed here?\" And all the\nwhile it was he himself, who had again become Heitsi Eibib. Thus\nthe birth of Heitsi Eibib resembled that of Indra as described in\n_Rig-Veda_, iv. 18, 10. \"His mother, a cow, bore Indra, an unlicked\ncalf.\"* Whatever view we may take of this myth, and of the explanation\nin the Brahmana, which has rather the air of being an invention to\naccount for the Vedic cow-mother of Indra, it is certain that the god is\nnot regarded as an uncreated being.**\n\n* Ludwig, _Die farse hat den groszen, starken, nicht zu venoundenden\nstier, den tosenden Indra, geboren_.\n\n** As to the etymological derivation and original significance of the\nname of Indra, the greatest differences exist among philologists. Yaska\ngives thirteen guesses of old, and there are nearly as many modern\nconjectures. In 1846 Roth described Indra as the god of \"the bright\nclear vault of heaven\" (Zeller's _Theologisches Jahrbuch_, 1846, p.\n352). Compare for this and the following conjectures, E. D. Perry,\n_Journal of American Oriental Society_, vol. i. p. 118. Roth derived\nthe \"radiance\" from _idh, indh_, to kindle. Roth afterwards changed his\nmind, and selected _in_ or _inv_, to have power over. Lassen (_Indisclie\nAllerthumskunde_, 2nd ed., i. p. 893) adopted a different derivation.\nBenfey (Or. und Occ, 1862, p. 48) made Indra God, not of the radiant,\nbut of the rainy sky. Mr. Max Mueller (lectures on Science of Language,\nii. 470) made Indra \"another conception of the bright blue sky,\" but (p.\n473, note 35) he derives Indra from the same root as in Sanskrit gives\nindu, drop or sap, that is, apparently, rainy sky, the reverse of blue.\nIt means originally \"the giver of rain,\" and Beufey is quoted ut supra.\nIn Chips, ii. 91, Indra becomes \"the chief solar deity of India \". Muir\n(Texts, v. 77) identifies the character of Indra with that of Jupiter\nPluvius, the Rainy Jove of Rome. Grassman (Dictionary, s. v.) calls\nIndra \"the god of the bright firmament\". Mr. Perry takes a distinction,\nand regards Indra as a god, not of sky, but of air, a midgarth between\nearth and sky, who inherited the skyey functions of Dyu. In the Veda Mr.\nPerry finds him \"the personification of the thunderstorm\". And so on! It\nseems incontestable that in Vedic mythology Tvashtri is regarded as the\nfather of Indra.* Thus (ii. 17, 6) Indra's thunderbolts are said to have\nbeen fashioned by his father. Other proofs are found in the account of\nthe combat between father and son. Thus (iii. 48, 4) we read, \"Powerful,\nvictorious, _he gives his body what shape he pleases_. Thus Indra,\nhaving vanquished Tvashtri even at his birth, stole and drank the\nsoma.\"** These anecdotes do not quite correspond with the version of\nIndra's guilt given in the Brahmanas. There it is stated*** that\nTvashtri had a three-headed son akin to the Asuras, named Vairupa. This\nVairupa was suspected of betraying to the Asuras the secret of soma.\nIndra therefore cut off his three heads.\n\n     * On the parentage of Indra, Bergaigne writes, iii. 58.\n\n     ** iii. 61. Bergaigne identifies Tvashtri and Vritra.\n     Cf. Aitareya Brahmana, ii. 483, note 5.\n\n     *** Aitareya Brahmana, it 483, note 6.\n\nNow Vairupa was a Brahman, and Indra was only purified of his awful\nguilt, Brahmanicide, when earth, trees and women accepted each their\nshare of the iniquity. Tvashtri, the father of Vairupa, still excluded\nIndra from a share of the soma, which, however, Indra seized by force.\nTvashtri threw what remained of Indra's share into the fire with\nimprecations, and from the fire sprang Vritra, the enemy of Indra. Indra\nis represented at various times and in various texts as having sprung\nfrom the mouth of Purusha, or as being a child of heaven and earth, whom\nhe thrust asunder, as Tutenganahau thrust asunder Rangi and Papa in the\nNew Zealand myth. In a passage of the _Black Yajur Veda_, once already\nquoted, Indra, sheep and the Kshattriya caste were said to have sprung\nfrom the breast and arms of Prajapati.* In yet another hymn in the _Rig-\nVeda_ he is said to have conquered heaven by magical austerity. Leaving\nthe Brahmanas aside, Mr. Perry** distinguishes four sorts of Vedic texts\non the origin of Indra:--\n\n1. Purely physical.\n\n2. Anthropomorphic.\n\n3. Vague references to Indra's parents.\n\n4. Philosophical speculations.\n\nOf the first class,*** it does not appear to us that the purely physical\nelement is so very pure after all. Heaven, earth, Indra, \"the cow,\" are\nall thought of as _personal_ entities, however gigantic and vague.\n\nIn the second or anthropomorphic myths we have**** the dialogue\nalready referred to, in which Indra, like Set in Egypt and Malsumis or\nChokanipok in America, insists on breaking his way through his mother's\nside.*****\n\n     * Muir, i. 16.\n\n     ** Op. cit., p. 124.\n\n     *** Rig- Veda, iv. 17, 4,  2, 12; iv. 22, 4; i. 63, 1; viii.\n     59, 4; viii. 6, 28-30.\n\n     **** Ibid., iv. 18,1.\n\n     ***** Cf. \"Egyptian Divine Myths\"\n\nIn verse 5 his mother exposes Indra, as Maui and the youngest son of\nAditi were exposed. Indra soon after, as precocious as Heitsi Eibib,\nimmediately on his birth kills his father.* He also kills Vritra, as\nApollo when new-born slew the Python. In iii. 48, 2, 3, he takes early\nto soma-drinking. In x. 153, 1, women cradle him as the nymphs nursed\nZeus in the Cretan cave.\n\nIn the third class we have the odd myth,** \"while an immature boy, he\nmounted the new waggon and roasted for father and mother a fierce bull\n\".\n\nIn the fourth class a speculative person tries to account for the\nstatement that Indra was born from a horse, \"or the verse means that\nAgni was a horse's son\". Finally, Sayana**** explains nothing, but\nhappens to mention that the goddess Aditi _swallowed_ her rival Nisti,\na very primitive performance, and much like the feat of Cronos when he\ndined on his family, or of Zeus when he swallowed his wife.\n\n     * Why do Indra and his family behave in this bloodthirsty\n     way? Hillebrandt says that the father is the heaven which\n     Indra \"kills\" by covering it with clouds. But, again, Indra\n     kills his father by concealing the sun. He is abandoned by\n     his mother when the clear sky, from which he is born,\n     disappears behind the veil of cloud. Is the father sun or\n     heaven? is the mother clear sky, or, as elsewhere, the\n     imperishability of the daylight? (Perry, op. cit., p. 149).\n\n     ** Rig- Veda, viii. 68, 15.\n\n     *** Ibid., x. 73, 10.\n\n     ****  Ibid., x. 101, 12. For Sayana, see Mr. Perry's Essay,\n     Journal A. 0. S. 1882, p. 180.\n\nThus a fixed tradition of Indra's birth is lacking in the Veda, and\nthe fluctuating traditions are not very creditable to the purity of the\nAryan fancy. In personal appearance Indra was handsome and ruddy as\nthe sun, but, like Odin and Heitsi Eibib and other gods and wizards, he\ncould assume any shape at will. He was a great charioteer, and wielded\nthe thunderbolt forged for him by Tvashtri, the Indian Hephaestus. His\nlove of the intoxicating soma juice was notorious, and with sacrifices\nof this liquor his adorers were accustomed to inspire and invigorate\nhim. He is even said to have drunk at one draught thirty bowls of soma.\nDr. Haug has tasted it, but could only manage one teaspoonful. Indra's\nbelly is compared by his admirers to a lake, and there seems to be no\ndoubt that they believed the god really drank their soma, as Heitsi\nEibib really enjoys the honey left by the Hottentots on his grave. \"I\nhave verily resolved to bestow cows and horses. I have quaffed the\nsoma. The draughts which I have drunk impel me as violent blasts. I have\nquaffed the soma. I surpass in greatness the heaven and the vast earth.\nI have quaffed the soma. I am majestic, elevated to the heavens. I\nhave quaffed the soma.\"* So sings the drunken and bemused Indra, in\nthe manner of the Cyclops in Euripides, after receiving the wine, the\ntreacherous gift of Odysseus.\n\nAccording to the old commentator Sayana, Indra got at the soma which\ninspired him with his drinking-song by assuming the shape of a quail.\n\nThe great feats of Indra, which are constantly referred to, are his\nslaughter of the serpent Vritra, who had taken possession of all the\nwaters, and his recovery of the sun, which had also been stolen.**\n\n     * Rig- Veda, x. 119.\n\n     ** Ibid., 139, 4; iii. 39, 6; viii. 85, 7.\n\nThese myths are usually regarded as allegorical ways of stating that the\nlightning opens the dark thundercloud, and makes it disgorge the\nrain and reveal the sun. Whether this theory be correct or not, it is\nimportant for our purpose to show that the feats thus attributed\nto Indra are really identical in idea with, though more elevated in\nconception and style, than certain Australian, Iroquois and Thlinkeet\nlegends. In the Iroquois myth, as in the Australian,* a great frog\nswallowed all the waters, and was destroyed by Ioskeha or some other\nanimal. In Thlinkeet legends, Yehl, the raven-god, carried off to men\nthe hidden sun and the waters. Among these lower races the water-stealer\nwas thought of as a real reptile of some sort, and it is probable that a\nsimilar theory once prevailed among the ancestors of the Aryans. Vritra\nand Ahi, the mysterious foes whom Indra slays when he recovers the sun\nand the waters, were probably once as real to the early fancy as the\nAustralian or Iroquois frog. The extraordinary myth of the origin of\nVritra, only found in the Brahmanas, indicates the wild imagination of\nan earlier period. Indra murdered a Brahman, a three-headed one, it is\ntrue, but still a Brahman. For this he was excluded from the banquet and\nwas deprived of his favourite soma. He stole a cup of it, and the dregs,\nthrown into the fire with a magical imprecation, became Vritra, whom\nIndra had such difficulty in killing. Before attacking Vritra, Indra\nsupplied himself with Dutch courage. \"A copious draught of soma provided\nhim with the necessary courage and strength.\" The terror of the other\ngods was abject.** After slaying him, he so lost self-possession that in\nhis flight he behaved like Odin when he flew off in terror with the head\nof Suttung.***\n\n     * Brinton, Myths of New World, pp. 184, 185.   See also\n     chapter i.\n\n     ** Perry, op. cit., p. 137; Rig-Veda, v. 29, 3, 7; iii.\n     43, 7; iv. 18, 11; viii. 85, 7.\n\n     *** Rig-Veda, i. 32,14, tells of a flight as headlong as\n     that of Apollo after killing the Python. Mr. Perry explains\n     the flight as the rapid journey of the thunderstorm.\n\nIf our opinion be correct, the elemental myths which abound in the Veda\nare not myths \"in the making,\" as is usually held, but rather myths\ngradually dissolving into poetry and metaphor. As an example of the\npersistence in civilised myth of the old direct savage theory that\nanimals of a semi-supernatural sort really cause the heavenly phenomena,\nwe may quote Mr. Darmesteter's remark, in the introduction to the\n_Zendavesta_: \"The storm floods that cleanse the sky of the dark fiends\nin it were described in a class of myths as the urine of a gigantic\nanimal in the heavens\".* A more savage and theriomorphic hypothesis\nit would be hard to discover among Bushmen or Nootkas.** Probably the\nserpent Vritra is another beast out of the same menagerie.\n\nIf our theory of the evolution of gods is correct, we may expect to find\nin the myths of Indra traces of a theriomorphic character. As the point\nin the ear of man is thought or fabled to be a relic of his arboreal\nancestry, so in the shape of Indra there should, if gods were developed\nout of divine beasts, be traces of fur and feather. They are not very\nnumerous nor very distinct, but we give them for what they may be worth.\n\nThe myth of Yehl, the Thlinkeet raven-god, will not have been forgotten.\nIn his raven gear Yehl stole the sacred water, as Odin, also in bird\nform, stole the mead of Suttung. We find a similar feat connected with\nIndra. Gubernatis says:***\n\n     * Sacred Books of the East, vol. iv. p. lxxxviii.\n\n     ** The etymology of Vritra is usually derived from vn, to\n     \"cover,\" \"hinder,\" \"restrain,\" then \"what is to be\n     hindered,\" then \"enemy,\" \"fiend\".\n\n     *** Zoological Mythology, ii. 182.\n\n\"In the _Rig-Veda_ Indra often appears as a hawk. While the hawk\ncarries the ambrosia through the air, he trembles for fear of the archer\nKricanus, who, in fact, shot off one of his claws, of which the hedgehog\nwas born, according to the _Aitareya Brahmana_, and according to the\nVedic hymn, one of his feathers, which, falling on the earth, afterwards\nbecame a tree.\"* Indra's very peculiar relations with rams are also\nreferred to by Gubernatis.** They resemble a certain repulsive myth of\nZeus, Demeter and the ram referred to by the early Christian fathers. In\nthe _Satapatha Brahmana_*** Indra is called \"ram of Medhatithi,\" wife of\nVrishanasva. Indra, like Loki, had taken the part of a woman.**** In the\nshape of a ram he carried off Medhatithi, an exploit like that of Zeus\nwith Ganymede.*****\n\nIn the Vedas, however, all the passages which connect Indra with animals\nwill doubtless be explained away as metaphorical, though it is admitted\nthat, like Zeus, he could assume whatever form he pleased.****** Vedic\npoets, probably of a late period, made Indra as anthropomorphic as the\nHomeric Zeus. His domestic life in the society of his consort Indrani\nis described.******* When he is starting for the war, Indrani calls\nhim back, and gives him a stirrup-cup of soma. He and she quarrel very\nnaturally about his pet monkey.********\n\nIn this brief sketch, which is not even a summary, we have shown how\nmuch of the irrational element, how much, too, of the humorous element,\nthere is in the myths about Indra. He is a drunkard, who gulps down\ncask, spigot and all.*********\n\n     * Compare Rig-Veda, iv. 271.\n\n     ** Zool. Myth., i. 414.\n\n     *** ii. 81.\n\n     **** Rig- Veda, i. 51, 13.\n\n     ***** Ibid., viii. 2, 40.\n\n     ****** Ibid.,\n\n     ****** Ibid., iii. 48, 4.\n\n     ******* Ibid, 53, 4-6; vii. 18, 2.\n\n     ******** Ibid., x. 86.\n\n     ********* Ibid. 116.\n\nHe is an adulterer and a \"shape-shifter,\" like all medicine-men and\nsavage sorcerers. He is born along with the sheep from the breast of a\nvast non-natural being, like Ymir in Scandinavian myth; he metamorphoses\nhimself into a ram or a woman; he rends asunder his father and mother,\nheaven and earth; he kills his father immediately after his birth, or\nhe is mortal, but has attained heaven by dint of magic, by \"austere\nfervour\". Now our argument is that these and such as these incongruous\nand irrational parts of Indra's legend have no necessary or natural\nconnection with the worship of him as a nature-god, an elemental deity,\na power of sky and storm, as civilised men conceive storm and sky. On\nthe other hand, these legends, of which plenty of savage parallels\nhave been adduced, are obviously enough survivals from the savage\nintellectual myths, in which sorcerers, with their absurd powers, are\nalmost on a level with gods. And our theory is, that the irrational\npart of Indra's legend became attached to the figure of an elemental\ndivinity, a nature-god, at the period when savage men mythically\nattributed to their gods the qualities which were claimed by the most\nillustrious among themselves, by their sorcerers and chiefs. In the\nVedas the nature-god has not quite disengaged himself from these old\nsavage attributes, which to civilised men seem so irrational. \"Trailing\nclouds of\" anything but \"glory\" does Indra come \"from heaven, which is\nhis home.\" If the irrational element in the legend of Indra was neither\na survival of, nor a loan from, savage fancy, why does it tally with the\nmyths of savages?\n\nThe other Adityas, strictly so called (for most gods are styled Adityas\nnow and then by way of compliment), need not detain us. We go on to\nconsider the celebrated soma.\n\nSoma is one of the most singular deities of the Indo-Aryans. Originally\nSoma is the intoxicating juice of a certain plant.* The wonderful\npersonifying power of the early imagination can hardly be better\nillustrated than by the deification of the soma juice. We are accustomed\nto hear in the _maerchen_ or peasant myths of Scotch, Russian, Zulu and\nother races, of drops of blood or spittle which possess human faculties\nand intelligence, and which can reply, for example, to questions. The\npersonification of the soma juice is an instance of the same exercise\nof fancy on a much grander scale. All the hymns in the ninth book of\nthe _Rig- Veda_, and many others in other places, are addressed to the\nmilk-like juice of this plant, which, when personified, holds a place\nalmost as high as that of Indra in the Indo-Aryan Olympus. The sacred\nplant was brought to men from the sky or from a mountain by a hawk, or\nby Indra in guise of a hawk, just as fire was brought to other races\nby a benevolent bird, a raven or a cow. According to the _Aitareya\nBrahmana_ (ii. 59), the gods bought some from the Gandharvas in exchange\nfor one of their own number, who was metamorphosed into a woman, \"a big\nnaked woman\" of easy virtue. In the _Satapatha Brahmana_,** the gods,\nwhile still they lived on earth, desired to obtain soma, which was then\nin the sky.\n\n     * As to the true nature and home of the soma plant, see a\n     discussion in the _Academy_, 1885.\n\n     ** Muir, v. 263.\n\nA Gandharva robbed the divine being who had flown up and seized the\nsoma, and, as in the _Aitareya Brahmana_, the gods won the plant back\nby the aid of Vach, a woman-envoy to the amorous Gandharvas. The _Black\nYajur Veda_ has some ridiculous legends about Soma (personified) and his\nthirty-three wives, their jealousies, and so forth. Soma, in the _Rig-\nVeda_, is not only the beverage that inspires Indra, but is also an\nanthropomorphic god who created and lighted up the sun,* and who drives\nabout in a chariot. He is sometimes addressed as a kind of Atlas, who\nkeeps heaven and earth asunder.** He is prayed to forgive the violations\nof his law.*** Soma, in short, as a personified power, wants little of\nthe attributes of a supreme deity.****\n\nAnother, and to modern ideas much more poetical personified power, often\nmentioned in the Vedas, is Ushas, or the dawn. As among the Australians,\nthe dawn is a woman, but a very different being from the immodest\ngirl dressed in red kangaroo-skins of the Murri myth. She is an active\nmaiden, who***** \"advances, cherishing all things; she hastens on,\narousing footed creatures, and makes the birds fly aloft.... The flying\nbirds no longer rest after thy dawning, O bringer of food (?). She has\nyoked her horses from the remote rising-place of the sun.... Resplendent\non thy massive car, hear our invocations.\" Ushas is \"like a fair girl\nadorned by her mother.... She has been beheld like the bosom of a bright\nmaiden....\"\n\n     * Rig- Veda, vi. 44, 23.\n\n     ** Ibid., 44, 24.\n\n     *** Ibid., viii. 48, 9.\n\n     **** Bergaigne, i. 216.    To me it seems that the Rishis\n     when hymning Soma simply gave him all the predicates of God\n     that came into their heads.   Cf. Bergaigne, i. 223.\n\n     **** Rig-Veda, i. 48.\n\n\"Born again and again though ancient, shining with an ever uniform hue,\nshe wasteth away the life of mortals.\" She is the sister of Night, and\nthe bright sun is her child. There is no more pure poetry in the Vedic\ncollections than that which celebrates the dawn, though even here\nthe Rishis are not oblivious of the rewards paid to the sacrificial\npriests.* Dawn is somewhat akin to the Homeric Eos, the goddess of\nthe golden throne,** she who loved a mortal and bore him away, for his\nbeauty's sake, to dwell with the immortals. Once Indra, acting with\nthe brutality of the Homeric Ares, charged against the car of Ushas and\noverthrew it.***\n\n     * Rig- Veda, i. 48, 4.\n\n     ** Ibid., i.. 48,10.\n\n     *** Ibid., iv. 30, 8; Ait Br., iv. 9.\n\nIn her legend, however, we find little but pure poetry, and we do not\nknow that Ushas, like Eos, ever chose a mortal lover. Such is the Vedic\nUshas, but the Brahmanas, as usual, manage either to retain or to revive\nand introduce the old crude element of myth. We have seen that the\nAustralians account to themselves for the ruddy glow of the morning sky\nby the hypothesis that dawn is a girl of easy virtue, dressed in the red\nopossum-skins she has received from her lovers. In a similar spirit the\n_Aitareya Brahmana_ (iv. 9) offers brief and childish aetiological myths\nto account for a number of natural phenomena. Thus it explains the\nsterility of mules by saying that the gods once competed in a race; that\nAgni (fire) drove in a chariot drawn by mules and scorched them, so\nthat they do not conceive. But in this race Ushas was drawn by red cows;\n\"hence after the coming of dawn there is a reddish colour\". The red cows\nof the Brahmana may pair off with the red opossums of the Australian\nimagination.\n\nWe now approach a couple of deities whose character, as far as such\nshadowy things can be said to have any character at all, is pleasing and\nfriendly. The Asvins correspond in Vedic mythology to the Dioscuri, the\nCastor and Polydeuces of Greece. They, like the Dioscuri, are twins, are\nhorsemen, and their legend represents them as kindly and helpful to\nmen in distress. But while the Dioscuri stand forth in Greek legend as\nclearly and fairly fashioned as two young knights of the Panathenaic\nprocession, the Asvins show as bright and formless as melting wreaths of\nmist.\n\nThe origin of their name has been investigated by the commentator Yaska,\nwho \"quotes sundry verses to prove that the two Asvins belong together\"\n(sic).* The etymology of the name is the subject, as usual, of various\nconjectures. It has been derived from _Asva_, a horse, from the root\nas, \"to pervade,\" and explained as a patronymic from Asva, the sun. The\nnature of the Asvins puzzled the Indian commentators no less than their\nname. Who, then, are these Asvins? \"Heaven and earth,\" say some.**\n\n     * Max Mueller, _Lectures on Language_, ii. 536.\n\n     **  Yaska in the _Nirukta_, xii. 1.   See Muir, v. 234.\n\nThe \"some\" who held this opinion relied on an etymological guess, the\nderivation from _as_ \"to pervade \". Others inclined to explain the\nAsvins as day and night, others as the sun and moon, others--Indian\neuhemerists--as two real kings, now dead and gone. Professor Roth thinks\nthe Asvins contain an historical element, and are \"the earliest bringers\nof light in the morning sky\". Mr. Max Mueller seems in favour of the two\ntwilights. As to these and allied modes of explaining the two gods in\nconnection with physical phenomena, Muir writes thus: \"This allegorical\nmethod of interpretation seems unlikely to be correct, as it is\ndifficult to suppose that the phenomena in question should have been\nalluded to under such a variety of names and circumstances. It appears,\ntherefore, to be more probable that the Rishis merely refer to certain\nlegends which were popularly current of interventions of the Asvins\nin behalf of the persons whose names are mentioned.\" In the Veda* the\nAsvins are represented as living in fraternal polyandry, with but one\nwife, Surya, the daughter of the sun, between them. They are thought\nto have won her as the prize in a chariot-race, according to the\ncommentator Sayana. \"The time of their appearance is properly the early\ndawn,\" when they receive the offerings of their votaries.** \"When the\ndark (night) stands among the tawny cows, I invoke you, Asvins, sons of\nthe sky.\"*** They are addressed as young, beautiful, fleet, and the foes\nof evil spirits.\n\n     * Rig- Veda, i. 119, 2; i. 119, 5; x. 39, 11 (?).\n\n     ** Muir, v. 238.\n\n     *** Rig-Veda, x. 61, 4.\n\nThere can be no doubt that, when the Vedas were composed, the Asvins\nshone and wavered and were eclipsed among the bright and cloudy throng\nof gods, then contemplated by the Rishis or sacred singers. Whether they\nhad from the beginning an elemental origin, and what that origin exactly\nwas, or whether they were merely endowed by the fancy of poets with\nvarious elemental and solar attributes and functions, it may be\nimpossible to ascertain. Their legend, meanwhile, is replete with\nfeatures familiar in other mythologies. As to their birth, the _Rig-\nVeda_ has the following singular anecdote, which reminds one of the\ncloud-bride of Ixion, and of the woman of clouds and shadows that\nwas substituted for Helen of Troy: \"Tvashtri makes a wedding for his\ndaughter. Hearing this, the whole world assembled. The mother of Yama,\nthe wedded wife of the great Vivasvat, disappeared. They concealed the\nimmortal bride from mortals. Making another of like appearance, they\ngave her to Vivasvat. Saranyu bore the two Asvins, and when she had done\nso, deserted the twins.\"* The old commentators explain by a legend in\nwhich the daughter of Tvashtri, Saranyu, took on the shape of a mare.\nVivasvat followed her in the form of a horse, and she became the mother\nof the Asvins, \"sons of the horse,\" who more or less correspond to\nCastor and Pollux, sons of the swan. The Greeks were well acquainted\nwith local myths of the same sort, according to which, Poseidon, in the\nform of a horse, had become the parent of a horse by Demeter Erinnys\n(Saranyu?), then in the shape of a mare. The Phigaleians, among whom\nthis tale was current, worshipped a statue of Demeter in a woman's shape\nwith a mare's head. The same tale was told of Cronus and Philyra.**\nThis myth of the birth of gods, who \"are lauded as Asvins\" sprung from a\nhorse,*** may be the result of a mere _volks etymologie_.\n\n     * Rig-Veda, x. 17, 1-2; Bergaigne, ii. 806, 318.\n\n     ** Pausanias, viii. 25; Virgil, Georgia, iii. 91; Muir, v.\n     128.   See chapter on \"Greek Divine Myths,\" Demeter.\n\n     *** Muir,v. 228.\n\nSome one may have asked himself what the word Asvins meant; may have\nrendered it \"sprung from a horse,\" and may either have invented, by way\nof explanation, a story like that of Cronus and Philyra, or may have\nadapted such a story, already current in folk-lore, to his purpose;\nor the myth may be early, and a mere example of the prevalent mythical\nfashion which draws no line between gods and beasts and men. It will\nprobably be admitted that this and similar tales prove the existence of\nthe savage element of mythology among the Aryans of India, whether it be\nborrowed, or a survival, or an imitative revival.\n\nThe Asvins were usually benefactors of men in every sort of strait and\ntrouble. A quail even invoked them (Mr. Max Mueller thinks this quail\nwas the dawn, but the Asvins were something like the dawn already), and\nthey rescued her from the jaws of a wolf. In this respect, and in their\nbeauty and youth, they answer to Castor and Pollux as described by\nTheocritus. \"Succourers are they of men in the very thick of peril, and\nof horses maddened in the bloody press of battle, and of ships that,\ndefying the setting and the rising of the stars in heaven, have\nencountered the perilous breath of storms.\"*\n\n     * Theoc. Idyll, xxii. i. 17.\n\nA few examples of the friendliness of the Asvins may be selected from\nthe long list given by Muir. They renewed the youth of Kali. After the\nleg of Vispala had been cut off in battle, the Asvins substituted an\niron leg! They restored sight to Rijrasva, whom his father had blinded\nbecause, in an access of altruism, he had given one hundred and one\nsheep to a hungry she-wolf. The she-wolf herself prayed to the Asvins to\nsuccour her benefactor.* They drew the Rishi Rebha out of a well. They\nmade wine and liquors flow from the hoof of their own horse.** Most\nof the persons rescued, quail and all, are interpreted, of course, as\nsemblances of the dawn and the twilight. Goldstucker says they\nare among \"the deities forced by Professor Mueller to support his\ndawn-theory\". M. Bergaigne also leans to the theory of physical\nphenomena. When the Asvins restore sight to the blind Kanva, he sees\nno reason to doubt that \"the blind Kanva is the sun during the night, or\nAgni or Soma is concealment\". A proof of this he finds in the statement\nthat Kanva is \"dark\"; to which we might reply that \"dark\" is still a\nsynonym for \"blind\" among the poor.***\n\n     * Rig- Veda, i. 116, 16.\n\n     ** Ibid., i. 116, 7.\n\n     *** Bergaigne, Rel. Ved., ii. 460, 465.\n\nM. Bergaigne's final hypothesis is that the Asvins \"may be assimilated\nto the two celebrants who in the beginning seemed to represent the\nterrestrial and celestial fires\". But this origin, he says, even if\ncorrectly conjectured, had long been forgotten.\n\nBeyond the certainty that the Asvins represent the element of kindly\nand healing powers, as commonly conceived of in popular mythology--for\nexample, in the legends of the saints--there is really nothing certain\nor definite about their original meaning.\n\nA god with a better defined and more recognisable department is\nTvashtri, who is in a vague kind of way the counterpart of the Greek\nHephaestus. He sharpens the axe of Brahmanaspiti, and forges the bolts\nof Indra. He also bestows offspring, is a kind of male Aphrodite, and\nis the shaper of all forms human and animal. Saranyu is his daughter.\nProfessor Kuhn connects her with the storm-cloud, Mr. Max Mueller with\nthe dawn.* Her wedding in the form of a mare to Vivasvat in the guise of\na horse has already been spoken of and discussed. Tvashtri's relations\nwith Indra, as we have shown, are occasionally hostile; there is a\nblood-feud between them, as Indra slew Tvashtri's three-headed son, from\nwhose blood sprang two partridges and a sparrow.**\n\nThe Maruts are said to be gods of the tempest, of lightning, of wind\nand of rain. Their names, as usual, are tortured on various by the\netymologists. Mr. Max Mueller connects _Maruts_ with the roots _mar_, \"to\npound,\" and with the Roman war-god Mars. Others think the root is _mar_,\n\"to shine\". Benfey*** says \"that the Maruts (their name being derived\nfrom _mar_, 'to die') are personfications of the souls of the departed\".\n\n     * Max Mueller, _Lectures on Language_, ii. 530.\n\n     ** Muir, v. 224, 233.\n\n     *** Ibid., v. 147.\n\nTheir numbers are variously estimated. They are the sons of Rudra and\nPrisni. Rudra as a bull, according to a tale told by Sayana, begat the\nMaruts on the earth, which took the shape of a cow. As in similar cases,\nwe may suppose this either to be a survival or revival of a savage myth\nor a merely symbolical statement. There are traces of rivalry between\nIndra and the Maruts. It is beyond question that the Rishis regard them\nas elementary and mainly as storm-gods. Whether they were originally\nghosts (like the Australian Mrarts, where the name tempts the wilder\nkind of etymologists), or whether they are personified winds, or, again,\nwinds conceived as persons (which is not quite the same thing), it is\ndifficult, and perhaps impossible, to determine.\n\nThough divers of the Vedic gods have acquired solar characteristics,\nthere is a regular special sun-deity in the Veda, named Surya or\nSavitri. He answers to the Helios of the Homeric hymn to the sun,\nconceived as a personal being, a form which he still retains in the\nfancy of the Greek islanders.* Surya is sometimes spoken of as a child\nof Aditi's or of Dyaus and Ushas is his wife, though she also lives\nin Spartan polyandry with the Asvin twins.** Like Helios Hyperion, he\nbeholds all things, the good and evil deeds of mortals. He is often\ninvolved in language of religious fervour.*** The English reader is\napt to confuse Surya with the female being Surya. Surya is regarded\nby Grassmann and Roth as a feminine personification of the sun.****\nM. Bergaigne looks on Surya as the daughter of the sun or daughter of\nSavitri, and thus as the dawn. Savitri is the sun, golden-haired and\ngolden-handed. From the _Satapatha Brahmana_***** it appears that people\nwere apt to identify Savitri with Prajapati.******\n\n     * Bent's _Cyclades_.\n\n     ** Rig- Veda, vii. 75, 5.\n\n     *** Muir, v. 155-162.\n\n     **** Bergaigne, ii. 486.\n\n     ***** xiii. 3, 5, 1.\n\n     ****** The very strange and important personage of Prajapati\n     is discussed in the chapter on \"Indian Cosmogonic Myths\".\n\nThese blendings of various conceptions and of philosophic systems with\nearly traditions have now been illustrated as far as our space will\npermit. The natural conclusion, after a rapid view of Vedic deities,\nseems to be that they are extremely composite characters, visible only\nin the shifting rays of the Indian fancy, at a period when the peculiar\nqualities of Indian thought were already sufficiently declared. The\nlights of ritualistic dogma and of pantheistic and mystic and poetic\nemotion fall in turn, like the changeful hues of sunset, on figures as\nmelting and shifting as the clouds of evening. Yet even to these vague\nshapes of the divine there clings, as we think has been shown, somewhat\nof their oldest raiment, something of the early fancy from which we\nsuppose them to have floated up ages before the Vedas were compiled in\ntheir present form. If this view be correct, Vedic mythology does by\nno means represent what is primitive and early, but what, in order of\ndevelopment, is late, is peculiar, and is marked with the mark of a\nreligious tendency as strongly national and characteristic as the purest\nSemitic monotheism. Thus the Veda is not a fair starting-point for\na science of religion, but is rather, in spite of its antiquity, a\ntemporary though advanced resting-place in the development of Indian\nreligious speculation and devotional sentiment.*\n\n     * In the chapters on India the translation of the _Veda_\n     used is Herr Ludwig's (Prag, 1876). Much is owed to Mr.\n     Perry's essay on Indra, quoted above.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII. GREEK DIVINE MYTHS\n\n     Gods in myth, and God in religion--The society of the gods\n     like that of men in Homer--Borrowed elements in Greek\n     belief--Zeus--His name--Development of his legend--His\n     bestial shapes explained--Zeus in religion--Apollo--Artemis--\n     Dionysus--Athene--Aphrodite--Hermes--Demeter--Their names,\n     natures, rituals and legends--Conclusions.\n\nIn the gods of Greece, when represented in ideal art and in the best\nreligious sentiment, as revealed by poets and philosophers, from Homer\nto Plato, from Plato to Porphyry, there is something truly human and\ntruly divine. It cannot be doubted that the religion of Apollo, Athene,\nArtemis and Hermes was, in many respects, an adoration directed to the\nmoral and physical qualities that are best and noblest. Again, even in\nthe oldest Greek literature, in Homer and in all that follows, the name\nof the chief god, Zeus, might in many places be translated by our word\n\"God\".*\n\n     * _Postea_, \"Zeus\".\n\nIt is God that takes from man half his virtue on the day of slavery; it\nis God that gives to each his lot in life, and ensures that as his\nday is so shall his strength be. This spiritual conception of deity,\nundifferentiated by shape or attributes, or even by name, declares\nitself in the Homeric terms (------------) and in the (------) of\nHerodotus. These are spiritual forces or tendencies ruling the world,\nand these conceptions are present to the mind, even of Homer, whose\npictures of the gods are so essentially anthropomorphic; even of\nHerodotus, in all things so cautiously reverent in his acceptation of\nthe popular creeds and rituals. When Socrates, therefore, was doomed\nto death for his theories of religion, he was not condemned so much\nfor holding a pure belief in a spiritual divinity, as for bringing that\nopinion (itself no new thing) into the marketplace, and thereby shocking\nthe popular religion, on which depended the rites that were believed to\npreserve the fortune of the state.\n\nIt is difficult or impossible quite to unravel the tangled threads of\nmythical legend, of sacerdotal ritual, of local religion, and of refined\nreligious sentiment in Greece. Even in the earliest documents, the\nHomeric poems, religious sentiment deserts, in moments of deep and\nserious thought, the brilliant assembly of the Olympians, and takes\nrefuge in that fatherhood of the divine \"after which all men yearn\".*\n\n     * _Odyssey_, iii. 48.\n\nYet, even in Pausanias, in the second century of the Christian era, and\nstill more in Plutarch and Porphyry, there remains an awful acquiescence\nin such wild dogmas and sacred traditions as antiquity handed down. We\ncan hardly determine whether even Homer actually believed in his own\nturbulent cowardly Ares, in his own amorous and capricious Zeus. Did\nHomer, did any educated Greek, turn in his thoughts, when pain, or\nsorrow, or fear fell on him, to a hope in the help of Hermes or Athene?\nHe was ready to perform all their rites and offer all the sacrifices\ndue, but it may be questioned whether, even in such a god-fearing man\nas Nicias, this ritualism meant more than a desire to \"fulfil all\nrighteousness,\" and to gratify a religious sentiment in the old\ntraditional forms.\n\nIn examining Greek myths, then, it must be remembered that, like all\nmyths, they have far less concern with religion in its true guise--with\nthe yearning after the divine which \"is not far from any one of us,\"\nafter the God \"in whom we live, and move, and have our being\"--than with\nthe _religio_, which is a tissue of old barbarous fears, misgivings,\nmisapprehensions. The religion which retained most of the myths was that\nancient superstition which is afraid of \"changing the luck,\" and which,\ntherefore, keeps up acts of ritual that have lost their significance\nin their passage from a dark and dateless past. It was the local\npriesthoods of demes and remote rural places that maintained the old\nusages of the ancient tribes and kindreds--usages out of keeping with\nthe mental condition of the splendid city state, or with the national\nsentiment of Hellenism. But many of the old tales connected with, and\nexplanatory of, these ritual practices, after \"winning their way to the\nmythical,\" as Thucydides says, won their way into literature, and meet\nus in the odes of Pindar, the plays of AEschylus and Sophocles, the notes\nof commentators, and the apologetic efforts of Plutarch and Porphyry.\nIt is with these antique stories that the mythologist is concerned. But\neven here he need not loose his reverence for the nobler aspects of the\ngods of Greece. Like the archaeologist and excavator, he must touch with\ncareful hand these--\n\n     Strange clouded fragments of the ancient glory,\n     Late lingerers of the company divine;\n     For even in ruin of their marble limbs\n     They breathe of that far world wherefrom they came,\n     Of liquid light and harmonies serene,\n     Lost halls of heaven and far Olympian air.*\n\n\"Homer and Hesiod named the gods for the Greeks;\" so Herodotus thought,\nand constructed the divine genealogies. Though the gods were infinitely\nolder than Homer, though a few of them probably date from before the\nseparation of the Indo-Aryan and Hellenic stocks, it is certain that\nHomer and Hesiod stereotyped, to some extent, the opinions about the\ndeities which were current in their time.**\n\n     * Ernest Myers, Hermes, in _The Judgment of Prometheus_.\n\n     ** As a proof of the Pre-Homeric antiquity of Zeus, it has\n     often been noticed that Homer makes Achilles pray to Zeus of\n     Dodona (the Zeus, according to Thrasybulus, who aided\n     Deucalion after the deluge) as the \"Pelasgian\" Zeus (Iliad,\n     xvi. 233). \"Pelasgian\" may be regarded as equivalent to \"\n     pre-historic Greek \". Sophocles (Trach., 65; see Scholiast)\n     still speaks of the Selli, the priests of Dodonean Zeus, as\n     \"mountain-dwelling and couching on the earth \". They\n     retained, it seems, very primitive habits. Be it observed\n     that Achilles has been praying for confusion and ruin to the\n     Achaeans, and so invokes the deity of an older, perhaps\n     hostile, race. Probably the oak-oracle at Dodona, the\n     message given by \"the sound of a going in the tree-tops\" or\n     by the doves, was even more ancient than Zeus, who, on that\n     theory, fell heir to the rites of a peasant oracle connected\n     with tree-worship. Zeus, according to Hesiod, \"dwelt in the\n     trunk of the oak tree\" (cited by Preller, i. 98), much as an\n     Indian forest-god dwells in the peepul or any other tree. It\n     is rather curious that, according to Eustathius (_Iliad_,\n     xvi. 233), \"Pelargicus,\" \"connected with storks,\" was\n     sometimes written for Pelasgicus; that there was a Dodona in\n     Thessaly, and that storks were sacred to the Thessalians.\n\nHesiod codified certain priestly and Delphian theories about their\norigin and genealogies. Homer minutely described their politics and\nsociety. His description, however, must inevitably have tended to\ndevelop a later scepticism. While men lived in city states under heroic\nkings, acknowledging more or less the common sway of one king at Argos\nor Mycenae, it was natural that the gods (whether in the dark backward of\ntime Greece knew a Moral Creative Being or not) should be conceived as\ndwelling in a similar society, with Zeus for their Agamemnon, a ruler\nsupreme but not absolute, not safe from attempts at resistance and\nrebellion. But when Greek politics and society developed into a crowd of\nrepublics, with nothing answering to a certain imperial sway, then men\nmust have perceived that the old divine order was a mere survival from\nthe time when human society was similarly ordained. Thus Xenophanes very\nearly proclaimed that men had made the gods in their own likeness, as\na horse, could he draw, would design his deity in equine semblance. But\nthe detection by Xenophanes of the anthropomorphic tendency in religion\ncould not account for the instinct which made Greeks, like other\npeoples, as Aristotle noticed, figure their gods not only in human\nshape, but in the guise of the lower animals. For that zoomorphic\nelement in myth an explanation, as before, will be sought in the early\nmental condition which takes no great distinction between man and\nthe beasts. The same method will explain, in many cases, the other\npeculiarly un-Hellenic elements in Greek divine myth. Yet here, too,\nallowance must be made for the actual borrowing of rites and legends\nfrom contiguous peoples.\n\nThe Greeks were an assimilative race. The alphabet of their art they\nobtained, as they obtained their written alphabet, from the kingdoms of\nthe East.* Like the Romans, they readily recognised their own gods, even\nunder the barbarous and brutal disguises of Egyptian popular religion;\nand, while recognising their god under an alien shape, they may have\ntaken over legends alien to their own national character.** Again,\nwe must allow, as in India, for myths which are really late, the\ninventions, perhaps, of priests or oracle-mongers. But in making these\ndeductions, we must remember that the later myths would be moulded, in\nmany cases, on the ancient models. These ancient models, there is reason\nto suppose, were often themselves of the irrational and savage character\nwhich has so frequently been illustrated from the traditions of the\nlower races.\n\nThe elder dynasties of Greek gods, Uranus and Cronos, with their\nadventures and their fall, have already been examined.***\n\n     * Helbig, _Homerwche Epos cms dem Denhmalern_. Perrot and\n     Chipiez, on Mycenaean art, represent a later view.\n\n     ** On the probable amount of borrowing in Greek religion see\n     Maury, Religions de la Greece, iii. 70-75; Newton, Nineteenth\n     Century, 1878, p. 306.   Gruppe, Griech. Culte u. Mythen.,\n     pp. 153-163\n\n     *** \"Greek Cosmogonic Myths,\" antea.\n\nUranus may have been an ancient sky-god, like the Samoyed Num, deposed\nby Cronus, originally, perhaps, one of the deputy-gods, active where\ntheir chief is otiose, whom we find in barbaric theology. But this is\nmere guess-work. We may now turn to the deity who was the acknowledged\nsovereign of the Greek Olympus during all the classical period from the\ndate of Homer and Hesiod to the establishment of Christianity. We have\nto consider the legend of Zeus.\n\nIt is necessary first to remind the reader that all the legends in the\nepic poems date after the time when an official and national Olympus\nhad been arranged. Probably many tribal gods, who had originally no\nconnection with gods of other tribes, had, by Homer's age, thus accepted\nplaces and relationships in the Olympic family. Even rude low-born\nPelasgian deities may have been adopted into the highest circles, and\nfitted out with a divine pedigree in perfect order.\n\nTo return to Zeus, his birth (whether as the eldest or the youngest of\nthe children of Cronus) has already been studied; now we have to deal\nwith his exploits and his character.\n\nAbout the meaning of the name of Zeus the philologists seem more than\ncommonly harmonious. They regard the Greek Zeus as the equivalent of the\nSanskrit Dyaus, \"the bright one,\" a term for the sky.*\n\n     * Max Mueller, _Selected Essays_, ii. 419; Preller, Gr.\n     Myth., i. 92.\n\nHe was especially worshipped on hill-tops (like the Aztec rain-god); for\nexample, on Ithome, Parnes, Cithgeron, and the Lycaean hill of Arcadia.\nOn the Arcadian mountain, a centre of the strangest and oldest rites,\nthe priest of Zeus acted as what the African races call a \"rainmaker\".\nThere was on the hill the sacred well of the nymph Hagno, one of the\nnurses of the child Zeus. In time of drought the priest of Zeus offered\nsacrifice and prayer to the water according to ritual law, and it would\nbe interesting to know what it was that he sacrificed. He then gently\nstirred the well with a bough from the oak, the holy tree of the god,\nand when the water was stirred, a cloud arose like mist, which attracted\nother clouds and caused rain. As the priest on a mountain practically\noccupied a meteorological observatory, he probably did not perform\nthese rites till he knew that a \"depression\" might be expected from one\nquarter or another.*\n\n     * See similar examples of popular magic in Gervase of\n     Tilbury, Otia Imperiidia; Liebrecht, ii. 146.   The citation\n     is due to Freller, i. 102.\n\nWonderful feats of rain-prophecy are done by Australian seers, according\nto Mrs. Langloh Parker and others. As soon as we meet Zeus in Homer, we\nfind that he is looked on, not as the sky, but as the deity who \"dwells\nin the heights of air,\" and who exercises supreme sway over all things,\nincluding storm and wind and cloud. He casts the lightning forth\n(--------) he thunders on high (--------), he has dark clouds for his\ncovering (--------) all these imposing aspects he is _religiously_\nregarded by people who approach him in prayer. These aspects would\nbe readily explained by the theory that Zeus, after having been the\npersonal sky, came to be thought a powerful being who dwelt in the\nsky, if we did not find such beings worshipped where the sky is not yet\nadored, as in Australia. Much the same occurred if, as M. Maspero points\nout, in Egypt the animals were worshipped first, and then later the gods\nsupposed to be present in the animals. So the sky, a personal sky, was\nfirst adored, later a god dwelling in the sky. But it is less easy\nto show how this important change in opinion took place, if it really\noccurred. A philological theory of the causes which produced the change\nis set forth by Mr. Keary in his book _Primitive Belief_. In his opinion\nthe sky was first worshipped as a vast non-personal phenomenon, \"the\nbright thing\"(_Dyaus_). But, to adopt the language of Mr. Max Mueller,\nwho appears to hold the same views, \"Dyaus ceased to be an expressive\npredicate; it became a traditional name\";* it \"lost its radical\nmeaning\". Thus where a man had originally said, \"It thunders,\" or rather\n\"He thunders,\" he came to say, \"Dyaus\" (that is, the sky) \"thunders\".\n\n     * Select Essays, ii. 419.\n\nNext Dyaus, or rather the Greek form Zeus, almost lost its meaning of\nthe sky, and the true sense being partially obscured, became a name\nsupposed to indicate a person. Lastly the expression became \"Zeus\nthunders,\" Zeus being regarded as a person, because the old meaning of\nhis name, \"the sky,\" was forgotten, or almost forgotten. The _nomen_\n(name) has become a _numen_ (god). As Mr. Keary puts it, \"The god stands\nout as clear and thinkable in virtue of this name as any living friend\ncan be\". The whole doctrine resolves itself into this, a phenomenon\noriginally (according to the theory) considered impersonal, came to be\nlooked on as personal, because a word survived in colloquial expressions\nafter it had lost, or all but lost, its original meaning. As a result,\n'all the changes and processes of the impersonal sky came to be spoken\nof as personal actions performed by a personal being, Zeus. The record\nof these atmospheric processes on this theory is the legend of Zeus.\nWhatever is irrational and abominable in the conduct of the god is\nexplained as originally a simple statement of meteorological phenomena.\n\"Zeus weds his mother;\" that must mean the rain descends on the earth,\nfrom which it previously arose in vapour. \"Zeus weds his daughter,\" that\nis, the rain falls on the crop, which grew up from the rainy embrace of\nsky and earth.\n\nHere then we have the philological theory of the personality and conduct\nof Zeus. To ourselves and those who have followed us the system will\nappear to reverse the known conditions of the working of the human\nmind among early peoples. On the philological theory, man first\nregards phenomena in our modern way as impersonal; he then gives them\npersonality as the result of a disease of language, of a forgetfulness\nof the sense of words. Thus Mr. Keary writes: \"The idea of personality\nas apart from matter must have been growing more distinct when men could\nattribute personality to such an abstract phenomenon as the sky \". Where\nis the distinctness in a conception which produces such confusion? We\nhave seen that as the idea of personality becomes more distinct the\nrange of its application becomes narrower, not wider. The savage, it has\nbeen thought, attributes personality to everything without exception. As\nthe idea of personality grows more distinct it necessarily becomes less\nextensive, till we withdraw it from all but intelligent human beings.\nThus we must look for some other explanation of the personality of\nZeus, supposing his name to mean the sky. This explanation we find in a\nsurvival of the savage mental habit of regarding all phenomena, even the\nmost abstract, as persons. Our theory will receive confirmation from\nthe character of the personality of Zeus in his myth. Not only is he\na person, but in myth, as distinct from religion, he is a very savage\nperson, with all the powers of the medicine-man and all the passions of\nthe barbarian. Why should this be so on the philological theory? When\nwe examine the legend of Zeus, we shall see which explanation best meets\nthe difficulties of the problem. But the reader must again be reminded\nthat the Zeus of myth, in Homer and elsewhere, is a very different being\nfrom the Zeus of religion of Achilles's prayer, from the Zeus whom the\nAthenians implored to rain on their fields, and from the Zeus who was\nthe supreme being of the tragedians, of the philosophers, and of later\nGreece.\n\nThe early career, _la jeunesse orageuse_, of Zeus has been studied\nalready. The child of Cronus and Rhea, countless places asserted their\nclaim to be the scene of his birth, though the Cretan claim was most\npopular.*\n\n     * Hesiod, _Theog_., 468; Paus., iv. 33, 2.\n\nIn Crete too was the grave of Zeus: a scandal to pious heathendom. The\neuhemerists made this tomb a proof that Zeus was a deified man. Preller\ntakes it for an allegory of winter and the death of the god of storm,\nwho in winter is especially active. Zeus narrowly escaped being\nswallowed by his father, and, after expelling and mediatising that\ndeity, he changed his own wife, Metis, into a fly, swallowed her, and\nwas delivered out of his own head of Athene, of whom his wife had been\npregnant. He now became ruler of the world, with his brother Poseidon\nfor viceroy, so to speak, of the waters, and his brother Hades for lord\nof the world of the dead. Like the earlier years of Louis XIV., the\nearlier centuries of the existence of Zeus were given up to a series of\namours, by which he, like Charles II., became the father of many noble\nfamilies. His legitimate wife was his sister Hera, whom he seduced\nbefore wedlock \"without the knowledge of their dear parents,\" says\nHomer,* who neglects the myth that one of the \"dear parents\" ate his\nown progeny, \"like him who makes his generation messes to gorge his\nappetite\". Hera was a jealous wife, and with good cause.** The Christian\nfathers calculated that he sowed his wild oats and persecuted mortal\nwomen with his affections through seventeen generations of men. His\namours with his mother and daughters, with Deo and Persephone, are the\ngreat scandals of Clemens Alexandrinus and Arnobius.*** Zeus seldom made\nlove _in propria persona_, in all his meteorological pomp. When he thus\ngratified Semele she was burned to a cinder.****\n\n     * It is probable that this myth of the seduction of Hera is\n     of Samian origin, and was circulated to account for and\n     justify the Samian custom by which men seduced their loves\n     first and celebrated the marriage afterwards (Scholia on\n     _Iliad_, xiv. 201). \"Others say that Samos was the place\n     where Zeus betrayed Hera, whence it comes that the Samians,\n     when they go a-wooing, anticipate the wedding first in\n     secret, and then celebrate it openly.\" Yet another myth\n     (_Iliad_, xiv. 295, Scholiast) accounts for the hatred which\n     Zeus displayed to Prometheus by the fable that, before her\n     wedding with Zeus, Hera became the mother of Prometheus by\n     the giant Eurymedon. Euphorion was the authority for this\n     tale. Yet another version occurs in the legend of\n     Hephaestus.   See also Schol., _Theoc_., xv. 64.\n\n     ** Iliad, xiv. 307, 340.\n\n     *** Arnobius, Adv. Nat., v. 9, where the abominations\n     described defy repetition. The myth of a rock which became\n     the mother of the offspring of Zeus may recall the maternal\n     flint of Aztec legend and the vagaries of Iroquois\n     tradition. Compare _Clemens Alex_., Oxford, 1719, i. 13, for\n     the amours of Zeus, Deo and Persephone, with their\n     representations in the mysteries; also Arnob., Adv. Cent.,\n     v. 20. Zeus adopted the shape of a serpent in his amour with\n     his daughter. An ancient Tarentine sacred ditty is quoted as\n     evidence, _Taurus draconem genuit, et taurum draco_, and\n     certain repulsive performances with serpents in the\n     mysteries are additional testimony.\n\n     **** Apollodorus, iii. 4, 3.\n\n\nThe amour with Danae, when Zeus became a shower of gold, might be\ninterpreted as a myth of the yellow sunshine. The amours of Zeus under\nthe disguise of various animal forms were much more usual, and are\nfamiliar to all.* As Cronus when in love metamorphosed himself into\na stallion, as Prajapati pursued his own daughter in the shape of a\nroebuck, so Zeus became a serpent, a bull, a swan, an eagle, a dove,**\nand, to woo the daughter of Cletor, an ant. Similar disguises are\nadopted by the sorcerers among the Algonkins for similar purposes. When\nPund-jel, in the Australian myth of the Pleiades, was in love with a\nnative girl, he changed himself into one of those grubs in the bark of\ntrees which the Blacks think edible, and succeeded as well as Zeus did\nwhen he became an ant.***\n\n     * The mythologists, as a rule, like the heathen opponents of\n     Arnobius, Clemens and Eusebius, explain the amours of Zeus\n     as allegories of the fruitful union of heaven and earth, of\n     rain and grain. Preller also allows for the effects of human\n     vanity, noble families insisting on tracing themselves to\n     gods. On the whole, says Preller, \"Zeugung in der Natur-\n     religion und Mythologie, dasselbe ist was Schopfung inden\n     deistischen Religionen\" (i. 110). Doubtless all these\n     elements come into the legend; the unions of Zeus with Deo\n     and Persephone especially have much the air of a nature-myth\n     told in an exceedingly primitive and repulsive manner. The\n     amours in animal shape are explained in the text as in many\n     cases survivals of the totemistic belief in descent from\n     beasts, sans phrase.\n\n     **Lian., Hist Vwr., i. 15.\n\n     *** Dawson, Australian Aborigines; Custom, and Myth, p. 126.\n\nIt is not improbable that the metamorphosis of Zeus into an ant is the\nresult of a _volks-etymologie_ which derived \"Myrmidons\" from (------),\nan ant. Even in that case the conversion of the ant into an avatar of\nZeus would be an example of the process of gravitation or attraction,\nwhereby a great mythical name and personality attracts to itself\nfloating fables.* The remark of Clemens on this last extraordinary\nintrigue is suggestive. The Thessalians, he says, are reputed to worship\nants because Zeus took the semblance of an ant when he made the daughter\nof Cletor mother of Myrmidon. Where people worship any animal from whom\nthey claim descent (in this case through Myrmidon, the ancestor of the\nfamed Myrmidons), we have an example of stiraight forward totemism. To\naccount for the adoration of the animal on the hypothesis that it was\nthe incarnation of a god, is the device which has been observed in\nEgyptian as in Samoan religion, and in that of aboriginal Indian\ntribes, whose animal gods become saints \"when the Brahmans get a turn at\nthem\".**\n\nThe most natural way of explaining such tales about the amours and\nanimal metamorphoses of so great a god, is to suggest that Zeus\ninherited,*** as it were, legends of a lower character long current\namong separate families and in different localities. In the same way,\nwhere a stone had been worshipped, the stone was, in at least one\ninstance, dubbed with the name of Zeus.****\n\n     * Clemens, p. 84.\n\n     ** See Mr. H. H. Risley on \"Primitive Marriage in Bengal,\"\n     in _Astatic Quarterly Review_, June, 1886.\n\n     *** In Pausanias's opinion Cecrops first introduced the\n     belief in Zeus, the most highest.\n\n     **** Paus., iii. 21, l; but the reading is doubtful.\n\nThe tradition of descent from this or that beast or plant has been shown\nto be most widely prevalent. On the general establishment of a higher\nfaith in a national deity, these traditions, it is presumed, would not\nwholly disappear, but would be absorbed into the local legend of the\ngod. The various beasts would become sacred to him, as the sheep was\nsacred to Hera in Samos, according to Mandrobulus,* and images of the\nanimals would congregate in his temple. The amours of Zeus, then, are\nprobably traceable to the common habit of deriving noble descents from a\ngod, and in the genealogical narrative older totemistic and other local\nmyths found a place.** Apart from his intrigues, the youth of Zeus was\nlike that of some masquerading and wandering king, such as James V. in\nScotland. Though Plato, in the _Republic_, is unwilling that the young\nshould be taught how the gods go about disguised as strangers, this was\ntheir conduct in the myths. Thus we read of\n\n     Lycaon and his fifty sons, whom Zeus\n     In their own house spied on, and unawares\n     Watching at hand, from his disguise arose,\n     And overset the table where they sat\n     Around their impious feast, and slew them all.***\n\nClemens of Alexandria**** contrasts the \"human festival\" of Zeus among\nthe Ethiopians with the inhuman banquet offered to him by Lycaon in\nArcadia.*****\n\n     * Op. Clem. Alex., i. 36.\n\n     ** Compare Heyne, Observ. in Apollodor., i. 8, 1.\n\n     *** Bridges, _Prometheus the Firegiver_.\n\n     **** Clem. Alex., L 31.\n\n     ***** Paus., viii. 2, l.\n\nThe permanence of Arcadian human sacrifice has already been alluded to,\nand it is confirmed by the superstition that whoever tasted the human\nportion in the mess sacrificed to Zeus became a were-wolf, resuming his\noriginal shape if for ten years he abstained from the flesh of men.*\n\nA very quaint story of the domestic troubles of Zeus was current in\nPlataea, where it was related at the festival named _Daedala_. It was\nsaid that Hera, indignant at the amours of her lord, retired to Euboae.\nZeus, wishing to be reconciled to her, sought the advice of Cithaeron,\nat that time king of Plataea. By his counsel the god celebrated a sham\nmarriage with a wooden image, dressed up to personate Plataea, daughter\nof Asopus. Hera flew to the scene and tore the bridal veil, when,\ndiscovering the trick, she laughed, and was reconciled to her husband.**\nProbably this legend was told to explain some incident of ritual or\ncustom in the feast of the Daedala, and it is certainly a more innocent\nmyth than most that were commemorated in local mystery-plays.\n\n     * The wolves connected with the worship of Zeus, like his\n     rams, goats, and other animals, are commonly explained as\n     mythical names for elemental phenomena, clouds and storms.\n     Thus the ram's fleece, (--------), used in certain expiatory\n     rites (Hesych., s. v., Lobeck, p. 183), is presumed by\n     Preller to be a symbol of the cloud. In the same way his\n     regis or goat-skin is the storm-wind or the thunder-cloud.\n     The opposite view will be found in Professor Robertson\n     Smith's article on \"Sacrifice\" in _Encyc. Brit_., where the\n     similar totemistic rites of the lower races are adduced. The\n     elemental theory is set forth by Decharme, _Mythologie de la\n     Grece Antique_ (Paris, 1879), p. 16. For the \"storm-wolf,\"\n     see Preller, i. 101. It seems a little curious that the\n     wolf, which, on the solar hypothesis, was a brilliant beast\n     connected with the worship of the sun-god, Apollo Lycaeus,\n     becomes a cloud or storm-wolf when connected with Zeus. On\n     the whole subject of the use of the skins of animals as\n     clothing of the god or the ministrant, see Lobeck,\n     _Aglaoph_., pp. 188-186, and Robertson Smith, op. cit.\n\n     ** Paus., ix. 3, 1.\n\nIt was not only when he was _en bonne fortune_ that Zeus adopted the\nguise of a bird or beast. In the very ancient temple of Hera near\nMycenae there was a great statue of the goddess, of gold and ivory, the\nwork of Polycletus, and therefore comparatively modern. In one hand the\ngoddess held a pomegranate, in the other a sceptre, on which was perched\na cuckoo, like the Latin woodpecker Picus on his wooden post. About the\npomegranate there was a myth which Pausanias declines to tell, but he\ndoes record the myth of the cuckoo. \"They say that when Zeus loved the\nyet virgin Hera, he changed himself into a cuckoo, which she pursued\nand caught to be her playmate.\" Pausanias admits that he did not believe\nthis legend. Probably it was invented to account for the companionship\nof the cuckoo, which, like the cow, was one of the sacred animals of\nHera. Myths of this class are probably later than the period in which we\npresume the divine relationships of gods and animals to have passed out\nof the totemistic into the Samoan condition of belief. The more general\nexplanation is, that the cuckoo, as a symbol of the vernal season,\nrepresents the heaven in its wooing of the earth. On the whole, as we\nhave tried to show, the symbolic element in myth is late, and was meant\nto be explanatory of rites and usages whose original significance was\nforgotten. It would be unfair to assume that a god was disrespectfully\nviewed by his earliest worshippers because aetiological, genealogical,\nand other myths, crystallised into his legend.\n\nAn extremely wild legend of Zeus was current among the Galatae, where\nPausanias expressly calls it a \"local myth,\" differing from the Lydian\nvariant. Zeus in his sleep became, by the earth, father of Attes, Va\nbeing both male and female in his nature. Agdistis was the local name of\nthis enigmatic character, whom the gods feared and mutilated. From the\nblood grew up, as in so many myths, an almond tree. The daughter of\nSangarius, Nana, placed some of the fruit in her bosom, and thereby\nbecame pregnant, like the girl in the Kalewala by the berry, or the\nmother of Huitzilopochtli, in Mexico, by the floating feather. The\nsame set of ideas recurs in Grimm's _Maerchen Machandelhoom_,* if we may\nsuppose that in an older form the juniper tree and its berries aided\nthe miraculous birth.** It is customary to see in these wild myths a\nreflection of the Phrygian religious tradition, which leads up to the\nbirth of Atys, who again is identified with Adonis as a hero of the\nspring and the reviving year. But the story has been introduced in\nthis place as an example of the manner in which floating myths from all\nsources gravitate towards one great name and personality, like that of\nZeus. It would probably be erroneous to interpret these and many\nother myths in the vast legend of Zeus, as if they had originally and\nintentionally described the phenomena of the heavens. They are, more\nprobably, mere accretions round the figure of Zeus conceived as a\npersonal god, a \"magnified non-natural man\".***\n\n     *  Mrs. Hunt's translation, i. 187.\n\n     **  For parallels to this myth in Chinese, Aztec, Indian,\n     Phrygian and other languages, see _Le Fils de la Vierge_, by\n     M. H. de Charency, Havre, 1879.   See also \"Les Deux Freres\"\n     in M. Maspero's _Contes Egyptians_\n\n     ***As to the Agdistis myth, M. de Charency writes (after\n     quoting forms of the tale from all parts of the world),\n     \"This resemblance between different shapes of the same\n     legend, among nations separated by such expanses of land and\n     sea, may be brought forward as an important proof of the\n     antiquity of the myth, as well as of the distant date at\n     which it began to be diffused\".\n\nAnother example of local accretion is the fable that Zeus, after\ncarrying off Ganymede to be his cupbearer, made atonement to the\nroyal family of Troy by the present of a vine of gold fashioned by\nHephaestus.* The whole of the myth of Callisto, again, whom Zeus loved,\nand who bore Areas, and later was changed into a bear, and again into\na star, is clearly of local Arcadian origin. If the Arcadians, in very\nremote times, traced their descent from a she-bear, and if they also,\nlike other races, recognised a bear in the constellation, they would\nnaturally mix up those fables later with the legend of the all-powerful\nZeus.**\n\n     * Scholia on _Odyssey_, xL 521; Iliad, xx. 234; Eurip.,\n     Orestes, 1392, and Scholiast quoting the _Little Iliad_.\n\n     **  Compare C. O. Mueller, _Introduction to a Scientific\n     System of Mythology_, London, 1884, pp. 16,17; Pausaniaa, i\n     25, 1, viii. 35, 7.\n\nSo far we have studied some of the details in the legend of Zeus which\ndid not conspicuously win their way into the national literature. The\nobject has been to notice a few of the myths which appear the most\nancient, and the most truly native and original. These are the\ntraditions preserved in mystery-plays, tribal genealogies, and temple\nlegends, the traditions surviving from the far off period of the village\nGreeks. It has already been argued, in conformity with the opinion of C.\nO. Mueller, that these myths are most antique and thoroughly local. \"Any\nattempt to explain these myths in order, such, for instance, as we now\nfind them in the collection of Apollodorus, as a system of thought\nand knowledge, must prove a fruitless task.\" Equally useless is it to\naccount for them all as stories originally told to describe, consciously\nor unconsciously, or to explain any atmospheric and meteorological\nphenomena. Zeus is the bright sky; granted, but the men who told how he\nbecame an ant, or a cuckoo, or celebrated a sham wedding with a wooden\nimage, or offered Troy a golden vine, \"the work of Hephaestus,\" like\nother articles of jewellery, were not thinking of the bright sky when\nthey repeated the story. They were merely strengthening some ancient\nfamily or tribal tradition by attaching it to the name of a great,\npowerful, personal being, an immortal. This being, not the elemental\nforce that was Zeus, not the power \"making for righteousness\" that is\nZeus, not the pure spiritual ruler of the world, the Zeus of philosophy,\nis the hero of the myths that have been investigated.\n\nIn the tales that actually won their way into national literature,\nbeginning with Homer, there is observable the singular tendency to\ncombine, in one figure, the highest religious ideas with the fables of a\ncapricious, and often unjust and lustful supernatural being. Taking the\nmyths first, their contrast with the religious conception of Zeus will\nbe the more remarkable.\n\nZeus is the king of all gods and father of some, but he cannot keep his\nsubjects and family always in order. In the first book of the _Iliad_,\nAchilles reminds his mother, the sea-nymph Thetis, how she once \"rescued\nthe son of Cronus, lord of the storm-clouds, from shameful wreck, when\nall other Olympians would have bound him, even Hera, and Poseidon, and\nPallas Athene \". Thetis brought the hundred-handed Briareus to the help\nof the outnumbered and over-mastered Zeus. Then Zeus, according to\nthe Scholiast, hung Hera out of heaven in chains, and gave Apollo\nand Poseidon for slaves to Laomedon, king of Troy. So lively was the\nrecollection of this _coup d'etat_ in Olympus, that Hephaestus implores\nHera (his mother in Homer) not to anger Zeus, \"lest I behold thee, that\nart so dear, chastised before mine eyes, and then shall I not be able to\nsave thee for all my sorrow\".* He then reminds Hera how Zeus once\ntossed him out of heaven (as the Master of Life tossed Ataentsic in the\nIroquois myth), and how he fell in Lemnos, \"and little life was left in\nme\". The passage is often interpreted as if the fall of Hephaestus, the\nfire-god, were a myth of lightning; but in Homer assuredly the incident\nhas become thoroughly personal, and is told with much humour. The\noffence of Hera was the raising of a magic storm (which she could do as\nwell as any Lapland witch) and the wrecking of Heracles on Cos. For\nthis she was chained and hung out of heaven, as on the occasion already\ndescribed.**\n\n     * Iliad, i. 587.\n\n     ** Ibid.,   590;    Scholia,   xiv.   255.     The   myth\n     is   derived   from Pherecydes.\n\nThe constant bickerings between Hera and Zeus in the _Iliad_ are merely\nthe reflection in the upper Olympian world of the wars and jealousies of\nmen below. Ilios is at war with Argos and Mycenae, therefore the chief\nprotecting gods of each city take part in the strife. This conception is\nconnected with the heroic genealogies. Noble and royal families, as in\nmost countries, feigned a descent from the gods. It followed that Zeus\nwas a partisan of his \"children,\" that is, of the royal houses in the\ntowns where he was the most favoured deity. Thus Hera when she sided\nwith Mycenae had a double cause of anger, and there is an easy answer to\nthe question, _quo numine laeso?_ She had her own townsmen's quarrel to\nabet, and she had her jealousy to incite her the more; for to become\nfather of the human families Zeus must have been faithless to her.\nIndeed, in a passage (possibly interpolated) of the fourteenth _Iliad_\nhe acts as his own Leporello, and recites the list of his conquests.\nThe Perseidae, the Heraclidae, the Pirithoidae, with Dionysus, Apollo and\nArtemis spring from the amours there recounted.* Moved by such passions,\nHera urges on the ruin of Troy, and Zeus accuses her of a cannibal\nhatred. \"Perchance wert thou to enter within the gates and long walls,\nand devour Priam raw, and Priam's sons, and all the Trojans, then\nmightest thou assuage thine anger.\"** That great stumbling-block of\nGreek piety, the battle in which the gods take part,*** was explained as\na physical allegory by the Neo-Platonists.**** It is in reality only a\nrefraction of the wars of men, a battle produced among the heavenly folk\nby men's battles, as the earthly imitations of rain in the Vedic ritual\nbeget rain from the firmament. The favouritism which Zeus throughout\nshows to Athene***** is explained by that rude and ancient myth of her\nbirth from his brain after he had swallowed her pregnant mother.******\n\n     * Pherecydes is the authority for the treble  night, in\n     which  Zeus persuaded the sun not to rise when he wooed\n     Alemena.\n\n     ** See the whole passage, Iliad, iv. 160.\n\n     *** Ibid., v. 385.\n\n     **** Scholia, ed. Dindorf, vol iii.; Ibid., v. 886.\n\n     *****Ibid., v. 875.\n\n     ****** Cf. \"Hymn to Apollo Pythius,\" 136.\n\nBut Zeus cannot allow the wars of the gods to go on unreproved, and* he\nasserts his power, and threatens to cast the offenders into Tartarus,\n\"as far beneath Hades as heaven is high above earth\". Here the supremacy\nof Zeus is attested, and he proposes to prove it by the sport called\n\"the tug of war\". He says, \"Fasten ye a chain of gold from heaven, and\nall ye gods lay hold thereof, and all goddesses, yet could ye not drag\nfrom heaven to earth Zeus, the supreme counsellor, not though ye strove\nsore. But if once I were minded to drag with all my heart, then I could\nhang gods and earth and sea to a pinnacle of Olympus.\"** The supremacy\nclaimed here on the score of strength, \"by so much I am beyond gods and\nmen,\" is elsewhere based on primogeniture,*** though in Hesiod Zeus is\nthe youngest of the sons of Cronos. But there is, as usual in myth, no\nconsistent view, and Zeus cannot be called omnipotent. Not only is he\nsubject to fate, but his son Heracles would have perished when he went\nto seek the hound of hell but for the aid of Athene.**** Gratitude for\nhis relief does not prevent Zeus from threatening Athene as well as\nHera with Tartarus, when they would thwart him in the interest of the\nAchaeans. Hera is therefore obliged to subdue him by the aid of love and\nsleep, in that famous and beautiful passage,***** which is so frankly\nanthropomorphic, and was such a scandal to religious minds.******\n\n     * Iliad, viii. ad init.\n\n     ** M. Decharme regards this challenge to the tug of war as a\n     very noble and sublime assertion of supreme sovereignty.\n     Myth, de la Greece, p. 19.\n\n     *** Iliad, xv. 166.\n\n     **** Ibid., viii. 369.         *****Ibid., adv. 160-350.\n\n     ****** Schol. Iliad, xiv. 346; Dindorf, vol. iv. In the\n     Scholiast's explanation the scene is an allegorical\n     description of spring; the wrath of Hera is the remains of\n     winter weather; her bath represents the April showers; when\n     she busks her hair, the new leaves on the boughs, \"the high\n     leafy tresses of the trees,\" are intended, and so forth. Not\n     to analyse the whole divine plot of the _Iliad_, such is\n     Zeus in the mythical portions of the epic. He is the father\n     and master of gods and men, and the strongest; but he may be\n     opposed, he may be deceived and cajoled; he is hot-\n     tempered, amorous, luxurious, by no means omnipotent or\n     omniscient. He cannot avert even from his children the doom\n     that Fate span into the threads at their birth; he is no\n     more omniscient than omnipotent, and if he can affect the\n     weather, and bring storm and cloud, so at will can the other\n     deities, and so can any sorcerer, or Jossakeed, or Biraark\n     of the lower races.\n\nIn Homeric religion, as considered apart from myth, in the religious\nthoughts of men at solemn moments of need, or dread, or prayer, Zeus\nholds a far other place. All power over mortals is in his hands, and is\nacknowledged with almost the fatalism of Islam. \"So meseems it pleaseth\nmighty Zeus, who hath laid low the head of many a city, yea, and shall\nlay low, for his is the highest power.\"* It is Zeus who gives sorrows to\nmen,** and he has, in a mythical picture, two jars by him full of evil\nand good, which he deals to his children on earth. In prayer*** he is\naddressed as Zeus, most glorious, most great, veiled in the storm-cloud,\nthat dwelleth in the heaven. He gives his sanction to the oath:****\n\n     * _Iliad_, ii. 177.\n\n     ** Ibid., 378.\n\n     *** Ibid., 408.\n\n     **** Ibid., iii 277.\n\n\"Thou sun, that seest all, Father Zeus, that rulest from Ida, most\nglorious, most great, and things, and nearest all things, and ye rivers,\nand thou earth, and ye that in the underworld punish men forsworn,\nwhosoever sweareth falsely, be ye witnesses, and watch over the faithful\noath\". Again it is said: \"Even if the Olympian bring not forth the\nfulfilment\" (of the oath) \"at once, yet doth he fulfil at the last, and\nmen make dear amends, even with their own heads, and their wives and\nlittle ones\".* Again, \"Father Zeus will be no helper of liars \".**\n\nAs to the religious sentiment towards Zeus of a truly devout man in\nthat remote age, Homer has left us no doubt. In Eumaeus the swineherd of\nOdysseus, a man of noble birth stolen into slavery when a child, Homer\nhas left a picture of true religion and undefiled. Eumaeus attributes\neverything that occurs to the will of the gods, with the resignation of\na child of Islam or a Scot of the Solemn League and Covenant.***\n\"From Zeus are all strangers and beggars,\" he says, and believes that\nhospitality and charity are well pleasing in the sight of the Olympian.\nWhen he flourishes, \"it is God that increaseth this work of mine whereat\nI abide\". He neither says \"Zeus\" nor \"the gods,\" but in this passage\nsimply \"god\". \"Verily the blessed gods love not froward deeds, but they\nreverence justice and the righteous acts of men;\" yet it is \"Zeus that\ngranteth a prey to the sea-robbers\". It is the gods that rear Telemachus\nlike a young sapling, yet is it the gods who \"mar his wits within him\"\nwhen he sets forth on a perilous adventure. It is to Zeus Cronion that\nthe swineherd chiefly prays,**** but he does not exclude the others from\nhis supplication.*****\n\n* _Iliad_, iv. 160.\n\n** Ibid., iv. 236.\n\n*** _Odyssey_, xiv. passim,\n\n**** Ibid., 406.\n\n***** _Odyssey_, iv. 423.\n\n\nBeing a man of scrupulous piety, when he slays a swine for supper, he\nonly sets aside a seventh portion \"for Hermes and the nymphs\" who\nhaunt the lonely uplands.** Yet his offering has no magical intent\nof constraining the immortals. \"One thing God will give, and another\nwithhold, even as he will, for with him all things are possible.\"***\n\nSuch is a Homeric ideal of piety, and it would only gain force from\ncontrast with the blasphemy of Aias, \"who said that in the god's despite\nhe had escaped the great deep of the sea \".****\n\n     ** Ibid., xiv. 435.\n\n     *** Ibid., 444, 445.\n\n     **** Ibid., iv. 504.\n\nThe epics sufficiently prove that a noble religion may coexist with a\nwild and lawless mythology. That ancient sentiment of the human heart\nwhich makes men listen to a human voice in the thunder and yearn for\nimmortal friends and helpers, lives its life little disturbed by the\nother impulse which inspires men when they come to tell stories and\nromances about the same transcendent beings.\n\nAs to the actual original form of the faith in Zeus, we can only make\nguesses. To some it will appear that Zeus was originally the clear\nbright expanse which was taken for an image or symbol of the infinite.\nOthers will regard Zeus as the bright sky, but the bright sky conceived\nof in savage fashion, as a being with human parts and passions, a being\nwith all the magical accomplishments of metamorphosis, rain-making\nand the rest, with which the medicine-man is credited. A third set\nof mythologists, remembering how gods and medicine-men have often\ninterchangeable names, and how, for example, the Australian Biraark, who\nis thought to command the west wind, is himself styled \"West Wind,\" will\nderive Zeus from the ghost of some ancestral sorcerer named \"Sky\". This\neuhemerism seems an exceedingly inadequate explanation of the origin\nof Zeus. In his moral aspect Zeus again inherits the quality of that\nsupernatural and moral watcher of man's deeds who is recognised (as\nwe have seen) even by the most backward races, and who, for all we can\ntell, is older than any beast-god or god of the natural elements. Thus,\nwhatever Zeus was in his earliest origin, he had become, by the time we\ncan study him in ritual, poem or sacred chapter, a complex of qualities\nand attributes, spiritual, moral, elemental, animal and human.\n\nIt is curious that, on our theory, the mythical Zeus must have morally\ndegenerated at a certain period as the Zeus of religion more and\nmore approached the rank of a pure and almost supreme deity. On\nour hypothesis, it was while Greece was reaching a general national\nconsciousness, and becoming more than an aggregate of small local\ntribes, that Zeus attracted the worst elements of his myth. In deposing\nor relegating to a lower rank a crowd of totems and fetishes and\nancestral ghosts, he inherited the legends of their exploits. These were\nattached to him still more by the love of genealogies derived from the\ngods. For each such pedigree an amour was inevitably invented, and,\nwhere totems had existed, the god in this amour borrowed the old bestial\nform. For example, if a Thessalian stock had believed in descent from an\nant, and wished to trace their pedigree to Zeus, they had merely to say,\n\"Zeus was that ant\". Once more, as Zeus became supreme among the other\ndeities of men in the patriarchal family condition, those gods were\ngrouped round him as members of his family, his father, mother,\nbrothers, sisters, wife, mistresses and children. Here was a noble\nfield in which the mythical fancy might run riot; hence came stories\nof usurpations, rebellions, conjugal skirmishes and jealousies, a whole\nworld of incidents in which humour had free play. Nor would foreign\ninfluences be wanting. A wandering Greek, recognising his Zeus in a\ndeity of Phoenicia or Babylon, might bring home some alien myth which\nwould take its place in the general legend, with other myths imported\nalong with foreign objects of art, silver bowls and inlaid swords. Thus\nin all probability grew the legend of the Zeus of myth, certainly a\ndeplorable legend, while all the time the Greek intellect was purifying\nitself and approaching the poetical, moral and philosophical conception\nof the Zeus of religion. At last, in the minds of the philosophically\nreligious, Zeus became pure deity, and the details of the legend were\nexplained away by this or that system of allegory; while in the minds\nof the sceptical, Zeus yielded his throne to the \"vortex\" of the\nAristophanic comedy. Thus Zeus may have begun as a kindly supreme being;\nthen aetiological and totemistic myths may have accrued to his legend,\nand, finally, philosophic and pious thought introduced a rational\nconception of his nature. But myth lived on, ritual lived on, and human\nvictims were slain on the altars of Zeus till Christianity was the\nestablished religion. \"Solet it be,\" says Pausanias, \"as it hath been\nfrom the beginning.\"\n\nThe gods who fill the court of Zeus and surround his throne are so\nnumerous that a complete account of each would exceed the limits of our\nspace. The legend of Zeus is typical, on the whole, of the manner in\nwhich the several mythical chapters grew about the figures of each of\nthe deities. Some of these were originally, it is probable, natural\nforces or elemental phenomena, conceived of at first as personal beings;\nwhile, later, the personal earth or sun shaded off into the informing\ngenius of the sun or earth, and still later was almost freed from all\nconnection with the primal elemental phenomenon or force. In these\nprocesses of evolution it seems to have happened occasionally that the\ngod shed, like a shell or chrysalis, his original form, which continued\nto exist, however, as a deity of older family and inferior power. By\nsuch processes, at least, it would not be difficult to explain the\nobvious fact that several gods have \"under-studies\" of their parts\nin the divine comedy. It may be well to begin a review of the gods by\nexamining those who were, or may be supposed to have been, originally\nforces or phenomena of Nature.\n\n\n\n\nAPOLLO.\n\nThis claim has been made for almost all the Olympians, but in some cases\nappears more plausible than in others. For example, Apollo is regarded\nas a solar divinity, and the modes in which he attained his detached\nand independent position as a brilliant anthropomorphic deity, patron\nof art, the lover of the nymphs, the inspirer of prophecy, may have been\nsomething in this fashion. First the sun may have been regarded (in the\nmanner familiar to savage races) as a personal being. In Homer he is\nstill the god \"who sees and hears all things,\"* and who beholds and\nreveals the loves of Ares and Aphrodite. This personal character of the\nsun is well illustrated in the Homeric hymn to Hyperion, the sun that\ndwells on high, where, as Mr. Max Mueller says, \"the words would seem to\nimply that the poet looked upon Helios as a half-god, almost as a hero,\nwho had once lived upon earth\".** It has already been shown that this\nmythical theory of the origin of the sun is met with among the Aztecs\nand the Bushmen.*** In Homer, the sun, Helios Hyperion, though he sees\nand hears all things,**** needs to be informed by one of the nymphs that\nthe companions of Odysseus have devoured his sacred cattle. In the same\nway the supreme Baiame of Australia needs to ask questions of mortals.\nApollo then speaks in the Olympian assembly, and threatens that if he is\nnot avenged he will \"go down to Hades and shine among the dead\". The\nsun is capable of marriage, as in the Bulgarian _Volkslied_, where he\nmarries a peasant girl,***** and, by Perse, he is the father of Circe\nand AEetes.******\n\n     * _Odyssey_, viii. 270.\n\n     **  _Selected Essays_, i. 605, note 1.\n\n     *** \"Nature Myths,\" antea.\n\n     **** _Iliad_, iii. 277.\n\n     ***** Dozon, _Chansons Bulgares_.\n\n     ****** _Odyssey_, x. 139.\n\nAccording to the early lyric poet Stesichorus, the sun sails over ocean\nin a golden cup or bowl. \"Then Helios Hyperionides went down into his\ngolden cup to cross Ocean-stream, and come to the deeps of dark and\nsacred Night, to his mother, and his wedded wife, and his children\ndear.\" This belief, in more barbaric shape, still survives in the Greek\nislands.* \"The sun is still to them a giant, like Hyperion, bloodthirsty\nwhen tinged with gold. The common saying is that the sun 'when he\nseeks his kingdom' expects to find forty loaves prepared for him by\nhis mother.... Woe to her if the loaves be not ready! The sun eats his\nbrothers, sisters, father and mother in his wrath.\"** A well-known amour\nof Helios was his intrigue with Rhode by whom he had Phaethon and his\nsisters. The tragedians told how Phaethon drove the chariot of the sun,\nand upset it, while his sisters were turned into poplar trees, and their\ntears became amber.***\n\n     * Bent's _Cyclades_, p. 57.\n\n     ** Stesichorus, _Poetae Lyrici Graeci_, Pomtow, vol. i. p.\n     148; qf. also Mimnermus, op. cit.,i. 78.\n\n     *** _Odyssey_, xvii. 208; Scholiast. The story is ridiculed\n     by Lucian, De Electro.\n\nSuch were the myths about the personal sun, the hero or demigod, Helios\nHyperion. If we are to believe that Apollo also is a solar deity, it\nappears probable that he is a more advanced conception, not of the sun\nas a person, but of a being who represents the sun in the spiritual\nworld, and who exercises, by an act of will, the same influence as the\nactual sun possesses by virtue of his rays. Thus he brings pestilence\non the Achaeans in the first book of the _Iliad_, and his viewless shafts\nslay men suddenly, as sunstroke does. It is a pretty coincidence that a\nGerman scholar, Otfried Mueller, who had always opposed Apollo's claim\nto be a sun-god, was killed by a sunstroke at Delphi. The god avenged\nhimself in his ancient home. But if this deity was once merely the sun,\nit may be said, in the beautiful phrase of Paul de St. Victor, \"Pareil a\nune statue qui surgit des flammes de son moule, Apollo se degage vite du\nsoleil\".* He becomes a god of manifold functions and attributes, and it\nis necessary to exercise extreme caution in explaining any one myth of\nhis legend as originally a myth of the sun.** _Phoibos_ certainly means\n\"the brilliant\" or \"shining\". It is, however, unnecessary to hold that\nsuch epithets as _Lyceius, Lycius, Lycegenes_ indicate \"light,\" and are\nnot connected, as the ancients, except Macrobius, believed, with the\nworship of the wolf.*** The character of Apollo as originally a sun-god\nis asserted on the strength not only of his names, but of many of his\nattributes and his festivals. It is pointed out that he is the deity who\nsuperintends the measurement of time.**** \"The chief days in the year's\nreckoning, the new and full moons and the seventh and twentieth days of\nthe month, also the beginning of the solar year, are reckoned Apolline.\"\nThat curious ritual of the Daphnephoria, familiar to many English people\nfrom Sir Frederick Leighton's picture, is believed to have symbolised\nthe year. Proclus says that a staff of olive wood decorated with flowers\nsupported a central ball of brass beneath which was a smaller ball, and\nthence little globes were hung.*****\n\n     * _Homines et Dieux_, p. 11.\n\n     ** There is no agreement nor certainty about the etymology\n     and original meaning of the name Apollo. See Preller, Or.\n     Myth., i. 189. \"Comparative philologists have not yet\n     succeeded in finding the true etymology of Apollo\" (Max\n     Mueller, _Selected Essays_, i. 467).\n\n     *** Compare Zeus Lyceius and his wolf-myths; compare also\n     Roscher, _Ausfukrliches_ Lexikon, p. 423.\n\n     **** _Sonnengott als Zeitordner_, Roscher, op. cit., p. 423.\n\n     ***** Cf. Photius, Bibl.,321.\n\nThe greater ball means the sun, the smaller the moon, the tiny globes\nthe stars and the 365 laurel garlands used in the feast are understood\nto symbolise the days. Pausanias* says that the ceremony was of extreme\nantiquity. Heracles had once been the youth who led the procession, and\nthe tripod which Amphitryon dedicated for him was still to be seen\nat Thebes in the second century of our era. Another proof of Apollo's\nconnection with the sun is derived from the cessation of his rites at\nDelphi during the three winter months which were devoted to Dionysus.**\nThe sacred birthday feasts of the god are also connected with the year's\nrenewal.*** Once more, his conflict with the great dragon, the Pytho,\nis understood as a symbol of the victory of light and warmth over the\ndarkness and cold of winter.\n\nThe discomfiture of a dragon by a god is familiar in the myth of the\ndefeat of Ahi or Vritra by Indra, and it is a curious coincidence that\nApollo, like Indra, fled in terror after slaying his opponent. Apollo,\naccording to the myth, was purified of the guilt of the slaying (a\nceremony unknown to Homer) at Tempe.**** According to the myth, the\nPython was a snake which forbade access to the chasm whence rose the\nmysterious fumes of divination. Apollo slew the snake and usurped the\noracle. His murder of the serpent was more or less resented by the\nDelphians of the time.*****\n\n     * i ix. 10, 4.\n\n     ** Plutarch, Depa El. Delph., 9.\n\n     *** Roscher, op. cit., p. 427.\n\n     **** Proclus, Chresl, ed. Gaisford, p. 387; Homer, Hymn to\n     Apollo, 122, 178; Apollod., i. 4, 3; Plutarch, Quaest.\n     Groec., 12.\n\n     ***** Apollod., Heyne, Observationes, p. 19. Compare the\n     Scholiast on the argument to Pindar's Pythian odes.\n\n\nThe snake, like the other animals, frogs and lizards, in Andaman,\nAustralian and Iroquois myth, had swallowed the waters before its\nmurder.* Whether the legend of the slaying of the Python was or was not\noriginally an allegory of the defeat of winter by sunlight, it certainly\nat a very early period became mixed up with ancient legal ideas and\nlocal traditions. It is almost as necessary for a young god or hero to\nslay monsters as for a young lady to be presented at court; and we may\nhesitate to explain all these legends of an useful feat of courage as\nnature-myths. In the Homeric Hymn to Apollo Pythius, the monster is\ncalled _Dracaena_, the female form of _drakon_. The Drakos and his wife\nare still popular bogies in modern Greek superstition and folk-song.**\n\n     * Preller, i. 194.\n\n     ** Forchhammer takes the _Dracaena_ to be a violent winter\n     torrent, dried up by the sun's rays. Cf. Decharme, Myth.\n     Orec., p. 100. It is also conjectured that the snake is only\n     the sacred serpent of the older oracle of the earth on the\n     same site.   AEschylus, _Eumenides_, 2.\n\n\nThe monster is the fosterling of Hera in the Homeric hymn, and the bane\nof flocks and herds. She is somehow connected with the fable of the\nbirth of the monster Typhoeus, son of Hera without a father. The Homeric\nhymn derives _Pythius_, the name of the god, from (------), \"rot,\" the\ndisdainful speech of Apollo to the dead monster, \"for there the\npest rotted away beneath the beams of the sun\". The derivation is a\n_volks-etymologie_. It is not clear whether the poet connected in his\nmind the sun and the god. The local legend of the dragon-slaying was\nkept alive in men's minds at Delphi by a mystery-play, in which the\nencounter was represented in action. In one version of the myth the\nslavery of Apollo in the house of Admetus was an expiation of the\ndragon's death.* Through many of the versions runs the idea that the\nslaying of the serpent was a deed which required purification and almost\napology. If the serpent was really the deity of an elder faith, this\nwould be intelligible, or, if he had kinsfolk, a serpent-tribe in the\ndistrict, we could understand it. Apollo's next act was to open a new\nspring of water, as the local nymph was hostile and grudged him her own.\nThis was an inexplicable deed in a sun god, whose business it is to dry\nup rather than to open water-springs. He gave oracles out of the laurel\nof Delphi, as Zeus out of the oaks of Dodona.** Presently Apollo changed\nhimself into a huge dolphin, and in this guise approached a ship of\nthe Cretan mariners.*** He guided, in his dolphin shape, the vessel to\nCrisa, the port of Delphi, and then emerged splendid from the waters,\nand filled his fane with light, a sun-god indeed Next, assuming the\nshape of a man, he revealed himself to the Cretans, and bade\nthem worship him in his _Delphic_ seat as Apollo Delphinios, the\nDolphin-Apollo.\n\n     * Eurip., Alcestis, Schol., line 1.\n\n     ** Hymn, 215.\n\n     *** Op. cit., 220-225.\n\nSuch is the ancient tale of the founding of the Delphic oracle, in which\ngods, and beasts, and men are mixed in archaic fashion. It is open to\nstudents to regard the dolphin as only one of the many animals whose\nearlier worship is concentrated in Apollo, or to take the creature for\nthe symbol of spring, when seafaring becomes easier to mortals, or to\ninterpret the dolphin as the result of a _volks-etymologie_, in which\nthe name Delphi (meaning originally a hollow in the hills) was connected\nwith _delphis_, the dolphin.*\n\nOn the whole, it seems impossible to get a clear view of Apollo as a\nsun-god from a legend built out of so many varied materials of different\ndates as the myth of the slaying of the Python and the founding of the\nDelphic oracle. Nor does the tale of the birth of the god--_les enfances\nApollon_--yield much more certain information. The most accessible and\nthe oldest form of the birth-myth is preserved in the Homeric hymn to\nthe Delian Apollo, a hymn intended for recital at the Delian festival of\nthe Ionian people.\n\nThe hymn begins without any account of the amours of Zeus and Leto; it\nis merely said that many lands refused to allow Leto a place wherein to\nbring forth her offspring. But barren Delos listened to her prayer, and\nfor nine days Leto was in labour, surrounded by all the goddesses, save\njealous Hera and Eilithyia, who presides over child-birth. To her Iris\nwent with the promise of a golden necklet set with amber studs, and\nEilithyia came down to the isle, and Leto, grasping the trunk of a palm\ntree, brought forth Apollo and Artemis.**\n\nSuch is the narrative of the hymn, in which some interpreters, such\nas M. Decharme, find a rich allegory of the birth of Light. Leto is\nregarded as Night or Darkness, though it is now admitted that this\nmeaning cannot be found in the etymology of her name.***\n\n     * Roscher, Lexikon; Preller, i. 208; Schol. ad Lycophr., v.\n     208.\n\n     ** Compare Theognis, 5-10.\n\n     *** Preller, i. 190, note 4; Curtius, Gr. AE, 120.\n\nM. Decharme presumes that the palm tree (------) originally meant the\nmorning red, by aid of which night gives birth to the sun, and if the\npoet says the young god loves the mountain tops, why, so does the star\nof day. The moon, however, does not usually arise simultaneously with\nthe dawn, as Artemis was born with Apollo. It is vain, in fact, to look\nfor minute touches of solar myth in the tale, which rests on the womanly\njealousy of Hera, and explains the existence of a great fane and feast\nof Apollo, not in one of the rich countries that refused his mother\nsanctuary, but in a small barren and remote island.*\n\nAmong the wilder myths which grouped themselves round the figure of\nApollo was the fable that his mother Leto was changed into a wolf. The\nfable ran that Leto, in the shape of a wolf, came in twelve days\nfrom the Hyperboreans to Delos.** This may be explained as a\n_volks-etymologie_ from the god's name, \"Lycegenes,\" which is generally\nheld to mean \"born of light\". But the presence of very many animals\nin the Apollo legend and in his temples, corresponding as it does to\nsimilar facts already observed in the religion of the lower races, can\nscarcely be due to popular etymologies alone. The Dolphin-Apollo has\nalready been remarked.\n\n     * The French excavators in Delos found the original unhewn\n     stone on which, in later days, the statue of the\n     anthropomorphic god was based.\n\n     **  Aristotle, Hist. An., vi 86; Elian., N. A., iv. 4;\n     Schol. on Apol. Rhod., ii. 12\n\nThere are many traces of connection between Apollo and the wolf.\nIn Athens there was the Lyceum of Apollo Lukios, Wolf-Apollo, which\ntradition connected with the primeval strife wherein AEgeus (goat-man)\ndefeated Lukios (wolfman). The Lukian Apollo was the deity of the\ndefeated side, as Athene of the AEgis (goat-skin) was the deity of the\nvictors.* The Argives had an Apollo of the same kind, and the wolf\nwas stamped on their coins.** According to Pausanias, when Danaus came\nseeking the kingship of Argos, the people hesitated between him and\nGelanor. While they were in doubt, a wolf attacked a bull, and the\nArgives determined that the bull should stand for Gelanor, the wolf for\nDanaus. The wolf won; Danaus was made king, and in gratitude raised\nan altar to _Apollo Lukios_, Wolf-Apollo. That is (as friends of the\ntotemic system would argue), a man of the wolf-stock dedicated a shrine\nto the wolf-god.*** In Delphi the presence of a bronze image of a wolf\nwas explained by the story that a wolf once revealed the place where\nstolen temple treasures were concealed. The god's beast looked after the\ngod's interest.**** In many myths the children of Apollo by mortal girls\nwere exposed, but fostered by wolves.***** In direct contradiction\nwith Pausanias, but in accordance with a common rule of mythical\ninterpretation, Sophocles****** calls Apollo \"the wolf-slayer\".\n\n     * Paus., i. 19, 4.\n\n     ** Preller, i. 202, note 3; Paus., ii. 19, 3.\n\n     *** Encyc. Brit., s. v. \"Sacrifice\".\n\n     **** Paus., x. 14, 4.\n\n     ***** Ant. Lib., 30.\n\n     ****** _Electra_, 6., 222\n\nIt has very frequently happened that when animals were found closely\nconnected with a god, the ancients explained the fact indifferently\nby calling the deity the protector or the destroyer of the beasts in\nquestion. Thus, in the case of Apollo, mice were held sacred and were\nfed in his temples in the Troad and elsewhere, the people of Hamaxitus\nespecially worshipping mice.* The god's name, Smintheus, was understood\nto mean \"Apollo of the Mouse,\" or \"Mouse-Apollo \".** But while Apollo\nwas thus at some places regarded as the patron of mice, other narratives\ndeclared that he was adored as Sminthian because from mice he had freed\nthe country. This would be a perfectly natural explanation if the\nvermin which had once been sacred became a pest in the eyes of later\ngenerations.***\n\nFlies were in this manner connected with the services of Apollo. It has\nalready been remarked that an ox was sacrificed to flies near the\ntemple of Apollo in Leucas. The sacrifice was explained as a device for\ninducing flies to settle in one spot, and leave the rest of the coast\nclear. This was an expensive, and would prove a futile arrangement.\nThere was a statue of the Locust-Apollo (Parnopios) in Athena The\nstory ran that it was dedicated after the god had banished a plague of\nlocusts.****\n\n     * AElian, H. A., xii. 6.\n\n     ** Strabo, xiii. 604.\n\n     *** It is the explanation Preller gives of the Mouse-Apollo,\n     i. 202.\n\n     **** Paus., i. 24, 8; Strabo, xiii. 912.\n\n\nA most interesting view of the way in which pious heathens of a late\nage regarded Apollo's menagerie may be got from Plutarch's essay on the\nDelphic responses. It is the description of a visit to Delphi. In the\nhall of the Corinthians the writer and his friends examine the sacred\npalm tree of bronze, and \"the snakes and frogs in relief round the root\nof the tree\". \"Why,\" said they, \"the palm tree is not a marsh plant, and\nfrogs are not a Corinthian crest.\" And indeed one would think ravens and\nswans, and hawks and wolves, and anything else than these reptiles\nwould be agreeable to the god. Then one of the visitors, Serapion, very\nlearnedly showed that Apollo was the sun, and that the sun arises\nfrom water. \"Still slipping into the story your lightings up and your\nexhalations,\" cried Plutarch, and chaffed him, as one might chaff Kuhn,\nor Schwartz, or Decharme, about his elemental interpretations. In fact,\nthe classical writers knew rather less than we do about the origin of\nmany of their religious peculiarities.\n\nIn connection with sheep, again, Apollo was worshipped as the ram\nApollo.* At the festival of the Carneia a ram was his victim.** These\nfacts are commonly interpreted as significant of the god's care for\nshepherds and the pastoral life, a memory of the days when Apollo kept\na mortal's sheep and was the hind of Admetus of Thessaly. He had animal\nnames derived from sheep and goats, such as _Maloeis Tragios_.*** The\ntale which made Apollo the serf and shepherd of mortal men is as old as\nthe _Iliad_,**** and is not easy to interpret, whether as a nature-myth\nor a local legend. Laomedon, one of Apollo's masters, not only refused\nhim his wage, but threatened to put him in chains and sell him to\nforeign folk across the sea, and to crop his ears with the blade of\nbronze. These legends may have brought some consolation to the hearts of\nfree men enslaved. A god had borne like calamities, and could feel for\ntheir affliction.\n\n     * Karneios, from (Heyschius, s.v.), a ram.\n\n     ** Theocritus, Idyll, v. 8a\n\n     *** Preller, i. 215, note 1.\n\n     **** ii. 766. xxi. 448.\n\nTo return to the beasts of Apollo, in addition to dolphins, mice, rams\nand wolves, he was constantly associated with lizards (powerful totems\nin Australia), cicalas, hawks, swans, ravens, crows, vultures, all of\nwhich are, by mythologists, regarded as symbols of the sun-god, in one\nor other capacity or function. In the _Iliad_,* Apollo puts on the gear\nof a hawk, and flits on hawk's wings down Ida, as the Thlinkeet Yehl\ndoes on the feathers of a crane or a raven.\n\n     * xv. 287.\n\nThe loves of Apollo make up a long and romantic chapter in his legend.\nThey cannot all be so readily explained, as are many of the loves of\nZeus, by the desire to trace genealogical pedigrees to a god. It is on\nthis principle, however, that the birth of Ion, for example, is to be\ninterpreted. The ideal eponymous hero of the Ionian race was naturally\nfeigned to be the son of the deity by whose fatherhood all Ionians\nbecame \"brethren in Apollo\". Once more, when a profession like that of\nmedicine was in the hands of a clan conceiving themselves to be of\none blood, and when their common business was under the protection of\nApollo, they inevitably traced their genealogy to the god. Thus the\nmedical clan of the Asclepiadae, of which Aristotle was a member, derived\ntheir origin from Asclepius or (as the Romans called him) AEsculapius.\n\nSo far everything in this myth appears natural and rational, granting\nthe belief in the amours of an anthropomorphic god. But the details of\nthe story are full of that _irrational_ element which is said to \"make\nmythology mythological\". In the third Pythian ode Pindar sings how\nApollo was the lover of Coronis; how she was faithless to him with a\nstranger. Pindar does not tell how the crow or the raven flew to Apollo\nwith the news, and how the god cursed the crow, which had previously\nbeen white, that it should for ever be black. Then he called his sister,\nArtemis, to slay the false nymph, but snatched from her funeral pyre the\nbabe Asclepius, his own begotten. This myth, which explains the colour\nof the crow as the result of an event and a divine curse, is an example\nof the stage of thought already illustrated in the Namaqua myth of\nHeitsi Eibib, and the peculiarities which his curse attached to various\nanimals. There is also a Bushman myth according to which certain\nblackbirds have white breasts, because some women once tied pieces\nof white fat round their necks.* It is instructive to observe, as the\nScholiast on Pindar quotes Artemon, that Pindar omits the incident of\nthe crow as foolish and unworthy. Apollo, according to the ode, was\nhimself aware, in his omniscience, of the frailty of Coronis. But\nHesiod, a much earlier poet, tells the story in the usual way, with\nthe curse of the crow, and his consequent change of colour.** The whole\nstory, in its most ancient shape, and with the omissions suggested by\nthe piety of a later age, is an excellent example of the irrational\nelement in Greek myth, of its resemblance to savage myth, and of\nthe tendency of more advanced thought to veil or leave out features\nrevolting to pure religion.***\n\n     * Bleek, _Bushman Folk-Lore_; Pindar, _Pyth_., iii, with\n     notes of the Scholiast.\n\n     ** Pindar, Estienne, Geneva, 1599, p. 219.\n\n     *** For the various genealogies of Asclepius and a\n     discussion of the authenticity of the Hesiodic fragments,\n     see Roscher, _Lexikon_, pp. 615, 616.\n\n\nThe connection of Asclepius with the serpent was so close that he was\nreceived into Roman religion in the form of a living snake, while dogs\nwere so intimately connected with his worship that Panofka believed\nhim to have been originally a dog-god (Roscher, p. 629, _Revue\nArcheohgique_). In another myth Apollo succeeds to the paternal honours\nof a totem. The Telmissians in Lycia claimed descent from Telmessus, who\nwas the child of an amour in which Apollo assumed the form of a dog. \"In\nthis guise he lay with a daughter of Antenor.\" Probably the Lycians of\nTelmissus originally derived their pedigree from a dog, _sans phrase_\nand, later, made out that the dog was Apollo metamorphosed. This process\nof veiling a totem, and explaining him away as a saint of the same name,\nis common in modern India.*\n\n     * Suidas, His authority is Dionysius of Chalcis 200 BC,\n     See \"Primitive Marriage in Bengal,\" Asiatic Quarterly,\n     June, 1886.\n\nThe other loves of Apollo are numerous, but it may be sufficient to have\nexamined one such story in detail. Where the tale of the amour was not a\nnecessary consequence of the genealogical tendency to connect clans with\ngods, it was probably, as Roscher observes in the case of Daphne, an\nAEtiological myth. Many flowers and trees, for example, were nearly\nconnected with the worship and ritual of Apollo; among these were\nnotably the laurel, cypress and hyacinth. It is no longer possible to do\nmore than conjecture why each of these plants was thus favoured, though\nit is a plausible guess that the god attracted into his service various\nlocal tree-worships and plant-worships. People would ask why the deity\nwas associated with the flowers and boughs, and the answer would be\nreadily developed on the familiar lines of nature-myth. The laurel is\ndear to the god because the laurel was once a girl whom he pursued with\nhis love, and who, to escape his embraces, became a tree. The hyacinth\nand cypress were beautiful youths, dear to Apollo, and accidentally\nslain by him in sport. After their death they became flowers. Such myths\nof metamorphoses, as has been shown, are an universal growth of savage\nfancy, and spring from the want of a sense of difference between men and\nthings.*\n\nThe legend of Apollo has only been slightly sketched, but it is obvious\nthat many elements from many quarters enter into the sum of his myths\nand rites.** If Apollo was originally the sun-god, it is certain that\nhis influence on human life and society was as wide and beneficent as\nthat of the sun itself. He presides over health and medicine, and over\npurity of body and soul. He is the god of song, and the hexameter,\nwhich first resounded in his temples, uttered its latest word in the\nmelancholy music of the last oracle from Delphi:--\n\n     Say to the king that the beautiful fane hath fallen asunder,\n     Phoebus no more hath a sheltering roof nor a sacred cell,\n     And the holy laurels are broken and wasted, and hushed is the wonder\n     Of water that spake as it flowed from the deeps of the Delphian well.\n\n\n          * See \"Nature-Myths,\" antea. Schwartz, as usual, takes\n          Daphne to be connected, not with the dawn, but with\n          lightning. \"Es ist der Gewitter-baum.\"   Der Ursprung der\n          Mythologie, Berlin, 1860, pg. 160-162.\n\n          ** For the influence of Apollo-worship on Greek\n          civilisation, see Curtius's History qf Greece, English\n          transl., vol. i. For a theory that Apollo answers to Mitra\n          among \"the Arians of Iran,\" see Duncker's History of\n          Greece, vol, i. 173.\n\nIn his oracle he appears as the counsellor of men, between men and Zeus\nhe is a kind of mediator (like the son of Baiame in Australia, or of\nPuluga in the Andaman isles), tempering the austerity of justice with\na yearning and kind compassion. He sanctifies the pastoral life by his\nexample, and, as one who had known bondage to a mortal, his sympathy\nlightens the burden of the slave. He is the guide of colonists, he knows\nall the paths of earth and all the ways of the sea, and leads wanderers\nfar from Greece into secure havens, and settles them on fertile shores.\nBut he is also the god before whom the Athenians first flogged and then\nburned their human scapegoats.* His example consecrated the abnormal\npost-Homeric vices of Greece. He is capable of metamorphosis into\nvarious beasts, and his temple courts are thronged with images of frogs,\nand mice, and wolves, and dogs, and ravens, over whose elder worship he\nthrows his protection. He is the god of sudden death; he is amorous and\nrevengeful. The fair humanities of old religion boast no figure more\nbeautiful; yet he, too, bears the birthmarks of ancient creeds, and\nthere is a shadow that stains his legend and darkens the radiance of his\nglory.\n\n     * At the Thergelia.    See Meursius, Graecia Feriata.\n\n\n\n\nARTEMIS.\n\nIf Apollo soon disengages himself from the sun, and appears as a deity\nchiefly remarkable for his moral and prophetic attributes, Artemis\nretains as few traces of any connection with the moon. \"In the\ndevelopment of Artemis may most clearly be distinguished,\" says Claus,\nthe progress of the human intellect from the early, rude, and, as\nit were, natural ideas, to the fair and brilliant fancies of poets and\nsculptors.\"*\n\n     * De Dianae Antiguisstma apud Graecos Natura, Vratialaviae,\n     1881.\n\nThere is no goddess more beautiful, pure and maidenly in the poetry of\nGreece. There she shines as the sister of Apollo; her chapels are in the\nwild wood; she is the abbess of the forest nymphs, \"chaste and fair\",\nthe maiden of the precise life, the friend of the virginal Hippolytus;\nalways present, even if unseen, with the pure of heart.* She is like\nMilton's lady in the revel route of the _Comus_, and among the riot of\nOlympian lovers she alone, with Athene, satisfies the ascetic longing\nfor a proud remoteness and reserve. But though it is thus that the poets\ndream of her, from the author of the _Odyssey_ to Euripides, yet\nthe local traditions and cults of Artemis, in many widely separated\ndistricts, combine her worship and her legend with hideous cruelties,\nwith almost cannibal rites, with relics of the wild worship of\nthe beasts whom, in her character as the goddess of the chase, she\n\"preserves\" rather than protects. To her human victims are sacrificed;\nfor her bears, deer, doves, wolves, all the tameless herds of the hills\nand forests are driven through the fire in Achaea. She is adored\nwith bear-dances by the Attic girls; there is a gloomy Chthonian or\nsepulchral element in her worship, and she is even blended in ritual\nwith a monstrous many-breasted divinity of Oriental religion. Perhaps it\nis scarcely possible to separate now all the tangled skeins in the mixed\nconception of Artemis, or to lay the finger on the germinal conception\nof her nature. \"Dark,\" says Schreiber, \"is the original conception,\nobscure the meaning of the name of Artemis.\"**\n\n     * Hippolytus, Eurip., 73-87.\n\n     ** Roscher's Lexikon, s. v.\n\nIt is certain that many tribal worships are blended in her legend and\neach of two or three widely different notions of her nature may be\nplausibly regarded as the most primitive. In the attempt to reach the\noriginal notion of Artemis, philology offers her distracting aid and her\ncompeting etymologies. What is the radical meaning of her name? On\nthis point Claus* has a long dissertation. In his opinion Artemis\nwas originally (as Dione) the wife, not the daughter, of Zeus, and he\nexamines the names Dione, Diana, concluding that Artemis, Dione and\nDiana are essentially one, and that Diana is the feminine of Janus\n(Djanus), corresponding to the Greek. As to the etymology of Artemis,\nCurtis wisely professes himself uncertain.** A crowd of hypotheses have\nbeen framed by more sanguine and less cautious etymologists. Artemis has\nbeen derived from \"safe,\" \"unharmed,\" \"the stainless maiden \". Goebel,3\nsuggests the root _arpar_ or _par_, \"to shake,\" and makes Artemis\nmean the thrower of the dart or the shooter. But this is confessedly\nconjectural. The Persian language has also been searched for the root\nof Artemis, which is compared with the first syllables in Artaphernes,\nArtaxerxes, Artaxata, and so forth. It is concluded that Artemis would\nsimply mean \"the great goddess \". Claus again, returning to his theory\nof Artemis as originally the wife of Zeus, inclines to regard her as\noriginally the earth, the \"mighty mother\".****\n\n     * Roscher's Lexikon, s. v., p. 7.\n\n     ** Etym. Or,, 5th ed., p. 556.\n\n     *** Lexilogus, i. 554.\n\n     **** For many other etymologies of Artemis, see Roscher's\n     Lexikon, p. 558. Among these is \"she who cuts the air\". Even\n     the bear, has occurred to inventive men.\n\nAs Schreiber observes, the philological guesses really throw no light\non the nature of Artemis. Welcker, Preller and Lauer take her for the\ngoddess of the midnight sky, and \"the light of the night\".* Claus, as\nwe have seen, is all for night, not light; for \"Night is identical in\nconception with the earth\"--night being the shadow of earth, a fact\nprobably not known to the very early Greeks. Claus, however, seems well\ninspired when he refuses to deduce all the many properties, myths and\nattributes of Artemis from lunar aspects and attributes. The smallest\ngrain of ingenuity will always suffice as the essential element in this\nmythological alchemy, this \"transmutation\" of the facts of legend into\nso many presumed statements about any given natural force or phenomenon.\n\nFrom all these general theories and vague hypotheses it is time to\ndescend to facts, and to the various local or tribal cults and myths of\nArtemis. Her place in the artistic poetry, which wrought on and purified\nthose tales, will then be considered. This process is the converse of\nthe method, for example, of M. Decharme. He first accepts the \"queen and\nhuntress, chaste and fair,\" of poetry, and then explains her local myths\nand rituals as accidental corruptions of and foreign additions to that\nideal.\n\nThe Attic and Arcadian legends of Artemis are confessedly among the\noldest.**\n\n     * Welcker, Oriechische Gotterlehre, i. 561, Gottingen, 1867;\n     Preller, i. 239.\n\n     ** Roscher, Lexikon, 580.\n\nBoth in Arcadia and Attica, the goddess is strangely connected with that\nanimal worship, and those tales of bestial metamorphosis, which are the\ncharacteristic elements of myths and beliefs among the most backward\nraces.\n\nThe Arcadian myth of Artemis and the she-bear is variously narrated.\nAccording to Pausanias, Lycaon, king of Arcadia, had a daughter,\nCallisto, who was loved by Zeus. Hera, in jealous wrath, changed\nCallisto into a she-bear; and Artemis, to please Hera, shot the beast.\nAt this time the she-bear was pregnant with a child by Zeus, who sent\nHermes to save the babe, Areas, just as Dionysus was saved at the\nburning of Semele and Asclepius at the death of his mother, whom Apollo\nslew. Zeus then transformed Callisto into a constellation, the bear.*\nNo more straightforward myth of descent from a beast (for the Arcadians\nclaimed descent from Areas, the she-bear's son) and of starry or bestial\nmetamorphosis was ever told by Cahrocs or Kamilaroi. Another story ran\nthat Artemis herself, in anger at the unchastity of Callisto, caused her\nto become a bear. So the legend ran in a Hesiodic poem, according to the\nextract in Eratosthenes.**\n\n     * Paus., viii. 3, 5.\n\n     ** O. Mueller, Engl. transl., p. 15; Catast., i.; Apollodor.,\n     iii. 82; Hyginus, 176, 177. A number of less important\n     references are given in Bachofen's Der Bar in den Religionen\n     des Alterthums.\n\nSuch is the ancient myth, which Otfried Mueller endeavours to explain by\nthe light of his lucid common sense, without the assistance which we\ncan now derive from anthropological research. The nymph Callisto, in his\nopinion, is a mere refraction from Artemis herself, under her Arcadian\nand poetic name of Calliste, \"the most beautiful\". Hard by the tumulus\nknown as the grave of Callisto was a shrine, Pausanias tells us, of\nArtemis _Calliste_.* Pamphos, he adds, was the first poet known to him\nwho praised Artemis by this title, and he learned it from the Arcadians.\nMueller next remarks on the attributes of Artemis in Athens, the Artemis\nknown as Brauronia. \"Now,\" says he, \"we set out from this, that the\ncircumstance of the goddess who is served at Brauron by she-bears having\na friend and companion changed into a bear, cannot possibly be a freak\nof chance, but that this metamorphosis has its foundation in the fact\nthat the animal was sacred to the goddess.\"\n\nIt will become probable that the animal actually was mythically\nidentified with the goddess at an extremely remote period, or, at all\nevents, that the goddess succeeded to, and threw her protection over, an\nancient worship of the animal.\n\nPassing then from Arcadia, where the friend of the goddess becomes a\nshe-bear, to Brauron and Munychia in Attica, we find that the local\nArtemis there, an Artemis connected by legend with the fierce Taurian\ngoddess, is served by young girls, who imitate, in dances, the gait of\nbears, who are called little bears, apktoi, and whose ministry is named\naptcreia, that is, \"a playing the bear\". Some have held that the girls\nonce wore bear-skins.**\n\n     * Paus., viii. 3.\n\n     ** Claus, op. cit., p. 76. [Suchier, De Dian Brauron, p.\n     33.] The bearskin seems later to have been exchanged for a\n     saffron raiment. Compare Harpokration, Aristophanes,\n     _Lysistrata_, 646. The Scholiast on that passage collects\n     legendary explanations, setting forth that the rites were\n     meant to appease the goddess for the slaying of a tame bear\n     [cf. Apostolius, vii. 10]. Mr. Parnell has collected all the\n     lore in his work on the Cults of the Greek States.\n\nFamiliar examples in ancient and classical times of this religious\nservice by men in bestial guise are the wolf-dances of the Hirpi or\n\"wolves,\" and the use of the ram-skin in Egypt and Greece.* These\nBrauronian rites point to a period when the goddess was herself a\nbear, or when a bear-myth accrued to her legend, and this inference is\nconfirmed by the singular tradition that she was not only a bear, but a\nbear who craved for human blood.**\n\n     * Servius. Jen. i. xi. 785. For a singular parallel in modern\n     French folk-lore to the dance of the Hirpi, see Mannhardt,\n     Wald und Feld Qultus, ii 824, 825. For the ram, see\n     Herodotus, ii. 42. In Thebes the ram's skin was in the\n     yearly festival flayed, and placed on the statue of the god.\n     Compare, in the case of the buzzard, Bancroft, iii. 168.\n     Great care is taken in preserving the skin of the sacrificed\n     totem, the buzzard, as it makes part of a sacred dress.\n\n     ** Apostolius, viii. 19, vii. 10, quoted by O. Mueller (cf.\n     Welcker, i. 573).\n\nThe connection between the Arcadian Artemis, the Artemis of Brauron,\nand the common rituals and creeds of totemistic worship is now, perhaps,\nundeniably apparent. Perhaps in all the legend and all the cult of the\ngoddess there is no more archaic element than this. The speech of the\nwomen in the _Lysistrata_, recalling the days of their childhood when\nthey \"were bears,\" takes us back to a remote past when the tribes\nsettled at Brauron were bear-worshippers, and, in all probability,\nclaimed to be of the bear stock or kindred. Their distant descendants\nstill imitated the creature's movements in a sacred dance; and the\ngirls of Periclean Athens acted at that moment like the young men of the\nMandans or Nootkas in their wolf-dance or buffalo-dance. Two questions\nremain unanswered: how did a goddess of the name of Artemis, and with\nher wide and beneficent functions, succeed to a cult so barbarous? or\nhow, on the other hand, did the cult of a ravening she-bear develop into\nthe humane and pure religion of Artemis?\n\nHere is a moment in mythical and religious evolution which almost\nescapes our inquiry. We find, in actual historical processes, nothing\nmore akin to it than the relation borne by the Samoan gods to the\nvarious animals in which they are supposed to be manifest. How did the\ncomplex theory of the nature of Artemis arise? what was its growth? at\nwhat precise hour did it emancipate itself on the whole from the\nlower savage creeds? or how was it developed out of their unpromising\nmaterials? The science of mythology may perhaps never find a key to\nthese obscure problems.*\n\n     * The symbolic explanation of Bachofen, Claus and others is\n     to the effect that the she-bear (to take that case) is a\n     beast in which the maternal instinct is very strong, and\n     apparently that the she-bear, deprived of her whelps, is a\n     fit symbol of a goddess notoriously virginal, and without\n     offspring.\n\nThe goddess of Brauron, succeeding probably to the cult of a she-bear,\ncalled for human blood. With human blood the Artemis Orthia of Sparta\nwas propitiated. Of this goddess and her rights Pausanias tells a very\nremarkable story. The image of the goddess, he declares, is barbarous;\nwhich probably means that even among the archaic wooden idols of Greece\nit seemed peculiarly savage in style. Astrabacus and Alopecus (the ass\nand the fox), sons of Agis, are said to have found the idol in a bush,\nand to have been struck mad at the sight of it. Those who sacrificed to\nthe goddess fell to blows and slew each other; a pestilence followed,\nand it became clear that the goddess demanded human victims. \"Her altar\nmust be drenched in the blood of men,\" the victim being chosen by lot.\nLycurgus got the credit of substituting the rite in which boys were\nflogged before the goddess to the effusion of blood for the older human\nsacrifices.* The Taurian Artemis, adored with human sacrifice, and\nher priestess, Iphigenia, perhaps a form of the goddess, are familiar\nexamples of this sanguinary ritual.** Suchier is probably correct in\ndenying that these sacrifices are of foreign origin. They are closely\ninterwoven with the oldest idols and oldest myths of the districts least\nopen to foreign influence. An Achaean example is given by Pausanias.***\nArtemis was adored with the offering of a beautiful girl and boy.\nNot far from Brauron, at Halae, was a very ancient temple of Artemis\nTauropolos, in which blood was drawn from a man's throat by the edge\nof the sword, clearly a modified survival of human sacrifice. The\nwhole connection of Artemis with Taurian rites has been examined by\nMueller,**** in his _Orchomenos_***** Horns grow from the shoulders of\nArtemis Tauropolos, on the coins of Amphipolis, and on Macedonian coins\nshe rides on a bull. According to Decharme,****** the Taurian Artemis,\nwith her hideous rites, was confused, by an accidental resemblance of\nnames, with this Artemis Tauropolos, whose \"symbol\" was a bull, and who\n(whatever we may think of the symbolic hypothesis) used bulls as her\n\"vehicle\" and wore bull's horns.\n\n     * Paus., iii. 8,16. Cf. Mueller, Dorians, book ii. chap. 9,\n     6. Pausanias, viii. 23, 1, mentions a similar custom,\n     ordained by the Delphian oracle, the flogging of women at\n     the feast of Dionysus in Alea of Arcadia.\n\n     ** Cf. Mueller, Dorians, it 9, 6, and Claus, op. cit., cap.\n     v.\n\n     *** Paus., vii. 19.\n\n     ****Op. cit., ii. 9, 6.\n\n     ***** Ibid., p. 311. Qf. Euripides, Iph. Taur., 1424, and\n     Roscher, Lexikon, p. 568.\n\n     ****** Mythol. de la Grece, p. 137.\n\nMueller, on the other hand,* believes the Greeks found in Tauria (i.e.,\nLemnos) a goddess with bloody \"rites, whom they identified by reason of\nthose very human sacrifices, with their own Artemis Iphigenia\". Their\nown worship of that deity bore so many marks of ancient barbarism that\nthey were willing to consider the northern barbarians as its authors.\nYet it is possible that the Tauric Artemis was no more derived from the\nTaurians than Artemis AEthiopia from the AEthiopians.\n\nThe nature of the famous Diana of the Ephesians, or Artemis of Ephesus,\nis probably quite distinct in origin from either the Artemis of Arcadia\nand Attica or the deity of literary creeds. As late as the time of\nTacitus** the Ephesians maintained that Leto's twins had been born in\ntheir territory. \"The first which showed themselves in the senate were\nthe Ephesians, declaring that Diana and Apollo were not born in the\nisland Delos, as the common people did believe; and there was in their\ncountry a river called Cenchrius, and a wood called Ortegia, where\nLatona, being great with child, and leaning against an olive tree which\nis yet in that place, brought forth these two gods, and that by the\ncommandment of the gods the wood was made sacred.\"***\n\n     * Mythol. de la Grece, ii. 9, 7.\n\n     ** Annals, iii. 61.\n\n     *** Greenwey's _Tacitus_, 1622.\n\n\nThis was a mere adaptation of the Delian legend, the olive (in Athens\nsacred to Athene) taking the place of the Delian palm-tree. The real\nArtemis of Ephesus, \"the image that fell from heaven,\" was an Oriental\nsurvival. Nothing can be less Greek in taste than her many-breasted\nidol, which may be compared with the many-breasted goddess of the\nbeer-producing maguey plant in Mexico.*\n\nThe wilder elements in the local rites and myths of Diana are little if\nat all concerned with the goddess in her Olympian aspect as the daughter\nof Leto and sister of Apollo.    It is from this lofty rank that she\n descends in the national epic to combat on the Ilian\nplain among warring gods and men. Claus has attempted, from a comparison\nof the epithets applied to Artemis, to show that the poets of the Iliad\nand the Odyssey take different views of her character. In the Iliad she\nis a goddess of tumult and passion; in the Odyssey, a holy maiden with\nthe \"gentle darts\" that deal sudden and painless death. But in both\npoems she is a huntress, and the death-dealing shafts are hers both in\nIliad and Odyssey. Perhaps the apparent difference is due to nothing but\nthe necessity for allotting her a part in that battle of the Olympians\nwhich rages in the Iliad. Thus Hera in the Iliad addresses her thus:**\n\"How now! art thou mad, bold vixen, to match thyself against me? Hard\nwere it for thee to match my might, bow-bearer though thou art, since\nagainst women Zeus made thee a lion, and giveth thee to slay whomso of\nthem thou wilt. Truly it is better on the mountains to slay wild beasts\nand deer than to fight with one that is mightier than thou.\"\n\n     * For an alabaster statuette of the goddess, see Roscher's\n     Lexikon, p. 588\n\n     ** Iliad, xxi. 481.\n\nThese taunts of Hera, who always detests the illegitimate children of\nZeus, doubtless refer to the character of Artemis as the goddess of\nchildbirth. Here she becomes confused with Ilithyia and with Hecate; but\nit is unnecessary to pursue the inquiry into these details.*\n\nLike most of the Olympians, Artemis was connected not only with\nbeast-worship, but with plant-worship. She was known by the names\nDaphnaea and Cedreatis; at Ephesus not only the olive but the oak was\nsacred to her; at Delos she had her palm tree. Her idol was placed in or\nhung from the branches of these trees, and it is not improbable that she\nsucceeded to the honours either of a tree worshipped in itself and for\nitself, or of the spirit or genius which was presumed to dwell in and\ninform it. Similar examples of one creed inheriting the holy things\nof its predecessor are common enough where either missionaries, as in\nMexico and China, or the early preachers of the gospel in Brittany or\nScandinavia, appropriated to Christ the holy days of pagan deities and\nconsecrated fetish stones with the mark of the cross. Unluckily, we\nhave no historical evidence as to the moment in which the ancient tribal\ntotems and fetishes and sacrifices were placed under the protection of\nthe various Olympians, in whose cult they survive, like flies in amber.\nBut that this process did take place is the most obvious explanation\nof the rude factors in the religion of Artemis, as of Apollo, Zeus or\nDionysus.\n\n     * Cf. Preller, i. 256, 257. Bacchylides make Hecate the\n     daughter of \"deep-bosomed Night\". (40). The Scholiast on the\n     second idyll of Theocritus, in which the sorceress appeals\n     to the magic of the moon, makes her a daughter of Zeus and\n     Demeter, and identified with Artemis. Here, more clearly\n     than elsewhere, the Artemis appears _sub luce maligna_,\n     under the wan uncertain light of the moon.\n\nIt was ever the tendency of Greek thought to turn from the contemplation\nof dark and inscrutable things in the character of the gods and to endow\nthem with the fairest attributes. The primitive formless _Zoana_ give\nplace to the ideal statues of gold and ivory. The Artemis to whom a\nfawn in a maiden's dress is sacrificed does not haunt the memory of\nEuripides; his Artemis is fair and honourable, pure and maidenly, a\ngoddess wandering in lonely places unbeholden of man. It is thus, if one\nmay rhyme the speech of Hippolytus, that her votary addresses her:--\n\n     For thee soft crowns in thine untrampled mead\n     I weave, my lady, and to thee I bear;\n     Thither no shepherd drives his flocks to feed,\n     Nor scythe of steel has ever laboured there;\n     Nay, through the spring among the blossoms fair\n     The brown bee comes and goes, and with good heed\n     Thy maiden, Reverence, sweet streams doth lead\n     About the grassy close that is her care!\n     Souls only that are gracious and serene\n     By gift of God, in human lore unread,\n     May pluck these holy blooms and grasses green\n     That now I wreathe for thine immortal head,\n     I who may walk with thee, thyself unseen,\n     And by thy whispered voice am comforted.\n\nIn passages like this we find the truly _natural_ religion, the religion\nto which man's nature tends, \"groaning and travailing\" till the goal\nis won, But it is long in the winning; the paths are rough; humanity is\n\"led by a way that it knew not\".\n\n\n\n\nDIONYSUS.\n\nAmong deities whose origin has been sought in the personification, if\nnot of the phenomena, at least of the forces of Nature, Dionysus is\nprominent.* He is regarded by many mythologists** as the \"spiritual\nform\" of the new vernal life, the sap and pulse of vegetation and of the\nnew-born year, especially as manifest in the vine and the juice of the\ngrape. Thus Preller*** looks on his mother, Semele, as a personification\nof the pregnant soil in spring.**** The name of Semele is explained with\nthe familiar diversity of conjecture. Whether the human intellect, at\nthe time of the first development of myth, was capable of such abstract\nthought as is employed in the recognition of a deity presiding over\n\"the revival of earth-life\" or not, and whether, having attained to this\nabstraction, men would go on to clothe it in all manner of animal and\nother symbolisms, are questions which mythologists seem to take for\ngranted. The popular story of the birth of Dionysus is well known.\n\n     * It is needless to occupy space with the etymological\n     guesses at the sense of the name \"Dionysus\". Greek, Sanskrit\n     and Assyrian have been tortured by the philologists, but\n     refuse to give up their secret, and Curtis does not even\n     offer a conjecture (Or. Etym., 609).\n\n     ** Preller, i. 544.\n\n     *** i. 546.\n\n     **** The birth of Dionysus is recorded (Iliad, xiv. 323;\n     Hesiod, Theog., 940) without the story of the death of\n     Semele, which occurs in AEschylus, Frg., 217-218; Eurip.,\n     Bacchae, i. 3.\n\nHis mother, Semele, desired to see Zeus in all his glory, as he appeared\nwhen he made love to Hera. Having promised to grant all the nymph's\nrequests, Zeus was constrained to approach her in thunder and lightning.\nShe was burned to death, but the god rescued her unborn child and\nsowed him up in his own thigh. In this wild narrative Preller finds the\nwedlock of heaven and earth, \"the first day that it thunders in March\".\nThe thigh of Zeus is to be interpreted as \"the cool moist clouds\". If,\non the other hand, we may take Dionysus himself to be the rain, as Kuhn\ndoes, and explain the thigh of Zeus by comparison with certain details\nin the soma sacrifice and the right thigh of Indra, as described in one\nof the Brahmanas, why then, of course, Preller's explanation cannot be\nadmitted.*\n\n     * Kuhn, Herabkunft, pp. 166, 167, where it appears that the\n     gods buy soma and place it on the right thigh of Indra.\n\nThese examples show the difficulty, or rather indicate the error,\nof attempting to interpret all the details in any myth as so\nmany statements about natural phenomena and natural forces. Such\ninterpretations are necessarily conjectural. Certainly Dionysus, the god\nof orgies, of wine, of poetry, became in later Greek thought something\nvery like the \"spiritual form\" of the vine, and the patron of Nature's\nmoods of revelry. But that he was originally conceived of thus, or that\nthis conception may be minutely traced through each incident of his\nlegend, cannot be scientifically established. Each mythologist, as has\nbeen said before, is, in fact, asking himself, \"What meaning would I\nhave had if I told this or that story of the god of the vine or the god\nof the year's renewal?\" The imaginations in which the tale of the double\nbirth of Dionysus arose were so unlike the imagination of an erudite\nmodern German that these guesses are absolutely baseless. Nay, when\nwe are told that the child was sheltered in his father's body, and\nwas actually brought to birth by the father, we may be reminded, like\nBachofen, of that widespread savage custom, the _couvade_.\n\nFrom Brazil to the Basque country it has been common for the father to\npretend to lie-in while the mother is in childbed; the husband undergoes\nmedical treatment, in many cases being put to bed for days.* This\ncustom, \"world-wide,\" as Mr. Tylor calls it, has been used by Bachofen\nas the source of the myth of the double birth of Dionysus. Though other\nexplanations of the _couvade_ have been given, the most plausible theory\nrepresents it as a recognition of paternity by the father. Bachofen\ncompares the ceremony by which, when Hera became reconciled to Herakles,\nshe adopted him as her own through the legal fiction of his second\nbirth. The custom by which, in old French marriage rites, illegitimate\nchildren were legitimised by being brought to the altar under the veil\nof the bride is also in point.** Diodorus says that barbarians still\npractise the rite of adoption by a fictitious birth. Men who returned\nhome safely after they were believed to be dead had to undergo a similar\nceremony.*** Bachofen therefore explains the names and myths of the\n\"double-mothered Dionysus\" as relics of the custom of the _couvade_, and\nof the legal recognition of children by the father, after a period of\nkinship through women only.\n\n     *** Tylor, Prim. Oult., I 94; Early History of Mankind, p.\n     293.\n\n     **  Bachofen, Das Mutterrecht, Stuttgart, 1861, p. 254.\n\n     *** Plutarch, Quaest. Rom., 5.\n\nThis theory is put by Lucian in his usual bantering manner. Poseidon\nwishes to enter the chamber of Zeus, but is refused admission by Hermes.\n\n\"Is Zeus _en bonne fortune?_\" he asks.\n\n\"No, the reverse. Zeus has just had a baby.\"\n\n\"A baby! why there was nothing in his figure...! Perhaps the child was\nborn from his head, like Athene?\"\n\n\"Not at all--his _thigh_; the child is Semele's.\"\n\n\"Wonderful God! what varied accomplishments! But who is Semele?\"\n\n\"A Theban girl, a daughter of Cadmus, much noticed by Zeus.\"\n\n\"And so he kindly was confined for her?\"\n\n\"Exactly!\"\n\n\"So Zeus is both father and mother of the child?\"\n\n\"Naturally! And now I must go and make him comfortable.\"*\n\n     * Dial. Deor., xi.\n\nWe need not necessarily accept Bachofen's view. This learned author\nemployed indeed a widely comparative method, but he saw everything\nthrough certain mystic speculations of his own. It may be deemed,\nhowever, that the authors of the myth of the double birth of Dionysus\nwere rather in the condition of men who practise the _couvade_ than\ncapable of such vast abstract ideas and such complicated symbolism as\nare required in the system of Preller. It is probable enough that the\nstruggle between the two systems of kindred--maternal and paternal--has\nleft its mark in Greek mythology. Undeniably it is present in the\n_Eumenides_ of AEschylus, and perhaps it inspires the tales which\nrepresent Hera and Zeus as emulously producing offspring (Athene and\nHephaestus) without the aid of the opposite sex.*\n\nIn any case, Dionysus, Semele's son, the patron of the vine, the\nconqueror of India, is an enigmatic figure of dubious origin, but less\nrepulsive than Dionysus Zagreus.\n\nEven among the adventures of Zeus the amour which resulted in the birth\nof Dionysus Zagreus was conspicuous. \"Jupiter ipse filiam incestavit,\nnatum hinc Zagreum.\"** Persephone, fleeing her hateful lover, took the\nshape of a serpent, and Zeus became the male dragon. The story is on a\nfooting with the Brahmanic myth of Prajapati and his daughter as buck\nand doe. The Platonists explained the legend, as usual, by their \"absurd\nsymbolism \".***\n\nThe child of two serpents, Zagreus, was born, curious as it may seem,\nwith horns on his head. Zeus brought him up in secret, but Hera sent\nthe Titans to kill him. According to Clemens Alexandrinus**** and\nother authorities, the Titans won his heart with toys, including the\nbull-roarer or turn-dun of the Australians.**** His enemies, also in\nAustralian fashion, daubed themselves over with pipeclay.****** By these\nhideous foes the child was torn to pieces, though, according to Nonnus,\nhe changed himself into as many beasts as Proteus by the Nile, or\nTamlane by the Ettrick.\n\n     * Roscher's Lexikon, p. 1046.\n\n     ** Lobeck, Aglaoph., p. 547, quoting Callimachus and\n     Euphoric\n\n     *** Ibid., p. 550.\n\n     **** Admon., p. 11; Nonnus, xxiv. 43; ap. Aglaoph., p. 555.\n\n     ***** Custom and Myth, p. 39.\n\n     ******Cf. Demosthenes, Pro. Or., 313; Lobeck, pp. 556, 646,\n     700.\n\nIn his bull-shape, Zagreus was finally chopped up small, cooked (except\nthe heart), and eaten by the Titans.* Here we are naturally reminded of\nthe dismemberment of Osiris, Ymir, Purusha, Chokanipok and so many other\ngods and beasts in Egypt, India, Scandinavia and America. This point\nmust not be lost sight of in the controversy as to the origin and date\nof the story of Dionysus Zagreus. Nothing can be much more repulsive\nthan these hideous incidents to the genius, for example, of Homer.\nHe rarely tells anything worse about the gods than the tale of Ares'\nimprisonment in the large bronze pot, an event undignified, indeed,\nbut not in the ferocious taste of the Zagreus legend. But it need not,\ntherefore, be decided that the story of Dionysus and the Titans is\nlater than Homer because it is inconsistent with the tone of Homeric\nmythology, and because it is found in more recent authorities. Details\nlike the use of the \"turn-dun\" in the Dionysiac mysteries, and the\nbodies of the celebrants daubed with clay, have a primitive, or at least\nsavage, appearance. It was the opinion of Lobeck that the Orphic poems,\nin which the legend first comes into literature, were the work of\nOnomacritus.**\n\nOn the other hand, Mueller argued that the myth was really archaic,\nalthough it had passed through the hands of Onomacritus. On the strength\nof the boast of the Delphian priests that they possessed the grave\nin which the fragments of the god were buried, Mueller believed that\nOnomacritus received the story from Delphi.***\n\n     * Proclus in Crat., p. 115.\n\n     ** Aglaoph., p. 616.    \"Onomacritum architectum istius\n     mythi.\"\n\n     *** Mueller's Proleg., English transl., p. 319.\n\nMueller writes,  \"The way in which these Orphics went to work with\nancient myths can be most distinctly seen in the mythus of the _tearing\nasunder of Bacchus_, which, at all events, passed _through_ the hands of\nOnomacritus, an organiser of Dionysian orgies, according to Pausanias,\nan author of Orphean poems also, and therefore, in all probability, an\nOrphic\".\n\nThe words of Pausanias are (viii. 37, 3), \"Onomacritus, taking from\nHomer the name of the Titans, established Dionysiac orgies, and\nrepresented the Titans as the authors of the sorrows of the god\".\n\nNow it is perhaps impossible to decide with certainty whether, as Lobeck\nheld, Onomacritus \"adapted\" the myth, and the Delphians received it into\ntheir religion, with rites purposely meant to resemble those of Osiris\nin Egypt, or whether Mueller more correctly maintains that Onomacritus,\non the other hand, brought an old temple mystery and \"sacred chapter\"\ninto the light of literature. But it may very plausibly be maintained\nthat a myth so wild, and so analogous in its most brutal details to the\nmyths of many widely scattered races, is more probably ancient than a\nfresh invention of a poet of the sixth century. It is much more likely\nthat Greece, whether at Delphi or elsewhere, possessed a legend common\nto races in distant continents, than that Onomacritus either invented\nthe tale or borrowed it from Egypt and settled it at Delphi. O. Mueller\ncould not appeal to the crowd of tales of divine dismemberment in savage\nand civilised lands, because with some he was unacquainted, and others\n(like the sacrifice of Purusha, the cutting up of Omorca, the rending of\nYmir) do not seem to have occurred to his memory. Though the majority of\nthese legends of divine dismemberment are connected with the making of\nthe world, yet in essentials they do resemble the tale of Dionysus and\nthe Titans. Thus the balance of probability is in favour of the\ntheory that the myth is really old, and was borrowed, not invented, by\nOnoma-critus.* That very shifty person may have made his own alterations\nin the narrative, but it cannot be rash to say with O. Mueller, \"If it\nhas been supposed that he was the inventor of the entire fable, which\nPausa-nias by no means asserts, I must confess that I cannot bring\nmyself to think so. According to the notions of the ancients, it must\nhave been an unholy, an accursed man who could, from a mere caprice of\nhis own, represent the ever-young Dionysus, the god of joy, as having\nbeen torn to pieces by the Titans.\" A reply to this might, no doubt, be\nsought in the passages describing the influx of new superstitions which\nare cited by Lobeck.** The Greek comic poets especially derided these\nreligious novelties, which corresponded very closely to our \"Esoteric\nBuddhism\" and similar impostures. But these new mysteries and trumpery\ncults of the decayed civilisation were things very different from the\nworship of Dionysus Zagreus and his established sacrifices of oxen in\nthe secret penetralia of Delphi.***\n\n     * Lobeck, Aglaoph., p. 671.\n\n     ** Aglaoph., 625-630.\n\n     *** Lycophron, 206, and the Scholiast.\n\nIt may be determined, therefore, that the tale and the mystery-play of\nDionysus and the Titans are, in essentials, as old as the savage state\nof religion, in which their analogues abound, whether at Delphi\nthey were or were not of foreign origin, and introduced in times\ncomparatively recent. The fables, wherever they are found, are\naccompanied by savage rites, in which (as in some African tribes when\nthe chief is about to declare war) living animals were torn asunder and\neaten raw. These horrors were a kind of representation of the sufferings\nof the god. O. Mueller may well observe,* \"We can scarcely take\nthese rites to be new usages and the offspring of a post-Homeric\ncivilisation\". These remarks apply to the custom of _nebrismus_, or\ntearing fawns to pieces and dancing about draped in the fawn-skins.\nSuch rites were part of the Bacchic worship, and even broke out during\na pagan revival in the time of Valens, when dogs were torn in shreds by\nthe worshippers.**\n\nWhether the antiquity of the Zagrean ritual and legend be admitted or\nnot, the problem as to their original significance remains. Although the\nmajority of heathen rites of this kind were mystery-plays, setting forth\nin action some story of divine adventure or misadventure,*** yet Lobeck\nimagines the story of Zagreus and the Titans to have been invented or\nadapted from the Osiris legend, as an account of the mystic performances\nthemselves. What the myth meant, or what the furious actions of the\ncelebrants intended, it is only possible to conjecture.\n\n     * Lycophrony p. 322.\n\n     ** Theodoretus, ap. Lobeck, p. 653. Observe the number of\n     examples of daubing with clay in the mysteries here adduced\n     by Lobeck, and compare the Mandan tribes described by Catlin\n     in O-Kee-Pa, Londou, 1867, and by Theal in Kaffir Folk-Lore.\n\n     *** Lactantius, v. 19,15; Ovid, Fasti, iv. 211.\n\nCommonly it is alleged that the sufferings of Dionysus are the ruin of\nthe summer year at the hands of storm and winter, while the revival\nof the child typifies the vernal resurrection; or, again, the slain\nDionysus is the vintage. The old English song tells how \"John Barleycorn\nmust die,\" and how potently he came back to life and mastered his\noppressors. This notion, too, may be at the root of \"the passion of\nDionysus,\" for the grapes suffer at least as many processes of torture\nas John Barleycorn before they declare themselves in the shape of strong\ndrink.* While Preller talks about the _tiefste Erd-und Naturschmerz_\ntypified in the Zagrean ritual, Lobeck remarks that Plato would be\nsurprised if he could hear these \"drunken men's freaks\" decoratively\ndescribed as _ein erhabene Naturdienst_.\n\n     * Decharme, Mythologie de la Grece, p. 437, Compare Preller,\n     i. 572 on tiefste Naturschmerz, and so forth.\n\nLobeck looks on the wild acts, the tearing of fawns and dogs, the\nhalf-naked dances, the gnawing of raw bleeding flesh, as the natural\nexpression of fierce untutored folk, revelling in freedom, leaping and\nshouting. But the odd thing is that the most civilised of peoples should\nso long have retained the manners of _ingenia inculta et indomita_.\nWhatever the original significance of the Dionysiac revels, that\nsignificance was certainly expressed in a ferocious and barbaric\nfashion, more worthy of Australians than Athenians.\n\nOn this view of the case it might perhaps be maintained that the germ\nof the myth is merely the sacrifice itself, the barbaric and cruel\ndismembering of an animal victim, which came to be identified with the\ngod. The sufferings of the victim would thus finally be transmuted into\na legend about the passion of the deity. The old Greek explanation that\nthe ritual was designed \"in imitation of what befel the god\" would need\nto be reversed. The truth would be that the myth of what befel the god\nwas borrowed from the actual torture of the victim with which the god\nwas identified Examples of this mystic habit of mind, in which the slain\nbeast, the god, and even the officiating celebrant were confused in\nthought with each other, are sufficiently common in ritual.*\n\n     * As to the torch-dances of the Maenads, compare Roscher,\n     Lexikon, p. 1041, and Mannhardt Wald und Feki Kultits, i.\n     534, for parallels in European folk-lore.\n\nThe sacrifices in the ritual of Dionysus have a very marked character\nand here more, commonly than in other Hellenic cults, the god and the\nvictim are recognised as essentially the same. The sacrifice, in fact,\nis a sacrament, and in partaking of the victim the communicants eat\ntheir god. This detail is so prominent that it has not escaped the\nnotice even of mythologists who prefer to take an ideal view of myths\nand customs, to regard them as symbols in a nature-worship originally\npure. Thus M. Decharme says of the bull-feast in the Dionysiac cult,\n\"Comme le taureau est un des formes de Dionysos, c'etait le corps\ndu dieu dont se repaissaient les inities, c'etait son sang dont ils\ns'abreuvaient dans ce banquet mystique\". Now it was the peculiarity\nof the Bac-chici who maintained these rites, that, as a rule, they\nabstained from the flesh of animals altogether, or at least their\nconduct took this shape when adopted into the Orphic discipline.* This\nritual, therefore, has points in common with the usages which appear\nalso to have survived into the cult of the ram-god in Egypt.** The\nconclusion suggested is that where Dionysus was adored with this\nsacrament of bull's flesh, he had either been developed out of, or\nhad succeeded to, the worship of a bull-totem, and had inherited his\ncharacteristic ritual. Mr. Frazer, however, proposes quite a different\nsolution.*** Ours is rendered plausible by the famous Elean chant in\nwhich the god was thus addressed: \"Come, hero Dionysus, come with the\nGraces to thy holy house by the shores of the sea; hasten with thy\nbull-foot\". Then the chorus repeated, \"Goodly bull, goodly bull\".****\nM. Decharme publishes a cameo***** in which the god is represented as a\nbull, with the three Graces standing on his neck, and seven stars in the\nfield. M. Decharme decides that the stars are the Pleiades, the Graces\nthe rays of the vernal sun, and Dionysus as a bull the symbol of the\nvernal sun itself. But all such symbolical explanations are apt to be\nmere private conjectures, and they are of no avail in face of the ritual\nwhich, on the other hypothesis, is to be expected, and is actually\nfound, in connection with the bull Dionysus. Where Dionysus is not\nabsolutely called a bull, he is addressed as the \"horned deity,\" the\n\"bull-horned,\" the \"horned child\".******\n\n     * Lobeck, Aglaoph., i 244; Plato, Laws, vi. 782; Herodot,\n     ii. 81. Porphyry says that this also was the rule of\n     Pythagoras (Vita Pyth., 1630, p. 22).\n\n     ** Herodot., ii. 42.\n\n     *** Golden Bough, vol. ii.\n\n     **** Plutarch, Qu. Or., 3d.\n\n     ***** Op. cit., p. 431.\n\n     ****** Clemens Alex., Adhort, ii. 15-18; Nonnus, vi. 264;\n     Diodorus, iv. 4. 3. 64.\n\nA still more curious incident of the Dionysiac worship was the sacrifice\nof a booted calf, a calf with cothurns on its feet.* The people of\nTenedos, says AElian, used to tend their goodliest cow with great care,\nto treat it, when it calved, like a woman in labour, to put the calf in\nboots and sacrifice it, and then to stone the sacrificer and drive him\ninto the sea to expiate his crime. In this ceremony, as in the Diipolia\nat Athens, the slain bull is, as it were, a member of the blood-kindred\nof the man who immolates him, and who has to expiate the deed as if it\nwere a murder.** In this connection it is worth remarking that Dionysus\nZagreus, when, according to the myth, he was attacked by the Titans,\ntried to escape his enemies by assuming various forms. It was in the\nguise of a bull that he was finally captured and rent asunder. The\ncustom of rending the living victims of his cult was carried so far\nthat, when Pentheus disturbed his mysteries, the king was torn piecemeal\nby the women of his own family.*** The pious acquiescence of the author\nof the so-called Theocritean idyll in this butchery is a curious example\nof the conservatism of religious sentiment. The connection of Dionysus\nwith the bull in particular is attested by various ritual epithets, such\nas \"the bull,\" \"bull-born,\"**** \"bull-horned,\" and \"bull-browed\".*****\nHe was also worshipped with sacrifice of he-goats; according to the\npopular explanation, because the goat gnaws the vine, and therefore is\nodious to the god.\n\n     * AElian., H. A.t xii. 34.\n\n     ** O. Mueller, Proleg., Engl, transl., 322, attributes the\n     Tenedos Dionysus rites to \"the Beotic Achsean emigrants\".\n     Gf, Aglaoph., 674-677.\n\n     *** Theocritus, Idyll, xxvi.\n\n     **** Pollux, iv. 86.\n\n     ***** Athenaus, xi. 466, a.\n\nThe truth is, that animals, as the old commentator on Virgil remarks,\nwere sacrificed to the various gods, \"_aut per similitudinem aut per\ncontrarietatem_\" either because there was a community of nature between\nthe deity and the beast, or because the beast had once been sacred in\na hostile clan or tribe.* The god derived some of his ritual names from\nthe goat as well as from the bull According to one myth, Dionysus was\nchanged into a kid by Zeus, to enable him to escape the jealousy of\nHera.** \"It is a peculiarity,\" says Voigt, \"of the Dionysus ritual that\nthe god is one of his offering.\" But though the identity of the god and\nthe victim is manifest, the phenomenon is too common in religion to be\ncalled peculiar.*** Plutarch**** especially mentions that \"many of the\nGreeks make statues of Dionysus in the form of a bull\".\n\nDionysus was not only an animal-god, or a god who absorbed in his rights\nand titles various elder forms of beast-worship. Trees also stood in the\nsame relation to him. As _Dendrites_, he is, like Artemis, a tree-god,\nand probably succeeded to the cult of certain sacred trees; just as,\nfor example, St. Bridget, in Ireland, succeeded to the cult of the\nfire-goddess and to her ceremonial.*****\n\n     * Cf. Roscher, Lexikon, p. 1059; Robertson Smith on\n     \"Sacrifice,\" Encyc. Brit.\n\n     ** Appolodorus, iii. 4, 9.\n\n     *** \"Dionysos selber. Stier Zicklein ist, und als Zagreus-\n     kind selber, den Opfertod erleidet.\"   Ap. Roscher, p. 1059.\n\n     **** De Is. et Os.\n\n     ***** Elton, Origins of English History, p. 280, and the\n     authorities there quoted.\n\nDionysus was even called \"the god in the tree,\"* reminding us of Artemis\nDendritis, and of the village gods which in India dwell in the peepul\nor the bo tree.** Thus Pausanias*** tells us that, when Pentheus went\nto spy on the Dionysiac mysteries, the women found him hidden in a tree,\nand there and then tore him piecemeal. According to a Corinthian legend,\nthe Delphic oracle bade them seek this tree and worship it with no\nless honour than the god (Dionysus) himself. Hence the wooden images of\nDionysus were made of that tree, the fig tree, _non ex quovis ligno_,\nand the god had a ritual name, \"The fig-tree Dionysus\". In the idols the\ncommunity of nature between the god and the fig tree was expressed\nand commemorated. An unhewn stump of wood was the Dionysus idol of the\nrustic people.****\n\n     * Hesychius.\n\n     ** Cf. Roscher, p. 1062.\n\n     *** ii. 2,5.\n\n     **** Max. Tyr., 8, 1.\n\nCertain antique elements in the Dionysus cult have now been sketched;\nwe have seen the god in singularly close relations with animal and plant\nworship, and have noted the very archaic character of certain features\nin his mysteries. Doubtless these things are older than the bright\nanthropomorphic Dionysus of the poets--the beautiful young deity,\nvine-crowned, who rises from the sea to comfort Ariadne in Tintoretto's\nimmortal picture. At his highest, at his best, Dionysus is the spirit\nnot only of Bacchic revel and of dramatic poetry, but of youth,\nhealth and gaiety. Even in this form he retains something tricksy and\nenigmatic, the survival perhaps of earlier ideas; or, again, it may be\nthe result of a more or less conscious symbolism. The god of the vine\nand of the juice of the vine maketh glad the heart of man; but he also\ninspires the kind of metamorphosis which the popular speech alludes\nto when a person is said to be \"disguised in drink\". For this reason,\nperhaps, he is now represented in art as a grave and bearded man, now as\na manly youth, and again as an effeminate lad of girlish loveliness. The\nbearded type of the god is apparently the earlier; the girlish type may\npossibly be the result merely of decadent art, and its tendency to a\nsexless or bisexual prettiness.*\n\nTurning from the ritual and local cults of the god, which, as has been\nshown, probably retain the earlier elements in his composite nature,\nand looking at his legend in the national literature of Greece, we find\nlittle that throws any light on the origin and primal conception of his\ncharacter In the _Iliad_ Dionysus is not one of the great gods whose\npolitics sways Olympus, and whose diplomatic or martial interference is\nexercised in the leaguer of the Achaeans or in the citadel of Ilios. The\nlongest passage in which he is mentioned is _Iliad_, vi. 130, a passage\nwhich clearly enough declares that the worship of Dionysus, or at least\nthat certain of his rites were brought in from without, and that his\nworshippers endured persecution. Diomedes, encountering Glaucus in\nbattle, refuses to fight him if he is a god in disguise. \"Nay, moreover,\neven Dryas' son, mighty Lykourgos, was not for long when he strove with\nheavenly gods; he that erst chased through the goodly land of Nysa the\nnursing mothers of frenzied Dionysus; and they all cast their wands upon\nthe ground, smitten with murderous Lykourgos' ox-goad. Then Dionysus\nfled, and plunged beneath the salt sea-wave, and Thetis took him to her\nbosom, affrighted, for mighty trembling had seized him at his foe's\nrebuke. But with Lykourgos the gods that live at ease were wroth, and\nKronos's son made him blind, and he was not for long, because he was\nhated of all the immortal gods.\"\n\n     * See Thraemer, in Roscher, pp. 1090-1143.\n\nThough Dionysus is not directly spoken of as the wine-god here, yet\nthe gear of his attendants, and his own title, \"the frenzied,\" seem to\nidentify him with the deity of orgiastic frenzy. As to Nysa, volumes\nmight be written to little or no purpose on the learning connected with\nthis obscure place-name, so popular in the legend of Dionysus. It has\nbeen identified as a mountain in Thrace, in Boeotia, in Arabia, India,\nLibya and Naxos, as a town in Caria or the Caucasus, and as an island\nin the Nile. The flight of Dionysus into the sea may possibly recall the\nsimilar flight of Agni in Indian myth.\n\nThe _Odyssey_ only mentions Dionysus in connection with Ariadne, whom\nArtemis is said to have slain \"by reason of the witness of Dionysus,\"**\nand where the great golden urn of Thetis is said to have been a present\nfrom the god. The famous and beautiful hymn proves, as indeed may be\nlearned from Hesiod,*** that the god was already looked on as the patron\nof the vine.\n\n     * xi.325.\n\n     ** xxiv. 74.\n\n     *** Works and Days, 614.\n\nWhen the pirates had seized the beautiful young man with the dark-blue\neyes, and had bound him in their ship, he \"showed marvels among them,\"\nchanged into the shape of a bear, and turned his captors into dolphins,\nwhile wine welled up from the timbers of the vessel, and vines and ivy\ntrees wreathed themselves on the mast and about the rigging. Leaving\naside the Orphic poems, which contain most of the facts in the legend\nof Dionysus Zagreus, the _Bacchae_ of Euripides is the chief classical\nrecord of ideas about the god. Dionysus was the patron of the drama,\nwhich itself was an artistic development of the old rural songs and\ndances of his Athenian festival. In the _Bacchae_, then, Euripides had\nto honour the very patron of his art. It must be said that his praise is\nbut half-hearted. A certain ironical spirit, breaking out here and there\n(as when old Cadmus dances, and shakes a grey head and a stiff knee)\ninto actual burlesque, pervades the play. Tradition and myth doubtless\nretained some historical truth when they averred that the orgies of the\ngod had been accepted with reluctance into state religion. The tales\nabout Lycurgus and Pentheus, who persecuted the Bacchae in Thebes, and\nwas dismembered by his own mother in a divine madness, are survivals\nof this old distrust of Dionysus. It was impossible for Euripides, a\nsceptic, even in a sceptical age, to approve sincerely of the god\nwhom he was obliged to celebrate. He falls back on queer etymological\nexplanations of the birth of Dionysus from the thigh of Zeus. This myth,\nas Cadmus very learnedly sets forth, was the result of forgetfulness\nof the meaning of words, was born of a _Volks-etymologie_. Zeus gave\na hostage to Hera, says Cadmus, and in \"process of time\" (a very short\ntime) men forgot what they meant when they said this, and supposed that\nDionysus had been sewnup in the thigh of his father.* The explanation is\nabsurd, but it shows how Euripides could transfer the doubt and distrust\nof his own age, and its attempt at a philological interpretation of\nmyth, to the remote heroic tunes. Throughout the play the character and\nconduct of the god, and his hideous revenge on the people who reject his\nwild and cruel rites, can only be justified because they are articles of\nfaith. The chorus may sing--\"Ah! blessed he who dwelleth in happiness,\nexpert in the rites of the gods, and so hallows his life, fulfilling his\nsoul with the spirit of Dionysus, revelling on the hills with charms of\nholy purity \".** This was the interpretation which the religious mind\nthrust upon rites which in themselves were so barbarously obscene that\nthey were feigned to have been brought by Dionysus from the barbaric\nEast,*** and to be the invention of Rhea, an alien and orgiastic\ngoddess.**** The bull-horned, snake-wreathed god,***** the god who,\nwhen bound, turns into a bull (618); who manifests himself as a bull\nto Pentheus (920), and is implored by the chorus to appear \"as bull, or\nburning lion, or many-headed snake\" (1017-19), this god is the ancient\nbarbarous deity of myth, in manifest contrast with the artistic Greek\nconception of him as \"a youth with clusters of golden hair, and in his\ndark eyes the grace of Aphrodite\" (235, 236).\n\n     * Bacchae, 291, 296.\n\n     ** Ibid., 73, 76.\n\n     *** Ibid., 10-20.\n\n     **** Ibid., i. 59.\n\n     ***** Ibid., 100, 101.\n\nThe _Bacchae_, then, expresses the sentiments of a moment which must\noften have occurred in Greek religion. The Greek reverence accepts,\nhallows and adorns an older faith, which it feels to be repugnant and\neven alien, but none the less recognises as human and inevitable. From\nmodern human nature the ancient orgiastic impulse of savage revelry\nhas almost died away. In Greece it was dying, but before it expired\nit sanctified and perpetuated itself by assuming a religious form, by\ndraping its naked limbs in the fawn-skin or the bull-skin of Dionysus.\nIn precisely the same spirit Christianity, among the Negroes of the\nSouthern States, has been constrained to throw its mantle over what\nthe race cannot discard. The orgies have become camp-meetings; the\nVoodoo-dance is consecrated as the \"Jerusalem jump\". In England the\nprimitive impulse is but occasionally recognised at \"revivals\". This\norgiastic impulse, the impulse of Australian corroboree and Cherokee\nfetish-dances, and of the \"dancing Dervishes\" themselves, occasionally\nseizes girls in modern Greece. They dance themselves to death on the\nhills, and are said by the peasants to be victims of the Nereids. In\nthe old classic world they would have been saluted as the nurses and\ncompanions of Dionysus, and their disease would have been hallowed by\nreligion. Of that religion the \"bull-horned,\" \"bull-eating,\" \"cannibal\"\nDionysus was the deity; and he was refined away into the youth with\nyellow-clustered curls, and sleepy eyes, and smiling lips, the girlish\nyouth of the art of Praxiteles. So we see him in surviving statues, and\nseeing him, forget his ghastly rites, and his succession to the rites of\ngoats, and deer, and bulls.\n\n\n\n\nATHENE.\n\nAmong deities for whom an origin has been sought in the personification\nof elemental phenomena, Athene is remarkable. Perhaps no divine figure\nhas caused more diverse speculations. The study of her legend is rather\nvaluable for the varieties of opinion which it illustrates than for any\nreal contribution to actual knowledge which it supplies. We can discover\nlittle, if anything, about the rise and development of the conception\nof Athene. Her local myths and local _sacra_ seem, on the whole, less\nbarbaric than those of many other Olympians. But in comparing the\nconjectures of the learned, one lesson comes out with astonishing\nclearness. It is most perilous, as this comparison demonstrates, to\nguess at an origin of any god in natural phenomena, and then to explain\nthe details of the god's legend with exclusive reference to that fancied\nelemental origin.\n\nAs usual, the oldest literary references to Athene are found in the\n_Iliad_ and _Odyssey_. It were superfluous to collect and compare texts\nso numerous and so familiar. Athene appears in the _Iliad_ as a martial\nmaiden, daughter of Zeus, and, apparently, of Zeus alone without female\nmate.*\n\n     * Iliad, v. 875, 880. This is stated explicitly in the\n     Homeric Hymn to Apollo, where Athene is said to have been\n     born from the head of Zeus (Pindar, Olympic Odes, vii.).\n\nShe is the patron of valour and the inspirer of counsel; she arrests\nthe hand of Achilles when his sword is half drawn from the sheath in his\nquarrel with Agamemnon; she is the constant companion and protector of\nOdysseus; and though she is worshipped in the citadel of Troy, she is\nconstant to the cause of the Achaeans. Occasionally it is recorded of her\nthat she assumed the shape of various birds; a sea-bird and a swallow\nare among her metamorphoses; and she could put on the form of any man\nshe pleased; for example, of Deiphobus.* It has often been observed that\namong the lower races the gods habitually appear in the form of\nanimals. \"Entre ces facultes qui possedent les immortels, l'une des plus\nfrappantes est celle de se metamorphoser, de prendre des apparences non\nseulement animales, mais encore de se transformer en objets inanimes.\"**\nOf this faculty, inherited from the savage stage of thought, Athene has\nher due share even in Homer. But in almost every other respect she is\nfree from the heritage of barbarism, and might very well be regarded\nas the ideal representative of wisdom, valour and manfulness in man, of\npurity, courage and nobility in woman, as in the Phaeacian maid Nausicae.\n\n     * _Iliad_, xxii. 227, xvii. 351, Od. iii. 372. v. 353;\n     _Iliad_, vii. 59.\n\n     **  Maury, _Religion de la Grece_, i. 256.\n\nIn Hesiod, as has already been shown, the myth of the birth of Athene\nretains the old barbaric stamp. It is the peculiarity of the Hesiodic\npoems to preserve the very features of religious narrative which\nHomer disregards. According to Hesiod, Zeus, the youngest child of\nchild-swallowing Cronus, married Metis after he had conquered and\nexpelled his father. Now Metis, like other gods and goddesses, had the\npower of transforming herself into any shape she pleased. Her husband\nlearned that her child--for she was pregnant--would be greater than\nits father, as in the case of the child of Thetis. Zeus, therefore,\npersuaded Metis to transform herself into a fly. No sooner was the\nmetamorphosis complete than he swallowed the fly, and himself produced\nthe child of Metis out of his head.* The later philosophers explained\nthis myth** by a variety of metaphysical interpretations, in which the\ngod is said to contain the all in himself, and again to reproduce it.\nAny such ideas must have been alien to the inventors of a tale which,\nas we have shown, possesses many counterparts among the lowest and least\nPlatonic races.*** C. O. Mueller remarks plausibly that \"the figure of\nthe swallowing is employed in imitation of still older legends,\" such\nas those of Africa and Australia. This leaves him free to imagine a\nphilosophic explanation of the myth based on the word Metis.**** We\nmay agree with Mueller that the \"swallow-myth\" is extremely archaic\nin character, as it is so common among the backward races. As to the\nprecise amount, however, of philosophic reflection and allegory which\nwas present to the cosmogonic poet's mind when he used Metis as the name\nof the being who could become a fly, and so be swallowed by her husband,\nit is impossible to speak with confidence. Very probably the poet\nmeant to read a moral and speculative meaning into a barbaric _maerchen_\nsurviving in religious tradition.\n\nTo the birth of Athene from her father's head savage parallels are not\nlacking. In the legends of the South Pacific, especially of Mangaia,\nTangaroa is fabled to have been born from the head of Papa.*****\n\n     * Hesiod, Theog., 886, and the Scholiast\n\n     ** Lobeck, i. 613, note 2.\n\n     *** See the Cronus myth.\n\n     **** Proleg. Engl. transl., p. 308.\n\n     ***** Gill, Myths and Songs, p. 10.\n\nIn the _Vafthrudismal_ (31) a maid and a man-child are born from under\nthe armpits of a primeval gigantic being. The remarks of Lucian on\nmiraculous birth have already been quoted.*\n\nWith this mythical birth for a starting-point, and relying on their\nprivate interpretations of the _cognomina_ of the goddess, of her\n_sacra_, and of her actions in other parts of her legend, the modern\nmythologists have built up their various theories. Athene is now the\npersonification of wisdom, now the dawn, now the air or aether, now the\nlightning as it leaps from the thunder-cloud; and if she has not been\nrecognised as the moon, it is not for lack of opportunity.** These\nexplanations rest on the habit of twisting each detail of a divine\nlegend into conformity with aspects of certain natural and elemental\nforces, or they rely on etymological conjecture. For example, Welcker***\nmaintains that Athene is \"a feminine personification of the upper\nair, daughter of Zeus, the dweller in aether\". Her name Tritogenia is\nderived**** from an ancient word for water, which, like fire, has\nits source in aether.***** Welcker presses the title of the goddess,\n\"Glaucopis,\" the \"grey-green-eyed,\" into the service. The heaven in\nAttica _oft ebenfalls wunderbar grun ist_.******\n\n     * Cf. Dionysus.\n\n     ** Welcker, i. 305.\n\n     *** Griechische Gotterlehre, Gottingen, 1857, i. 303.\n\n     **** Op. cit., 311.\n\n     ***** The ancients themselves were in doubt whether Trito\n     were the name of a river or mere, or whether the Cretan for\n     the head was intended. See Odyssey, Butcher and Lang, note\n     10, p. 415.\n\n     ****** Op. cit., i. 303.\n\nMoreover, there was a temple at Methone of Athene of the Winds\n(Anemotis), which would be a better argument had there not been also\ntemples of Athene of the Pathway, Athene of the Ivy, Athene of the\nCrag, Athene of the Market-place, Athene of the Trumpet, and so forth.\nMoreover, the olive tree is one of the sacred plants of Athene. Now why\nshould this be? Clearly, thinks Welcker, because olive-oil gives\nlight from a lamp, and light also comes from aether.* Athene also gives\nTelemachus a fair wind in the _Odyssey_, and though any Lapland witch\ncould do as much, this goes down to her account as a goddess of the\nair.**\n\n     * Op. cit. i. 318.\n\n     ** Mr. Ruskin's _Queen qf the Air_ is full of similar\n     ingenuities.\n\nLeaving Welcker, who has many equally plausible proofs to give, and\nturning to Mr. Max Mueller, we learn that Athene was the dawn. This\ntheory is founded on the belief that Athene = Ahana, which Mr. Max\nMueller regards as a Sanskrit word for dawn. \"Phonetically there is not\none word to be said against, Ahana = Athene, and that the morning light\noffers the best starting-point for the later growth of Athene has been\nproved, I believe, beyond the reach of doubt, or even of cavil.\" Mr.\nMueller adds that \"nothing really important could be brought forward\nagainst my equation Ahana = Athene\".\n\nIt is no part of our province here to decide between the conjectures of\nrival etymologists, nor to pronounce on their relative merits. But the\nworld cannot be expected to be convinced by philological scholars before\nthey have convinced each other. Mr. Max Mueller had not convinced Benfey,\nwho offered another etymology of Athene, as the feminine of the Zend\n_Thraetana athwyana_, an etymology of which Mr. Mueller remarks that\n\"whoever will take the trouble to examine its phonetic foundation\nwill be obliged in common honesty to confess that it is untenable\".*\nMeanwhile Curtius** is neither for Ahana and Sanskrit and Mr. Max\nMueller, nor for Benfey and Zend. He derives Athene from the root _aio_,\nwhence perhaps comes Athene, the blooming one\" = the maiden. Preller,\nagain,*** finds the source of the name Athene in _aio_, whence _aion_,\n\"the air,\" or a flower\". He does not regard these etymologies as\ncertain, though he agrees with Welcker that Athene is the clear height\nof aether.\n\nManifestly no one can be expected to accept as matter of faith an\netymological solution which is rejected by philologists. The more\nfashionable theory for the moment is that maintained some time since by\nLauer and Schwartz, and now by Furtwangler in Roscher's Lexikon, that\nAthene is the \"cloud-goddess,\" or the goddess of the lightning as it\nsprings from the clouds.**** As the lightning in mythology is often\na serpent, and as Athene had her sacred serpent, \"which might be\nErichthonios,\"*****\n\n     * _Nineteenth Century_, October, 1885, pp. 636, 639.\n\n     ** Gr. Et., Engl, transl., i. 300.\n\n     *** Preller, i. 161.\n\n     **** Cf. Lauer, _System der Oriesch. Myth_., Berlin, 1853,\n     p. 220; Schwartz _Ursprung der Mythol_, Berlin, 1863, p.\n     38.\n\n     ***** Paus., xxiv. 7.\n\nSchwartz conjectures that the serpent is the lightning and Athene the\ncloud. A long list of equally cogent reasons for identifying Athene with\nthe lightning and the thunder-cloud has been compiled by Furtwangler,\nand deserves some attention. The passage excellently illustrates\nthe error of taking poetic details in authors as late as Pindar for\nsurvivals of the absolute original form of an elemental myth.\n\nFurtwangler finds the proof of his opinion that Athene is originally the\ngoddess of the thunder-cloud and the lightning that leaps from it in the\nOlympic ode.* \"By Hephaistos' handicraft beneath the bronze-wrought axe\nfrom the crown of her father's head Athene leapt to light, and cried\naloud an exceeding cry, and heaven trembled at her coming, and earth,\nthe mother.\" The \"cry\" she gave is the thunderpeal; the spear she\ncarried is the lightning; the aegis or goat-skin she wore is the cloud\nagain, though the cloud has just been the head of Zeus.** Another proof\nof Athene's connection with storm is the miracle she works when she sets\na flame to fly from the head of Diomede or of Achilles,*** or fleets\nfrom the sky like a meteor.**** Her possession, on certain coins, of the\nthunderbolts of Zeus is another argument. Again, as the Trumpet-Athene\nshe is connected with the thunder-peal, though it seems more rational to\naccount for her supposed invention of a military instrument by the mere\nfact that she is a warlike goddess. But Furtwangler explains her martial\nattributes as those of a thunder-goddess, while Preller finds it just\nas easy to explain her moral character as goddess of wisdom by her\nelemental character as goddess, not at all of the cloud, but of the\nclear sky.*****\n\n     * Ode, vii. 35, Myers.\n\n     ** Cf. Schwartz. Ursprung, etc., pp. 68, 83.\n\n     ***  Iliad, v. 7,18,203.\n\n     **** Ibid, iv. 74.\n\n     ***** Preller, i. 183.\n\n\"Lastly, as goddess of the heavenly clearness, she is also goddess of\nspiritual clearness.\" Again, \"As goddess of the cloudless heaven, she is\nalso goddess of health\",* There could be no more instructive examples of\nthe levity of conjecture than these, in which two scholars interpret a\nmyth with equal ease and freedom, though they start from diametrically\nopposite conceptions. Let Athene be lightning and cloud, and all is\nplain to Furtwangler. Let Athene be cloudless sky, and Preller finds no\ndifficulties. Athene as the goddess of woman's work as well as of man's,\nAthene Ergane, becomes clear to Furtwangler as he thinks of the _fleecy_\nclouds. Probably the storm-goddess, when she is not thundering, is\nregarded as weaving the fleeces of the upper air. Hence the myth that\nArachne was once a woman, changed by Athene into a spider because she\ncontended with her in spinning.**\n\n     * Preller, i. 179.\n\n     ** Ovid, Metamorph., vi. 5-146.\n\nThe metamorphosis of Arachne is merely one of the half-playful\naetiological myths of which we have seen examples all over the world.\nThe spider, like the swallow, the nightingale, the dolphin, the frog,\nwas once a human being, metamorphosed by an angry deity. As Preller\nmakes Athene goddess of wisdom because she is goddess of clearness in\nthe sky, so Furtwangler derives her intellectual attributes from her\nskill in weaving clouds. It is tedious and unprofitable to examine these\nand similar exercises of facile ingenuity. There is no proof that Athene\nwas ever a nature-goddess at all, and if she was, there is nothing to\nshow what was her department of nature. When we meet her in Homer, she\nis patroness of moral and physical excellence in man and woman. Manly\nvirtue she typifies in her martial aspect, the armed and warlike maid of\nZeus; womanly excellence she protects in her capacity of _Ergane_, the\ntoiler. She is the companion and guardian of Perseus no less than of\nOdysseus.*\n\nThe sacred animals of Athene were the owl, the snake (which accompanies\nher effigy in Athens, and is a form of her foster-child Erechtheus), the\ncock,** and the crow.*** Probably she had some connection with the goat,\nwhich might not be sacrificed in her fane on the Acropolis, where she\nwas settled by AEgeus (\"goat-man \"?). She wears the goat-skin, _aegis_,\nin art, but this is usually regarded as another type of the\nstorm-cloud.****\n\n     * Pindar, Olymp., x. ad Jin.\n\n     ** Paus., vi. 262.\n\n     *** Ibid., iv. 34, 6.\n\n     **** Roscher, in his Lexikon, s.v. aegis, with his arguments\n     there. Compare, on this subject of Athene as the goddess of\n     a goat-stock. Robertson Smith on \"Sacrifice\" in the\n     Encycl. Brit. Aphrodite.\n\nAthene's maiden character is stainless in story, despite the brutal love\nof Hephaestus. This characteristic perhaps is another proof that she\nneither was in her origin nor became in men's minds one of the amorous\ndeities of natural phenomena. In any case, it is well to maintain a\nsceptical attitude towards explanations of her myth, which only agree\nin the determination to make Athene a \"nature power\" at all costs, and\nwhich differ destructively from each other as to whether she was dawn,\nstorm, or clear heaven. Where opinions are so radically divided and so\nslenderly supported, suspension of belief is natural and necessary.\n\nNo polytheism is likely to be without a goddess of love, and love is\nthe chief, if not the original, department of Aphrodite in the Greek\nOlympus. In the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ and the Homeric Hymn she is\nalready the queen of desire, with the beauty and the softness of the\nlaughter-loving dame. Her cestus or girdle holds all the magic of\npassion, and is borrowed even by Hera when she wishes to win her fickle\nlord. She disturbs the society of the gods by her famous amours with\nAres, deceiving her husband, Hephaestus, the lord of fire; and she even\nstoops to the embraces of mortals, as of Anchises. In the Homeric poems\nthe charm of \"Golden Aphrodite\" does not prevent the singer from hinting\na quiet contempt for her softness and luxury. But in this oldest Greek\nliterature the goddess is already thoroughly Greek, nor did later ages\nmake any essential changes in her character. Concerning her birth\nHomer and Hesiod are not in the same tale; for while Homer makes her\na daughter of Zeus, Hesiod prefers, as usual, the more repulsive, and\nprobably older story, which tells how she sprang from the sea-foam and\nthe mutilated portions of Cronus.*\n\n     * Iliad, v. 312; Theog., 188-206.\n\nBut even in the Hesiodic myth it is remarkable that the foam-born\ngoddess first landed at Cythera, or again \"was born in wave-washed\nCyprus\". Her ancient names--the Cyprian and the Cytherean--with her\nfavoured seats in Paphos, Idalia and the Phoenician settlement of Eryx\nin Sicily, combine with historical traditions to show that the Greek\nAphrodite was, to some extent, of Oriental character and origin. It is\nprobable, or rather certain, that even without foreign influence the\npolytheism of Greece must have developed a deity of love, as did the\nMexican and Scandinavian polytheisms. But it is equally certain that\nportions of the worship and elements in the myth of Aphrodite are\nderived from the ritual and the legends of the Oriental queen of heaven,\nadored from old Babylon to Cyprus and on many other coasts and isles of\nthe Grecian seas. The Greeks themselves recognised Asiatic influence.\nPausanias speaks of the temple of heavenly Aphrodite in Cythera as\nthe holiest and most ancient of all her shrines among the Hellenes.*\nHerodotus, again, calls the fane of the goddess in Askalon of the\nPhilistines \"the oldest of all, and the place whence her worship\ntravelled to Cyprus,\" as the Cyprians say, and the Phoenicians planted\nit in Cythera, being themselves emigrants from Syria. The Semitic\nelement in this Greek goddess and her cult first demand attention.\n\nAmong the Semitic races with whose goddess of love Aphrodite was thus\nconnected the deity had many names. She was regarded as at once the\npatroness of the moon, and of fertility in plants beasts, and women.\nAmong the Phoenicians her title is Astarte among the Assyrians she\nwas Istar; among the Syrians, Aschera; in Babylon, Mylitta.** Common\npractices in the ritual of the Eastern and Western goddesses were the\nlicence of the temple-girls, the sacrifices of animals supposed to be\npeculiarly amorous (sparrows, doves, he-goats), and, above all, the\nfestivals and fasts for Adonis.\n\n     * Paus., Hi. 28, 1.\n\n     ** So Roscher, Ausfuhr. Lexik., pp. 391, 647.   See also\n     Astarte, p. 656.\n\nThere can scarcely be a doubt that Adonis--the young hunter beloved by\nAphrodite, slain by the boar, and mourned by his mistress--is a symbol\nof the young season, the _renouveau_, and of the spring vegetation,\nruined by the extreme heats, and passing the rest of the year in the\nunderworld. Adonis was already known to Hesiod, who called him, with\nobvious meaning, the son of _Phoenix_ and Alphesiboea, while Pausanias\nattributed to him, with equal significance, Assyrian descent.* The\nname of Adonis is manifestly a form of the Phoenician Adon, \"Lord\".\nThe nature of his worship among the Greeks is most familiar from the\nfifteenth Idyll of Theocritus, with its lively picture of dead Adonis\nlying in state, of the wailing for him by Aphrodite, of the little\n\"gardens\" of quickly-growing flowers which personified him, and with the\nbeautiful nuptial hymn for his resurrection and reunion to Aphrodite.\nSimilar rites were customary at Athens.** Mannhardt gives the main\npoints in the ritual of the Adonis-feast thus: The fresh vegetation is\npersonified as a fair young man, who in ritual is represented by a kind\nof idol, and also by the plants of the \"Adonis-gardens\". The youth\ncomes in spring, the bridegroom to the bride, the vernal year is their\nhoneymoon. In the heat of summer the bridegroom perishes for the nonce,\nand passes the winter in the land of the dead. His burial is bewailed,\nhis resurrection is rejoiced in. The occasions of the rite are spring\nand midsummer. The idol and the plants are finally cast into the sea, or\ninto well-water.\n\n     * Apollod., _Bibliothec_, iii. 14, 4.\n\n     ** Aristoph., _Lysistrata_, 389; Mannhardt, _Feld und Wold\n     Kultus_, ii. 276.\n\nThe union of the divine lovers is represented by pairing of men and\nmaidens in bonds of a kindly sentimental sort,--the flowery bonds of\nvalentines.\n\nThe Oriental influence in all these rites has now been recognised; it\nis perfectly attested both by the Phoenican settlements, whence\nAphrodite-worship spread, and by the very name of her lover, the spring.\nBut all this may probably be regarded as little more than the Semitic\ncolouring of a ritual and a belief which exist among Indo-European\npeoples, quite apart from Phoenican influence. Mannhardt traces the\nvarious points in the Aphrodite cult already enumerated through the\nfolk-lore of the German peasants. The young lover, the spring, is\nthe Maikonig or Laubmann; his effigy is a clothed and crowned idol or\npuppet, or the Maibaum. The figure is thrown into the water and bewailed\nin Russia, or buried or burned with lamentations.* He is wakened and\nkissed by a maiden, who acts as the bride.** Finally, we have the\n\"May-pairs,\" a kind of valentines united in a nominal troth.\n\n     * i. 418; ii. 287.\n\n     ** i 436.\nThe probable conclusion seems to be that the Adonis ritual expresses\ncertain natural human ways of regarding the vernal year. It is not\nunlikely that the ancestors of the Greeks possessed these forms of\nfolk-lore previous to their contact with the Semitic races, and their\nborrowing of the very marked Semitic features in the festivals.\n\nFor the rest, the concern of Aphrodite with the passion of love in men\nand with general productiveness in nature is a commonplace of Greek\nliterature.\n\n\nIt would be waste of space to recount the numerous and familiar fables\nin which she inspires a happy or an ill-fated affection in gods or\nmortals. Like most other mythical figures, Aphrodite has been recognised\nby Mr. Max Mueller as the dawn; but the suggestion has not been generally\naccepted.* If Aphrodite retains any traces of an elemental origin, they\nshow chiefly in that part of her legend which is peculiarly Semitic\nin colour. For the rest, though she, like Hermes, gives good luck in\ngeneral, she is a recognised personification of passion and the queen of\nlove.\n\n     * Roscher, Lexikon, p. 406.\n\n\n\n\nHERMES.\n\nAnother child of Zeus whose elemental origin and character have been\nmuch debated is Hermes. The meaning of the name** is confessedly\nobscure.\n\nOpinion, then, is divided about the elemental origin of Hermes and the\nmeaning of his name. His character must be sought, as usual, in ancient\npoetic myth and in ritual and religion. Herodotus recognised his rites\nas extremely old, for that is the meaning of his remark*** that\nthe Athenians borrowed them from the Pelasgians, who are generally\nrecognised as prehistoric Greeks.\n\n     ** Preller, i. 307. The name of Hermes is connected by\n     Welcker (Griesch. Got., i. 342) with (-----), and he gives\n     other examples of the AEolic use of o for e. Compare\n     Curtius's Greek Etymology, English translation, 1886, vol.\n     i. p. 420. Mr. Max Mueller, on the other hand (Lectures, ii.\n     468), takes Hermes to be the son of the Dawn. Curtius\n     reserves his opinion. Mr. Max Mueller recognises Saramejas\n     and Hermes as deities of twilight. Preller (i. 309) takes\n     him for a god of dark and gloaming.\n\n     *** Herod., ii. 61.\n\nIn the rites spoken of, the images of the god were in one notable point\nlike well-known Bushmen and Admiralty Island divine representations, and\nlike those of Priapus.* In Cyllene, where Hermes was a great resident\ngod, Artemidorus** saw a representation of Hermes which was merely a\nlarge phallus, and Pausanias beheld the same sacred object, which was\nadored with peculiar reverence.*** Such was Hermes in the Elean region,\nwhence he derived his name, Cyllenian.**** He was a god of \"the liberal\nshepherds,\" conceived of in the rudest aspect, perhaps as the patron of\nfruitfulness in their flocks. Manifestly he was most unlike the graceful\nswift messenger of the gods, and guide of the ghosts of men outworn, the\ngiver of good fortune, the lord of the crowded market-place, the teacher\nof eloquence and of poetry, who appears in the literary mythology of\nGreece. Nor is there much in his Pelasgian or his Cyllenian form to\nsuggest the elemental deity either of gloaming, or of twilight, or of\nthe storm.*****\n\n     * Can the obscene story of Cicero (De Nat. Deor., iii. 22,\n     56) be a repetition of the sacred chapter by which Herodotus\n     says the Pelasgians explained the attribute of the image?\n\n     ** Artem., i. 45.\n\n     *** Paus., vi. 26, 3.\n\n     **** Homeric Hymns, iii. 2.\n\n     ***** But see Welcker, i. 343, for connection between his\n     name and his pastoral functions.\n\nBut whether the pastoral Hermes of the Pelasgians was refined into the\nmessenger-god of Homer, or whether the name and honours of that god were\ngiven to the rude Priapean patron of the shepherds by way of bringing\nhim into the Olympic circle, it seems impossible to ascertain. These\ncombinations lie far behind the ages of Greece known to us in poetry and\nhistory. The province of the god as a deity of flocks is thought to be\nattested by his favourite companion animal the ram, which often stood\nbeside him in works of art.* In one case, where he is represented with\na ram on his shoulder, the legend explained that by carrying a ram\nround the walls he saved the city of Tanagra from a pestilence.** The\nArcadians also represented him carrying a ram under his arm.*** As to\nthe phallic Hermae, it is only certain that the Athenian taste agreed\nwith that of the Admiralty Islanders in selecting such unseemly images\nto stand beside every door. But the connection of Hermes with music (he\nwas the inventor of the lyre, as the Homeric Hymn sets forth) may be\nexplained by the musical and poetical character of old Greek shepherd\nlife.\n\nIf we could set aside the various elemental theories of Hermes as the\nstorm-wind, the twilight, the child of dawn, and the rest, it would\nnot be difficult to show that one moral conception is common to his\ncharacter in many of its varied aspects. He is the god of luck, of\nprosperity, of success, of fortunate adventure. This department of his\nactivity is already recognised in Homer. He is giver of good luck.****\nHe is \"Hermes, who giveth grace and glory to all the works of men\".\nHence comes his Homeric name, the luck-bringer. The last cup at a feast\nis drunk to his honour \"for luck\".\n\n     * Pausanias, ii. 8, 4.\n\n     **  For Hermes, god of herds and flocks, see Preller, i.\n     322-325.\n\n     *** Pausanias, v. 27, 5.\n\n     **** Iliad, xiv. 491; Od. 15, 319.\n\nWhere we cry \"Shares!\" in a lucky find, the Greek cried \"Hermes in\ncommon!\" A godsend was (------). Thus among rough shepherd folk the\nluck-bringing god displayed his activity chiefly in making fruitful the\nflocks, but among city people he presided over the mart and the public\nassembly, where he gave good fortune, and over musical contests.* It is\nas the lucky god that Hermes holds his \"fair wand of wealth and riches,\nthree-leafed and golden, which wardeth off all evil\"** Hermes has thus,\namong his varied departments, none better marked out than the department\nof luck, a very wide and important province in early thought. But while\nhe stands in this relation to men, to the gods he is the herald\nand messenger, and, in some undignified myths, even the pander and\naccomplice. In the Homeric Hymn this child of Zeus and Maia shows his\nversatile character by stealing the oxen of Apollo, and fashioning the\nlyre on the day of his birth. The theft is sometimes explained as a\nsolar myth; the twilight steals the bright days of the sun-god. But he\ncould only steal them day by day, whereas Hermes lifts the cattle in an\nhour.*** The surname of Hermes, is usually connected with the slaying of\nArgus, a supernatural being with many eyes, set by Hera to watch Io, the\nmistress of Zeus.****\n\n     * See also Preller, i. 326, note 3.\n\n     ** Hymn, 529.    See Custom and Myth, \"The Divining Rod \".\n\n     *** Preller, i. 316, note 2; Welcker, Gr. Got, i. 338, and\n     note 11.\n\n     **** AEsch., Prom. Vinct, 568.\n\nHermes lulled the creature to sleep with his music and cut off his head.\nThis myth yields a very natural explanation if Hermes be the twilight\nof dawn, and if Argus be the many-eyed midnight heaven of stars watching\nIo, the moon. If Hermes be the storm-wind, it seems just as easy to say\nthat he kills Argus by driving a cloud over the face of heaven. In his\ncapacity as the swift-winged messenger, who, in the _Odyssey_, crosses\nthe great gulf of the sea, and scarce brushes the brine with his\nfeathers, Hermes might be explained, by any one so minded, either as\nlightning or wind. Neither hypothesis suits very well with his duties\nas guide of the ghosts, whom he leads down darkling ways with his\nwand of gold.* In this capacity he and the ghosts were honoured at the\nAthenian All-Souls' day, in February.**\n\nSuch are the chief mythic aspects of Hermes. He has many functions;\ncommon to all of them is the power of bringing all to a happy end. This\nresemblance to twilight, \"which bringeth all things good,\" as Sappho\nsang, may be welcome to interpreters who see in Hermes a personification\nof twilight. How ingeniously, and even beautifully, this crepuscular\ntheory can be worked out, and made to explain all the activities of\nHermes, may be read in an essay of Paul de St. Victor.*** What is the\ndawn? The passage from night to day. Hermes therefore is the god of all\nsuch fleet transitions, blendings, changes. The messenger of the gods,\nhe flits before them, a heavenly ambassador to mortals. Two light wings\nquiver on his rounded cap, _the vault of heaven in little_....\n\n     * Odyssey, xxiv. 1-14.\n\n     ** Preller, i. 330, and see the notes on the passage. The\n     ceremonies were also reminiscent of the Deluge.\n\n     *** Les Deux Masques, i. 316-326.\n\nThe highways cross and meet and increase the meetings of men; so Hermes,\nthe ceaseless voyager, is their protecting genius.... Who should guide\nthe ghosts down the darkling ways but the deity of the dusk; sometimes\nhe made love to fair ghostly maids whom he attended. So easy is it\nto interpret all the functions of a god as reflections of elemental\nphenomena. The origin of Hermes remains obscure; but he is, in his\npoetical shape, one of the most beautiful and human of the deities. He\nhas little commerce with the beasts; we do not find him with many animal\ncompanions, like Apollo, nor adored, like Dionysus, with a ritual in\nwhich are remnants of animal-worship. The darker things of his oldest\nphallic forms remain obscure in his legends, concealed by beautiful\nfancies, as the old wooden phallic figure, the gift of Cecrops, which\nPausanias saw in Athens, was covered with myrtle boughs. Though he is\noccasionally in art represented with a beard, he remains in the fancy as\nthe Odysseus met him, \"Hermes of the golden wand, like unto a young man,\nwith the first down on his cheek, when youth is loveliest\".\n\n\n\n\nDEMETER.\n\nThe figure of Demeter, the _mater dolorosa_ of paganism, the sorrowing\nmother seated on the stone of lamentation, is the most touching in Greek\nmythology. The beautiful marble statue found by Mr. Newton at Cnidos,\nand now in the British Museum, has the sentiment and the expression of\na Madonna. Nowhere in ancient religion was human love, regret, hope and\n_desiderium_ or wistful longing typified so clearly as in the myth and\nritual of Demeter. She is severed from her daughter, Persephone, who\ngoes down among the dead, but they are restored to each other in the\njoy of the spring's renewal. The mysteries of Eleusis, which represented\nthese events in a miracle-play, were certainly understood by Plato and\nPindar and AEschylus to have a mystic and pathetic significance. They\nshadowed forth the consolations that the soul has fancied for herself,\nand gave promise of renewed and undisturbed existence in the society\nof all who have been dear on earth. Yet Aristophanes, in the _Frogs_,\nventures even here to bring in his raillery, and makes Xanthias hint\nthat the mystae, the initiate, \"smell of roast-pig\". No doubt they had\nbeen solemnly sacrificing, and probably tasting the flesh of the\npig, the sacred animal of Demeter, whose bones, with clay or marble\n_figurines_ representing him, are found in the holy soil of her temples.\nThus even in the mystery of Demeter the grotesque, the barbaric element\nappears, and it often declares itself in her legend and in her ritual.\n\nA scientific study of Demeter must endeavour to disentangle the two main\nfactors in her myth and cult, and to hold them apart. For this purpose\nit is necessary to examine the development of the cult as far as it can\nbe traced.\n\nAs to the name of the goddess, for once there is agreement, and even\ncertainty. It seems hardly to be disputed that Demeter is Greek, and\nmeans _mother-earth or earth the mother_.*\n\n     * Welcker, Oriech. QML, i. 385-387; Preller, i. 618, note 2;\n     Maury, Rel. des Grdes, L 69. Apparently \"A\" still means\n     earth in Albanian; Max Mueller, Selected Essays, ii. 428.\n\nThere is his mythological panacea. Mannhardt is all for \"Corn-mother,\"\nCorn being nothing peculiarly Hellenic or Aryan in the adoration of\nearth. A comparative study of earth-worship would prove it to be very\nwidely diffused, even among non-European tribes. The Demeter cult,\nhowever, is distinct enough from the myth of Gaea, the Earth, considered\nas, in conjunction with Heaven, the parent of the gods. Demeter is\nrather the fruitful soil regarded as a person than the elder Titanic\nformless earth personified as Gaea. Thus conceived as the foster-mother\nof life, earth is worshipped in America by the Shawnees and Potawatomies\nas _Me-mk-kum-mik-o-kwi_, the \"mother of earth\" It will be shown that\nthis goddess appears casually in a Potawatomie legend, which is merely\na savage version of the sacred story of Eleusis.* Tacitus found that\nMother Hertha was adored in Germany with rites so mysterious that the\nslaves who took part in them were drowned. \"Whereof ariseth a secret\nterror and an holy ignorance what that should be which they only see who\nare a-perishing.\"** It is curious that in the folk-lore of Europe, up to\nthis century, food-offerings to the earth were _buried_ in Germany and\nby Gipsies; for the same rite is practised by the Potawatomies.***\n\n     * Compare Maury, Religions de la Grece, i. 72.\n\n     ** Germania, 40, translation of 1622.\n\n     *** Compare Tylor, Prim. Cult, ii. 273, with Father De Smet,\n     Oregon Missions, New York, 1847, p. 351.\n\nThe Mexican Demeter, Centeotl, is well known, and Acosta's account of\nreligious ceremonies connected with harvest in Mexico and Peru might\nalmost be taken for a description of the Greek _Eiresione_. The god of\nagriculture among the Tongan Islanders has one very curious point of\nresemblance to Demeter. In the Iliad (v. 505) we read that Demeter\npresides over the fanning of the grain. \"Even as a wind carrieth the\nchaff about the sacred threshing-floors when men are winnowing, _what\ntime golden Demeter, in rush of wind_, maketh division of grain and\nchaff.\".... Now the name of the \"god of wind, and weather, rain, harvest\nand vegetation in general\" in the Tongan Islands is Alo-Alo, literally\n\"to fan\".* One is reminded of Joachim Du Bellay's poem, \"To the\nWinnowers of Corn\". Thus from all these widely diffused examples it is\nmanifest that the idea of a divinity of earth, considered as the mother\nof fruits, and as powerful for good or harm in harvest-time, is anything\nbut peculiar to Greece or to Aryan peoples. In her character as potent\nover this department of agriculture, the Greek goddess was named \"she\nof the rich threshing-floors,\" \"of the corn heaps,\" \"of the corn in the\near,\" \"of the harvest-home,\" \"of the sheaves,\" \"of the fair fruits,\" \"of\nthe goodly gifts,\" and so forth.**\n\n     * Mariner's _Tonga Islands_, 1827, ii. 107. The Attic\n     Eiresioni may be studied in Mannhardt, Wald und Feld Qultus,\n     it 312, and Aztec and Peruvian harvest rites of a similar\n     character in Custom and Myth, pp. 17-20.   See also Prim.\n     Quit., ii. 306, for other examples.\n\n     ** Welcker, ii, 468-470, a collection of such titles.\n\nIn popular Greek religion, then, Demeter was chiefly regarded as the\ndivinity of earth at seed-time and harvest. Perhaps none of the gods\nwas worshipped in so many different cities and villages, or possessed\nso large a number of shrines and rustic chapels. There is a pleasant\npicture of such a chapel, with its rural disorder, in the _Golden Ass_\nof Apuleius. Psyche, in her search for Cupid, \"came to the temple and\nwent in, whereas behold she espied sheaves of corn lying on a heap,\nblades with withered garlands, and reeds of barley. Moreover, she saw\nhooks, scythes, sickles and other instruments to reape, but everie thing\nlaide out of order, and as it were cast in by the hands of labourers;\nwhich when Psyche saw she gathered up and put everything in order.\" The\nchapel of Demeter, in short, was a tool-house, dignified perhaps with\nsome rude statue and a little altar. Every village, perhaps every villa,\nwould have some such shrine.\n\nBehind these observances, and behind the harvest-homes and the\nrites--half ritual, half folk-lore--which were expected to secure the\nfertility of the seed sown, there lurked in the minds of priests and\nin the recesses of sanctuaries certain mystic and secret practices of\nadoration. In these mysteries Demeter was doubtless worshipped in her\n_Chthonian_ character as a goddess of earth, powerful over those who are\nburied in her bosom, over death and the dead. In these hidden mysteries\nof her cult, moreover, survived ancient legends of the usual ugly sort,\ntales of the amours of the goddess in bestial guise. Among such rites\nPausanias mentions, at Hermione of Dryopian Argolis, the _fete_ of\nChthonian Demeter, a summer festival. The procession of men, women, boys\nand priests dragged a struggling heifer to the doors of the temple, and\nthrust her in unbound. Within the fane she was butchered by four old\nwomen armed with sickles. The doors were then opened, and a second and\nthird heifer were driven in and slain by the old women. \"This marvel\nattends the sacrifice, that all the heifers fall on the same side as\nthe first that was slain.\" There remains somewhat undivulged. \"The things\nwhich they specially worship, I know not, nor any man, neither native\nor foreigner, but only the ancient women concerned in the rite.\"*\nIn Arcadia there was a temple of Demeter, whose priests boasted a\nconnection with Eleusis, and professed to perform the mysteries in the\nEleusinian manner. Here stood two great stones, with another over them,\nprobably (if we may guess) a prehistoric dolmen. Within the dolmen,\nwhich was so revered that the neighbours swore their chief oath by it,\nwere kept certain sacred scriptures. These were read aloud once a\nyear to the initiated by a priest who covered his face with a mask of\nDemeter. At the same time he smote the earth with rods, and called on\nthe folk below the earth. Precisely the same practice, smiting the earth\nwith rods, is employed by those who consult diviners among the Zulus.**\nThe Zulu woman having a spirit of divination says, \"Strike the ground\nfor them\" (the spirits). \"See, they say you came to inquire about\nsomething.\" The custom of wearing a mask of the deity worshipped is\ncommon in the religions of animal-worship in Egypt, Mexico, the South\nSeas and elsewhere. The Aztec celebrant, we saw, wore a mask made of the\nskin of the thigh of the human victim. Whether this Arcadian Demeter was\nrepresented with the head of a beast does not appear; she had a mare's\nhead in Phigalia. One common point between this Demeter of the Pheneatae\nand the Eleusinian is her _taboo_ on beans, which are so strangely\nmystical a vegetable in Greek and Roman ritual.***\n\n     * Paus., li. 86.\n\n     ** Callaway, Izinyanga Zokvbula, p. 362\n\n     *** For a collection of passages see Aglaophamus, 251-254.\n\nThe Black Demeter of the Phigalians in Arcadia was another most\narchaic form of the goddess. In Phigalia the myth of the wrath and\nreconciliation of the goddess assumed a brutal and unfamiliar aspect.\nThe common legend, universally known, declares that Demeter sorrowed for\nthe _enlevement_ of her daughter, Persephone, by Hades. The Phigalians\nadded another cause; the wandering Demeter had assumed the form of a\nmare, and was violently wooed by Poseidon in the guise of a stallion.*\n\n     * The same story was told of Cronus and Philyra, of Agni and\n     a cow in the _Satapatha Brahmana_ (English translation, i.\n     326), of Saranyu, daughter of Tvashtri, who \"fled in the\n     form of a mare\". Visvasvat, in like manner, assumed the\n     shape of a horse, and followed her. From their intercourse\n     sprang the two Asvins. See Muir, Sanskrit Texts, v. 227, or\n     _Rig- Veda_, x. 17, 1. Here we touch a very curious point.\n     Erinnys was au Arcadian cognomen of the Demeter who was\n     wedded as a mare (Paus., viii. 25). Now, Mr. Max Mueller says\n     that \"Erinnys is the Vedic Saranyu, the Dawn,\" and we have\n     seen that both Demeter Erinnys and Saranyu were wooed and\n     won in the form of mares (Select Essays, i. 401, 492-622).\n     The curious thing is that, having so valuable a proof in his\n     hand as the common bestial amours of both Saranyu and\n     Erinnys Demeter, Mr. Max Mueller does not produce it. The\n     Scandinavian horse-loves of Loki also recur to the memory.\n     Prajapati's loves in the shape of a deer are familiar in the\n     Brahmanas. If Saranyu=Erinnys, and both=Dawn, then a dawn-\n     myth has been imported into the legend of Demeter, whom\n     nobody, perhaps, will call a dawn-goddess. Schwartz, as\n     usual, makes the myth a storm-myth, and Demeter a goddess of\n     storms (Ursprwig der Myth., p. 164).\n\nThe goddess, in wrath at this outrage, attired herself in black mourning\nraiment, and withdrew into a cave, according to the Phigalians, and\nthe fruits of the earth perished. Zeus learned from Pan the place of\nDemeter's retreat, and sent to her the Moerae or Fates, who persuaded her\nto abate her anger. The cave became her holy place, and there was set an\nearly wooden _xoanon_, or idol, representing the goddess in the shape of\na woman with the head and mane of a mare, in memory of her involuntary\nintrigue in that shape. Serpents and other creatures were twined about\nher head, and in one hand, for a mystic reason undivulged, she held a\ndolphin, in the other a dove. The wooden image was destroyed by fire,\nand disasters fell on the Phigalians. Onatas was then employed to make a\nbronze statue like the old idol, wherof the fashion was revealed to him\nin a dream. This restoration was made about the time of the Persian war.\nThe sacrifices offered to this Demeter were fruits, grapes, honey and\nuncarded wool; whence it is clear that the black goddess was a true\nearth-mother, and received the fruits of the earth and the flock. The\nimage by Onatas had somewhat mysteriously disappeared before the days of\nPausanias.*\n\n     * Paus., viii. 42. Compare viii. 25, 4, for the horse Arion,\n     whom Demeter bore to Poseidon.\n\nEven in her rude Arcadian shape Demeter is a goddess of the fruits\nof earth. It is probable that her most archaic form survived from the\n\"Pelasgian\" clays in remote mountainous regions. Indeed Herodotus,\nobserving the resemblance between the Osirian mysteries in Egypt and the\nThesmophoria of Demeter in Greece, boldly asserts that the Thesmophoria\nwere Egyptian, and were brought to the Pelasgians from Egypt (ii. 171).\nThe Pelasgians were driven out of Peloponnesus by the Dorians, and the\nArcadians, who were not expelled, retained the rites. As Pelasgians also\nlingered long in Attica, Herodotus recognised the Thesmophoria as\nin origin Egyptian. In modern language this theory means that the\nThesmophoria were thought to be a rite of prehistoric antiquity older\nthan the Dorian invasion. Herodotus naturally explained resemblances\nin the myth and ritual of distant peoples as the result of borrowing,\nusually from Egypt, an idea revived by M. Foucart. These analogies,\nhowever, are more frequently produced by the working out of similar\nthoughts, presenting themselves to minds similarly situated in a\nsimilar way. The mysteries of Demeter offer an excellent specimen of\nthe process. While the Greeks, not yet collected into cities, lived\nin village settlements, each village would possess its own feasts,\nmysteries and \"medicine-dances,\" as the Red Indians say, appropriate to\nseedtime and harvest. For various reasons, certain of these local rites\nattained high importance in the development of Greek civilisation The\nEleusinian performances, for instance, were adopted into the state\nritual of a famous city, Athens, and finally acquired a national status,\nbeing open to all not disqualified Hellenes. In this development the old\nlocal ritual for the propitiation of Demeter, for the fertility of the\nseed sown, and for the gratification of the dead ancestors, was caught\nup into the religion of the state, and was modified by advancing\nideas of religion and morality. But the local Athenian mystery of the\nThesmophoria probably retained more of its primitive shape and purpose.\n\nThe Thesmophoria was the feast of seed-time, and Demeter was adored by\nthe women as the patroness of human as well as of universal fertility.\nThus a certain jocund and licentious element was imparted to the rites,\nwhich were not to be witnessed by men.\n\nThe Demeter of the Thesmophoria was she who introduced and patronised\nthe (------) of marriage, as Homer says of Odysseus and Penelope.* What\nwas done at the Thesmophoria Herodotus did not think fit to tell. A\nscholiast on Lucian's _Dialogues of Courtesans_ let out the secret in\na much later age. He repeats the story of the swineherd Eubuleus, whose\npigs were swallowed up by the earth when it opened to receive Hades and\nPersephone. In honour and in memory of Eubuleus, pigs were thrown into\nthe cavernof Demeter. Then certain women brought up the decaying flesh\nof the dead pigs, and placed it on the altar. It was believed that to\nmix this flesh with the seed-corn secured abundance of harvest. Though\nthe rite is magical in character, perhaps the decaying flesh might act\nas manure, and be of real service to the farmer. Afterwards images of\npigs, such as Mr. Newton found in a hole in the holy plot of Demeter at\nCnidos, were restored to the place whence the flesh had been taken. The\npractice was believed to make marriage fruitful; its virtues were for\nthe husband as well as for the husbandman.** However the Athenians got\nthe rite, whether they evolved it or adapted it from some \"Pelasgian\"\nor other prehistoric people, similar practices occur among the Khonds in\nIndia and the Pawnees in America. The Khonds sacrifice a pig and a human\nvictim, the Pawnees a girl of a foreign tribe.\n\n     * Odyssey, xxiii. 295.\n\n     ** Newton, Hulicarn., plate iv. pp. 331, 371-391.\n\nThe fragments of flesh are not mixed with the seed-corn, but buried on\nthe borders of the fields.* The ancient, perhaps \"Pelasgian,\" ritual\nof Demeter had thus its savage features and its savage analogues.\nMore remarkable still is the Pawnee version, as we may call it, of\nthe Eleusinia. Curiously, the Red Indian myth which resembles that of\nDemeter and Persephone is _not_ told about Me-suk-kum-mik-o-kwi, the Red\nIndian Mother Earth, to whom offerings are made, valuable objects being\nburied for her in brass kettles.** The American tale is attached to the\nlegend of Manabozho and his brother Chibiabos, not to that of the Earth\nMother and her daughter, if in America she had a daughter.\n\nThe account of the Pawnee mysteries and their origin is worth quoting in\nfull, as it is among the most remarkable of mythical coincidences. If\nwe decline to believe that Pere De Smet invented the tale for the mere\npurpose of mystifying mythologists, we must, apparently, suppose that\nthe coincidences are due to the similar workings of the human mind in\nthe Prairies as at Eleusis. We shall first give the Red Indian version.\nIt was confided to De Smet, as part of the general tradition of the\nPawnees, by an old chief, and was first published by De Smet in his\n_Oregon Mission_*** Tanner speaks of the legend as one that the Indians\nchant in their \"medicine-songs,\" which record the sacred beliefs of the\nrace.****\n\n     * De Smet, Oregon Missions, p. 359; Mr. Russell's, \"Report\"\n     in Major Campbell's Personal Narrative, 1864, pp. 55, 113.\n\n     ** Tanner's Narrative, 1830, p. 115.\n\n     *** New York, 1847.\n\n     **** Ibid., New York, 1830, pp. 192, 193.\n\nHe adds that many of these songs are noted down, by a method probably\npeculiar to the Indians, on birch-bark or small flat pieces of wood, the\nideas being conveyed by emblematical figures. When it is remembered that\nthe _luck_ of the tribe depends on these songs and rites, it will be\nadmitted that they are probably of considerable antiquity, and that\nthe Indians probably did not borrow the story about the origin of their\nritual from some European conversant with the Homeric hymn to Demeter.\n\nHere follows the myth, as borrowed (without acknowledgment) by\nSchoolcraft from De Smet:--*\n\n\"The Manitos (powers or spirits) were jealous of Manabozho and\nChibiabos. Manabozho warned his brother never to be alone, but one day\nhe ventured on the frozen lake and was drowned by the Manitos. Manabozho\nwailed along the shores. He waged a war against all the Manitos....\nHe called on the dead body of his brother. He put the whole country in\ndread by his lamentations. He then besmeared his face with black,\nand sat down six years to lament, uttering the name of Chibiabos. The\nManitos consulted what to do to assuage his melancholy and his wrath.\nThe oldest and wisest of them, who had had no hand in the death of\nChibiabos, offered to undertake the task of reconciliation. They built a\nsacred lodge close to that of Manabozho, and prepared a sumptuous feast.\nThey then assembled in order, one behind the other, each carrying under\nhis arm a sack of the skin of some favourite animal, as a beaver, an\notter, or a lynx, and filled with precious and curious medicines culled\nfrom all plants. These they exhibited, and invited him to the feast with\npleasing words and ceremonies. He immediately raised his head, uncovered\nit, and washed off his besmearments and mourning colours, and then\nfollowed them. They offered him a cup of liquor prepared from the\nchoicest medicines, at once as a propitiation and an initiatory rite.\nHe drank it at a single draught, and found his melancholy departed. They\nthen commenced their dances and songs, united with various ceremonies.\nAll danced, all sang, all acted with the utmost gravity, with exactness\nof time, motion and voice. Manabozho was cured; he ate, danced, sang and\nsmoked the sacred pipe.\n\n     * Schoolcraft, L 318.\n\n\"In this manner the mysteries of the great medicine-dance were\nintroduced.\n\n\"The Manitos now united their powers to bring Chibiabos to life. They\ndid so, and brought him to life, but it was forbidden to enter the\nlodge. They gave him, through a chink, a burning coal, and told him to\ngo and preside over the country of souls and reign over the land of the\ndead.\n\n\"Manabozho, now retired from men, commits the care of medicinal\nplants to Misukumigakwa, or the Mother of the Earth, to whom he makes\nofferings.\"\n\nIn all this the resemblance to the legend of the Homeric hymn to Demeter\nis undeniable. The hymn is too familiar to require a long analysis. We\nread how Demeter had a fair daughter, Persephone; how the Lord of the\nDead carried her off as she was gathering flowers; how Demeter sought\nher with burning torches; and how the goddess came to Eleusis and\nthe house of Celeus in the guise of an old wife. There she dwelt in\nsorrow, neither eating nor drinking, till she tasted of a mixture of\nbarley and water (_cyceon_), and was moved to smile by the mirth of\nIambe. Yet she still held apart in wrath from the society of the gods,\nand still the earth bore not her fruits, till the gods bade Hermes\nrestore Persephone. But Persephone had tasted one pomegranate-seed in\nHades, and therefore, according to a world-wide belief, she was under\nbonds to Hades. For only half the year does she return to earth; yet\nby this Demeter was comforted; the soil bore fruits again, and Demeter\nshowed forth to the chiefs of Eleusis her sacred mysteries and the\nritual of their performance.*\n\nThe Persephone myth is not in Homer, though in Homer Persephone is Lady\nof the Dead. Hesiod alludes to it in the _Theogony_ (912-914); but the\nchief authority is the Homeric hymn, which Matthaeus found (1777) in\na farmyard at Moscow. \"Inter pullos et porcos latuerat\"--the pigs of\nDemeter had guarded the poem of her mysteries.** As to the date and\nauthorship of the hymn, the learned differ in opinion. Probably most\nreaders will regard it as a piece of poetry, like the hymn to Aphrodite,\nrather than as a \"mystic chain of verse\" meant solely for hieratic\npurposes. It is impossible to argue with safety that the Eleusinian\nmysteries and legend were later than Homer, because Homer does not\nallude to them.\n\n     * The superstition about the food of the dead is found in\n     New Zealand, Melanesia, Scotland, Finland and among the\n     Ojibbeways. Compare \"Wandering Willie's\" tale in\n     _Redgaunttet_.\n\n     ** Ruhnken, ap. Hignard, _Les Hymnes Homeriques_, p. 292,\n     Paris, 1864.\n\nHe has no occasion to speak of them. Possibly the mysteries were, in his\ntime, but the rites of a village or little town; they attained celebrity\nowing to their adoption by Athens, and they ended by becoming the most\nfamous national festival. The meaning of the legend, in its origin,\nwas probably no more than a propitiation of earth, and a ceremony that\nimitated, and so secured, the return of spring and vegetation. This\nearly conception, which we have found in America, was easily combined\nwith doctrines of the death and revival, not of the year, not of the\nseed sown, but of the human soul. These ideas were capable of endless\nillustration and amplification by priests; and the mysteries, by\nPlato's time, and even by Pindar's, were certainly understood to have a\npurifying influence on conduct and a favourable effect on the fortunes\nof the soul in the next world.\n\n\"Happy whosoever of mortal men has looked on these things; but whoso\nhath had no part nor lot in this sacrament hath no equal fate when once\nhe hath perished and passed within the pall of darkness.\"* Of such\nrites we may believe that Plato was thinking when he spoke of\n\"beholding apparitions innocent and simple, and calm and happy, _as in a\nmystery_\"** Nor is it strange that, when Greeks were seeking for a\nsign, and especially for some creed that might resist the new worship of\nChrist, Plutarch and the Neo-Platonic philosophers tried to cling to the\npromise of the mysteries of Demeter.\n\n     *  Homeric Hymn, 480-482.\n\n     ** Phaedrus, 260.\n\nThey regarded her secret things as \"a dreamy shadow of that spectacle\nand that rite,\" the spectacle and rite of the harmonious order of the\nuniverse, some time to be revealed to the souls of the blessed.* It may\nnot have been a drawback to the consolations of the hidden services\nthat they made no appeal to the weary and wandering reason of the later\nheathens. Tired out with endless discourse on fate and free will,\ngods and demons, allegory and explanation, they could repose on mere\nspectacles and ceremonies and pious ejaculations, \"without any evidence\nor proof offered for the statements \". Indeed, writers like Plutarch\nshow almost the temper of Pascal, trying to secure rest for their souls\nby a wise passiveness and pious contemplation, and participation in\nsacraments not understood.\n\nAs to the origin of these sacraments, we may believe, with Lobeck, that\nit was no priestly system of mystic and esoteric teaching, moral or\nphysical. It was but the \"medicine-dance\" of a very old Greek tribal\nsettlement, perhaps from the first with an ethical element. But from\nthis, thanks to the genius of Hellas, sprang all the beauty of the\nEleusinian ritual, and all the consolation it offered the bereaved, all\nthe comfort it yielded to the weary and heavy laden.** That the popular\nreligious excitement caused by the mysteries and favoured by the\ndarkness often produced scenes of lustful revelry, may be probable\nenough. \"Revivals\" everywhere have this among other consequences. But\nwe may share Lobeck's scepticism as to the wholesale charges of iniquity\nbrought by the Fathers.\n\n     * Plutarch, De Def. Orac. xxii\n\n     ** Lobeck, Aglaoph., 133.\n\nIn spite of survivals and slanders, the religion of Demeter was among\nthe most natural, beautiful and touching of Greek beliefs. The wild\nelement was not lacking; but a pious contemporary of Plato, when he\nbathed in the sea with his pig before beholding the mystery-play,\nprobably made up his mind to blink the barbaric and licentious part of\nthe performances.\n\n\n\n\nCONCLUSION.\n\nThis brief review of Greek divine myths does not of course aim at\nexhausting the subject. We do not pretend to examine the legends of\nall the Olympians. But enough has been said to illustrate the method of\ninterpretation, and to give specimens of the method at work. It has been\nseen that there is only agreement among philologists as to the origin\nand meaning of two out of nearly a dozen divine names. Zeus is admitted\nto be connected with _Dyaus_, and to have originally meant \"sky\".\nDemeter is accepted as Greek, with the significance of \"Mother Earth\".\nBut the meaning and the roots of Athene, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes,\nCronus, Aphrodite, Dionysus--we might add Poseidon and Hephaestus--are\nvery far from being known. Nor is there much more general agreement as\nto the original elemental phenomena or elemental province held by all of\nthese gods and goddesses. The moon, the wind, the twilight, the sun,\nthe growth and force of vegetation, the dark, the night, the atmosphere,\nhave been shuffled and dealt most variously to the various deities by\nlearned students of myth. This complete diversity of opinion must be\naccepted as a part in the study.\n\nThe learned, as a rule, only agree in believing (1) that the names hold\nthe secret of the original meaning of the gods; and (2) that the gods\nare generally personifications of elements or of phenomena, or have\nbeen evolved out of such personifications. Beyond this almost all is\nconfusion, doubt, \"the twilight of the gods\".\n\nIn this darkness there is nothing to surprise. We are not wandering in\na magical mist poured around us by the gods, but in a fog which has\nnatural causes. First, there is the untrustworthiness of attempts to\nanalyse proper names. \"With every proper name the etymological operation\nis by one degree more difficult than with an appellative.... We have\nto deal with two unknown quantities,\" origin and meaning; whereas in\nappellatives we know the meaning and have only to hunt for the origin.\nAnd of all proper names mythological names are the most difficult to\ninterpret. Curtius has shown how many paths may be taken in the analysis\nof the name Achilles. The second part may be of the stem: people, or the\nstem: stone. Does the first part of the word mean \"water\" (cf. aqua), or\nis it equivalent to: (\"bulwark\" or \"the people\")? Or is it akin to:\n\"one who causes pain\"? Or is the: \"prothetic\"? and is (it) the root,\nand does it mean \"clear-shining\"? Or is the word related to (------),\nand does it mean \"dark\"?\n\nAll these and other explanations are offered by the learned, and\nare chosen by Curtius to show the uncertainty and difficulty of the\netymological process as applied to names in myth. Cornutus remarked\nlong ago that the great antiquity of the name of Athene made its\netymology difficult. Difficult it remains.* Whatever the science of\nlanguage may accomplish in the future, it is baffled for the present\nby the divine names of Greece, or by most of them, and these the most\nimportant.**\n\n     * Cf. Curtius, Greek Etym., Engl, transl., i. 137-139.\n\n     ** Gruppe, Griech. Culte und Mythtis, p. 169, selects\n     Iapetos, Kadmos, Kabeiros, Adonis, Baitylos, Typhon, Nysos\n     (in Dionysos), Acheron, Kimmerians and Gryps, aa certainly\n     Phoenician. But these are not the names of the high gods.\n\nThere is another reason for the obscurity of the topic besides the\ndarkness in which the origin of the names has been wrapped by time. The\nmyths had been very long in circulation before we first meet them in\nHomer and Hesiod. We know not whence the gods came. Perhaps some of them\nwere the chief divine conceptions of various Hellenic clans before the\nunion of clans into states. However this may be, when we first encounter\nthe gods in Homer and Hesiod, they have been organised into a family,\nwith regular genealogies and relationships. Functions have been assigned\nto them, and departments. Was Hermes always the herald? Was Hephaestus\nalways the artisan? Was Athene from the first the well-beloved daughter\nof Zeus? Was Apollo from the beginning the mediator with men by oracles?\nWho can reply? We only know that the divine ministry has been thoroughly\norganised, and departments assigned, as in a cabinet, before we meet the\ngods on Olympus. What they were in the ages before this organisation, we\ncan only conjecture. Some may have been adopted from clans whose chief\ndeity they were. If any one took all the Samoan gods, he could combine\nthem into a family with due functions and gradations. No one man did\nthis, we may believe, for Greece: though Herodotus thought it was done\nby Homer and Hesiod. The process went on through centuries we know not\nof; still less do we know what or where the gods were before the process\nbegan.\n\nThus the obscurity in which the divine origins are hidden is natural and\ninevitable. Our attempt has been to examine certain birth-marks which\nthe gods bear from that hidden antiquity, relics of fur and fin\nand feather, inherited from ancestral beasts like those which ruled\nEgyptian, American and Australian religions. We have also remarked the\nbrilliant divinity of beautiful form which the gods at last attained, in\nmarble, in gold, in ivory and in the fancy of poets and sculptors. Here\nis the truly Hellenic element, here is the ideal--Athene arming, Hera\nwith the girdle of Aphrodite, Hermes with his wand, Apollo with the\nsilver bow--to this the Hellenic intellect attained; this ideal it\nmade more imperishable than bronze. Finally, the lovely shapes of gods\n\"defecate to a pure transparency\" in the religion of Aristotle and\nPlutarch. But the gods remain beautiful in their statues, beautiful\nin the hymns of Pindar and the plays of Sophocles; hideous, often, in\ntemple myth, and ancient _xoanon_, and secret rite, till they are all,\ngood and evil, cast out by Christianity. The most brilliant civilisation\nof the world never expelled the old savage from its myth and its ritual.\nThe lowest savagery scarcely ever, if ever, wholly loses sight of a\nheavenly Father.\n\nIn conclusion, we may deprecate the charge of _exclusivism_. The savage\nelement is something, nay, is much, in Greek myth and ritual, but it is\nnot everything. The truth, grace and beauty of the myths are given\nby \"the clear spirit\" of Hellas. Nor is all that may be deplored\nnecessarily native. We may well believe in borrowing from Phoenicians,\nwho in turn may have borrowed from Babylon. Examples of this process\nhave occasionally been noted. It will be urged by some students that the\nwild element was adopted from the religion of prehistoric races, whom\nthe Greeks found in possession when first they seized the shores of the\ncountry. This may be true in certain cases, but historical evidence\nis not to be obtained. We lose ourselves in theories of Pelasgians\nand Pre-Pelasgians, and \"la Grece avant les Grecs\". In any case, the\nargument that the more puzzling part of Greek myth is a \"survival\" would\nnot be affected. Borrowed, or inherited, or imitated, certain of the\nstories and rites are savage in origin, and the argument insists on no\nmore as to that portion of Greek mythology.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX. HEROIC AND ROMANTIC MYTHS.\n\n     A new class of myths--Not explanatory--Popular tales--Heroic\n     and romantic myths--(1) Savage tales--(2) European Contes--\n     (3) Heroic myths--Their origin--Diffusion--History of their\n     study--Grimm's theory--Aryan theory--Benfey's theory--\n     Ancient Egyptian stories examined--Wanderung's theorie--\n     Conclusion.\n\nThe myths which have hitherto been examined possess, for the most\npart, one common feature. All, or almost all of them, obviously aim at\nsatisfying curiosity about the causes of things, at supplying gaps in\nhuman knowledge. The nature-myths account for various aspects of Nature,\nfrom the reed by, the river-side that once was a fair maiden pursued by\nPan, to the remotest star that was a mistress of Zeus; from the reason\nwhy the crow is black, to the reason why the sun is darkened in eclipse.\nThe divine myths, again, are for the more part essays in the same\ndirection. They try to answer these questions: \"Who made things?\" \"How\ndid this world begin?\" \"What are the powers, felt to be greater than\nourselves, which regulate the order of events and control the destinies\nof men?\" Myths reply to all these questionings, and the answers are\nalways in accordance with that early nebulous condition of thought\nand reason where observation lapses into superstition, religion into\nscience, science into fancy, knowledge into fable. In the same manner the\nmyths which we do not treat of here--the myths of the origin of death,\nof man's first possession of fire, and of the nature of his home among\nthe dead--are all tentative contributions to knowledge. All seek to\nsatisfy the eternal human desire to _know_. \"Whence came death?\" man\nasks, and the myths answer him with a story of Pandora, of Maui, of\nthe moon and the hare, or the bat and the tree. \"How came fire to be a\nservant of ours?\" The myths tell of Prometheus the fire-stealer, or of\nthe fire-stealing wren, or frog, or coyote, or cuttlefish. \"What manner\nof life shall men live after death? in what manner of home?\" The myth\nanswers with tales of Pohjola, of Hades, of Amenti, of all that, in the\nAustralian black fellow's phrase, \"lies beyond the Rummut,\" beyond the\nsurf of the Pacific, beyond the \"stream of Oceanus,\" beyond the horizon\nof mortality. To these myths, and to the more mysterious legend of the\nFlood, we may return some other day. For the present, it must suffice\nto repeat that all these myths (except, perhaps, the traditions of the\nDeluge) fill up gaps in early human knowledge, and convey information as\nto matters outside of practical experience.\n\nBut there are classes of tales, or _maerchen_, or myths which, as far as\ncan be discovered, have but little of the explanatory element. Though\nthey have been interpreted as broken-down nature-myths, the variety of\nthe interpretations put upon them proves that, at least, their elemental\nmeaning is dim and uncertain, and makes it very dubious whether they\never had any such significance at all. It is not denied here that\nsome of these myths and tales may have been suggested by elemental and\nmeteorological phenomena. For example, when we find almost everywhere\namong European peasants, and among Samoyeds and Zulus, as in Greek\nheroic-myths of the Jason cycle, the story of the children who run away\nfrom a cannibal or murderous mother or step-mother, we are reminded of\ncertain nature-myths. The stars are often said* to be the children of\nthe sun, and to flee away at dawn, lest he or their mother, the moon,\nshould devour them. This early observation may have started the story of\nflight from the cannibal parents, and the legend may have been brought\ndown from heaven to earth. Yet this were, perhaps, a far-fetched\nhypothesis of the origin of a tale which may readily have been born\nwherever human beings have a tendency (as in North America and South\nAfrica) to revert to cannibalism.\n\n     * Nature-Myths, vol. i p. 130. The story is \"Asterinos und\n     Pulja\" in Von Hahn's Griech. und Alban. Marchen. Compare\n     Samojedische Marchen, Castren, Varies, uber die Alt. Volk,\n     p. 164; Callaway, Uzembeni.\n\nThe peculiarity, then, of the myths which we propose to call \"Heroic\nand Romantic Tales\" (_maerchen contes populaires_), is the absence, as a\nrule, of any obvious explanatory purpose. They are romances or novels,\nand if they do explain anything, it is rather the origin or sanction of\nsome human law or custom than the cause of any natural phenomenon that\nthey expound.\n\nThe kind of traditional fictions here described as heroic and romantic\nmay be divided into three main categories.\n\n(1) First we have the popular tales of the lower and more backward\nraces, with whom may be reckoned, for our present purpose, the more\nremote and obscure peoples of America. We find popular tales among the\nBushmen, Kaffirs, Zulus, Samoans, Maoris, Hurons, Samoyeds, Eskimos,\nCrees, Blackfeet and other so-called savage races. We also find tales\npractically identical in character, and often in plot and incident,\namong such a people as the Huarochiris, a civilised race brought under\nthe Inca Empire some three generations before the Spanish conquest. The\ncharacteristics of these tales are the presence of talking and magically\nhelpful beasts; the human powers and personal existence of even\ninanimate objects; the miraculous accomplishments of the actors; the\nintroduction of beings of another race, usually hostile; the power of\ngoing to and returning from Hades--always described in much the same\nimaginative manner. The persons are sometimes anonymous, sometimes\nare named while the name is not celebrated; more frequently the tribal\nculture-hero, demiurge, or god is the leading character in these\nstories. In accordance with the habits of savage fancy, the chief person\nis often a beast, such as Ananzi, the West African spider; Cagn, the\nBushman grasshopper; or Michabo, the Algonkin white-hare. Animals\nfrequently take parts assigned to men and women in European _maerchen_.\n\n(2) In the second place, we have the _maerchen_, or _contes_, or\nhousehold tales of the modern European, Asiatic and Indian peasantry,\nthe tales collected by the Grimms, by Afanasief, by Von Hahn, by Miss\nFrere, by Miss Maive Stokes, by M. Sebillot, by Campbell of Islay, and\nby so many others. Every reader of these delightful collections knows\nthat the characteristics, the machinery, all that excites wonder,\nare the same as in the savage heroic tales just described But it is a\npeculiarity of the popular tales of the peasantry that the _places_\nare seldom named; the story is not localised, and the characters are\nanonymous. Occasionally our Lord and his saints appear, and Satan is\npretty frequently present, always to be defeated and disgraced; but, as\na rule, the hero is \"a boy,\" \"a poor man\" \"a fiddler,\" \"a soldier,\" and\nso forth, no names being given.\n\n(3) Thirdly, we have in epic poetry and legend the romantic and heroic\ntales of the great civilised races, or races which have proved capable\nof civilisation. These are the Indians, the Greeks, Romans, Celts,\nScandinavians and Germans. These have won their way into the national\nliteratures and the region of epic. We find them in the _Odyssey_, the\n_Edda_ the Celtic poems, the _Ramayana_, and they even appear in the\n_Veda_. They occur in the legends and pedigrees of the royal heroes\nof Greece and Germany. They attach themselves to the dim beginnings\nof actual history, and to real personages like Charlemagne. They even\ninvade the legends of the saints. The characters are national heroes,\nsuch as Perseus, Jason, AEdipus and Olympian gods, and holy men and women\ndear to the Church, and primal heroes of the North, Sigurd and Signy.\nTheir paths and places are not in dim fairyland, but in the fields\nand on the shores we know--at Roland's Pass in the Pyrenees, on the\nenchanted Colchian coast, or among the blameless Ethiopians, or in\nThessaly, or in Argos. Now, in all these three classes of romance, savage\nfables, rural maerchen, Greek or German epics, the ideas and incidents\nare analogous, and the very conduct of the plot is sometimes\nrecognisably the same. The moral ideas on which many of the maerchen,\nsagas, or epic myths turn are often identical. Everywhere we find doors\nor vessels which are not to be opened, regulations for the conduct of\nhusband and wife which are not to be broken; everywhere we find helpful\nbeasts, birds and fishes; everywhere we find legends proving that one\ncannot outwit his fate or evade the destiny prophesied for him.\n\nThe chief problems raised by these sagas and stories are--(1) How do\nthey come to resemble each other so closely in all parts of the world?\n(2) Were they invented once for all, and transmitted all across the\nworld from some centre? (3) What was that centre, and what was the\nperiod and the process of transmission?\n\nBefore examining the solutions of those problems, certain considerations\nmay be advanced.\n\nThe supernatural _stuff_ of the stories, the threads of the texture, the\nbelief in the life and personality of all things--in talking beasts and\ntrees, in magical powers, in the possibility of visiting the diad--must,\non our theory as already set forth, be found wherever men have either\npassed through savagery, and retained-survivals of that intellectual\ncondition, or wherever they have borrowed or imitated such survivals.\n\nBy this means, without further research, we may account for the\nsimilarity of the stuff of heroic myths and marchen. The stuff is the\nsame as in nature myths and divine myths. But how is the similarity of\nthe arrangement of the incidents and ideas into _plots_ to be accounted\nfor? The sagas, epic myths, and marchen do not appear to resemble each\nother everywhere (as the nature-myths do), because they are the same\nideas applied to the explanation of the same set of natural facts. The\nsagas, epics and marchen seem to explain nothing, but to be told, in\nthe first instance, either to illustrate and enforce a moral, or for the\nmere pleasure of imaginative narration.\n\nWe are thus left, provisionally, with the notion that occasionally the\nresemblance of plot and arrangement may be _accidental_. In shaking\nthe mental kaleidoscope, which contains a given assortment of ideas,\nanalogous combinations may not impossibly be now and then produced\neverywhere. Or the story may have been invented once for all in one\ncentre, but at a period so incalculably remote that it has filtered, in\nthe exchanges and contacts of prehistoric life, all over the world, even\nto or from the Western Pacific and the lonely Oceanic Islands. Or, once\nmore, the story may have had a centre in the Old World, say, in India;\nmay have been carried to Europe by oral tradition or in literary\nvehicles, like the _Pantschatantra_ or the _Hitopadesa_, or by gypsies;\nmay have reached the sailors, and trappers, and miners of civilisation,\nand may have been communicated by them (in times subsequent to the\ndiscovery of America by Columbus) to the backward races of the world.\n\nThese are preliminary statements of possibilities, and theories more or\nless based on those ideas are now to be examined.\n\nThe best plan may be to trace briefly the history of the study of\npopular tales. As early as Charles Perrault's time (1696), popular\ntraditional tales had attracted some curiosity, more or less scientific.\nMademoiselle L'Heritier, the Abbe Villiers, and even the writer of\nthe dedication of Perrault's _Contes_ to Mademoiselle, had expressed\nopinions as to the purposes for which they were first told, and the time\nand place where they probably arose. The Troubadours, the Arabs, and the\nfanciful invention of peasant nurses were vaguely talked of as possible\nfirst authors of the popular tales. About the same time, Huet, Bishop\nof Avranches, had remarked that the Hurons in North America amused their\nwinter leisure with narratives in which beasts endowed with speech and\nreason were the chief characters.\n\nLittle was done to secure the scientific satisfaction of curiosity\nabout traditional folk-tales, contes or marchen till the time when the\nbrothers Grimm collected the stories of Hesse. The Grimms became aware\nthat the stories were common to the peasant class in most European\nlands, and that they were also known in India and the East. As they went\non collecting, they learned that African and North American tribes also\nhad their marchen, not differing greatly in character from the stories\nfamiliar to German firesides.\n\nAlready Sir Walter Scott had observed, in a note to the Lady of the\nLake, that \"a work of great interest might be compiled upon the origin\nof popular fiction, and the transmission of similar tales from age to\nage, and from country to country. The mythology of one period would then\nappear to pass into the romance of the next, and that into the nursery\ntales of subsequent ages.\" This opinion has long been almost universal.\nThus, if the story of Jason is found in Greek myths, and also, with\na difference, in popular modern marchen, the notion has been that the\nmarchen is the last and youngest form, the _detritus_ of the myth.\nNow, as the myth is only known from literary sources (Homer, Mimnermus,\nApollonius Rhodius, Euripides, and so on), it must follow, on this\ntheory, that the people had borrowed from the literature of the more\ncultivated classes. As a matter of fact, literature has borrowed far\nmore from the people than the people have borrowed from literature,\nthough both processes have been at work in the course of history.\nBut the question of the relations of marchen to myths, and of both to\nromance, may be left unanswered for the moment. More pressing questions\nare, what is the origin, and where the original home of the marchen or\npopular tales, and how have they been so widely diffused all over the\nworld?\n\nThe answers given to these questions have naturally been modified by the\nwidening knowledge of the subject. One answer seemed plausible when only\nthe common character of European _contes_ was known; another was needed\nwhen the Aryan peoples of the East were found to have the same stories;\nanother, or a modification of the second, was called for when marchen\nlike those of Europe were found among the Negroes, the Indians of\nBrazil, the ancient Huarochiri of Peru, the people of Madagascar,\nthe Samoyeds, the Samoans, the Dene Hareskins of the extreme American\nNorth-west, the Zulus and Kaffirs, the Bushmen, the Finns, the Japanese,\nthe Arabs, and the Swahilis.\n\nThe Grimms, in the appendix to their _Household Tales_,* give a list\nof the stories with which they were acquainted. Out of Europe they note\nfirst the literary collections of the East, the Thousand and One\nNights and the Hitopadesa, which, with the Book of Sinda-bad, and the\nPantschatantra, and the Katharit Sagara, contain almost all of the\nOriental tales that filtered into Western literature through written\ntranslations. The Grimms had not our store of folk-tales recently\ncollected from the lips of the Aryan and non-Aryan natives of Hindostan,\nsuch as the works of Miss Maive Stokes, of Miss Frere, of Captain Steel,\nof Mr. Lai Behar Day, and the few Santal stories. But the Grimms had\nsome Kalmuck stories.**\n\n     *  Mrs. Hunt's translation, London, 1884.\n\n     **  \"The relations of Ssidi Kur,\" in Bergmann's _Nomadische\n     Stretfereien_, vol. i.\n\nOne or two Chinese and Japanese examples had fallen into their hands,\nand all this as early as 1822. In later years they picked up a\nMalay story, some Bechuana tales, Koelle's Kanuri or Bornu stories,\nSchoolcraft's and James Athearn Jones's North American legends, Finnish,\nEsthonian and Mongolian narratives, and an increasing store of European\n_contes_. The Grimms were thus not unaware that the _maerchen_, with\ntheir surprising resemblances of plot and incident, had a circulation\nfar beyond the limits of the Ayran peoples. They were specially struck,\nas was natural, by the reappearance of incidents analogous to those of\nthe German _contes_ (such as _Machandelboom_ and the _Singing Bone_, 47,\n28) among the remote Bechuanas of South Africa. They found, too, that in\nSierra Leone beasts and birds play the chief parts in _maerchen_. \"They\nhave a much closer connection with humanity,... nay, they have even\npriests,\" as the animals in Guiana have _peays_ or sorcerers of their\nown. \"Only the beasts of the country itself appear in the _maerchen_.\"\nAmong these Bornu legends they found several tales analogous to\n_Faithful John_ (6), and to one in Stra-parola's _Piacevoli Notti_\n(Venice, 1550), a story, by the way, which recurs among the Santals, an\n\"aboriginal\" tribe of India. It is the tale of the man who knows the\nlanguage of animals, and is warned by them against telling secrets to\nwomen. Among the Indians of North America Grimm found the analogue\nof his tale (182) of the _Elves' Gifts_, which, by the way, also\nillustrates a proverb in Japan. Finnish, Tartar and Indian analogues\nwere discovered in plenty.\n\nSuch were Grimm's materials; much less abundant than ours, indeed,\nbut sufficient to show him that \"the resemblance existing between the\nstories, not only of nations widely removed from each other by time\nand distance, but also between those which lie near together, consists\npartly in the underlying idea and the delineation of particular\ncharacters, and partly in the weaving together and unravelling of\nincidents\". How are these resemblances to be explained? That is the\nquestion. Grimm's answer was, as ours must still be, only a suggestion.\n\"There are situations so simple and natural that they reappear\neverywhere, just like the isolated words which are produced in a nearly\nor entirely identical form in languages which have no connection with\neach other, by the mere imitation of natural sounds.\" Thus to a certain,\nbut in Grimm's opinion to a very limited extent, the existence of\nsimilar situations in the marchen of the most widely separated peoples\nis the result of the common facts of human thought and sentiment.\n\nTo repeat a convenient illustration, if we find talking and rational\nbeasts and inanimate objects, and the occurrence of metamorphosis and of\nmagic, and of cannibals and of ghosts (as we do), in the marchen as in\nthe higher myths of all the world, and if we also find certain curious\nhuman customs in the contes, these resemblances may be explained as\nborn of the same early condition of human fancy, which regards all known\nthings as personal and animated, which believes in ghosts and magic,\nwhile men also behave in accordance with customs now obsolete and\nforgotten in civilisation. These common facts are the threads (as we\nhave said) in the cloth of myth and marchen. They were supplied by the\nuniversal early conditions of the prescientific human intellect;\nThus the stuff of marchen is everywhere the same. But why are the\npatterns--the situations, and the arrangements, and sequence of\nincidents--also remarkably similar in the contes of unrelated and\nunconnected tribes and races everywhere?\n\nHere the difficulty begins in earnest.\n\nIt is clearly not enough to force the analogy, and reply that the\npatterns of early fabrics and the decorations of early weapons, of\npottery, tattooing marks, and so forth, are also things universally\nhuman.*\n\n     * See Custom and Myth, \"The Art of Savages,\" p. 288.\n\nThe close resemblances of undeveloped Greek and Mexican and other early\nartistic work are interesting, but may be accounted for by similarity of\nmaterials, of instruments, of suggestions from natural objects, and\nof inexperience in design. The selections of similar situations and\nof similar patterns into which these are interwoven in _maerchen_,\nby Greeks, Huarochiris of Peru, and Samoans or Eskimos, is much more\npuzzling to account for.\n\nGrimm gives some examples in which he thinks that the ideas, and their\ncollocations in the story, can only have originally occurred to one\nmind, once for all. How is the wide distribution of such a story to be\naccounted for? Grimm first admits \"_as rare exceptions_ the probability\nof a story's passing from one people to another, and firmly rooting\nitself in foreign soil\". But such cases, he says, are \"one or two\nsolitary exceptions,\" whereas the diffusion of stories which, in his\nopinion, could only have been invented once for all is an extensive\nphenomenon. He goes on to say, \"We shall be asked where the outermost\nlines of common property in stories begin, and how the lines of affinity\nare gradated\". His answer was not satisfactory even to himself, and the\nadditions to our knowledge have deprived it of any value. \"The outermost\nlines are coterminous with those of the great race which is called\nIndo-Germanic.\" Outside of the Indo-Germanic, or \"Aryan\" race, that is\nto say, are found none of the _maerchen_ which are discovered within the\nborders of that race. But Grimm knew very well himself that this was an\nerroneous belief. \"We see with amazement in such of the stories of the\nNegroes of Bornu and the Bechuanas (a wandering tribe in South Africa)\nas we have become acquainted with _an undeniable connection with\nthe German ones_, while at the same time their peculiar composition\ndistinguishes them from these.\" So Grimm, though he found \"no decided\nresemblance\" in North American stories, admitted that the boundaries\nof common property in marchen did include more than the \"Indo-Germanic\"\nrace. Bechuanas, and Negroes, and Finns, as he adds, and as Sir George\nDasent saw,* are certainly within the fold.\n\n     * _Popular Tales from the Norse_, 1859, pp. liv., lv.\n\nThere William Grimm left the question in 1856. His tendency apparently\nwas to explain the community of the marchen on the hypothesis that they\nwere the original common store of the undivided Aryan people, carried\nabroad in the long wanderings of the race. But he felt that the presence\nof the marchen among Bechuanas, Negroes and Finns was not thus to be\nexplained. At the same time he closed the doors against a theory of\nborrowing, except in \"solitary exceptions,\" and against the belief\nin frequent, separate and independent evolution of the same story in\nvarious unconnected regions. Thus Grimm states the question, but does\nnot pretend to have supplied its answer.\n\nThe solutions offered on the hypothesis that the marchen are exclusively\nAryan, and that they are the _detritus_ or youngest and latest forms of\nmyths, while these myths are concerned with the elemental phenomena of\nNature, and arose out of the decay of language, have been so frequently\ncriticised that they need not long detain us.* The most recent review\nof the system is by M. Cosquin.** In place of repeating objections which\nhave been frequently urged by the present writer, an abstract of M.\nCosquin's reasons for differing from the \"Aryan\" theory of Von Hahn\nmay be given. Voh Hahn was the collector and editor of stories from the\nmodern Greek,*** and his work is scholarly and accomplished. He drew up\ncomparative tables showing the correspondence between Greek and German\n_maerchen_ on the one side, and Greek and Teutonic epics and higher\nlegends or sagas on the other. He also attempted to classify the stories\nin a certain number of recurring _formula_ or plots. Lin Von Hahn's\nopinion, the stories were originally the myths of the undivided Aryan\npeople in its central Asian home. As the different branches scattered\nand separated, they carried with them their common store of myths, which\nwere gradually worn down into the _detritus_ of popular stories, \"the\nyoungest form of the myth\". The same theory appeared (in 1859) in Mr.\nMax Muller's _Chips from a German Workshop_**** The undivided Aryan\npeople possessed, in its mythological and proverbial phraseology, the\nseeds or germs, more or less developed, which would nourish, under any\nsky, into very similar plants--that is, the popular stories.\n\n     * See our Introduction to Mrs. Hunt's translation of Grimm's\n     Household Tales.\n\n     ** Contes Populaire de Lorraine, Paris, 1886, pp. i., xv.\n\n     ***  Grieschische und Albanesische Marchen, 1864.\n\n     **** Vol. ii. p. 226.\n\nAgainst these ideas M. Cosquin argues that if the Aryan people before\nits division preserved the myths only in their _earliest germinal form_,\nit is incredible that, when the separated branches had lost touch of\neach other, the final shape of their myths, the _maerchen_, should have\nso closely resembled each other as they do. The Aryan theory (as it may\nbe called for the sake of brevity) rejects, as a rule, the idea that\ntales can, as a rule, have been _borrowed_, even by one Aryan people\nfrom another.* \"Nursery tales are generally the last things to be\nborrowed by one nation from another.\"** Then, says M. Cosquin, as the\nundivided Aryan people had only the myths in their least developed\nstate, and as the existing peasantry have only the _detritus_ of these\nmyths--the _maerchen_--and as you say borrowing is out of the question,\nhow do you account for a coincidence like _this_? In the Punjaub, among\nthe Bretons, the Albanians, the modern Greeks and the Russians we find\na _conte_ in which a young man gets possession of a magical ring. This\nring is stolen from him, and recovered by the aid of certain grateful\nbeasts, whom the young man has benefited. His foe keeps the ring in his\nmouth, but the grateful mouse, insinuating his tail into the nose of the\nthief, makes him sneeze, and out comes the magical ring!\n\n     * Cox, Mythol. of Aryan Nations, i. 109.\n\n     ** Max Mueller, Chips, ii. 216.\n\nCommon sense insists, says M. Cosquin, that this detail was invented\nonce for all. It must have first occurred, not in a myth, but in\na _conte_ or _maerchen_, from which all the others alike proceed.\nTherefore, if you wish the idea of the mouse and the ring and the sneeze\nto be a part of the store of the undivided Aryans, you must admit\nthat they had _contes, maerchen_, popular stories, what you call the\n_detritus_ of myths, as well as myths themselves, before they left\ntheir cradle in Central Asia. \"Nos ancetres, les peres des nations\neuropeennes, auraient, de cette facon, emporte dans leurs fourgons la\ncollection complete de contes Ibleus actuels.\" In short, if there was\nno borrowing, myths have been reduced (on the Aryan theory) to the\ncondition of _detritus_, to the diamond dust of mar-chen, before the\nAryan people divided. But this is contrary to the hypothesis.\n\nM. Cosquin does not pause here. The _maerchen_--mouse, ring, sneeze and\nall--is found among _non-Aryan_ tribes, \"the inhabitants of Mardin\nin Mesopotamia and the Kariaines of Birmanie\".* Well, if there was no\nborrowing, how did the non-Aryan peoples get the story?\n\n     * Cosquin, i, xi., xii., with his authorities in note 1.\n\nM. Cosquin concludes that the theory he attacks is untenable, and\ndetermines that, \"after having been invented in this place or that,\nwhich we must discover\" [if we can], \"the popular tales of the various\nEuropean nations (to mention these alone) have spread all over the world\nfrom people to people by way of borrowing\". In arriving at this opinion,\nM. Cosquin admits, as is fair, that the Grimms, not having our\nknowledge of non-Aryan _maerchen_ (Mongol, Syrian, Arab, Kabyle, Swahili,\nAnnamite--he might have added very many more), could not foresee all the\nobjections to the theory of a store common to Aryans alone.\n\nWere we constructing an elaborate treatise on  _maerchen_, it would be\nwell in this place to discuss the Aryan theory at greater length. That\ntheory turns on the belief that popular stories are the _detritus_ of\nAryan myths. It would be necessary then to discuss the philological\nhypothesis of the origin and nature of these original Aryan myths\nthemselves; but to do so would lead us far from the study of mere\npopular tales.*\n\nLeaving the Aryan theory, we turn to that supported by M. Cosquin\nhimself--the theory, as he says, of Benfey.**\n\nInspired by Benfey, M. Cosquin says: \"The method must be to take each\ntype of story successively, and to follow it, if we can, from age to\nage, from people to; people, and see where this voyage of discovery will\nlead us. Now, travelling thus from point to point, often by different\nroutes, we always arrive at the same centre, namely, at India, _not the\nIndia of fabulous times_, but the India of actual history.\"\n\nThe theory of M. Cosquin is, then, that the popular stories of the\nworld, or rather the vast majority of them, were _invented_ in India,\nand that they were carried from India, during the historical period, by\nvarious routes, till they were scattered over all the races among whom\nthey are found.\n\nThis is a venturesome theory, and is admitted, apparently, to have\nits exceptions. For example, we possess ancient Egyptian popular tales\ncorresponding to those of the rest of the world, but older by far than\nhistorical India, from which, according to M. Cosquin, the stories set\nforth on their travels.***\n\n     * It has already been attempted in our Custom and Myth;\n     Introduction to Mrs. Hunt's Grimm; La Mythologie, and\n     elsewhere.\n\n     ** For M. Benfey's notions, see Bulletin de I' Academie de\n     Saint Petersburg, September 4-16, 1859, and Pantschatantra,\n     Leipzig, 1859.\n\n     *** See M. Maspero's collection, _Contes Populaires de\n     l'Egypte Ancienne_, Paris, 1882.\n\nOne of these Egyptian tales, The Two Brothers, was actually written down\non the existing manuscript in the time of Rameses II., some 1400 years\nbefore our era, and many centuries before India had any known history.\nNo man can tell, moreover, how long it had existed before it was\ncopied out by the scribe Ennana. Now this tale, according to M. Cosquin\nhimself, has points in common with _maerchen_ from Hesse, Hungary,\nRussia, modern Greece, France, Norway, Lithuania, Hungary, Servia,\nAnnam, modern India, and, we may add, with Samoyed _maerchen_, with\nHottentot _marchen_, and with _maerchen_ from an \"aboriginal\" people of\nIndia, the Santals.\n\nWe ask no more than this one _maerchen_ of ancient Egypt to upset the\nwhole theory that India was the original home of the contes, and that\nfrom historic India they have been carried by oral transmission, and\nin literary vehicles, all over the world. First let us tell the story\nbriefly, and then examine its incidents each separately, and set forth\nthe consequences of that examination.\n\nAccording to the story of _The Two Brothers_--\n\nOnce upon a time there were two brothers; Anapou was the elder, the\nyounger was called Bitiou. Anapou was married, and Bitiou lived with\nhim as his servant. When he drove the cattle to feed, he heard what they\nsaid to each other, and drove them where they told him the pasture was\nbest. One day his brother's wife saw him carrying a very heavy burden of\ngrain, and she fell in love with his force, and said, \"Come and lie with\nme, and I will make thee goodly raiment\".\n\nBut he answered, \"Art thou not as my mother, and my brother as a father\nto me? Speak to me thus no more, and never will I tell any man what a\nword thou hast said.\"\n\nThen she cast dust on her head, and went to her husband, saying, \"Thy\nbrother would have lain with me; slay him or I die\".\n\nThen the elder brother was like a panther of the south, and he sharpened\nhis knife, and lay in wait behind the door. And when the sun set, Bitiou\ncame driving his cattle; but the cow that walked before them all said\nto him, \"There stands thine elder brother with his knife drawn to slay\nthee\".\n\nThen he saw the feet of his brother under the door, and he fled, his\nbrother following him; and he cried to Ra, and Ra heard him, and between\nhim and his brother made a great water flow full of crocodiles.\n\nNow in the morning the younger brother told the elder all the truth, and\nhe mutilated himself, and cast it into the water, and the _calmar_ fish\ndevoured it. And he said, \"I go to the Valley of Acacias\" (possibly a\nmystic name for the next world), \"and in an acacia tree I shall place my\nheart; and if men cut the tree, and my heart falls, thou shalt seek\nit for seven years, and lay it in a vessel of water. Then shall I live\nagain and requite the evil that hath been done unto me. And the sign\nthat evil hath befallen me shall be when the cup of beer in thy hand is\nsuddenly turbid and troubled.\"\n\nThen the elder brother cast dust on his head and besmeared his face, and\nwent home and slew his wicked wife.\n\nNow the younger brother dwelt in the Valley of Acacias, and all the gods\ncame by that way, and they pitied his loneliness, and Chnum made for him\na wife.* And the seven Hathors came and prophesied, saying, \"_She shall\ndie an ill death and a violent_\". And Bitiou loved her, and told her the\nsecret of his life, and that he should die when his heart fell from the\nacacia tree.\n\n     * Chnum is the artificer among the gods.\n\nNow, a lock of the woman's hair fell into the river, and it floated to\nthe place where Pharaoh's washermen were at work. And the sweet\nlock perfumed all the raiment of Pharaoh, and the washermen knew not\nwherefore, and they were rebuked. Then Pharaoh's chief washerman went\nto the water and found the hair of the wife of Bitiou; and Pharaoh's\nmagicians went to him and said, \"Our lord, thou must marry the woman\nfrom whose head this tress of hair hath floated hither\". And Pharaoh\nhearkened unto them, and he sent messengers even to the Valley of\nAcacias, and they came unto the wife of Bitiou. And she said, \"First you\nmust slay my husband\"; and she showed them the acacia tree, and they out\nthe flower that held the heart of Bitiou, and he died.\n\nThen it so befel that the brother of Bitiou held in his hand a cup of\nbeer, and, lo! the beer was troubled. And he said, \"Alas, my brother!\"\nand he sought his brother's heart, and he found it in the berry of the\nacacia. Then he laid it in a cup of fresh water, and Bitiou drank of it,\nand his heart went into his own place, and lived again.\n\nThen said Bitiou, \"Lo! I shall become the bull, even Apis\" (Hapi); and\nthey led him to the king, and all men rejoiced that Apis was found. But\nthe bull went into the chamber of the king's women, and he spake to the\nwoman that had been the wife of Bitiou. And she was afraid, and said to\nPharaoh, \"Wilt thou swear to give me my heart's desire?\" and he swore it\nwith an oath. And she said, \"Slay that bull that I may eat his liver\".\nThen felt Pharaoh sick for sorrow, yet for his oath's sake he let slay\nthe bull. And there fell of his blood two quarts on either side of the\nson of Pharaoh, and thence grew two persea trees, great and fair, and\nofferings were made to the trees, as they had been gods.\n\nThen the wife of Pharaoh went forth in her chariot, and the tree spake\nto her, saying, \"I am Bitiou\". And she let cut down that tree, and a\nchip leaped into her mouth, and she conceived and bare a son. And that\nchild was Bitiou; and when he came to full age and was prince of that\nland, he called together the councillors of the king, and accused the\nwoman, and they slew her. And he sent for his elder brother, and made\nhim a prince in the land of Egypt.\n\nWe now propose to show, not only that the incidents of this tale--far\nmore ancient than historic India as it is--are common in the _maerchen_\nof many countries, but that they are inextricably entangled and\nintertwisted with the chief plots of popular tales. There are few of the\nmain cycles of popular tales which do not contain, as essential parts of\ntheir machinery, one or more of the ideas and situations of this legend.\nThere is thus at least a presumption that these cycles of story may have\nbeen in existence in the reign of Rameses II., and for an indefinite\nperiod earlier; while, if they were not, and if they are made of\nborrowed materials, it may have been from the Egypt of an unknown\nantiquity, not from much later Indian sources, that they were adapted.\n\nThe incidents will now be analysed and compared with those of _maerchen_\nin general.\n\nTo this end let us examine the incidents in the ancient Egyptian tale of\n_The Two Brothers_. These incidents are:--\n\n(1) The _spretae injuria formae_ of the wedded woman, who, having offered\nherself in vain to a man, her brother-in-law, accuses him of being her\nassailant. This incident, of course, occurs in Homer, in the tale of\nBellerophon, before we know anything of historic India. This, moreover,\nseems one of the notions (M. Cosquin admits, with Benfey, that there\nare such notions) which are \"universally human,\" and _might_ be invented\nanywhere.\n\n(2) The Egyptian Hippolytus is warned of his danger by his cow, which\nspeaks with human voice. Every one will recognise the ram which warns\nPhrixus and Helle in the Jason legend.* In the Albanian _maerchen_,**\na _dog_, not a cow nor a ram, gives warning of the danger. Animals, in\nshort, often warn of danger by spoken messages, as the fish does in the\nBrahmanic deluge-myth, and the dog in a deluge-myth from North America.\n\n     * The authority cited by the scholiast (Apoll. Rhod.,\n     Argon., i. 256) is Hecatseus.   Scholiast on Iliad, vii. 86,\n     quotes Philostephanus.\n\n     **  Von Hahn, i. 65.\n\n(3) The accused brother is pursued by his kinsman, and about to be\nslain, when Ra, at his prayer, casts between him and the avenger a\nstream full of crocodiles. This incident is at least not very unlike one\nof the most widely diffused of all incidents of story--the _flight_ in\nwhich the runaways cause magical rivers or lakes suddenly to cut off\nthe pursuer. This narrative of the flight and the obstacles is found in\nScotch, Gaelic, Japanese (no water obstacle), Zulu, Russian, Samoan, and\nin \"The Red Horse of the Delawares,\" a story from Dacotah, as well as in\nIndia and elsewhere.* The difference is, that in the Egyptian _conte_,\nas it has reached us in literary form, the fugitive appeals to Ra to\nhelp him, instead of magically making a river by throwing water or\na bottle behind him, as is customary. It may be conjectured that the\nsubstitution of divine intervention in response to prayer for magical\nself-help is the change made by a priestly scribe in the traditional\nversion.**\n\n     * See Folk-Lore Journal, April, 1886, review of _Houston's\n     Popular Stories_, for examples of the magic used in the\n     flight.\n\n     ** Maspero, Contes, p. 13, note 1.\n\n(4) Next morning the brothers parley across the stream. The younger\nfirst mutilates himself (_Atys_) then says he is going to the vale of\nthe acacia, according to M. Maspero probably a name for the other world.\nMeanwhile the younger brother will put his _heart_ in a high acacia\ntree. If the tree is cut down, the elder brother must search for the\n_heart_, and place it in a jar of water, when the younger brother will\nrevive. Here we have the idea which recurs in the Samoyed marchen where\nthe men lay aside their hearts, in which are their separable lives. As\nMr.\n\nRalston says,* \"This heart-breaking episode occurs in the tales of\nmany lands\". In the Russian the story is Koschchei the deathless, whose\n\"death\" (or life) lies in an egg, in a duck, on a log, in the ice.** As\nMr. Ralston well remarks, a very singular parallel to the revival of the\nEgyptian brothers heart in water is the Hottentot tale of a girl eaten\nby a lion. Her heart is extracted from the lion, is placed in a calabash\nof milk, and the girl comes to life again.***\n\n(5) The younger brother gives the elder a sign magical, whereby he shall\nknow how it fares with the heart. When a cup of beer suddenly grows\nturbid, then evil has befallen the heart. This is merely one of the\nold _sympathetic signs_ of story--the opal that darkens; the comb of\nLemminkainen in the _Kalewala_ that drops blood when its owner is in\ndanger; the stick that the hero erects as he leaves home, and which will\nfall when he is imperilled. In Australia the natives practise this magic\nwith a stick, round which they bind the hair of the distant person about\nwhose condition they want to be informed.**** This incident, turning on\nthe belief in _sympathies_, might perhaps be regarded as \"universally\nhuman\" and capable of being invented anywhere.\n\n     * Russian Folk-Tales, 109.\n\n     ** In Norse, Asbjornsen and Moe, 36; Dasent, 9. Gaelic,\n     Campbell, i. 4, p. 81. Indian, \"Punchkin,\" Old Deccan Days,\n     pp. 13-16. Samoyed, Castren, Ethnol. Varies liber die\n     Altaischen Volker., p. 174.\n\n     *** Bleek, Reynard the Fox of South Africa, p. 57.\n\n     **** Dawson, Australian Aborigines, p. 36, 1881.   The stick\n     used is the \"throwing stick\" wherewith the spear is\n     hurled,(6)  The elder brother goes home and kills his wife.\n     The gods pity the younger Bitiou in the Valley of Acacias,\n     and make him a wife.\n\nM. Cosquin has found in France the trait of the blood that boils in the\nglass when the person concerned is in danger.\n\n(7) The three Hathors come to her creation, and prophesy for her a\nviolent death. For this incident compare Perrault's _The Sleeping\nBeauty_ and Maury's work on _Les Fees_. The spiritual midwives and\nprophetesses at the hour of birth are familiar in _maerchen_ as Fairies,\nand Fates, and Maerae.\n\n(8) The river carries a tress of the hair of Bitiou's wife to the feet\nof Pharaoh's washermen; the scent perfumes all the king's linen. Pharaoh\nfalls in love with the woman from whose locks this tress has come. For\nthis incident compare _Cinderella_. In Santal and Indian _maerchen_ a\ntress of hair takes the place of the glass-slipper, and the amorous\nprince or princess will only marry the person from whose head the lock\nhas come. Here M. Cosquin himself gives Siamese, Mongol, Bengali (Lai\nBehar Day, p. 86), and other examples of the lock of hair doing duty for\nthe slipper with which the lover is smitten, and by which he recognises\nhis true love.\n\n(9) The wife of Bitiou reveals the secret of his heart. The people of\nPharaoh cut down the acacia tree.\n\n(10) His brother reads in the turbid beer the death of Bitiou. He\ndiscovers the heart and life in a berry of the acacia.\n\nIt is superfluous to give modern parallels to the various\ntransformations of the life of Bitiou. He becomes an Apis bull, and his\nfaithless wife desires his death, and wishes to eat his liver, but his\nlife goes on in other forms. This is merely the familiar situation of\nthe ass in _Peau d'Ane_ (the ass who clearly, before Perrault's time,\nhad been human).\n\n_Demandez lui la peau de ce rare animal!_\n\nIn most traditional versions of _Cinderella_ will be found examples of\nthe beast, once human, slain by an enemy, yet potent after death. This\nbeast takes the part given by Perrault to the fairy godmother. The\nidea is also familiar in Grimm's _Machandelboom_ (47), and was found by\nCasalis among the Bechuanas.\n\n(11) The wicked wife obtains the bull Apis's death by virtue of a _hasty\noath_ of Pharaoh's (_Jephtha, Herodias_).\n\n(12) The blood of the bull grows into two persea trees.\n\nHere M. Cosquin himself supplies parallels of blood turning into trees\nfrom Hesse (Wolf, p. 394) and from Russian. We may add the ancient\nLydian myth. When the gods slew Agdistis, a drop of his blood became an\nalmond tree, the fruit of which made women pregnant.*\n\n     * Pausanias, vii. 17.\n\n(13) The persea tree is also cut down by the wicked wife of Bitiou. A\nchip from its boughs is swallowed by the wicked wife, who conceives,\nlike Margata in the _Kalewala_, and bears a son.\n\nThe story of Agdistis, just quoted, is in point, but the topic is of\nenormous range, and the curious may consult _Le Fils de Vierge_ by M. H.\nDe Charencey. Compare also Surya Bay in _Old Deccan Days_ (6). The final\nresurrection of Surya Bay is exactly like that in the Hottentot tale\nalready quoted. Surya is drowned by a jealous rival, becomes a golden\nflower, is burned, becomes a mango; one of the fruits falls into a\ncalabash of milk, and out of the calabash, like the Hottentot girl,\ncomes Surya!\n\n(14) The son of the persea tree was Bitiou, born of his own faithless\nwife; and when he grew up he had her put to death.\n\nEven a hasty examination of these incidents from old Egypt proves\nthat before India was heard of in history the people of the Pharaohs\npossessed a large store of incidents perfectly familiar in modern\nmarchen. Now, if one single Egyptian tale yields this rich supply, it is\nan obvious presumption that the collection of an Egyptian Grimm\nmight, and probably would, have furnished us with the majority of the\nsituations common in popular tales. M. Cosquin himself remarks that\nthese ideas cannot be invented more than once (I. lxvii.). The other\nEgyptian contes, as that of _Le Prince Predestine_ (twentieth dynasty),\nand the noted _Master Thief_ of Herodotus (ii. 121), are merely familiar\nmarchen of the common type, and have numerous well-known analogues.\n\nFrom all these facts M. Cosquin draws no certain conclusions. He asks:\nDid Egypt borrow these tales from India, or India from Egypt? _And were\nthere Aryans in India in the time of Rameses II.?_\n\nThese questions are beyond conjecture. We know nothing of Egyptian\nrelations with prehistoric India. We know not how many aeons the tale\nof _The Two Brothers_ may have existed in Egypt before Ennana, the head\nlibrarian, wrote it out for Pharaoh's treasurer, Qagabou.\n\nWhat we do know is, that if we find a large share of the whole stock of\nincident of popular tale fully developed in one single story long before\nIndia was historic, it is perfectly vain to argue that all stories were\nimported from historic India. It is impossible to maintain that the\nsingle centre whence the stories spread was not the India of fable, but\nthe India of history, when we discover such abundance of story material\nin Egypt before, as far as is known, India \\ had even become the India\nof fable.\n\nThe topic is altogether too obscure for satisfactory argument. Certainly\nthe _maerchen_ were at home in Egypt before we have even reason to\nbelieve that Egypt and India were conscious of each other's existence.\n\nThe antiquity of _maerchen_ by the Nile-side touches geological time, if\nwe agree with M. Maspero that Bitiou is a form of Osiris, that is, that\nthe Osiris myth may have been developed out of the Bitiou _maerchen_.*\n\n     * Maspero, op. cit., p. 17, note 1.\n\nThe Osiris myth is as old as the Egypt we know, and the story of Bitiou\nmay be either the _detritus_ or the germ of the myth. This gives it\na dateless antiquity; and with this _maerchen_ the kindred and allied\n_maerchen_ establish a claim to enormous age. But it is quite impossible\nto say when these tales were first invented. We cannot argue that the\ncradle of a story is the place where it first received literary form.\nWe know not whence the Egyptians came to Nile-side; we know not whether\nthey brought the story with them, or found it among some nameless\nearlier people, fugitives from Kor, perhaps, or anywhere else. We\nknow not whether the remote ancestors of modern peoples, African, or\nEuropean, or Asiatic, who now possess forms of the tale, borrowed it\nfrom a people more ancient than Egypt, or from Egypt herself. These\nquestions are at present insoluble. We only know for certain that, when\nwe find anywhere any one of the numerous incidents of the story of _The\nTwo Brothers_, we can be certain that their original home was _not_\nhistoric India. There is also the presumption that, if we knew more\nof the tales of ancient Egypt, we could as definitely refuse to regard\nhistoric India as the cradle of many other _maerchen_.\n\nThus, in opposition to the hypothesis of borrowing from India, we reach\nsome distinct and assured, though negative, truths.\n\n1. So far as the ideas in _The Two Brothers_ are representative of\n_maerchen_ (and these ideas are inextricably interwoven with some of the\nmost typical legends), _historic_ India is certainly and demonstrably\n_not_ the cradle of popular tales. These are found far earlier already\nin the written literature of Egypt.\n\n2. As far as these ideas are representative of _maerchen_, there is\nabsolutely no evidence to show that _maerchen_ sprang from India, whether\nhistorical or prehistoric; nor is any connection proved between ancient\nEgypt and prehistoric India.\n\n3. As far as _maerchen_ are represented by the ideas in _The Two\nBrothers_ and the _Predestined Prince_, there is absolutely no evidence\nto show in what region or where they were originally invented.\n\nThe Bellerophon story rests on a _donnee_ in _The Two Brothers_; the\n_Flight_ rests on another; _Cinderella_ reposes on a third; the giant\nwith no heart in his body depends on a fourth; the _Milk-White Dove_ on\nthe same; and these incidents occur in Hottentot, Bechuana, Samoyed,\nSamoan, as well as in Greek, Scotch, German, Gaelia Now, as all these\nincidents existed in Egyptian _marchen_ fourteen hundred years before\nChrist, they _may_ have been dispersed without Indian intervention. One\nof the white raiders from the Northern Sea may have been made captive,\nlike the pseud-Odysseus, in Egypt; may have heard the tales; may have\nbeen ransomed, and carried the story to Greece or Libya, whence a Greek\ngot it. Southwards it may have passed up the Nile to the Great Lakes,\nand down the Congo and Zambesi, and southward ever with the hordes of\nT'Chaka's ancestors. All these processes are possible and even probable,\nbut absolutely nothing is known for certain on the subject. It is only\nas manifest as facts can be that all this might have occurred if the\nIndian peninsula _did not exist._ Another objection to the hypothesis\nof distribution from historic India is the existence of sagas or epic\nlegends corresponding to marchen in pre-Homeric Greece. The story of\nJason, for example, is in its essential features, perhaps, the most\nwidely diffused of all.* The story of the return of the husband, and\nof his difficult recognition by his wife, the central idea of the\n_Odyssey_, is of wide distribution, and the _Odyssey_ (as Fenelon makes\nthe ghost of Achilles tell Homer in Hades) is _un amas de contes de\nvieilles_. The Cyclops, the Siren, Scylla, and the rest,** these tales\ndid not reach Greece from historic India at least, and we have no reason\nfor supposing that India before the dawn of history was their source.\n\n     * Custom and Myth, \"A Far-Travelled Tale \".\n\n     ** Gerland, Alt Griechische Marchen in der Odyssee.\n\nThe reasons for which India has been regarded as a great centre and\nfountain-head of popular stories are, on the other hand, excellent, if\nthe theory is sufficiently limited. The cause is _vera causa_. Marchen\ncertainly did set out from mediaeval India, and reached mediaeval Europe\nand Asia in abundance. Not to speak of oral communications in the great\nmovements, missions and migrations, Tartar, crusading, Gypsy, commercial\nand Buddhistic--in all of which there must have been \"swopping of\nstories\"--it is certain that Western literature was actually invaded by\nthe _contes_ which had won away into the literature of India.* These are\nfacts beyond doubt, but these facts must not be made the basis of\ntoo wide an inference. Though so many stories have demonstrably been\nborrowed from India in the historical period, it is no less certain that\nmany existed in Europe before their introduction. Again, as has been\nably argued by a writer in the _Athenaeum_ (April 23, 1887), the\nliterary versions of the tales probably had but a limited influence on\nthe popular narrators, the village gossips and grandmothers. Thus no\ncollection of published tales has ever been more popular than that of\nCharles Perrault, which for many years has been published not only in\ncheap books, but in cheaper broadsheets.\n\n     * Cosquin, op. cit., i. xv., xxiv.; Max Mueller, \"The\n     Migrations of Fables,\" Selected Essays, vol. ii., Appendix;\n     Benfey, Pantschatantra; Comparetti, Introduction to Book of\n     Sindibad, English translation of the Folk-Lore Society.\n\nYet M. Sebillot and other French collectors gather from the lips of\npeasants versions of _Cinderella_, for example, quite unaffected by\nPerrault's version, and rich in archaic features, such as the presence\nof a miracle-working beast instead of a fairy godmother. That detail\nis found in Kaffir, and Santhal, and Finnish, as well as in Celtic, and\nPortuguese, and Scottish variants, and has been preserved in popular\nFrench traditions, despite the influence of Perrault. In the same\nway, M. Carnoy finds only the faintest traces of the influence of a\ncollection so popular as the _Arabian Nights_. The peasantry regard\ntales which they read in books as quite apart from their inherited store\nof legend.*\n\n     * Sebillot's popular Cendrillon is Le Taureau Bleu in Contes\n     de la Haute Bretagne.   See also M. Carnoy's Contes\n     Francais, 1885, p. 9.\n\nIf printed literature has still so little power over popular tradition,\nthe manuscript literature of the Middle Ages must have had much less,\nthough sometimes _contes_ from India were used as parables by preachers.\nThus we must beware of over-estimating the effect of importation from\nIndia, even where it distinctly existed. Even the versions that were\nbrought in the Middle Ages by oral tradition must have encountered\nversions long settled in Europe--versions which may have been current\nbefore any scribe of Egypt perpetuated a legend on papyrus.\n\nOnce more, the Indian theory has to account for the presence of tales in\nAfrica and America among populations which are not known to have had any\ncontact with India at all. Where such examples are urged, it is usual to\nsay that the stories either do not really resemble our _maerchen_, or\nare quite recent importations by Europeans, Dutch, French, English\nand others.* Here we are on ground where proof is difficult, if not\nimpossible. Assuredly French influence declares itself in certain\nnarratives collected from the native tribes of North America. On\nthe other hand, when the _maerchen_ is interwoven with the national\ntraditions and poetry of a remote people, and with the myths by which\nthey account to themselves for the natural features of their own\ncountry, the hypothesis of recent borrowing from Europeans appears\ninsufficient. A striking example is the song of Siati (a form of the\nJason myth) among the people of Samoa.** Even more remarkable is the\npresence of a crowd of familiar _maerchen_ in the national traditions of\nthe Huarochiri, a pre-Inca civilised race of Southern Peru. These were\npublished, or at least collected and written down, by Francisco de\nAvila, a Spanish priest, about 1608. He remarks that \"these traditions\nare deeply rooted in the hearts of the people of this province\".***\nThese traditions refer to certain prehistoric works of engineering\nor accidents of soil, whereby the country was drained. The Huarochiri\nexplained them by a series of _maerchen_ about Huthiacuri, Pariaca\n(culture-heroes), and about friendly animals which aided them in the\nfamiliar way. In the same manner exactly the people of the Marais of\nPoitou have to account for the drainage of the country, a work of the\ntwelfth century.\n\n     * Cosquin, op. cit, 1, xix.\n\n     ** Turner's Samoa, p. 102.\n\n     *** Rites of the Incas. Hakluyt Society. The third document\n     in the book. The _maerchen_ have been examined by me in _The\n     Marriage of Cupid and Psyche_, p. lxxii.\n\nThey attribute the old works to the local hero, Gargantua, who \"drank\nup all the water\".* No one supposes that this legend is borrowed from\nRabelais, and it seems even more improbable that the Huarochiri hastily\nborrowed _maerchen_ from the Spaniards, and converted them before 1600\ninto national myths.\n\n     * _Revue des Traditions Populaires_, April 25,1887, p. 186.\n\nWe have few opportunities of finding examples of remote American\n_maerchen_ recorded so early as this, and generally the hypothesis\nof recent borrowing from Europeans, or from Negroes influenced by\nEuropeans, is at least possible, and it would be hard to prove a\nnegative. But the case of the Huarochiri throws doubt on the hypothesis\nof recent borrowing as the invariable cause of the diffusion of\n_maerchen_ in places beyond the reach of historic India.\n\nThe only way (outside of direct evidence) to prove borrowing would be to\nshow that ideas and customs peculiarly Indian (for example) occur in the\n_maerchen_ of people destitute of these ideas. But it would be hard to\nask believers in the Indian theory to exhibit such survivals. In the\nfirst place, if _contes_ have been borrowed, it seems that a new \"local\ncolour\" was given to them almost at the moment of transference. The Zulu\nand Kaffir _maerchen_ are steeped in Zulu and Kaffir colour, and the life\nthey describe is rich in examples of rather peculiar native rites and\nceremonies, seldom if ever essential to the conduct of the tale. Thus,\nif stories are \"adapted\" (like French plays) in the moment of borrowing,\nit will be cruel to ask supporters of the Indian theory for traces of\nIndian traits and ideas in European _maerchen_. Again, apart from special\nyet non-essential matters of etiquette (such as the ceremonies with\nwhich certain kinsfolk are treated, or the initiation of girls at\nthe marriageable age), the ideas and customs found in marchen\nare practically universal As has been shown, the super-natural\nstuff--metamorphosis, equality of man, beasts and things, magic and\nthe like--_is_ universal. Thus little remains that could be fixed on as\nespecially the custom or idea of any one given people. For instance,\nin certain variants of _Puss in Boots_, Swahili, Avar, Neapolitan,\nthe beast-hero makes it a great point that, when he dies, he is to be\n_honourably buried_. Now what peoples give beasts honourable burial? We\nknow the cases of ancient Egyptians, Samoans, Arabs and Athenians (in\nthe case, at least, of the wolf), and probably there are many more. Thus\neven so peculiar an idea or incident as this cannot be proved to belong\nto a definite region, or to come from any one original centre.*\n\n     * See Deulin, Gontes de ma Mire l'Oye, and Reinhold Kohler\n     in Gonzenbach's Siclianische Marchen, No. 65.\n\nBy the very nature of the case, therefore, it is difficult for M.\nCosquin and other supporters of the Indian theory to prove the existence\nof Indian ideas in European marchen. Nor do they establish this point.\nThey urge that _charity to beasts_ and the _gratitude of beasts_,\nas contrasted with human lack of gratitude, are Indian, and perhaps\nBuddhist ideas. Thus the Buddha gave his own living body to a famished\ntigress. But so, according to Garcilasso, were the subjects of the Incas\nwont to do, and they were not Buddhists. The beasts in marchen, again,\nare just as often, or even more frequently, helpful to men without any\nmotive of gratitude; nor would it be fair to argue that the notion of\ngratitude has dropped out, because we find friendly beasts all the world\nover, totems and manitous, who have never been benefited by man. The\nfavours are all on the side of the totems. It is needless to adduce\nagain the evidence on this topic. M. Cosquin adds that the belief in the\nequality and interchangeability of attributes and aspect between man\nand beast is \"une idee bien indienne,\" and derived from the doctrine of\nmetempsychosis, \"qui efface la distinction entre l'homme et l'animal,\net qui en tout vivant voit un frere\". But it has been demonstrated that\nthis belief in the equality and kinship not only of all animate, but all\ninanimate nature, is the very basis of Australian, Zuni and all other\nphilosophies of the backward races. No idea can be less peculiar to\nIndia; it is universal. Once more, the belief that shape-shifting\n(metamorphosis) can be achieved by skin-shifting, by donning or doffing\nthe hide of a beast, is no more \"peculiarly Indian\" than the other\nconceptions. Benfey, to be sure, laid stress on this point;* but it is\neasy to produce examples of skin-shifting and consequent metamorphosis\nfrom Roman, North American, Old Scandinavian, Thlinkeet, Slav and Vogul\nritual and myths.** There remains only a trace of polygamy in European\nmarchen to speak of specially Indian influence.*** But polygamy is not\npeculiar to India, nor is monogamy a recent institution in Europe.\n\n     * Pantschatantra, I 265.\n\n     ** Marriage of Cupid and Psyche, pp. lx., lxiv., where\n     examples and authorities are given.\n\n     *** Cosquin, op. cit, i., xxx.\n\nThus each \"peculiarly Indian\" idea supposed to be found in marchen\nproves to be practically universal. So the whole Indian hypothesis is\nattacked on every side. _Contes_ are far older than _historic_ India.\nNothing raises even a presumption that they first arose in _prehistoric_\nIndia. They are found in places where they could hardly have travelled\nfrom historic India. Their ideas are not peculiarly Indian, and though\nmany reached Europe and Asia in literary form derived from India during\nthe Middle Ages, and were even used as parables in sermons, yet the\nmajority of European folk-tales have few traces of Indian influence.\nSome examples of this influence, as when the \"frame-work\" of an Oriental\ncollection has acquired popular circulation, will be found in Professor\nCrane's interesting book, _Italian Popular Tales_, pp. 168, 359. But to\nadmit this is very different from asserting that German _Hausmarchen_\nare all derived from \"Indian and Arabian originals, with necessary\nchanges of costume and manners,\" which is, apparently, the opinion of\nsome students.\n\nWhat remains to do is to confess ignorance of the original centre of the\n_maerchen_, and inability to decide dogmatically which stories must have\nbeen invented only once for all, and which may have come together by\nthe mere blending of the universal elements of imagination. It is only\ncertain that no limit can be put to a story's power of flight _per ora\nvirum_. It may wander wherever merchants wander, wherever captives\nare dragged, wherever slaves are sold, wherever the custom of exogamy\ncommands the choice of alien wives. Thus the story flits through the\nwho let race and over the whole world. Wherever human communication is or\nhas been possible, there the story may go, and the space of time during\nwhich the courses of the sea and the paths of the land have been open to\nstory is dateless and unknown. Here the story may dwindle to a fireside\ntale; there it may become an epic in the mouth of Homer or a novel in\nthe hands of Madame D'Aulnoy or Miss Thackeray. The savage makes the\ncharacters beasts or birds; the epic \\ poet or saga-man made them heroic\nkings, or lovely, baleful sorceresses, daughters of the Sun; the French\nCountess makes them princesses and countesses. Like its own heroes, the\npopular story can assume every shape; like some of them, it has drunk\nthe waters of immortality.*\n\n     * A curious essay by Mr. H. E. Warner, on \"The Magical\n     Flight,\" urges that there is no plot, but only a fortuitous\n     congeries of story-atoms (Scribner's Magazine, June, 1887).\n     There is a good deal to be said, in this case, for Mr.\n     Warner's conclusions.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX A. Fontenelle's forgotten common sense\n\nIn the opinion of Aristotle, most discoveries and inventions have been\nmade time after time and forgotten again. Aristotle may not have been\nquite correct in this view; and his remarks, perhaps, chiefly applied\nto politics, in which every conceivable and inconceivable experiment has\ndoubtless been attempted. In a field of less general interest--namely,\nthe explanation of the absurdities of mythology--the true cause was\ndiscovered more than a hundred years ago by a man of great reputation,\nand then was quietly forgotten. Why did the ancient peoples--above all,\nthe Greeks--tell such extremely gross and irrational stories about their\nGods and heroes? That is the riddle of the mythological Sphinx. It was\nanswered briefly, wittily and correctly by Fontenelle; and the answer\nwas neglected, and half a dozen learned but impossible theories have\nsince come in and out of fashion. Only within the last ten years\nhas Fontenelle's idea been, not resuscitated, but rediscovered. The\nfollowers of Mr. E. B. Taylor, Mannhardt, Gaidoz, and the rest, do not\nseem to be aware that they are only repeating the notions of the nephew\nof Corneille.\n\nThe Academician's theory is stated in a short essay, De l'Origine\ndes Fables (OEuvres: Paris, 1758, vol. iii. p.270). We have been so\naccustomed from childhood, he says, to the absurdities of Greek myth,\nthat we have ceased to be aware that they are absurd. Why are the\nlegends of men and beasts and Gods so incredible and revolting? Why have\nwe ceased to tell such tales? The answer is, that early men were in\n\"a state of almost inconceivable savagery and ignorance,\" and that the\nGreek myths are inherited from people in that condition. \"Look at the\nKaffirs and Iroquois,\" says Fontenelle, \"if you wish to know what early\nmen were like; and remember that even the Iroquois and Kaffirs are\npeople with a long past, with knowledge and culture (_politesse_) which\nthe first men did not enjoy.\" Now the more ignorant a man is, the more\nprodigies he supposes himself to behold. Thus the first narratives of\nthe earliest men were full of monstrous things, \"parce qu'ils etoient\nfaits par des gens sujets a voir bien des choses qui n'etaient pas\".\nThis condition answers, in Mr. Tylor's system, to the confusion the\nsavage makes between dreams and facts, and to the hallucinations which\nbeset him when he does not get his regular meals. Here, then, we have a\ngroundwork of irresponsible fancy.\n\nThe next step is this: even the rudest men are curious, and ask \"the\nreason why\" of phenomena. \"II y a eu de la philosophie meme dans ces\nsiecles grossiers;\" and this rude philosophy \"greatly contributed to the\norigin of myths \". Men looked for causes of things. \"'Whence comes this\nriver?' asked the reflective man of those ages--a queer philosopher,\nyet one who might have been a Descartes did he live to-day. After long\nmeditation, he concluded that some one had always to keep filling\nthe source whence the stream springs. And whence came the water? Our\nphilosopher did not consider so curiously. He had evolved the myth of a\nwater-nymph or naiad, and there he stopped. The characteristic of these\nmythical explanations--as of all philosophies, past, present and to\ncome--was that they were limited by human experience. Early man's\nexperience showed him that effects were produced by conscious, sentient,\npersonal causes like himself. He sprang to the conclusion that all\nhidden causes were also persons. These persons are the _dramatis\npersonae_ of myth. It was a person who caused thunder, with a hammer or a\nmace; or it was a bird whose wings produced the din.\n\n\"From this rough philosophy which prevailed in the early ages were born\nthe gods and goddesses\"--deities made not only in the likeness of man,\nbut of savage man as he, in his ignorance and superstition, conceived\nhimself to be. Fontenelle might have added that those fancied personal\ncauses who became gods were also fashioned in the likeness of the\nbeasts, whom early man regarded as his equals or superiors. But he\nneglects this point. He correctly remarks that the gods of myth appear\nimmoral to us because they were devised by men whose morality was all\nunlike ours--who prized justice less than power, especially (he might\nhave added) magical power. As morality ripened into self-consciousness,\nthe gods improved with the improvement of men; and \"the gods known\nto Cicero are much better than those known to Homer, because better\nphilosophers have had a hand at their making\". Moreover, in the earliest\nspeculations an imaginative and hair-brained philosophy explained all\nthat seemed extraordinary in nature; while the sphere of philosophy was\nfilled by fanciful narratives about facts. The constellations called the\nBears were accounted for as metamorphosed men and women. Indeed, \"all\nthe metamorphoses are the physical philosophy of these early times,\"\nwhich accounted for every fact by what we now calletiological\nnature-myths. Even the peculiarities of birds and beasts were thus\nexplained. The partridge flies low because Daedalus (who had seen his\nson Icarus perish through a lofty flight) was changed into a partridge.\nThis habit of mind, which finds a story for the solution of\nevery problem, survives, Fontenelle remarks, in what we now call\nfolk-lore--popular tradition. Thus, the elder tree is said to have borne\nas good berries as the vine does till Judas Iscariot hanged himself\nfrom its branches. This story must be later than Christianity; but it is\nprecisely identical in character with those ancient metamorphoses\nwhich Ovid collected. The kind of fancy that produced these and other\nprodigious myths is not peculiar, Fontenelle maintains, to Eastern\npeoples. \"It is common to all men,\" at a certain mental stage--\"in\nthe tropics or in the regions of eternal ice.\" Thus the world-wide\nsimilarities of myths are, on the whole, the consequence of a worldwide\nuniformity of intellectual development.\n\nFontenelle hints at his proof of this theory. He compares the myths\nof America with those of Greece, and shows that distance in space and\ndifference of race do not hinder Peruvians and Athenians from being \"in\nthe same tale\". \"For the Greeks, with all their intelligence, did not,\nin their beginnings, think more rationally than the savages of America,\nwho were also, apparently, a rather primitive people (_assez nouveau_).\"\nHe concludes that the Americans might have become as sensible as the\nGreeks if they had been allowed the leisure.\n\nWith an exception in the Israelites, Fontenelle decides that all nations\nmade the astounding part of their myths while they were savages, and\nretained them from custom and religious conservatism. But myths were also\nborrowed and interchanged between Phoenicia, Egypt and Greece. Further,\nGreek misunderstandings of the meanings of Phoenician and other foreign\nwords gave rise to myths. Finally, myths were supposed to contain\ntreasures of antique mysterious wisdom; and mythology was explained by\nsystems which themselves are only myths, stories told by the learned to\nthemselves and to the public.\n\n\"It is not science to fill one's head with the follies of Phoenicians\nand Greeks, but it is science to understand what led Greeks and\nPhoenicians to imagine these follies.\" A better and briefer system of\nmythology could not be devised; but the Mr. Casaubons of this world have\nneglected it, and even now it is beyond their comprehension.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX B. Reply to Objections\n\nIn a work which perhaps inevitably contains much controversial matter,\nit has seemed best to consign to an Appendix the answers to objections\nagainst the method advocated. By this means the attention is less\ndirected from the matter in hand, the exposition of the method itself.\nWe have announced our belief that a certain element in mythology is\nderived from the mental condition of savages. To this it is replied,\nwith perfect truth, that there are savages and savages; that a vast\nnumber of shades of culture and of nascent or retrograding civilisation\nexist among the races to whom the term \"savage\" is commonly applied.\nThis is not only true, but its truth is part of the very gist of our\ntheory. It is our contention that myth is sensibly affected by the\nvarieties of culture which prevail among so-called savage tribes, as\nthey approach to or decline from the higher state of barbarism. The\nanthropologist is, or ought to be, the last man to lump all savages\ntogether, as if they were all on the same level of culture.\n\nWhen we speak of \"the savage mental condition,\" we mean the mental\ncondition of all uncultivated races who still fail to draw any marked\nline between man and the animate or inanimate things in the world,\nand who explain physical phenomena on a vague theory, more or less\nconsciously held, that all nature is animated and endowed with human\nattributes. This state of mind is nowhere absolutely extinct; it\nprevails, to a limited extent, among untutored European peasantry,\nand among the children of the educated classes. But this intellectual\ncondition is most marked and most powerful among the races which ascend\nfrom the condition of the Australian Murri and the Bushmen, up to the\ncomparatively advanced Maoris of New Zealand and Algonkins or Zunis\nof North America. These are the sorts of people who, for our present\npurpose, must be succinctly described as still in the savage condition\nof the imagination.\n\nAgain, it is constantly objected to our method that we have no knowledge\nof the past of races at present in the savage status. \"The savage are\nas old as the civilised races, and can as little be named primitive,\"\nwrites Dr. Fairbairn.* Mr. Max Mueller complains with justice of authors\nwho \"speak of the savage of to-day as if he had only just been sent into\nthe world, forgetting that, as a living species, he is probably not a\nday younger than ourselves\".** But Mr. Max Mueller has himself admitted\nall we want, namely, _that savages or nomads represent an earlier stage\nof culture than even the ancient Sanskrit-speaking Aryans_, This follows\nfrom the learned writer's assertion that savage tongues, Kaffir and\nso forth, are still in the childhood which Hebrew and the most ancient\nSanskrit had long left behind them.*** \"We see in them\" (savage\nlanguages) \"what we can no longer expect to see even in the most ancient\nSanskrit or Hebrew. We watch the childhood of language with all its\nchildish pranks.\" These \"pranks\" are the result of the very habits\nof savage thought which we regard as earlier than \"the most ancient\nSanskrit\".\n\n     * Academy, 20th July, 1878.              a\n\n     ** Hibb. Lect., p. 66.\n\n     *** Lectures on Science of Language, 2nd series, p. 41.\n\nThus Mr. Max Mueller has admitted all that we need--admitted that savage\nlanguage (and therefore, in his view, savage thought) is of an earlier\nstratum than, for example, the language of the Vedas. No more valuable\nconcession could be made by a learned opponent.\n\nObjections of an opposite character, however, are pushed, along with the\nstatement that we have no knowledge of the past of savages. Savages were\nnot always what they are now; they may have degenerated from a higher\ncondition; their present myths may be the corruption of something purer\nand better; above all, savages are not _primitive_.\n\nAll this contention, whatever its weight, does not affect the thesis of\nthe present argument. It is quite true that we know nothing directly of\nthe condition, let us say, of the Australian tribes a thousand years ago\nexcept that it has left absolutely no material traces of higher culture.\nBut neither do we know anything directly about the condition of the\nIndo-European peoples five hundred years before Philology fancies that\nshe gets her earliest glimpse of them. We must take people as we find\nthem, and must not place too much trust in our attempts to reconstruct\ntheir \"dark backward\". As to the past of savages, it is admitted by most\nanthropologists that certain tribes have probably seen better days. The\nFuegians and the Bushmen and the Digger Indians were probably driven by\nstronger races out of seats comparatively happy and habits comparatively\nsettled into their present homes and their present makeshift\nwretchedness.*\n\n     * The Fuegiaus are not (morally and socially) so black as\n     they have occasionally been painted. But it is probable that\n     they \"have seen better days\". If the possession of a\n     language with, apparently, a very superfluous number of\n     words is a proof of high civilisation in the past, then the\n     Fuegians are degraded indeed. But the finding of one piece\n     of native pottery in an Australian burial-mound would prove\n     more than a wilderness of irregular verbs.\n\nBut while degeneration is admitted as an element in history, there seems\nno tangible reason for believing that the highest state which Bushmen,\nFuegians, or Diggers ever attained, and from which they can be thought\nto have fallen, was higher than a rather more comfortable savagery.\nThere are ups and downs in savage as in civilised life, and perhaps\n\"crowned races may degrade,\" but we have no evidence to show that the\nancestors of the Diggers or the Fuegians were a \"crowned race\". Their\ndescent has not been comparatively a very deep one; their presumed\nformer height was not very high. As Mr. Tylor observes, \"So far as\nhistory is to be our criterion, progression is primary and degradation\nsecondary; culture must be gained before it can be lost\". One thing\nabout the past of savages we do know: it must have been a long past,\nand there must have been a period in it when the savage had even less of\nwhat Aristotle calls (------) even less of the equipment and provision\nnecessary for a noble life than he possesses at present. His past\nmust have been long, because great length of time is required for the\nevolution of his exceedingly complex customs, such as his marriage\nlaws and his minute etiquette. Mr. Herbert Spencer has deduced from the\nmultiplicity, elaborateness and wide diffusion of Australian marriage\nlaws the inference that the Australians were once more civilised than\nthey are now, and had once a kind of central government and police. But\nto reason thus is to fail back on the old Greek theory which for every\ntraditional custom imagined an early legislative hero, with a genius\nfor devising laws, and with power to secure their being obeyed. The more\ngenerally accepted view of modern science is that law and custom are\nthings slowly evolved under stress of human circumstances. It is certain\nthat the usual process is from the extreme complexity of savage to the\nclear simplicity of civilised rules of forbidden degrees. Wherever\nwe see an advancing civilisation, we see that it does not put on new,\ncomplex and incomprehensible regulations, but that it rather sloughs off\nthe old, complex and incomprehensible regulations bequeathed to it by\nsavagery.\n\nThis process is especially manifest in the laws of forbidden degrees in\nmarriage--laws whose complexity among the Australians or North American\nIndians \"might puzzle a mathematician,\" and whose simplicity in a\ncivilised country seems transparent even to a child. But while the\nelaborateness and stringency of savage customary law point to a more,\nand not a less barbarous past, they also indicate a past of untold\nduration. Somewhere in that past also it is evident that the savage must\nhave been even worse off materially than he is at present. Even now he\ncan light a fire; he has a bow, or a boomerang, or a blowpipe, and has\nattained very considerable skill in using his own rough tools of flint\nand his weapons tipped with quartz. Now man was certainly not born in\nthe possession of fire; he did not come into the world with a bow or a\nboomerang in his hand, nor with an instinct which taught him to barb\nhis fishing-hooks. These implements he had to learn to make and use,\nand till he had learned to use them and make them his condition must\nnecessarily have been more destitute of material equipment than that of\nany races known to us historically. Thus all that can be inferred about\nthe past of savages is that it was of vast duration, and that at one\nperiod man was more materially destitute, and so far more struggling\nand forlorn, than the Murri of Australia were when first discovered by\nEuropeans. Even then certain races _may_ have had intellectual powers\nand potentialities beyond those of other races. Perhaps the first\nfathers of the white peoples of the North started with better brains\nand bodies than the first fathers of the Veddahs of Ceylon; but they\nall started naked, tool-less, fire-less. The only way of avoiding these\nconclusions is to hold-that men, or some favoured races of man, were\ncreated with civilised instincts and habits of thought, and were\nmiraculously provided with the first necessaries of life, or were\nmiraculously instructed to produce them without passing through slow\nstages of experiment, invention and modification. But we might as well\nassume, with some early Biblical commentators, that the naked Adam\nin Paradise was miraculously clothed in a vesture of refulgent light.\nAgainst such beliefs we have only to say that they are without direct\nhistorical confirmation of any kind.\n\nBut if, for the sake of argument, we admit the belief that primitive man\nwas miraculously endowed, and was placed at once in a stage of simple\nand happy civilisation, our thesis still remains unaffected. Dr.\nFairbairn's saying has been quoted, \"The savage are as old as the\ncivilised races, and can as little be called primitive\". But we do not\nwish to call savages primitive. We have already said that savages have\na far-stretching unknown history behind them, and that (except on the\nsupposition of miraculous enlightenment followed by degradation) their\npast must have been engaged in slowly evolving their rude arts, their\nstrange beliefs and their elaborate customs. Undeniably there is nothing\n\"primitive\" in a man who can use a boomerang, and who must assign each\nseparate joint of the kangaroo he kills to a separate member of his\nfamily circle, while to some of those members he is forbidden by law\nto speak. Men were not born into the world with all these notions. The\nlowest savage has sought out or inherited many inventions, and cannot be\ncalled \"primitive\". But it never was part of our argument that savages\n_are_ primitive. Our argument does not find it necessary to claim\nsavagery as the state from which all men set forth. About what was\n\"primitive,\" as we have no historical information on the topic, we\nexpress no opinion at all. Man may, if any one likes to think so, have\nappeared on earth in a state of perfection, and may have degenerated\nfrom that condition. Some such opinion, that purity and reasonableness\nare \"nearer the beginning\" than absurdity and unreasonableness, appears\nto be held by Mr. Max Mueller, who remarks, \"I simply say that in the\nVeda we have a nearer approach to a beginning, and an intelligible\nbeginning, than in the wild invocations of Hottentots or Bushmen\".*\n\n     * Lectures on India.\n\nWould Mr. Mueller add, \"I simply say that in the arts and political\nsociety of the Vedic age we have a nearer approach to a beginning\nthan in the arts and society of Hottentots and Bushmen\"? Is the use of\nchariots, horses, ships--are kings, walled cities, agriculture, the art\nof weaving, and so forth, all familiar to the Vedic poets, nearer the\nbeginning of man's civilisation than the life of the naked or skin-clad\nhunter who has not yet learned to work the metals, who acknowledges no\nking, and has no certain abiding-place? If not, why is the religion of\nthe civilised man nearer the beginning than that of the man who is not\ncivilised? We have already seen that, in Mr. Max Muller's opinion, his\nlanguage is much farther from the beginning.\n\nWhatever the primitive condition of man may have been, it is certain\nthat savagery was a stage through which he and his institutions have\npassed, or from which he has copiously borrowed. He may have degenerated\nfrom perfection, or from a humble kind of harmless simplicity,\ninto savagery. He may have risen into savagery from a purely animal\ncondition. But however this may have been, modern savages are at present\nin the savage condition, and the ancestors of the civilised races passed\nthrough or borrowed from a similar savage condition. As Mr. Tylor says,\n\"It is not necessary to inquire how the savage state first came to\nbe upon the earth. It is enough that, by some means or other, it\nhas actually come into existence.\"* It is a stage through which all\nsocieties have passed, or (if that be contested) a condition of things\nfrom which all societies have borrowed. This view of the case has been\nwell put by M. Darmesteter.**\n\n     * Prim. Cult., i 37.\n\n     ** Revue Critique, January, 1884.\n\nHe is speaking of the history of religion. \"If savages do not represent\nreligion in its germ, if they do not exemplify that vague and indefinite\nthing conventionally styled 'primitive religion,' at least they\nrepresent a stage through which all religions have passed. The proof is\nthat a very little research into civilised religions discovers a most\nstriking similarity between the most essential elements of the civilised\nand the non-historic creeds.\" Proofs of this have been given when we\nexamined the myths of Greece.\n\nWe have next to criticise the attempts which have been made to discredit\nthe _evidence_ on which we rely for our knowledge of the intellectual\nconstitution of the savage, and of his religious ideas and his myths and\nlegends. If that evidence be valueless, our whole theory is founded on\nthe sand.\n\nThe difficulties in the way of obtaining trustworthy information about\nthe ideas, myths and mental processes of savages are not only proclaimed\nby opponents of the anthropological method, but are frankly acknowledged\nby anthropologists themselves. The task is laborious and delicate,\nbut not impossible. Anthropology has, at all events, the advantage of\nstudying an actual undeniably existing state of things, to sift the\nevidence as to that state of things, to examine the opportunities, the\ndiscretion, and the honesty of the witnesses, is part of the business of\nanthropology. A science which was founded on an uncritical acceptance\nof all the reports of missionaries, travellers, traders, and\n\"beach-combers,\" would be worth nothing. But, as will be shown,\nanthropology is fortunate in the possession of a touchstone, \"like\nthat,\" as Theocritus says, \"wherewith the money-changers try gold, lest\nperchance base metal pass for true\".\n\nThe \"difficulties which beset travellers and missionaries in their\ndescription of the religious and intellectual life of savages\" have\nbeen catalogued by Mr. Max Muller. As he is not likely to have\nomitted anything which tells against the evidence of missionaries\nand travellers, we may adopt his statement in an abridged shape, with\ncriticisms, and with additional illustrations of our own.*\n\n     * Hibbert Lectures, p. 9\n\nFirst, \"Few men are quite proof against the fluctuations of public\nopinion\". Thus, in Rousseau's time, many travellers saw savages with the\neyes Rousseau--that is, as models of a simple \"state of nature\". In the\nsame way, we may add, modern educated travellers are apt to see savages\nin the light cast on them by Mr. Tylor or Sir John Lubbock. Mr. Im\nThurn, in Guiana, sees with Mr. Tylor's eyes; Messrs. Fison and Howitt,\namong the Kamilaroi in Australia, see with the eyes of Mr. Lewis Morgan,\nauthor of _Systems of Consanguinity_. Very well; we must allow for the\nbias in each case. But what are we to say when the travellers who lived\nlong before Begnard report precisely the same facts of savage life as\nthe witty Frenchman who wrote that \"next to the ape, the Laplander is\nthe animal nearest to man\"? What are we to say when the mariner, or\nbeach-comber, or Indian interpreter, who never heard of Rousseau, brings\nfrom Canada or the Marquesas Islands a report of ideas or customs which\nthe trained anthropologist finds in New Guinea or the Admiralty Islands,\nand with which the Inca, Garcilasso de la Vega, was familiar in Peru?\nIf the Wesleyan missionary in South Africa is in the same tale with the\nJesuit in Paraguay or in China, while the Lutheran in Kamtschatka brings\nthe same intelligence as that which they contribute, and all three are\nsupported by the shipwrecked mariner in Tonga and by the squatter in\nQueensland, as well as by the evidence, from ancient times and lands, of\nStrabo, Diodorus and Pausanias, what then? Is it not clear that if pagan\nGreeks, Jesuits and Wesleyans, squatters and anthropologists, Indian\ninterpreters and the fathers of the Christian Church, are all agreed\nin finding this idea or that practice in their own times and countries,\ntheir evidence is at least unaffected by \"the fluctuations of public\nopinion\"? This criterion of undesigned coincidence in evidence drawn\nfrom Protestants, Catholics, pagans, sceptics, from times classical,\nmediaeval and modern, from men learned and unlearned, is the touchstone\nof anthropology. It will be admitted that the consentient testimony\nof persons in every stage of belief and prejudice, of ignorance and\nlearning, cannot agree, as it does agree, by virtue of some \"fluctuation\nof public opinion\". It is to be regretted that, in Mr. Max Muller's\ndescription of the difficulties which beset the study of savage\nreligious ideas, he entirely omits to mention, on the other side, the\ncorroboration which is derived from the undesigned coincidence of\nindependent testimony. This point is so important that it may be well\nto quote Mr. Tylor's statement of the value of the anthropological\ncriterion:--\n\nIt is a matter worthy of consideration that the accounts of similar\nphenomena of culture, recurring in different parts of the world,\nactually supply incidental proof of their own authenticity. Some years\nsince a question which brings out this point was put to me by a great\nhistorian, \"How can a statement as to customs, myths, beliefs, etc., of\na savage tribe be treated as evidence where it depends on the testimony\nof some traveller or missionary who may be a superficial observer, more\nor less ignorant of the native language, a careless retailer of unsifted\ntalk, a man prejudiced, or even wilfully deceitful?\" This question\nis, indeed, one which every ethnographer ought to keep clearly and\nconstantly before his mind. Of course he is bound to use his best\njudgment as to the trustworthiness of all authors he quotes, and if\npossible to obtain several accounts to certify each point in each\nlocality. But it is over and above these measures of precaution that the\ntest of recurrence comes in. If two independent visitors to different\ncountries, say a mediaeval Mohammedan in Tartary and a modern Englishman\nin Dahomey, or a Jesuit missionary in Brazil and a Wesleyan in the Fiji\nIslands, agree in describing some analogous art, or rite, or myth among\nthe people they have visited, it becomes difficult or impossible to\nset down such correspondence to accident or wilful fraud. A story by a\nbushranger in Australia may perhaps be objected to as a mistake or an\ninvention; but did a Methodist minister in Guinea conspire with him to\ncheat the public by telling the same story there? The possibility of\nintentional or unintentional mystification is often barred by such a\nstate of things as that a similar statement is made in two remote lands\nby two witnesses, of whom A lived a century before B, and B appears\nnever to have heard of A. How distant are the countries, how wide apart\nthe dates, how different the creeds and characters of the observers in\nthe catalogue of facts of civilisation, needs no farther showing to any\none who will even glance at the footnotes of the present work. And the\nmore odd the statement, the less likely that several people in several\nplaces should have made it wrongly. This being so, it seems reasonable\nto judge that the statements are in the main truly given, and that their\nclose and regular coincidence is due to the cropping up of similar\nfacts in various districts of culture. Now the most important facts of\nethnography are vouched for in this way. Experience leads the student\nafter a while to expect and find that the phenomena of culture, as\nresulting from widely-acting similar causes, should recur again and\nagain in the world. He even mistrusts isolated statements to which he\nknows of no parallel elsewhere, and waits for their genuineness to be\nshown by corresponding accounts from the other side of the earth or the\nother end of history. So strong indeed is the means of authentication,\nthat the ethnographer in his library may sometimes presume to decide not\nonly whether a particular explorer is a shrewd and honest observer,\nbut also whether what he reports is conformable to the general rules of\ncivilisation. _Non quia, sed quid._\n\nIt must be added, as a rider to Mr. Tylo^s remarks, that anthropology is\nrapidly making the accumulation of fresh and trustworthy evidence more\ndifficult than ever. Travellers and missionaries have begun to read\nanthropological books, and their evidence is therefore much more likely\nto be biassed now by anthropological theories than it was of old. When\nMr. M'Lennan wrote on \"totems\" in 1869,* he was able to say, \"It is some\ncompensation for the completeness of the accounts that we can thoroughly\ntrust them, as the totem has not till now got itself mixed up with\nspeculations, and accordingly the observers have been unbiassed. But\nas anthropology is now more widely studied, the _naif_ evidence of\nignorance and of surprise grows more and more difficult to obtain.\"\n\n     * Fortnightly Review, October 1869.\n\nWe may now assert that, though the evidence of each separate witness\nmay be influenced by fluctuations of opinion, yet the consensus of their\ntestimony, when they are unanimous, remains unshaken. The same argument\napplies to the private inclination, and prejudice, and method of inquiry\nof each individual observer.\n\nTravellers in general, and missionaries in particular, are biassed in\nseveral distinct ways. The missionary is sometimes anxious to prove that\nreligion can only come by revelation, and that certain tribes, having\nreceived no revelation, have no religion or religious myths at all.\nSometimes the missionary, on the other hand, is anxious to demonstrate\nthat the myths of his heathen flock are a corrupted version of the\nBiblical narrative. In the former case he neglects the study of savage\nmyths; in the latter he unconsciously accommodates what he hears to what\nhe calls \"the truth\". In modern days the missionary often sees with the\neyes of Mr. Herbert Spencer. The traveller who is not a missionary may\neither have the same prejudices, or he may be a sceptic about revealed\nreligion. In the latter case he is perhaps unconsciously moved to put\nburlesque versions of Biblical stories into the mouths of his native\ninformants, or to represent the savages as ridiculing (Dr. Moffat found\nthat they did ridicule) the Scriptural traditions which he communicates\nto them. Yet again we must remember that the leading questions of a\nEuropean inquirer may furnish a savage with a thread on which to string\nanswers which the questions themselves have suggested. \"Have you ever\nhad a great flood?\" \"Yes.\" \"Was any one saved?\" The leading question\nstarts the invention of the savage on a Deluge-myth, of which, perhaps,\nthe idea has never before entered his mind.\n\nThe last is a source of error pointed out by Mr. Codrington:*\n\n     * Journal of Anthrop. Inst, February 1881.\n\n\"The questions of the European are a thread on which the ideas of the\nnative precipitate themselves\". Now, as European inquirers are prone\nto ask much the same questions, a people which, like some Celts and\nsavages, \"always answers yes,\" will everywhere give much the same\nanswers. Mr. Romilly, in his book on the Western Pacific,* remarks, \"In\nsome parts of New Britain, if a stranger were to ask, 'Are there men\nwith tails in the mountains?' he would probably be answered 'Yes,' that\nbeing the answer which the new Briton\" (and the North Briton, too, very\noften) \"would imagine was expected of him, and would be most likely to\ngive satisfaction. The train of thought in his mind would be something\nlike this, 'He must know that there are no such men, but he cannot have\nasked so foolish a question without an object, and therefore he wishes\nme to say 'Yes!' Of course the first 'Yes' leads to many others, and in\na very short time everything is known about these tailed men, and a full\naccount of them is sent home.\"\n\nWhat is true of tailed men applies to native answers about myths and\ncustoms when the questions are asked by persons who have not won the\nconfidence of the people nor discovered their real beliefs by long and\npatient observation. This must be borne in mind when missionaries tell\nus that savages believe in one supreme deity, in a mediator, and the\nlike, and it must be borne in mind when they tell us that savages have\nno supreme being at all. Always we must be wary! A very pleasing example\nof inconsistency in reports about the same race may be found in a\ncomparison of the account of the Khonds in the thirteenth volume of the\nRoyal Asiatic Society with the account given by General Campbell in his\n_Personal Narrative_, The inquirer in the former case did not know the\nKhond language, and trusted to interpreters, who were later expelled\nfrom the public service. General Campbell, on the other hand, believed\nhimself to possess \"the confidence of the priests and chiefs,\" and his\ndescription is quite different. In cases of contradictions like these,\nthe anthropologist will do well to leave the subject alone, unless he\nhas very strong reasons for believing one or other of the contending\nwitnesses.\n\n     * _The Western Pacific and New Guinea_, London, 1886, pp. 3-6.\n\n     ** Hibbert Lectures, p. 92.\n\nWe have now considered the objections that may be urged against the bias\nof witnesses.\n\nMr. Max Mueller founds another objection on \"the absence of recognised\nauthorities among savages\".* This absence of authority is not always\ncomplete; the Maoris, for example, have traditional hymns of great\nauthority and antiquity. There are often sacred songs and customs\n(preserved by the Red Indians in chants recorded by picture-writing on\nbirch bark), and there always is some teaching from the mothers to their\nchildren, or in the Mysteries. All these, but, above all, the almost\nimmutable sacredness of _custom_, are sources of evidence. But, of\ncourse, the story of one savage informant may differ widely from that of\nhis neighbour. The first may be the black sheep of the tribe, the next\nmay be the saint of the district. \"Both would be considered by European\ntravellers as unimpeachable authorities with regard to their religion.\"\nThis is too strongly stated. Even the inquiring squatter will repose\nmore confidence in the reports about his religion of a black with a\ndecent character, or of a black who has only recently mixed with white\nmen, than in those of a rum-bibbing loafer about up-country stations\nor a black professional bowler on a colonial cricket-ground. Our best\nevidence is from linguists who have been initiated into the secret\nMysteries. Still more will missionaries and scholars like Bleek, Hahn,\nCodrington, Castren, Gill, Callaway, Theal, and the rest, sift and\ncompare the evidence of the most trustworthy native informants. The\nmerits of the travellers we have named as observers and scholars are\nfreely acknowledged by Mr. Max Mueller himself. To their statements,\nalso, we can apply the criterion: Does Bleek's report from the Bushmen\nand Hottentots confirm Castren's from the Finns? Does Codrington in\nMelanesia tell the same tale as Gill in Mangia or Theal among the\nKaffirs? Are all confirmed by Charlevoix, and Lafitau, and Brebeuf, the\nold Catholic apostles of the North American Indians? If this be so, then\nwe may presume that the inquirers have managed to extract true accounts\nfrom some of their native informants. The object of the inquiry, of\ncourse, is to find out, not what a few more educated and noble members\nof a tribe may think, nor what some original speculative thinker among a\nlower race may have worked out for himself, but to ascertain the general\ncharacter of the ideas most popular and most widely prevalent among\nbackward peoples.\n\nA third objection is that the priests of savage tribes are not\nunimpeachable authorities. It is pointed out that even Christian clergy\nhave their differences of opinion. Naturally we expect most shades of\nopinion where there is most knowledge and most liberty, but the liberty\nof savage heterodoxy is very wide indeed. We might almost say that (as\nin the mythology of Greece) there is _no_ orthodox mythical doctrine\namong savages. But, amidst minor diversities, we have found many ideas\nwhich are universal both in savage and civilised myths. _Quod semper,\nquod ubique, quod ab omnibus_. It is on this universal element of\nfaith, not on the discrepancies of local priests, that we must fix our\nattention. Many a different town in Greece showed the birthplace or\ntomb of this or that deity. The essential point is that all agreed in\ndeclaring that the god was born or died.\n\nOnce more--and this is a point of some importance when we are told that\npriests differ from each other in their statements--we must remember\nthat these very differences are practically universal in all mythology,\neven in that of civilised races. Thus, if one savage authority declares\nthat men came originally out of trees, while his fellow-tribesman\navers that the human race was created out of clay, and a third witness\nmaintains that his first ancestors emerged from a hole in the ground,\nand a fourth stands to it that his stock is descended from a swan or a\nserpent, and a fifth holds that humanity was evolved from other animal\nforms, these savage statements appear contradictory. But when we\nfind (as we do) precisely the same sort of contradictions everywhere\nrecurring among civilised peoples, in Greece, India, Egypt, as well as\nin Africa, America and Australia, there seems no longer any reason to\ndistrust the various versions of the myth which are given by various\npriests or chiefs. Each witness is only telling the legend which he\nhas heard and prefers, and it is precisely the coexistence of all these\nseparate monstrous beliefs which makes the enigma and the attraction\nof mythology. In short, the discrepancies of savage myths are not an\nargument against the authenticity of our information on the topic,\nbecause the discrepancies themselves are repeated in civilised myth.\n_Semper et ubique, et ab omnibus_. To object to the presence of\ndiscrepant accounts is to object to mythology for being mythological.\n\nAnother objection is derived from the \"unwillingness of savages to talk\nabout religion,\" and from the difficulty of understanding them when they\ndo talk of it. This hardly applies when Europeans are initiated into\nsavage Mysteries. We may add a fair example of the difficulty of\nlearning about alien religions. It is given by Garcilasso de la Vega,\nson of an Inca princess, and a companion of Pizarro.*\"\n\n     * Garcilaaso de la Vega, Royal Commentaries, vol, i. 123.\n\nThe method that our Spaniards adopted in writing their histories was to\nask the Indians in Spanish touching the things they wanted to find out\nfrom them. These, from not having a clear knowledge of ancient things,\nor from bad memories, told them wrong, or mixed up poetical fables with\ntheir replies. And the worst of it was that neither party had more\nthan a very imperfect knowledge of the language of the other, so as to\nunderstand the inquiry and to reply to it.... In this great confusion,\nthe priest or layman who asked the questions placed the meaning to them\nwhich was nearest to the desired answer, or which was most like what the\nIndian was understood to have said. Thus they interpreted according to\ntheir pleasure or prejudice, and wrote things down as truths which the\nIndians never dreamt of. As an example of these comparisons, Garcilasso\ngives the discovery of the doctrine of the Trinity among the people\nof Peru. A so-called _Icona_ was found answering to the Father, a Son\n(_Racab_) and a Holy Spirit (_Estrua_); nor was the Virgin lacking, nor\neven St. Anne. \"All these things are fictions of the Spaniards.\" But no\nsooner has Garcilasso rebuked the Spaniards and their method, than he\nhastens to illustrate by his own example another difficulty that besets\nus in our search for evidence of myths. He says, as if it were a matter\nof certain fact, that Tlasolteute, a kind of Priapus, god of lust, and\nOmetoctilti, god of drunkenness, and the god of murder, and the others,\n\"were the names of _men and women_ whom the natives of that land\nworshipped as gods and goddesses\". Thus Garcilasso euhemerises\naudaciously, as also does Sahagun in his account of Mexican religion. We\nhave no right to assume that gods of natural departments (any more than\nDionysus and Priapus and Ares) had once been real men and were\ndeified, on evidence like the statement of Garcilassp. He is giving his\nown euhemeristic guess as if it were matter of fact, and this is a common\ncustom with even the more intelligent of the early missionaries.\n\nAnother example of the natural difficulty in studying the myths of\nsavages may be taken from Mr. Sproat's _Scenes of Savage Life_ (1868).\nThere is an honesty and candour in Mr. Sproat's work which by itself\nseems to clear this witness, at least, of charges of haste or prejudice.\nThe religion of savages, says this inquirer, \"is a subject as to which\na traveller might easily form erroneous opinions, owing to the practical\ndifficulty, even to one skilled in the language, of ascertaining the\ntrue nature of their superstitions. This short chapter is the result\nof more than four years' inquiry, made unremittingly, under favourable\ncircumstances. There is a constant temptation, from which the unbiassed\nobserver cannot be quite free, to fill up in one's mind, without proper\nmaterial, the gap between what is known of the religion of the natives\nfor certain, and the larger less-known portion, which can only be\nguessed at; and I frequently found that, under this temptation, I was\nled on to form, in my own mind, a connected whole, designed to coincide\nwith some ingenious theory which I might wish to be true. Generally\nspeaking, it is necessary, I think, to view with suspicion _any very\nregular account_ given by travellers of the religion of savages.\" (Yet\nwe have seen the absence of \"regularity,\" the differences of opinion\namong priests, objected to by Mr. Max Mueller as a proof of the\nuntrustworthy nature of our evidence.) \"The real religious notions of\nsavages cannot be separated from the vague and unformed, as well as\nbestial and grotesque, mythology with which they are intermixed.\nThe faint struggling efforts of our natures in so early or so little\nadvanced a stage of moral and intellectual cultivation can produce only\na medley of opinions and beliefs, not to be dignified by the epithet\nreligious, which are held loosely by the people themselves, and are\nneither very easily discovered nor explained.\" When we came to civilised\nmythologies, we found that they also are \"bestial and grotesque,\"\n\"loosely held,\" and a \"medley of opinions and beliefs \".\n\nMr. Sproat was \"two years among the Ahts, with his mind constantly\ndirected to the subject of their religious beliefs,\" before he could\ndiscover that they had any such beliefs at all. Traders assured him that\nthey had none. He found that the Ahts were \"fond of mystification\" and\nof \"sells\"; and, in short, this inquirer, living with the Ahts like an\nAht, discounted every sort of circumstance which could invalidate his\nstatement of their myths.*\n\n     * Pp. 203-205.\n\nNow, when we find Mr. Codrington taking the same precautions in\nMelanesia, and when his account of Melanesian myths reads like a\nclose copy of Mr. Sproat's account of Aht legends, and when both are\ncorroborated by the collections of Bleek, and Hahn, and Gill, and\nCastren, and Eink, in far distant corners of the world, while the modern\ntestimony of these scholarly men is in harmony with that of the old\nJesuit missionaries, and of untaught adventurers who have lived for many\nyears with savages, surely it will be admitted that the difficulty of\nascertaining savage opinion has been, to a great extent, overcome. If\nall the evidence be wrong, the coincidences of the witnesses with each\nother and of the savage myths they report with the myths of Greeks and\nAryans of India will be no less than a miracle.\n\nWe have now examined the objections urged against a system founded on\nthe comparative study of savage myths. It cannot be said of us (as it\nhas been said of De Brosses), that \"whatever we find in the voyages of\nsailors and traders is welcome to us; that we have a theory to defend,\nand whatever seems to support it is sure to be true\". Our evidence is\nbased, to a very great extent, on the communications of missionaries who\nare acknowledged to be scholarly and sober men. It is confirmed by other\nevidence, Catholic, Dissenting, pagan, scientific, and by the reports of\nilliterate men, unbiassed by science, and little biassed by religion.\n\nBut we have not yet exhausted our evidence, nor had recourse to our\nultimate criterion. That evidence, that criterion, is derived from the\nstudy of comparative institutions, of comparative ritual, of comparative\nlaw, and of comparative customs. In the widely diffused rites and\ninstitutions which express themselves in actual practice we have sure\nevidence for the ideas on which the customs are founded. For example,\nif a man pays away his wampum, or his yams, or his arrow-heads to a\nmagician for professional services, it follows that he _does_ believe in\nmagic. If he puts to death a tribesman for the sin of marrying a woman\nto whom he was only akin by virtue of common descent from the same beast\nor plant, it seems to follow that he _does_ believe in descent from and\nkinship with plants and beasts. If he buries food and valuable weapons\nwith his dead, it follows that he _does_, or that his fathers did,\nbelieve in the continued life of the dead. At the very least, in\nall three cases the man is acting on what must once have been actual\nbeliefs, even if the consequent practices be still in force only through\ncustom, after the real faith has dwindled away. Thus the belief, past or\npresent, in certain opinions can be deduced from actual practices, just\nas we may deduce from our own Coronation Service the fact that oil,\nanointed on a man's head by a priest, was once believed to have a\nmysterious efficacy, or the fact that a certain rough block of red\nsand-stone was once supposed to have some kind of sacredness. Of all\nthese sources of evidence, none is more valuable than the testimony of\nritual. A moment's reflection will show that ritual, among any people,\nwild or civilised, is not a thing easily altered. If we take the savage,\n_his_ ritual consists mainly of the magical rites by which he hopes to\nconstrain his gods to answer his prayers, though he may also \"reveal\"\nto the neophyte \"Our Father\". If we examine the Greeks, we discover the\nsame element in such rites as the Attic Thesmophoria, the torch-dance\nof Demeter, the rainmaking on the Arcadian Mount Lycaeus, with many other\nexamples. Meanwhile the old heathen ritual survives in Europe as rural\nfolklore, and we can thus display a chain of evidence, from savage\nmagic to Greek ritual, with the folklore of Germany, France, Eussia and\nScotland for the link between these and our own time. This is almost our\nbest evidence for the ancient idea about gods and their service. From\nthe evidence of institutions, then, the evidence of reports may\nbe supplemented. \"The direct testimony,\" as M. Darmesteter says,\n\"heureusement peut-etre supplee par le temoignage indirect, celui\nqui porte sur les usages, les coutumes, l'ordre exterieur de la vie,\"\neverything that shows us religious faith embodied in action. Now\nthese actions, also, are only attested by the reports of travellers,\nmissionaries and historians. But it is comparatively easy to describe\ncorrectly what is _done_, much more easy than to discover what is\n_thought_. Yet it will be found that the direct evidence of institutions\ncorroborates the less direct evidence as to thought and opinion. Thus\nan uncommonly strong texture of testimony is woven by the coincidence\nof evidence, direct and indirect, ancient and modern, of learned and\nunlearned men, of Catholics, Protestants, pagans and sceptics. What\ncan be said against that evidence we have heard. We have examined the\nobjections based on \"the influence of public opinion on travellers,\"\non \"the absence of recognised authorities among savages,\" on\nthe discrepancies of the authorities who are recognised, on the\n\"unwillingness of savages to talk of their religion,\" and on the\ndifficulty of understanding them when they do talk of it.\n\nBut after allowing for all these drawbacks (as every anthropologist\nworthy of the name will, in each case, allow), we have shown that there\ndoes remain a body of coincident evidence, of authority, now learned\nand critical, now uncritical and unlearned, which cannot be set aside\nas \"extremely untrustworthy\". This authority is accepted in questions\nof the evolution of art, politics, handicraft; why not in questions\nof religion? It is usually evidence given by men who did not see its\ntendency or know its value. A chance word in the Veda shows us that a\nsavage point of marriage etiquette was known to the poet. A sneer of\nTheophrastus, a denunciation of Ezekiel, an anecdote of Herodotus,\nreveal to us the practices of contemporary savages as they existed\nthousands of years ago among races savage or civilised. A traveller's\ntale of Melville or Mandeville proves to be no mere \"yarn,\" but\ncompletes the evidence for the existence in Asia or the Marquesas\nIslands of belief and rites proved to occur in Europe or India.\n\nSuch is the nature of the evidence for savage ideas, and for their\nsurvivals in civilisation; and the amount of the evidence is best known\nto him who has to plod through tracts, histories and missionary reports.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<pre id=\"pg-footer\">","title":"Myth, Ritual And Religion, Vol. 2 (of 2)","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":104292}